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This paper describes the research published during the period 2011-2020 by five leading Spanish peer-reviewed journals of communication, aiming to identify the most common theoretical frameworks and standard theories. A statistically representative sample of the articles published during that period was systematically selected from the five journals of communication ranked as having the greatest continuity and impact according to SJR-Scopus: Profesional de la Información, Comunicar, Communication & Society, Estudios sobre el Mensaje Periodístico and Revista Latina de Comunicación Social. A coding protocol that includes 13 variables and 74 categories was defined and applied to compare the type of theoretical frameworks and the theories in the different subject areas observed. The results show that although almost all the papers studied have a theoretical framework, fewer than half are grounded on recognizable theories. Specifically, journalism and digital communication are the two subject areas whose articles frequently include standard theories: in journalism by the support of classical theories of communication (framing, agenda setting, journalistic professional cultures and roles), and in digital communication by the support of more theoretically dispersed frameworks. Theoretical frameworks developed by literature review are common in other subject areas (such as audiovisual studies, public relations and documentation).

Netflix has shaken up audiovisual industry, but what about academic research? This bibliometric analysis focuses on 210 papers indexed in Web of Science that address this issue. We examine the author, university of affiliation, language, journal, keywords, year of publication, citations received, and categories covered in WoS. We also conducted a quantitative analysis of abstracts and papers to identify the most recurrent methodologies, themes, and samples. Our results highlight a rise in Netflix studies in recent years and their tendency to analyse specific audiovisual works. There are many qualitative analysis of specific Netflix hits, but none of the shows particularly stands out. It also shows a rise in “Communication” and “Film, Radio & Television” papers (40% of them), although academic interest relies on Netflix corporate culture, business, and algorithm. These studies are mainly carried out using a qualitative methodology (83%). More than half of the articles focus on one of the Netflix series and, among them, the greatest interest lies in the representation of specific issues; gender, race and sexuality are present in 25% of the works in the sample (n=210). At the same time, among the 367 authors signing these research papers, the parity between men (51%) and women (49%) is almost absolute. It appears that the geographical and linguistic variety of papers is related to Netflix’s global expansion and that the sheer number of titles covered reveals a fleeting attention due to Netflix’s trademark: swift and concentrated consumption.

The current context and changes in the communicational paradigm in the last ten years lead to think we are experiencing a moment of transition that entails the end of mass media, like different studies have concluded. Among them, the most vulnerable product is the printed newspaper, which disappearance generates few doubts. However, immersed in this moment of change, we cannot yet evaluate what means to lose a journalistic model that has prevailed for over two centuries and a half as informational reference. From this perspective, the province of Cuenca, in Castile-La Mancha, one of the two in Spain which today no longer has a printed newspaper, offers us a unique scenario to approach what kind of medium positions as leader in its place. Using a mixed methodology, based on the review of documentary sources and contents analysis, we analyse a case study that aims to collect tendencies regarding proximity media. In this case, the switching from one platform to another has devaluated very relevant journalistic genres, such as the photo news or the editorial, but also some core practices in the journalism, like the editing task on the material that arriving to the editorial offices.

This paper takes a novel approach to the functional transformation of the public communication of science and technology in the context of the commodification of academia and academic research. It contends that the public representations of university-industry relations and academic entrepreneurship policy should be understood as an instance of the leveraging of the public communication of science and technology for propaganda purposes. To substantiate this approach, this paper elaborates on the concept and functions of propaganda by drawing from traditional and contemporary scholarship. It also examines what the commodification of academic knowledge production consists of, underscoring its contradictions and the negative consequences that it has had for some domains of social life, including academia itself. In view of the foregoing, it is possible to hypothesise the use of the public communication of science and technology for disseminating the ‘ideology of academic entrepreneurship’ for propaganda purposes. The final section outlines some general criteria that ought to be considered when operationalising this theoretical framework for analysing the media coverage of university-industry relations and academic entrepreneurship. The approach described here should be understood as a first step towards uncovering and criticising the ‘common sense’ on which the contemporary political economy of academic knowledge production rests.

Defence diplomacy and public diplomacy are two diplomatic practices often treated in the literature as two disconnected realms. While the former focuses on the peaceful and cooperative use of armed forces, the latter emphasizes on the advancement of strategic communication in the international policy of actors. However, it is possible to bridge the differences between the two using the concept of soft power. By doing so, defence public diplomacy can be understood as a set of practices developed by states seeking to influence and attract third states while employing military force within these parameters. This paper contributes firstly to the conceptual debate bridging both types of diplomacies. Secondly, it selects a case study, Spain, to examine the perceptions of three different Spanish elites involved in the formulation and implementation of defence public policy: politicians, the military and defence industry managers. This paper adopts a qualitative methodology, including in-depth interviews, focus groups with experts, and manual content analysis of primary documentary sources. The results show that these elites agree on the importance of defence diplomacy for the achievement of state goals but continue to understand it fundamentally from a classical diplomatic prism. They also discuss the inclusion of new concepts, such as deterrence, as part of a defence public diplomacy.

