Archives

  • Challenges in advertising: professional demands and research proposals
    Vol. 11 No. 22 (2024)

    Coordination: Marina Ramos-Serrano (Universidad de Sevilla), Araceli Castelló-Martínez (Universidad de Alicante), and Ingrid Zacipa-Infante (Fundación Universitaria Los Libertadores).

  • New digital and interactive narratives
    Vol. 5 No. 9 (2018)

    The coordinates have changed. The Network has promoted changes in the media and communication systems, it has altered the times, the possibilities of response (and noise), of interaction and participation, the communicational context is digital, multiple and potentially dialogical. In this new stage, it is still proclaimed that "content is king". For informative, journalistic, educational, corporate, advertising or marketing purposes, among others, the contents are configured as the key piece of a communicative process where the what and the how complement each other. But, what new ways of communicating have been implemented and how do they influence the structures and discourses? How have the traditional roles of the narrative process been modified? What effects are produced on the results and purposes of communication? This issue aims to tackle the new digital and interactive narratives from an internal-external multidisciplinary perspective, paying attention to different uses and different stages of the communication process that they involve.

  • Gender and communication
    Vol. 1 No. 2 (2014)

  • Communication, propaganda and revolutionary movements in history
    Vol. 9 No. Especial (2022)

    Coordinators: Alberto Pena Rodríguez (Universidade de Vigo), María Verónica de Haro de San Mateo (Universidad de Murcia) and Maria Érica de Oliveira Lima (Universidade Federal do Ceará, Brasil).

     

    Planned communication, especially persuasive communication by means of different strategies and techniques at the service of political, social or cultural issuers, has played an important role in revolutionary processes throughout history, above all through its dissemination in the mass media in periods of crisis and/or social conflict.

    The use of militant journalism and the media in the public sphere as instruments of political struggle through the dissemination of agitation messages in the service of causes that promote the change of the political or social model and its institutions in certain historical periods has been a constant in contemporary history. contemporary history. But the seductive capacity of revolutionary movements, both in their symbolic dimension and in their sensational quality for the media, has enhanced their capacity for media impact and persuasion.

    Revolutionary movements, with or without the use of violence, have gone from legitimising themselves through actions in defence of social rights at certain junctures of political, economic, social or institutional crisis, through more or less pamphlet and/or street speeches, to an increasingly sophisticated strategy of propaganda dissemination that seeks to control the perception of public opinion through media representations that favour the revolutionary spirit and its social consensus.

    Throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, many organisations have succeeded, through propaganda campaigns and popular agitation, in promoting revolutionary processes that have brought about profound transformations, both locally, nationally and internationally. Cases such as the Russian revolution of 1917, the Cuban revolution of 1959, the student revolts of May 1968, the Zapatista revolution of 1994 or the Arab Spring of 2011 are paradigmatic examples of revolutionary processes that have marked contemporary history. During these revolutionary processes, social communication has played a transcendental role, creating icons of great symbolic power that have influenced the intergenerational collective imagination and have inspired, in some cases, current political activism.

    The main objective of this monograph is to analyse, from an interdisciplinary approach and from different perspectives of the history of communication, the influence that the strategies, techniques and media have had on revolutionary movements in any historical context, especially throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, and their projection in today's society. It also aims to promote interest in historical phenomena that can serve as precedents or models of analysis that help to interpret current revolutionary facts and events with a critical retrospective vision.

     

  • Intelligent Digital Journalism
    Vol. 12 No. Especial (2025)

    Coordination: Bella Palomo (Universidad de Málaga), Nereida Cea Esteruelas (Universidad de Málaga), Colin Porlezza (Università della Svizzera Italiana).

  • RAEIC V6 N11 2019

    Trends and new profiles in advertising, corporate and public relations communication
    Vol. 6 No. 11 (2019)

    Coordinators: Francisco Campos Freire (Professor at the University of Santiago de Compostela and Director of the "Strategic and Organisational Communication of AEIC" section), Mónica Viñarás Abad (Professor at the CEU-San Pablo University in Madrid and Coordinator of the "Strategic and Organisational Communication of AEIC" section), Francisco Javier Paniagua Rojano (Professor at the University of Malaga and secretary of the "Strategic and Organisational Communication" section of the AEIC) and Xosé Rúas (Professor at the University of Vigo and member of the RAE-IC editorial board)

    The changes in the media and communication system in general oblige professionals and researchers not only to be aware of the trends that are taking place but also to look more deeply into the social, political and economic consequences that arise from them. With this generic objective in mind, the Strategic and Organisational Communication Section has launched an open call for the publication of a monographic number of studies on trends and new profiles in advertising, corporate, political and public relations communication.

    The thematic lines of research that make up this monographic issue try to gather, around the thematic axis of the title of the dossier, the professional, academic and research profiles that this section of the AE-IC covers with regard to the field of advertising, corporate, institutional, political, strategic marketing and public relations communication.

    It deals with research and theoretical developments on communication management in organisations, strategies and models for effective communication, use of digital tools, brand valuation and estimation of intangibles, profiles of the new DIRCOM and MARCOM, organisation and adaptation of communication departments to the digital ecosystem, crisis communication, analysis of trust, reputation, economy of listening, political communication, impact of social media, net-citizenship and activism on the net, new relations between actors and audiences and algorithmic democracy in the digital era.

    Furthermore, in recent years, there has been a trend in the field of communication and public relations towards specialisation in specific sectors that have become an important employment niche for graduates of the Faculties of Communication Sciences and also for their study and research. These sectors include communication in crisis and risk situations, communication strategies by startups, companies and video game developers. These are new options that are increasingly being studied in different end-of-degree, master's and doctoral theses, which shows that these are subjects that interest researchers in training, especially young people.

    In the field of public relations, research on interest and pressure groups, empowerment of citizens and relations with the public, relations with traditional and new media, professionalisation, monetisation and ethics of relations with influencers, data processing and results of search engines and online reputation, indicators and new ways of measuring the impact of communication relations, management of digital social networks, transmedia strategies and storytelling.

