ADOLESCENTS, SMARTPHONES AND DIGITAL AUDIO CONSUMPTION IN MEXICO

Abstract

The consolidation of smartphones as dominant communication, information and entertainment devices has redefined the production and marketing processes of the cultural communication industries. The nature of these devices, which prioritize visual content over sound, currently determines cultural consumption and therefore the distribution and marketing strategies of the audio market: radio operators, streaming music services and podcast creators need to adapt their value chains to the habits derived from this mediatization, especially in the younger audience. This paper is derived from a research that identified the practices of the use of the mobile phone as an audio receiver among adolescents in Colombia, Spain and Mexico, coordinated by Dr. Luis Miguel Pedrero Esteban (Pontifical University of Salamanca), Dr. Andrés Barrios Rubio (Jorge Tadeo Lozano University) and Dr. Virginia Medina Ávila (National Autonomous University of Mexico). This paper recognizes the practices of mobile use as an audio receiver among adolescents in Mexico from a descriptive exploration of 300 subjects whose ages range from 13 to 19 years. The exercise carried out that it is more attractive for young Mexicans to listen to digital audio devices and platforms than radio in the strict sense (traditional, hybrid and online). However, digital audio files, like podcasts, are not as attractive to them because of their inaccessibility; instead, the music, which they listen through platforms like Spotify, and the audiovisual content, which they consume through sites like YouTube, turn out to be much more attractive to them. It is also verified that young Mexican’s most attractive device to listen digital audio is the mobile phone, and that they choose by themselves the digital content than they consume.