Public diplomacy, despite its numerous and varied definitions, is essentially a communications process. By engaging the academic literature of public diplomacy with Lasswell’s model of communication and Braddock’s rearticulation of his model, this paper proposes an integrated framework that allows for the systematization of public diplomacy research. The framework is composed of the independent variable of context, which influences a set of dependent variables: the actors, publics, messages, objectives and tools of public diplomacy. Accordingly, this paper argues that public diplomacy research has been traditionally approached from an agent-centric perspective, and despite its obvious significance, the influence of context has been understudied. In order to test the utility of the model, the paper applies it to the case study of the European Union’s public diplomacy during two different settings. First, it will expose the main characteristics of the EU’s public diplomacy during times of globalization, where the EU’s public diplomacy was characterized by its normativity. Subsequently, the current context of deglobalization and de-europeanization will be introduced and analyzed through the following research question: what happens to the EU’s public diplomacy when the founding myth upon which it is constructed is under threat? By altering the context, one can easily see an emerging but clear transformation of the characteristics of the EU’s public diplomacy. By analyzing official, policy, and legal documents, and engaging with the academic literature on the topic, the paper concludes that the main objective of the EU’s public diplomacy in a changing world should be to provide for ontological security through (emotional) strategic metanarratives.

Research on scandals is a privileged way to explore jointly media and political systems, and the links between them. In this article, we explore how the coverage of political corruption in digital native and paper newspapers has the characteristics of politically oriented scandals (Mancini, 2019), which are more common in polarized pluralist systems, like the Spanish one. To do so, we have studied the scandals related to the former King of Spain, Juan Carlos I. In the research, we have analyzed the evolution of media coverage on the topic between July 1, 2014, and March 1, 2021 in three different paper newspapers (El País, El Mundo and ABC). During this period, 889 journalistic pieces were published in these three newspapers. Also, we have conducted a quantitative and qualitative analysis of a sample of 334 pieces from the last year covered by the research (2020-2021) on El País, El Mundo and ABC and on digital natives El Español and elDiario.es. The results show a political instrumentalization of the scandal, media partisanship (the media support some political parties’ positions) in El País, elDiario.es and ABC; and ideological polarization (analyzed content presents two politically opposed groups) in ABC and elDiario.es.

Ibermedia is the most important institution in the Ibero-American audiovisual space. It was created as a result of a bottom-up project that aims to include stakeholders in policy-making. The paper investigates the participation of stakeholders in the Ibermedia decision-making in order to assess if it maintains its original cooperative character. We applied the salience theory to identify who and why is being taken into account by the organization. Our findings are based on a literature review, qualitative document analysis, and semi-structured expert interviews. The findings reveal that Ibermedia maintains its bottom-up proposal and the stakeholders can impact its policies. The interactions are marked by informal relations and affection. The stakeholders consider Ibermedia vital and are generally satisfied with its functioning, besides its low budget. The paper provides an overview of the internal functioning of Ibermedia, revealing the level of interaction with the stakeholders and contributes to add light in the lack of transparency.

This paper examines stakeholder communication and interaction dynamics in place branding processes in order to inform alternative participatory place branding models. The paper draws from critical communications and branding theory to argue that place brand identities are the result of mediated messages in the public sphere. Consequently, place branding processes need to be observed as communicative exchanges. Through a case study of Australia’s southern and only island state of Tasmania, the research employs participatory action research combined with the method of sociological intervention to explore stakeholders’ communicative interaction patterns and engagement in place branding processes. Participants representing formal and informal stakeholders engaged in communicating meaning about places were invited to participate in a series of interviews and focus group discussions that allowed a unique self-reflective process and analysis of practices and power-geometries. The proposed quasi-real scenario led to an understanding of the impediments for communication and to scoping alternative modes of engagement towards effective stakeholder communication to support the development of resilient place brand identities. The findings of the exploration contribute to theoretical development of the field by providing an analysis of the nature of stakeholder interactions and communication patterns, impediments and opportunities for greater communication and collaboration towards a common purpose. On a practical level, the study can also inform the development of participatory models of place brand development. Finally, the method proposed here can serve as a practical tool to foster stakeholder engagement in processes of cocreation of place brand identities.

Digitization of the communication medium has transformed the mute, marginalized ‘audience’ into a heterogeneous and credible content ‘producer.’ Drawing on this dynamics and operation of the digital media, it has urged the need to re-theorize ‘marginalization’ and ‘race.’ Hence, this paper critiques the digital-media tool, blogs, using a rhetoric-textual analysis method and critical discourse analysis method for the fictional text, Americanah. These methods employ the psychoanalytical-Althusserian critique of Adichie’s fictional narrative, Americanah. In the psychoanalytical sense, blog-writing can qualify as a mechanism of ‘sublimation’ in the post-modern world. In the Althusserian sense, blogs become persuasive mechanisms for a subject’s interpellation into non-dominant ideology. Among the plethora of marginalized global communities, African-Americans are enormously embracing the virtual communication trends for socio-political motives. This paper theorizes the correlations between race-related blogging, psychoanalytic sublimation, and the socio-political repudiation of power structure by employing the literary text as material evidence. Accordingly, the literary study has concluded that digital-mediums (i.e., in this case, political blogs) can depose the power vested in the ideological-state-apparatuses and impose a high potential for expression of unrestrained, credible, and democratic voice of the marginalized. It also validates that blogs/blogging influences and moulds national/political/racial discourses by lending a liberated voice and context-independent perspective to the racially oppressed.

While studies of live video streaming focus primarily on donations from an economic perspective and streamers’ endorsement of donations, our study draws attention to the phenomenon of unwanted content, particularly in the context of donations. The paper examines the behavior of gaming live streamers on two leading streaming platforms: YouTube and Twitch. Our study covered hundreds of hours of public live streams conducted by streamers from four countries. Recognizing the unequal roles of streamers and their audiences, we introduce the term ‘audience generated content’ (AGC) as a subset of user generated content (UGC). In the article, we present features and conditions that may cause streamers to be reluctant about the donations they receive. We also provide typology and characteristics of strategies to overcome unwanted donations. Since aversion to certain donations is often related to their hateful nature, our article also highlights the major flaws in algorithmic monitoring.