    On marketing and advertising communication, we must also mention automated programmatic planning and contracting, new forms and aesthetics of creativity, changes in the relations between agencies and media, trends and preventions in the use of data and digital footprint management, sponsorship and branding of contents, native advertising, promotional marketing and neuromarketing, personalisation and marketing automation.

  • Communication and cooperation
    Vol. 2 No. 4 (2015)

  • Collaborative media and citizen resilience: participatory communication in times of crisis
    Vol. 10 No. 19 (2023)

    Coordinators: Sergio Villanueva Baselga (Universitat de Barcelona), Dafne Calvo (Universitat de València), and Alejandro Barranquero (Universidad Carlos III de Madrid).

    The contemporary world is going through a time of enormous complexity and uncertainty. In addition to the multiple social crises that follow one after the other - crises such as the environmental crisis or those arising from the AIDS pandemic19 and the war in Ukraine - there is a changing media landscape in which the very concept of communication is overflowing, as well as the amount of stimuli and disconnected information that seek our attention. Faced with the acceleration of historical time and the perplexity that crises generate, the philosopher Daniel Innerarity explains:

    Among the uncomfortable disproportions of our world is an ignorance very much characteristic of advanced society, which is produced by the excess of information and which has been described with neologisms such as infobasura or infoxication. The specialisation and fragmentation of knowledge has produced an increase in information that is accompanied by very modest progress in terms of our understanding of the world. Human knowledge doubles every five years. Thus, it is necessary that future generations learn not to accumulate information, but to know how to navigate it and produce new knowledge that brings it together (Innerarity, 2010, p. 25).

    Social resilience, understood as the capacity of a community to grow and overcome in contexts of adversity (Keck and Sakdapolrak, 2013), has become a central notion for research on community communication in the pandemic and post-pandemic period. The main aim of this dossier is to reflect on the role of collaborative media and other forms of citizen communication in channelling and providing resilience to situations such as the current ecosocial, political and health crises. It also seeks to highlight experiences in which collaborative media, in the face of multi-crisis situations, have acted as a channel for support networks, tools for social empowerment and instruments of community support.

    Apart from the traditional models of financing, organisation and action, the nomenclature "collaborative media" encompasses media and communication organisations that promote the active participation of citizens and local communities or communities of interest, in addition to promoting journalism committed to regional integration, welfare and human rights. The five articles published in this dossier, together with the two guest contributors, seek to articulate their reflection around adverse situations that contemporary societies have faced and continue to face, such as climate change and sustainability, socio-political conflicts and inequality, and health emergencies.

    The first article, entitled "Collaborative artistic practices and citizen protest: Valencia 1991-2015", deals with artivism in the Valencian city, which in recent years has been characterised by neighbourhood opposition to the city's urban development plans. Through documentary analysis, the value of the practices and projects of various representative groups is studied. The main actions of these groups are identified as rallies, graphic material, artistic interventions and celebrations. These allow the collectives to carry out their objectives of making conflicts visible and creating new collective imaginaries about the territory.

    The article "Collaborative co-creation: approaches during the coronavirus crisis and the restrictions on mobility" proposes collective creation as its main focus of study, in this case applied to the field of audiovisual media. A qualitative analysis of the pieces "They steal everything from us, except our rage" (LASTESIS collective, 2020) and "Reinvented" (Sonja Marzi, 2021) is carried out. The work concludes that both projects recover the elements of collective presence in the territory and reflection on the everyday environment and its related problems. Despite their differences, both are framed in response to the consequences of the closure of public spaces.

    The following article, entitled "Participation, collaboration, and resilience in media cooperatives" seeks, through a systematic review of the literature, to identify, describe and classify collaborative and participatory modes and practices in media cooperatives throughout history. In doing so, it delves into the definition of collaborative media from a cooperative perspective, intervening in the epistemological debate surrounding the concept of collaborative media. Thus, he concludes that concepts such as collaboration and participation are central to the definition of these media and, therefore, make them potentially resilient organisations.

    "El Salto: origin and consolidation strategy of a media outlet as a proposal for alternative communication" is the first of the articles dedicated to the study of media that, in reality, are organisations that articulate counter-hegemonic communication debates and practices. Since 2016, although with precedents in the 1980s, El Salto is probably the most ambitious alternative media that has existed in the Spanish state due to its multimedia will and its articulation of different languages, themes, templates or regional knowledge. Despite having undergone several restructurings -of workers or of the media that make it up-, the work highlights the resilience of the project by having tried and diversified different ways of financing and opening it up to audiences.

    The case of "Social justice, communication and de-stigmatisation in mental health. The experience of Radio Nikosia" is that of a more specific medium, located in a hospital in Barcelona, and aimed at offering care, reflection and the right to communication for people psychiatrised for mental health reasons. Based on interviews and focus groups, the author of the work shows how Nikosia has managed to resist for more than 20 years, helping to break the stigma surrounding these communities and as a space for the construction of "profane knowledge" and alternative discourses on the psychic.

    Finally, the two guest authors make reflections relevant to the theme of the dossier. On the one hand, Florencia Enghel from Jönköping University in Sweden reflects in her article "It’s problematic: Considerations on being informed base don women’s everyday practices in precarious times" on the daily routines of Argentinean women in relation to information during the COVID-19 crisis. Furthermore, the authors Hans-Jörg Trenz, Annett Heft, Michael Vaughan and Barbara Pfetsch from the Scuola Normale Superiore in Florence and the Weizenbaum Institute for the Networked Society at the Freie Universitaet Berlin, in their article "Public sphere resilience in the global health crisis" discuss how the COVID-19 crisis has opened cracks in the media ecosystem by introducing experimental digital forms of communication in the media.

    References

    Innerarity, D. (2010). La democracia del conocimiento. Por una sociedad inteligente. Paídós.

    Keck, M., y Sakdapolrak, P. (2013). What is social resilience? Lessons learned and ways forward. Erdkunde, 67(1), 5-19.

