Spanish Fact-Checking Services: An Approach to Their Business Models

Miguel-Ángel Esteban-Navarro, Antonia-Isabel Nogales-Bocio, Miguel-Ángel García-Madurga and Tamara Morte-Nadal
Additional contact information
Miguel-Ángel Esteban-Navarro: Department of Journalism and Communication, University of Zaragoza, 50009 Zaragoza, Spain
Antonia-Isabel Nogales-Bocio: Department of Journalism and Communication, University of Zaragoza, 50009 Zaragoza, Spain
Miguel-Ángel García-Madurga: Department of Business Administration, University of Zaragoza, 50018 Zaragoza, Spain
Tamara Morte-Nadal: Department of Journalism and Communication, University of Zaragoza, 50009 Zaragoza, Spain

Publications, 2021, vol. 9, issue 3, 1-18

Abstract: The proliferation of fact-checking services is a fast-growing global phenomenon, especially in Western countries. These services are the response of journalism to disinformation, that has transformed a common internal procedure of journalistic work in the core of a business directed to the general public, also offered to the companies of mass media and social media. Literature review shows that the research on fact-checking has focused on the origin, funding, relationship with the media, procedures, and experiences related to politics and COVID-19. However, the ownership structure of the fact-checking services has been superficially analysed and the business model of these platforms has not yet been studied in detail and depth. The objective of this article is to identify and analyse the business model of the nine Spanish active fact-checking services through a documentary research of public information sources and the information that these services give about themselves. This paper explains their ownership structure and income provenance, from open information sources. The findings are that the fact-checking services that depend on media groups are no strangers to the trend of opacity usual in these groups, but in the case of fact-checking services that are born as initiatives of journalists, the trend towards transparency is, in the majority of cases, clear. However, the information provided by the Spanish fact-checking services is deficient and does not allow us to discover their business models, except in the case of Newtral and, to a certain extent, Maldita .

Keywords: fact-checking services; fake news; business model; business key elements; Spain (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A2 D83 L82 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2304-6775/9/3/38/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2304-6775/9/3/38/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jpubli:v:9:y:2021:i:3:p:38-:d:619013

Access Statistics for this article

Publications is currently edited by Ms. Jennifer Zhang

More articles in Publications from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().