Since the emergence of Online Travel Reviews (OTRs), the collective co-creation of a destination brand image has been more evident than ever before. Stories and emotions expressed in these platforms by experienced tourists can significantly influence other users’ intention to visit. This study explores the extent to which political matters like the incidents that occurred during the last quarter of 2017 related with the Catalan independence process may have a negative impact on the brand image of a destination. This paper has used a specific methodology for content analysis of social media in the field of tourism to study the worst rated OTRs (one-star) of seven different attractions of Barcelona in three social media platforms that are able to geolocate places (TripAdvisor, Google Maps and Facebook) to determine the nature, discourses and the emotions raised. Although most complaints refer to the intrinsic problems of the attractions like high entrance prices and long queues due to tourism overcrowding, results reveal that OTR platforms also include tourists’ personal opinions on such issues as politics and religion. The originality of this research paper is that it delves into users’ co-creation of destination brand image through the analysis of negative OTRs and the emotions expressed in their comments.

Based on a conceptual review of the content analysis research method, this article identifies meta-research studies that confirm the relevance of this technique in the atomised field of communication sciences. In light of the empirical evidence, this study is based on an analysis of 262 papers that use this tool and were published in major Spanish-language journals between 2013 and 2017. At instrumental level, bibliometric exploration is combined with content analysis itself, considering 18 categories, such as authorship, funding, sampling method and reporting of intercoder reliability. The results indicate that there is a steady annual growth in the number of papers produced by researchers affiliated to Spanish universities. These papers have more than two authors on average and often lack additional financial resources. As for the implementation of the content analysis method, it is generally applied to non-probabilistic samples and does not involve any intercoder reliability assessment and reporting. A series of recommendations are offered for researchers in Spain and in Latin America to meet international standards.

This paper presents an explanation proposal about the meaning links that are produced when there is interaction of Brazilian women with counterintuitive ads, which show Afro-American women as protagonists of their discourses. It is a qualitative investigation oriented by the theoretical interconnection of perspectives of symbolic interactionism and mediatization studies, as basilar theoretical referential, and through the constructivist grounded theory, as a methodological approach. The results of this research enabled the articulation of the representative theoretical model “The Interaction experiences of Brazilian women with counterintuitive ad", from which this paper presents the core category “The everyday pain of racism of Brazilian black women and the effect of counterintuitive ads for its reduction”.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has emerged as one of the central topics of 2023 with extensive media coverage of the most relevant technologies and issues associated with this subject. In a highly competitive digital media landscape, search engine optimization (SEO) has become cybermedia’s primary strategy to increase visibility and attract more readers. The objective of this paper is to analyze the visibility of content published by the media relating to artificial intelligence, focusing on a selection of related keywords. The research also aims to investigate how this visibility has impacted both the technologies themselves and the analyzed media outlets. A total of 69 media outlets from 12 European Union countries, the United States, and the United Kingdom were examined. The results reveal a pronounced dominance of U.S. media, closely followed by Spanish media. There is an uneven distribution of media outlets across most of the countries analyzed, with two or three most of the of visibility. The search queries that contribute the most visibility to the analyzed media align with an informational intent, are of the long-tail type, and are associated with OpenAI technologies, particularly ChatGPT. Moreover, these queries are primarily found in news sections dedicated to science and technology. The findings underscore both the increasing interest in the subject and the effective SEO practices of certain media outlets.

Hospitals use different technological tools to implement corporate communication initiatives and, in this way, improve their relationships with stakeholders (employees, patients, media companies) and build a reputed brand. However, they face different barriers: limited budgets for corporate communication, strict legal frameworks, and stakeholders’ new needs regarding information and emotional support. This paper aims to analyze how the 100 best hospitals in the United States manage smart technologies to promote their brand. To do that, we conducted a literature review about smart hospitals, branding, and corporate communication; and then we defined 34 quantitative indicators to evaluate how the hospitals previously mentioned managed their websites, online newsrooms, about us sections, and artificial intelligence department web sites for reputation purposes. Our results proved that most hospitals respected indicators related to the homepage (8.67/11) but not those referring to online newsrooms (4.44/11) or about us sections (2.66/6). Besides, only 23 hospitals had implemented a department specialized in artificial intelligence that collaborated with external organizations. We concluded that most American hospitals focused their reputation efforts on patients rather than other targets (media companies, employees, suppliers, shareholders); and that these organizations did not integrate enough artificial intelligence projects into their smart branding initiatives.

The impact of artificial intelligence on people’s lives is demonstrated today. Previous literature has shown that the use of a specific technology is directly linked to the individuals’ intention to use it. The aim of this paper is to study the factors that determine the adoption and use of artificial intelligence and big data in Spain, using a research model based on the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT), proposed by Venkatesh et al. (2003). This work addresses the specific gap in the validation of the original theoretical model of UTAUT in two dimensions, with respect to the adoption of artificial intelligence by citizens and with respect to the factors that influence this adoption, evaluating the previous ones and proposing some new ones considering the current context. The methodology used is based on a national survey, and it analyzes the research model using the statistical technique of Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM), which details the mediating and moderating relationships between constructs. The results show that Intention to Use has a direct positive influence on the Use of artificial Intelligence and big data, confirming previous literature. Performance Expectancy is the strongest predictor of Intention to Use, and indirectly of the adoption of artificial intelligence and big data applications. Effort Expectancy, in its application to the adoption of AI and big data by citizens, is an indirect determinant mediated by the Intention to Use, but its total effect (direct + indirect) is not significant.