  • Issue 25
    Vol. 13 No. 25 (2026)

  • Critical and active audiences. From consumers to citizens
    Vol. 7 No. 13 (2020)

    Coordinators: Mònica Figueras Maz (lecturer at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra and director of the Audience and Reception Studies section of the AE-IC); Iolanda Tortajada (lecturer at the Universitat Rovira i Virgili and coordinator of the Audience and Reception Studies section of the AE-IC) and Alejandro Barranquero (lecturer at the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid and director of the Communication and Citizenship Thematic Group of the AE-IC)

    In recent years, the rapid expansion of information technologies and the reorganisation of civil society provide a new context of opportunities for the construction of critical processes of citizen media reception and appropriation. The new socio-political and info-technological situation favours a new framework of opportunities for traditional audiences, formerly passive actors in the information process, to become active audiences that reinterpret, monitor, negotiate and even appropriate the technologies at their disposal to provide feedback to the media or to build autonomous stories around their imaginaries, values and lifestyles.

    If the mass media, advertising and cultural industries market leads to a conception of citizenship as a mere passive consumer of information, today more and more individuals, collectives, social movements and civil society associations are organising themselves and demanding active participation in the media system. From these instances it is therefore possible to re-dimension the work of media that have traditionally been limited to the merely representative and that are gradually moving, or must move, towards greater quotas of participation, quality and public service. We are therefore talking about new practices of media production, distribution and reception that contribute to citizens' self-representation, writing their own stories and demanding rights, needs and demands that are not always met by the generalist media.

    Today there are many media and technological potentialities that favour the articulation of an informed, critical and independent citizenship. Public, commercial and community media offer mechanisms (more or less unidirectional or horizontal) for individuals and communities to express themselves, no longer as mere spectators or consumers, but as subjects who claim their citizenship through the use and appropriation of the word, sound or image. Often, these productions are born in non-hegemonic spaces. At other times, audiences manage to open up participative gaps in the mainstream media in order to circulate their messages and imagery among mainstream audiences.

    This special issue constitutes a necessary space for reflection, dialogue and problematisation about the profound changes that the study of audiences and receptions is undergoing today from the perspective of the right to communication and from values such as democracy, the objectives of sustainable development or social and ecological justice.

  • The future of radio
    Vol. 4 No. 7 (2017)

  • The future of the field: past, present and future of communication research in Iberoamerica
    Vol. 10 No. 20 (2023)

    Coordination: Manuel Goyanes (Universidad Carlos III de Madrid), Thaiane Oliveira (Universidade Federal Fluminense).

  • Researching Communication from Peripheral Perspectives, Theories and Methods
    Vol. 8 No. 15 (2021)

    Coordinators: Víctor Silva Echeto (†) (Universidad de Zaragoza), José Agustín Carrillo Vera (Universidad Internacional de Valencia), Juan José Sánchez-Soriano (Universidad de Murcia), and Rebeca Escribano Guillamón (Universidad de Murcia).

    Several currents of thought, objects of study and methodologies have traditionally dominated scientific studies in communication. Some examples are empirical and specifically quantitative studies, such as content analyses, or those focused on traditional media (press, television, radio, etc.). This 15 issue of Revista de la Asociación Española de Investigación de la Comunicación, which responds to the V TMIC-AEIC Murcia 2019 Conference and is promoted by the Communication Research Theories and Methods section of the AE-IC, is presented as a monographic on research that is more alien to these elements. To this end, it focuses on research into non-hegemonic perspectives that have traditionally had less voice in research circuits, whether they be conferences, research projects or scientific journals.

    In recent years, communication research has undergone a process of assimilation with the natural sciences or those of a more technical nature, making their formats, methodologies, objects of study or ways of publishing their results similar. One example is the predominance of the scientific article over the book or a perspective of a quantifiable nature to the detriment of the qualitative one. The objective, among others, has been to assimilate those patterns that are considered to favour progression in the academic career, since they are associated with a positive evaluation in international journals with a high impact rate, in evaluation agencies or in courts of access to public positions. This implies the minimization of objects of study considered more local or of research of a more reflexive and theoretical nature.

    Therefore, today more than ever, it is necessary to have in-depth and rigorous research that reflects on elements that have been left out, in order to break this imbalance. Otherwise, there is a risk of monopolising research in communication and presenting it in a biased and partial manner, failing to show the variety of elements that make up this scientific discipline and which are equally valuable for society and democratic progress. This is the example of research on dialogue between different religions or on racialised populations, such as research on the representation of the Roma community in the media, a population under-represented in communication studies. This is complemented by other examples, such as oriental research that does not focus on traditional American or European studies, or research techniques of a more qualitative nature, such as participant observation.

    In this way, it is time to take advantage of the exponential and continuous growth that communication research has experienced in order to unite these types of approaches that have been left aside, with the objective of having a broad and powerful academic corpus that allows alignment with the meaning of this social science: to generate scientific knowledge that makes it possible to fight against inequalities and improve coexistence and well-being as individuals and societies.

    In this sense, this issue deals with perspectives that are less well known in the Spanish or Latin American academic world, research that gives a voice to the "other" and that attempts to overcome Western ethnocentrism by putting European and non-European traditions into dialogue. It shows research that explores alternative methodologies, for example, oral history in countries such as Mexico, and proposes reflections on audiovisual writing or gives voice to traditionally non-hegemonic or non-dominant objects of study, such as non-profit organisations in the Third Sector of Social Action. On the other hand, qualitative metainvestigations are proposed or reflections on peripheral communication practices in the media in Spain are included, among others.

    This issue, therefore, and due to its contributions, represents a look beyond traditional research that will undoubtedly be useful for future studies and to shed light on perspectives, theories and methods that have so far remained on the margins of hegemonic scientific productions.

    These words were to be written together with Professor Victor Silva Echeto, to whom we pay tribute for all his personal and academic career and for the great legacy he leaves, not only in research, but also among the people who had the opportunity to know him. We dedicate this issue to his memory. Rest in peace, fellow.

