The primary aim of this research is to explore whether or not the delivery of audiovisual news through interactive mobile devices alters the content produced and the news production practices. In the understanding that the technology of news distribution, the rituals of news consumption and even what the audiences do with the content consumed has undergone a transformation process through digitization, this investigation proposes to analyse the interaction of news producers and their smartphones.

This specific interface of interaction is examined by using the theoretical framework of the exploration of affordances (Hutchby, 2001), which is operationalised throughout the four-dimensional model of journalistic convergence proposed by Domingo et al. (2007). By conducting a process of participant observation complemented with in-depth interviewing, this paper seeks to shed some light on two dimensions of the interaction between the news producers and their smartphones: firstly, as a working tool in the process of news production, and secondly, as a distribution channel with distinctive features aimed at reaching potential audiences. PéngPài, a Chinese medium solely devoted to producing news for mobiles, has been selected to conduct the ethnographic study.

The research provides sufficient evidence that there is an active interaction between the news producer and the mobile device that is characterised by an exploration of the affordances that align with the aim of producing news and to a lesser extent, to engage audiences.