The consolidation of digital television via subscription video on demand (SVOD) services has created an unprecedented increase in the consumption of serialised TV shows, which has had direct consequences on the content production sector. Faced with an increasingly demanding, hyperconnected and discerning audience and a supply of content never previously seen, television production and distribution strategies are involved in a process of change and adaptation. This paper seeks to analyse the production of Spanish television series created to be distributed on SVOD platforms. The aim is to know the role that production companies play in the creation of television series for SVOD so as to identify strategies and cooperative alliances between production companies and platforms and to detect possible patterns and trends in the operations of the audiovisual market. Using a mixed methodology that combines quantitative study with qualitative data analysis, the 88 Spanish TV series and miniseries that premiered on SVOD platforms from 2016 to 2021 are analysed, taking as a starting point the year in which these platforms began operating in Spain. The results confirm a trend towards cooperation between independent production companies and the platforms themselves, while no presence of in-house production is observed. Likewise, the atomisation of the role of production companies in the context of SVOD is shown, a phenomenon that already existed in generalist television production.

This paper originates from the results of the EU financed project, ECOPSI, which advanced understanding about the professional competences of European public relations and communication managers. The paper focuses on deficiencies in competences that practitioners identify for themselves and on the needs for the future generation that will perform four professional roles: chief communication officer (CCO), crisis communication, social media, and internal communication. Questions to understand the roles and their future requirements were defined around: means for achievement of current competences to perform the role, competence gaps, specialized competences, and future needs. They were explored with qualitative methodology through 53 in depth interviews. The analysis of data shows that European professionals understand and evaluate their way of performing the practice through a complex framework of competences. The findings provide evidence of synergies in the understanding and interpretation of the four roles and there is common identification of on-going gaps and future needs, suggesting that public relations is a maturing discipline with an accumulated set of standards in Europe. The study also targets the capacity of intervention for advancing the profession to an approach of knowledge acquisition and supporting the previous academic consensus about the necessity of a body of knowledge and specialized skills for professionalization

This paper is part of a research project that looks at how management of intangible assets can play a role to rebuild trust in the public sector. More specifically, it looks at legitimacy conceptualized as an intangible asset. The aim is to explore the logic of legitimacy judgments about public organizations and to assess whether there is congruence between a ministry (and the minister)’s actions and how the media perceive and assess them. Four types of legitimacy are examined: ‘Procedural’, based on evaluations of the soundness of the ministry’s procedures and processes; ‘Consequential’, which regards outcomes, results and achievements of the ministry’s public policies; ‘Structural’ refers to buildings, working policies, budgets and resources; and finally, ‘Personal legitimacy’ regards judgments which refer to the minister. It is also analyzed whether these dynamics of the legitimacy judgment followed a hybridization logic between online and offline organizational communication and between online and offline media. The analysed organization is the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports, 2011-2015. Based on findings, the paper discusses practical implications for government communication legitimacy strategies.

Criticism in journalism has become a core accountability instrument, especially in recent years, thanks to the Internet and Web 2.0 technology. This paper presents part of an international study of journalism ethics, focusing on Spanish journalists relationship with criticism. The paper analyzes how they express, receive and value criticism, comparing their opinions to those of journalists in the international sample. An online survey was administered to 123 Spanish journalists, from an international sample composed of 1762 professionals. Most Spanish journalists responded that they express criticism “occasionally” or “frequently”, as did their international colleagues. They especially do so through direct communication with colleagues (42.1%), even if with a lower frequency compared to the overall sample, or through online blog comments (38.8%), with a higher frequency compared to the rest of the participants. On the other hand, Spanish journalists claim to have received criticism from their supervisors (90%) and colleagues (86.6%), like the overall sample does. But they report having received a greater number of complaints than the overall sample from regulatory and self-regulatory bodies (e.g.: ombudsman 21.8%), from users/citizens (63.9%), and from the public though social media (52.9%). Finally, Spanish journalists consider the criticism they receive as less fair than does the overall sample, although they rate criticism from audience members as less unfair. The paper suggests that Spanish journalists do not employ peer criticism to the same degree as their international colleagues, but they do strongly associate the idea of transparency and accountability with their audience.

Speculative fiction is based on one main question: what if? This paper addresses the question of how audiences interpret such interrogative. In particular, our main interest lies in knowing how the different political ideologemes that may inhabit speculative fiction are signified. Thus, in this study we have focused on the genre of dystopia. To this end, a total of five focus groups were carried out. Specifically, the ideologemes tested in the reception study belong to socialism, conservatism, neoliberalism, liberalism and religious fundamentalism. The significance of these ideological values is empirically grounded in extensive qualitative research.

The advent and spread of social networking sites have been the object of study of most of the research performed on political communication over the past 25 years. However, more recent inquiries have indicated that the political establishment still has not fully exploited the interactive potential of these media. Against this backdrop, this paper presents the results of a systematic study of the communication between the main political parties in Andalusia (the most populous region in Spain) and the citizenry on Twitter, with the aim of confirming whether or not it is really interactive and participatory. To this end, the spotlight is placed here on those parties most active online and on the way in which they foster interactivity, the subjects that they broach and the functions of their messages. The data were obtained from a content analysis of the tweets (n = 10,729) posted on the official profiles of the main Andalusian parties in 2020. The results indicate that there was no interactive communication with the citizenry, despite the fact that they were in much need of reassurance owing to the unprecedented situation to which the COVID-19 pandemic had given rise. The Andalusian political parties still use social networking sites for the one-way dissemination of information, which shows that they are not, in practice, horizontal and participatory spaces of communication, as the cyber-optimists, defending the innovation hypothesis, predicted.