  • Cooperation in Communication in Latin America
    Vol. 4 No. 8 (2017)

    The most recent scientific literature has highlighted the major transformations in the media ecosystem and the impact that these changes have on the field of Communication and Cooperation, with peculiarities according to the geographical area. On this occasion, we would like to focus especially on the Ibero-American space, in order to analyse the evolution in recent years and the future challenges in the field of Communication, Culture and Cooperation. Events such as the recent elections in the United States of America have reopened a debate on the role of communication and politics, the discourse of the new media (internet, social networks) in relation to the traditional media (press, radio and TV) and the populist drift, which is present in various countries and political formations in Europe, but also with certain roots and tradition in Latin America. A controversial debate between those who see a danger of a break with the system and those who welcome it as a sign of disenchantment with the power structures and an emotional alternative to the current crisis situation. Different approaches and frames, which test the rupture between the political, media and citizen's agendas and represent a disruptive factor and alteration of the cultural system, accelerated by technological innovation. Political communication and government communication policies, based on the defence of the right to communication and transparency, whose involvement strengthens the so-called economy of culture. 

  • Artificial intelligence and the democratisation of audiovisual creation
    Vol. 11 No. Especial (2024)

    Coordination: Laura López Martín (Universidad Rey Juan Carlos), Victoria Mora de la Torre (Universidad Rey Juan Carlos), and Marta González Caballero (Universidad Nebrija).

  • First Issue
    Vol. 1 No. 1 (2014)

    Inaugural volume of Revista de la Asociación Española de Investigación de la Comunicación

  • Portada: Original y copia, del remake al meme

    Original and copy, from remake to meme: adaptations, replicas and recreations in communication
    Vol. 9 No. 17 (2022)

    Coordinators:  Juan Francisco Gutiérrez Lozano (Universidad de Málaga), Natalia Meléndez Malavé (Universidad de Málaga) and Adolfo Carratalá Simón (Universitat de València).

    The aim of this monograph is to address some trends that have a particular impact on the production and circulation of contemporary communication content: narratives based on the repetition, versioning or reworking of pre-existing messages. The reuse of narrative materials is not a new phenomenon and has been the subject of attention from different approaches, from reflections on the original and the copy (Benjamin) or the recreation of myths, to intertextuality (Kristeva, Bakhtin) or the contribution of Genette, who refers us to the apt notion of palimpsest, to the more recent interest in film remakes (Gray & Johnson) or other audiovisual adaptations, without forgetting the current relevance of transmedia stories (Jenkins).

    The technological possibilities of the digital universe are, of course, leading to a renewal of the logics of production based on these repetitions or re-elaborations, which even favour the participation of the receivers, now reconfigured as senders of renewed messages based on the original (fanfics, memes, etc.). It is precisely within this line of work that several selected articles are included in this issue. For example, "The prosumer audience in Operación Triunfo (OT9, OT10 and OT11). Revitalisation of the television format?", by María del Mar Ramón López, Adriana Paíno-Ambrosio and Mª Isabel Rodríguez-Fidalgo, explores the case study of a transmedia experience, with consumers taking on an active role in the process of extension from linear television to second and third screens. The authors analyse from the point of view of the audiences themselves their contributions as spontaneous (re)creators of content, such as that offered by the followers of the popular talent show through fanart or fanvids. The text shows how the involvement of the receivers can be a revulsive factor, especially in the face of the abandonment or decline of traditional television consumption by young audiences.

    Without leaving television, imitation itself as a parodic resource is an interesting aspect for studying the repetition and recreation of popular culture references in the media. This is the case of Patricia Gascón Vera's proposal, entitled "Imitation on television. Characterizations of political leaders in El intermedio, El hormiguero and Late motiv". The author establishes an overview of this humorous resource in Spanish television programming during election periods, by means of a qualitative analysis of these three formats in which it is particularly important. The study is completed with interviews with the people responsible for these parodies, the comedians Joaquín Reyes, Carlos Latre and Raúl Pérez.

    The use of humour in the elaboration of new content from previously circulated messages is also highlighted in the study "Appropriation and recycling for audiovisual creation as a critical resource. Case study: The trilling hand. María Cañas", by Francisco José Gómez Díaz. His work investigates how the appropriationist technique, facilitated thanks to the resources offered by the Internet, is revealed as a strategy for documenting and elaborating a new discourse on contemporary society and technological development. The analysis of the work of the so-called archivist of Seville shows how the artistic, critical and humorous will takes advantage of the recycling of audiovisual pieces to create new video narratives with which to give back to today's society an uncomfortable reflection of itself.

    It is clear that the satirical or humorous use of all kinds of media material (photographs, videos, audios, fragments of television, film or digital productions) is one of the most important elements in the recreations studied in this monograph. Thus, the bulk of the articles in this special issue focus profusely on the meme, a highly significant communicative product of our time, as a phenomenon worthy of study whose presence has become ubiquitous in our everyday lives with its massive and viral circulation through numerous devices and platforms. Three articles in the special feature include a review of both those created by the recipients themselves and those produced in a more professionalised manner, as well as their use in social networks or in commercial or corporate communication.

    In "Humour and identity as expressive resources for brand building in social networks. The case of Malacara", by José Luis Torres-Martín, Andrea Castro-Martínez and Pablo Díaz-Morilla, unravels this humorous viral phenomenon through an in-depth interview with its creator and the analysis of the digital communication strategy of its profiles on various social networks. The authors conclude that the use of intertextual references from popular culture is one of the factors behind the success of the initiative. Iván Navarro Flores also makes a similar point in his text "Los autores de memes en Instagram y la mediatización de la música urbana en España", in which, through digital ethnography, he identifies the appearance of a "memesphere" on Instagram made up of creators of memes specialising in certain themes, among which there is a group dedicated to the production of memes about characters and events linked to urban music. The article delves into the interdependence of these creators with other profiles in the sector, such as artists and audiences.

    Also focusing on the way in which audiences interact with the new distorted messages circulating on the Internet, the article "Comparative study on the potential of the meme as a political communication resource: reception, uses and meanings in university students (Ecuador-Spain)", by Santiago Tejedor, Fernanda Tusa and Laura Cervi, vindicates the meme as an element in the exercise of freedom of expression, which allows for intervention in the public sphere by criticising and questioning power with humour and irreverence. The results of the surveys of students participating in the research show how memes revitalise the political discourse of citizens.

    Closing the contributions collected in this thematic issue, and also dealing with a core issue of the possible proposals, in relation to cross-references or intertexts, is the article on versions and adaptations (in this case cinematographic) entitled "Remakes, updates and film tributes in John Carpenter's cinema" by Alfonso M. Rodríguez de Austria Giménez de Aragón and Andoni Iturbe Tolosa. The text presents Carpenter's work as a vehicle for tributes and winks as well as, in turn, an original source of later remakes, of whose production teams he was even a member. The film remake is also the backbone of the work "Film production in Spanish Cinema. The remakes of Telecinco Cinema", by Francisco Jiménez Alcarria and Ana Mejón. In their work, both researchers analyse four adaptations in which this production company has participated in recent years, in most cases remakes of Italian comedies that have been more successful at the box office than the originals, to conclude that the products generated by means of this strategy achieve considerable acceptance among audiences and maximise profits by reducing business risks and uncertainties.

    In addition to the articles in the monograph, there are also two texts by guest authors that focus on two of the main themes proposed for this special issue: the first on the original concept of hypermedia humour, in this case the "live-tweeting" of events commented on through memes, by Damián Fraticelli, professor and researcher at the University of Buenos Aires and the National University of the Arts (Argentina). The author focuses on the complex procedures of collaborative appropriation involved in this phenomenon, which must be taken into account as essential today in order to understand how events are constructed in contemporary societies. Likewise, the second guest author, Concepción Cascajosa Virino, professor at the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (Spain), highlights in her text how narrative recycling has become a source of nourishment for international and state catalogues of video-on-demand services, and underlines how, in addition, this growing resource in contemporary audiovisual production also encourages the construction of brands in the new ecosystem of digital platforms, while intertwining in a symbolic or nostalgic way with the content inherited from the media groups of traditional television.

  • Comunicación política y participación digital
    Vol. 12 No. 23 (2025)

    Coordinators: Eva Campos-Domínguez (Universidad Complutense de Madrid), Marta Cantijoch-Cunill (University of Manchester).

  • Mobile Communication
    Vol. 5 No. 10 (2018)

    Coordinators: Alba Silva-Rodríguez (Professor at the Universidade de Santiago de
    Compostela), Carlos Toural-Bran (Professor at the University of Santiago de Compostela) and
    Oscar Westlund (Professor at Oslo Metropolitan University).

    The potential of mobiles in the field of personalisation and wireless connectivity has meant that these communication devices have a great future projection at this time in the media industry. The rapid expansion of smartphones in the market in recent years is also associated with their multi-functionality for a very wide range of social practices.

    The global implantation of mobile telephony and the spectacular growth of the smartphone and tablet park has encouraged the media to make a clear commitment to the design of strategies for the creation of content products designed for the new devices. Smartphones allow users to consume and produce news and are powerful communication tools capable of creating audio, video, photos and text instantly.

    This dossier tackles mobile communication from a multidisciplinary perspective to reflect recent changes, new information contexts and future challenges demanded by mobile communication. Works are accepted that approach this field of study from a socio-cultural perspective from an evolutionary, descriptive, conceptual or focused approach to the integration of mobile devices in the Information Society scenario.

    This dossier will publish those studies that focus on the development of journalistic content for mobiles, both from the point of view of production and from that of reception and dissemination. There will also be room for work on the effects and consequences of the new multimedia production for mobiles, as well as those focusing on new business models.

    This issue aims to reflect a multi-faceted reality of mobile communication and to this end critical studies are sought from academic institutions and researchers from all over the world who have analysed these phenomena in their different variables and objectives.

  • Communication and cultural diversity
    Vol. 2 No. 3 (2015)

  • Texts, platforms and devices. New perspectives for discourse analysis
    Vol. 9 No. 18 (2022)

    Coordinators: Vanesa Saiz Echezarreta (Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha), Diana Fernández Romero (Universidad Rey Juan Carlos), Adriana Amado Suárez (Universidad Argentina de la Empresa).

    In order for contributions from the social sciences to be relevant in understanding the socio-historical conjuncture and to operate as tools for social orientation in stages of uncertainty, it is necessary that an epistemological rupture - the identification of situated knowledge - accompanies the construction of the objects of study, the choice of methods and techniques, as well as the strategies for transferring potential results. Such a rupture ensures that the method does not become a mere recipe, given that "epistemology is diluted when methodology becomes technical, minimising the situated and socio-historical character of all social practice, including research" (Casado and Lasen, 2014).

    The research community forms a network that co-structures its objects of study and affects what it analyses, which is why it is important to identify the areas of the socio-cultural - among others - that require greater attention, which are being left on the margins of scientific work. Networked thinking, the analysis of processes and intermediate spaces, the dynamics of hybridisation and mediatisation are not factors or phenomena alien to research in Discourse Studies. However, in contemporary digital contexts, characterised by a profound mediatisation (Hepp, 2020), there are still many aspects and approaches that remain to be explored and thought about. For this reason, we dedicate this issue to reflecting on and exposing innovations with which to adapt discourse analysis methods to digital contexts.

    Through this monograph we hope to highlight the need to combine the analysis of substantive discursive content with the role played by media technologies in the deployment of discursive practices, based on the assumption that the digital cannot be considered a complementary aspect, but rather an articulating axis of our societies (Marres, 2017). Studies on meaning and discursive strategies must incorporate the role of platforms, applications, social networks, devices, algorithms, etc. that operate in the production, circulation and reception of contemporary discourses.