This paper focuses on the concept of the impact area as the intersection between the common issues of the personal agenda and the public agenda. Expanding the concept of agenda-setting effects, which focuses mainly on the relation between the public and media agendas, we have examined the congruity of the public agenda and the personal agenda as a contingent condition for the strength of these effects. The concept also distinguishes between the top-priority issues of the public and personal agendas, setting out that the general public’s search for information about these top-priority issues highlights the need for orientation. We used data from Spain to focus on the national elections (2011, 2015 and 2019), plus the beginning of the pandemic (2020). The study includes a content analysis of the El País daily newspaper for the four periods and a variety of surveys and representative electoral barometers. To those data we have added an analysis of the main search topics on Google Trends for each of the four years. The results reveal that variations in the relationship between the public and personal agendas are linked to the strength of the agenda-setting effect between the media and public agendas.

In recent years we have witnessed a resurgence of populism, which has relied on the virality of social networks to deepen its roots in society and spread its ideas. This paper analyses the populist strategies used by all parties to viralise their messages in the online environment, regardless of ideology. The present research has also examined the possible existence of complementary strategies used by the parties’ organisational profiles and those of their leaders. To this end, a content analysis has been carried out regarding the publications made on Twitter during the 2019 election campaign. The posts have been delimited to those made by the parties and candidates that attained the highest percentage of representation in the Congress of Deputies, which include the PSOE, PP, Vox, and Unidas Podemos. The findings show that all the parties under study resorted to this type of strategy. The parties closest to centre of the political spectrum, both right and left, used mostly a populist strategy aimed predominantly at attacking their adversaries, while Vox and Unidas Podemos articulated their discourse beyond this argument, with Vox appealing to the emotions of the nation and Podemos positioning itself as the peoples’ advocate. Furthermore, a complementary strategy used by both the parties and their leaders has been identified, which fosters the expansion of these kinds of populist ideas.

This research paper aims to shed a critical light on the moral panic surrounding multiple-perpetrator rape (MPR) in Spain, by exploring the interplay between official statistics of this type of crime, and the depiction in the media. The concordance between media representation and the statistical reality of crime raises questions: (1) how multiple perpetrator assault and its assailants are represented in media narratives (content analysis) is examined, including the content, framing, and underlying themes within the media coverage, with a particular emphasis on the role of nationality, and (2) this representation is compared to official crime statistics (Ministry of Home Affairs report on crimes against sexual freedom and indemnity in Spain (detentions/accused) and the statistics of the sentences passed by various Spanish Provincial Courts between 2005 and 2020 from criminal justice data), and to what extent, they align. If they do not align, do news portrayals influence a moral panic? In conclusion, the idea of tabloid justice (Fox et al., 2001) is not present in the three largest Spanish daily newspapers from 2005 to 2021. There is a misrepresentation of non-Spanish nationalities having the highest rates, Romanians being underrepresented and the French being overrepresented. Media coverage perceives tourists as a certain danger, and is questioning the idea of certain non-Spanish immigrants as ‘folk devils.’

This article examines how the Spanish cybermedia use Facebook and Twitter for their daily informative activity. Based on a content analysis –qualitative and quantitative variables–, this paper studies where the shared URLs link to, the relevance and the thematic profile of the news, and the probability of participation in each case. In addition, the selected sample helps to check if the media matrix influences the informative activity of online media on social platforms. This paper concludes how the socialized information works when it is published on Facebook and Twitter by cybermedia.

This paper has two objectives. First, it attempts to show the evolution of companies in the management of intangibles: brand, communication, CSR, etc. Furthermore, it aims to define the current framework of corporate reputation. In the development of the paper, in addition to literature sources, in-depth interviews have been used with executives of pioneer companies in the implementation of corporate reputation. Interviews were also directed specifically towards experts in the management of intangibles. The conclusion is that a holistic management of intangibles is now necessary and proposes an evolution of the Dircom towards a new role: Chief Communication and Reputation Officer or Chief Reputation Officer, as a corporate reputation strategist.

The main aim of this paper is to identify the values conveyed by Spanish makeover reality television. There are two aspects that make these programmes relevant study objects: first, their widespread presence in Spanish television schedules, and second, the role they play in constructing the social imaginary due to their didactic and prescriptive nature. We analysed six Spanish makeover reality shows, Cambio Radical, Desnudas, Esta casa era una ruina, Supernanny, Hermano Mayor and Ajuste de Cuentas, using a methodology that combines narrative semiotics and the analysis of narrative form (plot/syhuzet) and audiovisual style. This paper summarises the main research results and conclusions of a doctoral thesis presented in September 2010.

The aim of this paper is to analyse the causes and consequences of the latest reform of RTVE by tracing the history of the corporation, and to explore the impact that the changes and the abolishment of advertising have had on the company, especially on its funding, programming and content production. To carry out the study, primary sources from internal company documentation were used, as well as secondary sources such as academic papers and press reports. The primary focus of this study is economic.

This paper explores editorials and opinion columns published in four Chilean mainstream newspapers and analyzes how China is represented within the context of Chinese economic advances in the region and the contextual narratives surrounding bilateral relations. Through a content analysis of editorials and opinion pieces of elite media between 2018 and 2021, this study allows an understanding of how China and its growing influence are perceived locally. Ultimately, despite an overall alignment with China’s public diplomacy centered around an economic-commercial dimension, there are still nuances in how China is represented in Chilean op-eds.

This article aims to build a better understanding of today’s communicative changes of public diplomacy in the post-truth era. Today, our communication environment has changed compared to decades ago: about 5 billion people communicate online and compete among themselves through their social media narratives, which are the main platform for the distribution of fake news in the post-truth era. The question posed here is: what are the winning narratives in the complex global environment of public diplomacy? Through problematizing review, this article analyses the sources of soft power which were described at the end of the Cold War, and which remain effective even in today’s communication environment. Also, the purpose and influence of public diplomacy has been problematized, analysing how to influence foreign government by influencing its citizens. The paper concludes that the values of soft power described three decades ago only have limited and specific effects on non-European publics, but not on European ones. Additionally, it is impossible to influence European governments by influencing their publics through public diplomacy because the context has changed and the values of soft power in these countries no longer have the former distinctive gap between them.

This paper aims to deepen our understanding of the relationship between young people in Mexico and disinformation, while shedding light on their practices and perceptions around this phenomenon. I have chosen a qualitative perspective to delve into the ways that Mexican college students interact and deal with the growing problem of false news in the current media landscape. Thus, I conducted semi-structured interviews (N = 28) using an elicitation technique, during which participants were exposed to real samples of disinformation content to encourage a conversation around the type of false news that they come across in their daily lives. Results reveal nuances in the ways that college students prefer social media over traditional media, even though they report finding more disinformation in the former. They also show the impact that students’ attitudes and habits have on their relationship with disinformation. Moreover, the study presents evidence that college students critically question disinformation, do not take it at face value, and are not prone to share it. However, findings also highlight differences related to the format in which the false content is presented. For example, TikTok videos were more likely to effectively deceive the viewer, more so than images shared on Facebook. Students also believe that older people are more likely to believe in disinformation, potentially indicating a third-person effect of this content. Lastly, this exploration emphasizes the need to further examine the broader consequences of disinformation and believing in false content, such as a reduced interest in political information.

The present age is called the age of communication. Undoubtedly, in all matters of the world, the most incredible information is on the shoulders of the mass media. Today, the media have influenced the identity of contemporary man by expanding geographical, cultural and political boundaries so that the identity of modern man can be called media identity. The increasing role of new means of mass communication in various parts of human life has led to multiple fields. One area that social media have influenced in the present age is political participation. The present paper sought to test the effect of social media on the Iranian citizens’ willingness to electoral participation political actions using the World Values Survey (WVS) wave 7 data release (49 countries/territories). The results show that social media indirectly, through the mediator variable of political trust, reduces the willingness of individuals to participate in elections. Moreover, the results show that social media, both directly and indirectly, increases citizens’ willingness to engage in political protests.

Recent technological advances have significantly impacted news media in the way they provide news to the public, evolving into a digital environment. Therefore, digital media today focuses on generating readers’ loyalty to their news websites. In this sense, a multiple linear regression analysis was carried out on a sample of 344 surveys of adult residents in the cities of Mexico and Monterrey. The results show that factors such as familiarity, satisfaction and reputation are positively related to the loyalty of news website users. However, they also show that the importance of the impact of these factors is different when the analysis is carried out in a stratified manner, such as residence, gender or education, which allows us to conclude that digital media can guide their loyalty efforts depending on the profile of their readers and the market they seek to target. To illustrate focusing on stratification by place of residence, the most significant factors for the Mexico City group corresponded to familiarity and satisfaction, wile for the Monterrey group the most significant factors were reputation and familiarity in that order. Results with this type of differences between groups were also obtained when comparing by gender and schooling. It is recommended for future research on the subject, to include other cities within the country, with the purpose of contrasting these paper’s findings.

Cartoons have been and still are a fundamental genre in children’s television programming and are a key product for the media industry due to their easy interpretation by children and their presence in distribution channels. This paper presents an analysis of the supply of children’s and cartoons broadcast over the last decade on 25 European general-interest television channels, both public and private, of Germany, Spain, France, Italy and the United Kingdom. The research findings focus on the genre programming strategies applied in terms of channels, broadcasting time slots and types of production in a multiplatform context driven by the consumption of digital content through streaming and SVOD services. The results show the continued leadership of cartoons in an environment of scarcity of children’s supply on European generalist television channels, reaffirming itself as a morning and weekend product highly shaped by commercial logics. However, distinctive programmatic policies are prominent in the role of public broadcasters in the supply of domestic products, both due to the broadcasting quotas of local cartoons and the consistency of their strategy over the period 2010-2020.

Cancer hospitals enforce different initiatives to accelerate digital transformation, such as mobile health or artificial intelligence. Nevertheless, some health professionals are not willing to adopt these technologies. In order to change some employees’ perspectives, these hospitals resort to social media platforms. This paper aims to evaluate how the worlds’ best cancer hospitals manage social media platforms, as well as their corporate website, with the aim of disseminating brand-related content and reinforce their reputation. Therefore, we reviewed literature on cancer hospitals’ corporate communication strategies, brand, social media platforms and online patient communities. We then resorted to 48 quantitative indicators to analyze how the 200 best cancer hospitals in the world managed Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, as well as their corporate website, for branding purposes. In order to identify the 200 best hospitals, we explored the World’s Best Specialized Hospitals 2021, an annual ranking published by Newsweek and Statista. The 48 indicators covered different elements concerning the hospitals’ identity and communication activities, as well as patient engagement on social media platforms. Our quantitative analysis proved that most cancer hospitals had a corporate website (70.5%) as well as a profile on Facebook (74%), Twitter (74.5%) and YouTube (67.5%). Nevertheless, most of them did not respect the 48 key performance indicators. Finally, we proposed three main conclusions: a) cancer hospitals should establish a Corporate Communication Department employing different experts in communication, health and big data; b) they should promote an integrated corporate communication approach; and c) they should implement brand ambassador programmes.