    The discipline has tools capable of adapting to the study of complex enunciations and practices defined by shared agency (Latour, 2015), provided that the role of technical mediations is not overlooked. For example, an impersonal conception of enunciation, such as the one proposed by Paolucci (2020), can be an interesting tool to account for shared enunciative praxis in which human and non-human elements are concatenated, generating acts of mediation and passage through discourses, practices, devices and digital codes, with the aim of understanding the way in which all these elements are deployed in complex interdependent webs. In this task we can find inspiration in Gonzalo Abril's (2009) proposal to consider texts and textual processes as "factorial indexes", that is, socio-discursive practices are indexes by factoriality of the virtual totality of a culture, each element maintains a relationship with the totality, part and whole are mutually constitutive. The proposal is to share a framework in which technological mediation, the shared agency between subjects and technical devices are conceived as intrinsic aspects of the systems of meaning and the discourses they produce (Peñamarin, 2015).

    The articles in this issue approach this effort to design analytical models that do not conceive of devices as mere supports -which can be ignored-, or software as a bias -often negatively sanctioned-, but rather, in a transversal manner, the monograph proposes imagining and testing methods and techniques that include them as consubstantial elements of discourse.

    From there, Discourse Studies can make relevant contributions to recent areas of study such as software studies or games studies, among others.

    The invited papers that open this issue take up classic concepts of discourse analysis such as writing, information and data and discursive genre and look at how these can be rethought in the light of new digital platforms.

    Patricia Nigro's work "Challenges for discourse analysis in transmedia writing" addresses the fundamental features of this type of writing, the pedagogical strategies for its use from the didactic point of view and the alternatives for studying the phenomenon. His enquiry into the challenges it poses for discourse analysis refers to classic works such as Walter Ong's (1987) on orality and print culture.

    Joan Ramon Rodriguez-Amat's article "Towards a governance of platform data. Exploring the maladjustments between data and meaning" studies the gaps in meaning that occur in the processes of production, management and circulation of digital data that are appropriated by platforms. Its approach points to Abril's (2007) concept of information as cultural formation, which appeals to the construction of meaning of data as part of cultural processes, of "complex social practices".

    Ariel Gómez Ponce, in "Modulations of television memory. Questions abouyt TV series and genre in times of streaming", explores the way in which platforms manage the serial flow and propose reading contracts through digital catalogues. From Bakhtin's classic work, it explores how the conditions of production and reception in new technological scenarios can be confronted as a discursive genre that is transformed by the impact of platforms.

    Some of the articles that make up the central notebook of the issue are in line with the scientific service and transfer vocation of Discourse Studies through theoretical-methodological perspectives for the semiotic analysis of digital productions or the interaction between subjects and devices.

    Thus, in "L'uso di Twitter da parte dei Ministeri della Salute nell'era COVID-19. Analisi delle strategie di creazione e innovazione lessicali", written by Claudia Colantonio, studies the strategies and discursive practices of the Ministries of Health of five countries during the COVID-19 epidemic through Twitter, focusing on the lexical innovations of the discourse mediated by this digital platform.

    Other papers in this issue include applied research proposals in different areas that incorporate the enunciative analysis of video games or conversational patterns and dialogism in networks.

    In the article "Who are we in strategy games? An analysis of the imagined and embodied positions of Frostpunk players" by Carlos Moreno Azqueta explores, within the framework of game studies, the enunciative processes of the players of a strategy video game without avatar to understand their expressions about their virtual position.

    The enunciational analysis of digital natives who use emojis in interpersonal conversations is the aim of the text "Dialogue 2.0: emojis and politeness on WhatsApp" by Ivan Kirschbaum, who concludes that this communicative resource contributes to the shaping of a specific discursive image of the speakers.

    We close this issue with a bibliographical review on the study of networks through the article "Meta-study of political communication research on Twitter: methodological trends" written by Raúl Rojas Andrés, Svenne Diefenbacher and Miguel Álvarez-Peralta, which maps the scientific research in Spanish in the last two years in journals of impact in which it detects a significant number of works that show software dependency, that is, the mere computer approximation to the data.

    With all this, we intend to join the mapping of discursive practices of digital platforms and productions through this new issue of the journal, to which we are grateful for having welcomed this proposal from the Section of Discourse Studies.

  • Communication and Audiovisual Culture in the Context of Platform Capitalism
    Vol. 12 No. 24 (2025)

    Coordinators: Azahara Cañedo (Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha), Juan Ignacio Gallego (Universidad Carlos III de Madrid), and Márton Demeter (University of Public Service, Budapest).

    [New article published every day]

  • Hate Speeches
    Vol. 6 No. 12 (2019)

    Coordinators: Francisco Seoane Pérez (Professor at the University Carlos III of Madrid), Óscar Pérez de la Fuente (Professor at the University Carlos III of Madrid) and Katharine Sarikakis (Professor at the University of Vienna).

    The so-called 'hate speeches' have taken on an unusual social importance in recent times. The rise in Europe and the United States of movements considered populist, sometimes characterised by language bordering on the offensive, as well as the anonymity provided by social networks to spread insults and derogatory comments to individuals and ethnic, sexual or religious minorities with almost total impunity, have contributed to a renewed academic interest in the limits to freedom of expression.

    At the same time, the criminalisation of songs, art exhibitions or commentaries on social networks has raised considerable political and legal controversy, as it is understood that humour or social criticism, even when they incur in bad taste, are consubstantial with a liberal democracy. In this sense, excessive zeal in maintaining a civilised political discourse could end up creating a climate of ideological censorship that would curtail the vitality of democratic debate.

    Closely related to hate speech is uncivil discourse, characterised by offensive expressions and undignified verbal attitudes. Discourse incivility is considered a relevant factor in the discrediting of the political class and in a decline in electoral participation, according to experimental research by Diana Mutz of the University of Pennsylvania.

    The study of hate speech on the Internet during election periods is therefore particularly attractive, as legislators inevitably act on the back of unstoppable technological progress. The Council of Europe's Convention on Cybercrime, as well as its Additional Protocol on the criminalisation of racist and xenophobic acts online, have attempted to provide a standard of legal homogenisation for signatory countries. The question is whether spreading false news or rumours with the intention of undermining the credibility of an electoral rival should attract attention among regulators in a way similar to hate speech.

  • The future of television
    Vol. 3 No. 6 (2016)

  • Tradition and progress in Communication research. Transformation and creation of theories and methods towards the new challenges of digital convergence
    Vol. 10 No. Especial (2023)

    Coordinators: Eduardo Francisco Rodríguez (Universidad Carlos III de Madrid), Gloria Josefina Rosique Cedillo (Universidad Carlos III de Madrid), Marian Blanco Ruiz (Universidad Rey Juan Carlos) y Luis Gallardo Vera (Universidad Complutense de Madrid).

    Meta-research in Communication in Spain is a self-reflective activity of the disciplines that are encompassed by the term "Communication" —Journalism, Audiovisual Communication, Advertising and Public Relations, as established in the Libro Blanco de Títulos de Grado en Comunicación, drawn up by ANECA in 2005—. Self-reflective activity from within a scientific discipline is a symptom of its maturity (Martínez-Nicolás& Saperas-Lapiedra, 2011); however, until reaching this self-reflective stage, Communication in Spain has gone through different phases: emergence —1960s-70s—, consolidation —1980s—, and development —from the mid-1990s onwards— (Martínez-Nicolás, 2009). The last stage involves a mature consolidation of communication disciplines (Martínez-Nicolás, 2008), and its beginning coincides with the appearance of the first study on communication research in Spain (Cáceres & Caffarel, 1992).

    It is therefore advisable to study the research practices that take place in the disciplinary field of Communication from a systemic and critical-self-reflexive prism, in order to detect the contradictions that occur in its dialectically interrelated structural, infrastructural and superstructural components —following the classic Althusserian classification— and that hinder its progress. The meta-research studies on Communication in Spain in recent times have captured a systemic scenario that understands that Spanish research in Communication has undergone a substantial change since the turn of the century (Reig, 2014). There has been an increase in the number of articles, journals and researchers (Castillo-Esparcia & Carretón-Ballester, 2010; Fernández-Quijada & Masip, 2013). Research centres have also tried to adapt to new procedures, production times and scientific quality assessment criteria (Díaz-Nosty & De Frutos, 2017; Ibáñez, 2016).

    However, the interference of the institutional measures adopted, both public investment in education and R&D (Civil & Reguero, 2008) and the austerity policies arising from the economic crisis (Bustamante, 2018), have affected the development of scientific production, evidencing an ambivalent maturation process. On the one hand, the number of centres offering degrees in Communication, researchers and specialised scientific journals has doubled (Piñeiro-Otero, 2018; De Pablos, 2010). On the other hand, a path of growth based on intensive production has become evident, where false authorship (Saperas & Carrasco, 2017), scarce methodological transparency (Martínez-Nicolás & Saperas, 2011) and scientific immaturity (Piñuel et al., 2011) seem to be the essence of an insufficient functional model of evaluation, which is incapable of eradicating bias, eliminating preferential treatment or establishing rigour and knowledge transfer as standardised values (Rodríguez-Gómez & Goyanes, 2020).

    Part of the practices of scientific-academic production in Communication is methodological innovation for the treatment of new objects of study that emerge in the context of the post-modern and post-industrial information society; methodological innovation that can be approached through the sociological tradition or through genuine creation within Communication itself. This is precisely the object of study undertaken in this issue, entitled "Tradition and Progress in Communication Research. Transformation and creation of theories and methodologies in the face of the new challenges of digital convergence". As a critical self-reflexive initiative of the Communication research system itself, the issue has two aims: (1) to reflect on which theories and methodologies are the most relevant when investigating the symbolic, material and algorithmic structure of the large media and digital platforms; and (2) to envision scientific frameworks and cultures that reveal the imbalances of the system and promote transformative agendas of work, communication and networked communality.

    We hope that this issue of RAE-IC will contribute to the firm realisation of these aims.

  • En la crisis sanitaria. La libertad de expresión y el derecho a la comunicación frente a los bulos y manipulaciones

    Within the health crisis. Freedom of speech and the right to communicate against fake news and manipulation
    Vol. 7 No. 14 (2020)

    Coordinators: Carmen Costa-Sánchez (Universidade da Coruña) y Carles Pont Sorribes (Universitat Pompeu Fabra de Barcelona).

    In the midst of the Covid-19 crisis, its impact not only reaches the health, social and economic spheres, but also the communication field. In this situation of health crisis, citizens need information to be able to adapt and understand what is happening. To reduce uncertainty and fear. Humanity has gone through similar crises, even worse. However, there are three aspects that make the emergence of the Covid-19 different from others: globalisation, acceleration, and the overabundance of information, often plagued by false news.

    Providing information in the event of a public health crisis is not only a necessity for citizens, but also an obligation for health institutions. Citizens have the right to know about the health problems of the community when they imply a risk to public health or to their individual health, and the legislation includes the right to have this information disseminated in true, understandable and adequate terms for the protection of health. Institutional communication is facing an important challenge in these weeks in explaining the measures to be adopted, the management carried out and the scenarios to come.

    The current crisis is also a challenge for journalists and media. The traditional and new media are becoming the main channels of access to information on the pandemic situation, as well as channels for exchanging realities, emotions and opinions. The consolidation of social media and messaging applications allows the instant transmission of news of the global health crisis through different formats. The Coronavirus has revealed certain vulnerabilities of post-modern societies that have a high volume of information that stimulates uncertainty.

    Moreover, in this context, so-called "fake news" finds a breeding ground for proliferation. Hoaxes about the origin of the virus, false remedies against the disease and even a false official bulletin have circulated massively, with more or less credibility among society. The concept of the hoax virus has also been used, an Anglicism that appeared with the Internet and which serves to define a lie that wants to be spread in order to deceive the recipient and which has a theoretically serious appearance.