This paper addresses circumstantially the different ways in which the Seville satirical weeklies El Tío Clarín (1864-1867) and La Campana (1867-1868) –the latter replacing the former after its suspension– might have been read. By studying their editorial strategies on the basis of the footprints left by their editors, it is possible to determine how satirical journalism participated in the socialisation of print culture, which developed into informational graphics, despite the paradoxical confluence of three factors: the political instability in the final years of the reign of Isabella II, the tight censorship to which the press was subjected in 1867 and the slow but continuous progress in modernising the publishing market. Based on the combination of satirical cartoons, humour and popular genres, both weeklies made current affairs more accessible through critical reasoning and by appealing to the senses, with revealing indications of the simultaneous ways of addressing such a subject. Textual reading gave way to the graphic kind, reading aloud to doing so in silence, while the spaces in which this occurred, between the public (the street) and the private sphere (the parlour at home), and the collectives involved, namely, women and children, were determined. It was these ways of relating to the two weeklies, established by their readerships, that were behind the popularity of the satirical press before the Glorious Revolution of 1868 and the transition to publication capitalism.

While the scholarly consensus is that VOX is a far-right political party in European terms, questions remain regarding whether or not its politics contain elements of populism. This research paper explores the Twitter and Instagram strategy deployed by Santiago Abascal, leader of VOX, during the 10 November 2019 general election campaign to assess whether his messaging includes characteristic features of populist rhetoric, to analyze the uses to which he puts social media, and to understand the features of the leadership he projects via social networks. The research methodology is content analysis applied to the 136 and 26 posts on Abascal’s Twitter and Instagram accounts, respectively, during the election campaign. The findings suggest that Abascal’s discourse is marked by a conservative and nativist form of Spanish nationalism; however, it is also shaped by an anti-establishment rhetoric and antagonistic message that pits la España Viva [‘Living Spain’] against la dictadura progre [‘the progressive dictatorship’], reflecting the inclusion of some features of populism. A further conclusion is that these social media platforms are the preferred propaganda tools used to communicate the candidate’s agenda, although each network evinces certain distinctive characteristics: Twitter channels a polarizing message via aggressive and critical rhetoric, whereas Instagram posts are designed to show the human side of the candidate’s profile. Thus, it would seem that the aim is to articulate a populist-inflected form of charismatic leadership.

The United Kingdom’s departure from the European Union (broadly known as Brexit) is one of the most outstanding historical events of the 21st Century to date. Two major figures have led this process politically: Theresa May and Boris Johnson, the two Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom since 2016. This paper, however, focuses on the former, as she is a female politician in a controversial situation, and thus the way she is presented can serve an example of how women in power are represented by the media. This research was designed with the aim of discovering the roles attributed to Theresa May by Spanish digital media throughout this process. The fact that people in Spain are becoming deeply concerned with women’s advances in society was motivated the desire to test how Spanish media represent female leaders, such as May. To complete this study, fifty-four publications from three different Spanish digital media leaders of audience (El Mundo, El País and El Español) were taken as a reference. The methodological procedure used was Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), based on semantic relationships, and although some comparisons between relative and absolute frequencies were made, the general approach is basically qualitative. Through this analysis, it has been discovered that Theresa May is presented in a different way depending on the remaining characters, usually masculine, who participate in the action. These differences are mainly observable between those articles in which May relates to her European counterparts and those in which she deals with her British colleagues.

New technologies allow politicians to spread their messages omitting the role of mediators. In this context, the Internet has also promoted the emergence of a new actor, digital opinion leaders, who go beyond traditional politics and seek to set the public agenda. One of the main questions nowadays is whether social media, and in particular Twitter as a consolidated tool for political communication, is only used as a sounding board for their political statements, spurring the messages of populist forces. With this in mind, the main objective of this research is to explore the influence of the far-right in the public debate of political leaders on Twitter, analyzing the specific case of the Andalusian regional elections held in December 2018. These elections can be considered a political turning point, with an extreme right party winning seats in a Spanish regional election for the first time in 35 years. In this paper we analyze if Vox used a differentiated strategy via this social network compared to the candidates of the traditional parties: PSOE, PP, Ciudadanos, and Adelante Andalucía. Using content analysis on Twitter as a method, this research determines how Vox candidates worked as influencers of the digital political debate, despite being extra-parliamentary. Vox marked the agenda for the rest of the leaders, while generating great expectation among the audience.

How to make sense of post-truth? As the erosion of truth seems to be on the rise in contemporary societies, apparently threatening the deliberative function assigned to their public spheres and the health of democratic systems, it has become a necessity to deal with this controversial phenomenon. This paper provides a genealogy for post-truth, shedding light on its roots. It focus on three different dimensions of “post-truthfulness:” the philosophical dimension, which relates to the long theoretical debate about the possibility of truth, the conclusion of which is largely skeptical about a strong position on universally recognizable truths; the affective dimension, which takes into account the insights provided by contemporary literature on emotions; and the technological dimension, that is, the digital transformation of the public sphere. The convergence of these currents explains the rise of post-truth democracies. However, as the last section tries to demonstrate, a distinction between different types of truth is required, lest post-truth theories end up producing a nostalgia for something that never existed. After all, liberal democracies are themselves skeptical, their relationship with truth being unavoidably complex and ambiguous. Thus, distinguishing between post-truth and post-factualism can be useful for organizing the democratic conversation from a normative and practical standpoint.