    How are citizens informing themselves in the current complex situation? Which sources have gained or lost credibility? How are they using traditional media and social networks? How are health institutions communicating? How is the media addressing the coverage of the pandemic? This monograph seeks to analyse and reflect on the coronavirus crisis, taking into account the multiple dimensions offered by the study of communication and journalism.

     

    Preferred lines of research:

    • Political communication
    • Institutional communication
    • Risk communication
    • Crisis communication
    • Communication for health
    • Use of social networks
    • Use of instant messaging
    • Audiences and sightseeing
    • Media treatment of the crisis
    • Analysis of press coverage
    • Viral communication
    • Fake news and verification tools
    • Dissemination of health information
    • Changes in journalists' production routines
    • Comparison between traditional and new media

     

  • Social media and social activism
    Vol. 3 No. 5 (2016)

  • Portada n21, volumen 11

    Slow Journalism: style, contents, new formats, and audiences
    Vol. 11 No. 21 (2024)

    Coordination: María Ángeles Chaparro Domínguez (Universidad Complutense de Madrid), Sonia Parratt Fernández (Universidad Complutense de Madrid), Sandra Marinho (Universidade do Minho), Tania Gentic (Georgetown University).

    In contrast to breaking news, slow journalism proposes content that invites reflection, based on a process of slow production and consumption, where both content and form are taken care of. Transparency, in terms of funding and production routines, is another characteristic of this type of journalism (Le Masurier, 2015), along with proximity to the public (Rauch, 2018). They are projects that move away from fast-food journalism, of accelerated creation and consumption of information (Rubio Lacoba, 2010), or from churnalism, which consists of publishing journalistic pieces based on press releases (Davies, 2008). These bad practices in the profession, together with other factors such as the current global impact of disinformation, largely explain the loss of trust in journalism. According to the latest Digital News Report, less than half of the population (40%) trusts the news (Reuters Institute, 2023). In the face of this growing loss of trust, slow journalism offers authorial journalism that provides serenity and context, based on verified sources of information.

    Slow journalism has traditionally been related to literary or narrative journalism in written form. Numerous investigations have studied this type of journalism in Spanish-American and/or Spanish magazines (Zabalondo et al., 2022; Peñafiel-Saiz et al., 2022; Barranquero-Carretero and Jaurrieta Bariain, 2016), although some have addressed it in other countries such as the United States (Cheng, 2023). However, in recent years, journalistic experiences with the characteristics of depth, high quality and stylistic richness typical of slow journalism have been developed in other media. For example, in the field of sound, narrative non-fiction podcasts could be considered a manifestation of this type of journalism (Mehendale and Jaggi, 2023). Not surprisingly, the future of slow journalism will depend on its adaptation to these innovative formats due to new digital consumption habits (Manías-Muñoz et al., 2023).
    In short, it is a consolidated journalistic specialisation, which can help the media to distance themselves from false content and thus recover lost social trust. This monograph attempts to cover a large part of the ramifications it presents in terms of topics, formats, media, business models and audiences addressed.

     

  • Gender Inequalities in Digital Communication and Culture
    Vol. 8 No. 16 (2021)

    Coordinators:Patricia Corredor Lanas (Universidad Rey Juan Carlos  and coordinator of the Communication and Digital Culture section), Javier Marzal (Universidad Jaume I and 2nd vice-president of the AE-IC) y Ana Jorge Alonso (Universidad de Málaga).

     

    The feminist movement and women academics began to focus in the 1960s on the relationship between women's material conditions and their reflection in the symbolic sphere. In short, the debate that Judith Butler and Nancy Fraser would hold decades later on the tensions between recognition and redistribution is outlined, and not only in terms of the discrimination suffered by women, but also on other gender inequalities that include the LGBTQ+ collective.

    The ease of access to sources means that symbolic discrimination is the field in which this approach to research has mainly operated, especially in the social sciences and humanities. The consequence is that it is in this field where the largest body of academic work has been accumulated, most often in the service of social transformation for the sake of a more equitable society. The acceleration and expansion, in recent decades, of so-called cognitive capitalism has also brought with it the need for feminist analyses and reflections on the political economy of communication and culture. We cannot fail to mention Michèle Mattelart's Women and Cultural Industries, a seminal text, which will be forty years since its publication in Spain, as one of the most significant milestones in the necessary holistic approach, from feminism and its different theoretical currents, to communication and culture.

    Thus, new lines of reflection and research began to take shape, incorporating concerns about such fundamental questions as the relations between communication and power, both macro and micro. On labour relations and working conditions. On the processes and agents of decision-making around the message as a commodity but also as an ideological artefact. It is necessary to highlight the new perspectives on the interweaving of different oppressions and discriminations: gender, ethnicity, class, etc., which were also addressed early on in our field by Michèle Mattelart, whose pioneer and main exponent in the Anglo-Saxon world was Angela Davis. These theoretical positions would burst forth with force, especially in the 1990s, and would enrich not only the theoretical debate but also the field of study itself, shedding light on relations, dimensions and spaces that had been invisible in previous decades.

    Gender discrimination in communication and culture has received considerable attention in recent years from international doctrine and emerging academic research. But these discriminations seem to be aggravated in the digital world, both in terms of training and in the STEM professions that directly affect the communicative and cultural creation of the future; moreover, there is an even tougher "glass ceiling" in managerial positions in companies focused on NICT, which has a particular impact on the role of women in the production and dissemination of symbolic goods.

    Given the double face of communication and culture in our contemporary societies, these processes threaten to seriously damage the diversity of perspectives and sensibilities of the knowledge society and the talent and creativity in economic terms, to the extent that some governments and large technology companies have undertaken programmes and actions to alleviate their worst consequences.

    The dossier thus aims to stimulate empirical research and public and private policy proposals in this field, and to give visibility to ongoing studies, encouraging debate in our society. In this context, the monograph brings together some analyses and reflections on the obvious deficits of women's participation as protagonists in the field of communication and culture, but also their still distorted presence as stereotyped objects in audiovisual representations.