This paper investigates the evolution of non-daily current affairs formats –other than the news– in the prime time of Spanish generalist television between 1990 and 2016. Analysing the programming content of six channels (TVE, La2, Antena 3, Telecinco, Cuatro and La Sexta), we have studied the presence, typology and strategies of the programmers to incorporate them into the offer of prime time. The longitudinal sample allows us to detect the tendencies that have influenced the audiovisual treatment of the non-daily current affairs information in the most competitive television time slot. The result of the analysis shows that the most important topics on current affairs such as politics, or the economy, have been integrated into the prime time. In addition, there has been a recovery of analytical genres such as the television reportage to explain topics of current interest. This new informative offer, much more innovative in the treatment, has enabled new programming strategies to be applied to the non-daily current affairs formats in order to improve their profitability.

In recent years, digital feminism has been prominent in the international public sphere and the massive release of individual testimonies of violence against women has had an important presence on social media. In Spain, the reaction to the judicial sentence of the La Manada case, which only convicted the five men accused of abuse, rather than rape, provoked a public outrage that was negotiated on social networks and was later displayed in mass demonstrations across the country. The aim of this study is to analyze the reaction that took place on Twitter on the day of the ruling of the sentence (26 April 2018) and how the dominant frames were initiated and stabilized on Twitter. With a sample of almost 500.000 tweets, the posts achieving most retweets per hour and the most salient media objects (including hashtags, visual content and links) have been analyzed based on the framing theory. Media objects have been explored through flowcharts allowing the visualization of the evolution of the dominant messages. The results show a hegemonic conversation on Twitter against the ruling of the court with a high presence of feminist demands. Furthermore, the analysis of the evolution of the main frames shows that the different Twitter affordances allow rapidity in the negotiation of the dominant messages. This paper contributes to the understanding of the articulation of framing from a complex perspective including media objects such as images and URLs that broaden the layers of meaning of the Twitter discourse on collective actions.

According to diverse reports and studies, islamophobia has become a social threat in the European context. Also, several investigations indicate that Muslim women are the main victims of this type of hostility (gender islamophobia), and stress that the media shows a stereotyped image of Muslim women. This paper aims to the study, from the theory of framing, the media image of Muslim women in the Spanish press. The study focuses on the news related to the controversy arising in 2016 by the prohibition of the burkini in some regions in Europe, and the subsequent reopening of the debate on the prohibition of the integral veil in Germany. For this purpose, a quantitative content analysis has been applied to 152 news items published regarding this issue by the five newspapers with the largest circulation in Spain (El País, El Mundo, La Vanguardia, El Periódico and ABC). The analysis consists on an exploratory study to identify the news frames following the scale of Semetko and Valkenburg (2000). In addition, an original methodological design has been applied to study the specific frames regarding Muslim women. The results indicate that, in most cases, the media representation of Muslim women focuses on the “victim” and “threat” frames, even though the “victim” frame appears to a greater extent.

Due to Instagram’s growing popularity in Spain, politicians have also begun to turn to this social network increasingly more. Accordingly, this paper analyses the visual and textual discourse of 259 posts published throughout 2018 on the personal Instagram profile of Santiago Abascal, the leader of the party Vox. Insofar as he is the Spanish politician with the highest number of followers on Instagram, the aim here is to analyse how he uses this social network in order to identify possible strategies that justify his growing number of followers. In the analysis, special attention was paid to aspects that might have contributed to the (self)presentation of Abascal and the promotion of his party, such as posting personal information and the direct involvement with his followers. The results show that consistent with the use to which Spanish politicians put Instagram, Abascal’s profile highlights his ‘political’ dimension and, specifically, his agenda. Personal content (such as references to leisure or sports) are used strategically to highlight certain features of his persona and ideology. The predominance of unedited images, the framing of the photos and appeals to his followers are some of the clues that reveal that, rather than providing access to his personal life, Abascal’s use of Instagram is the result of a carefully planned promotional strategy.

Social networking sites and mobile communication have progressively encouraged the proliferation of certain surveillance and control practices employed by users on a daily basis. Platforms like Facebook and Instagram and devices such as mobile phones have normalised forms of horizontal surveillance, which have begun to be accepted by citizens as the norm. Thus, this paper examines a series of lateral and social surveillance practices that demonstrate a more deliberate and reprehensible behaviour on the part of users by focusing on the conflicts arising from the lack of privacy and control and the deficient management of inappropriate or annoying content in the social networking site environment. To this end, 311 students of the Universidad de Sevilla aged between 18 and 26 were asked to fill in a questionnaire. The survey results show that the majority of the respondents acknowledged having felt being spied on social networking sites, as well as having ended up at loggerheads with acquaintances as a consequence of having shared personal content with others. Lastly, it is apparent that, despite present concerns about the absence of privacy and control and inappropriate or annoying content, users believe that these are risks well worth running for the sake of sharing on social media.

This paper explores and describes how Colombian and Spanish young people present themselves on Instagram according to the social game and the symbolic capital that they infer as normative from influencers. The methodology used combines the focus group technique (seven groups) with a content analysis of the profiles of the informants (N = 651). In total, 53 first-year creative industries university students participated. The results show that the work developed by the influencers has given rise to an aspirational narrative genre that young people tend to emulate according to the Instagram habitus in order to be recognised as leading players. Their self-presentation has three main features: a) a preference for showing ‘in-classifying’ practices such as leisure and tastes for freedom; b) the predominance of a specific type of profile and gestures that avoids self-production markers and aspires towards a global audience; and c) the normalisation of self-promotional discourse. Most informants experience Instagram as a game in which they compete to accumulate visibility conceived as relational validation, although in the case of Colombian informants there is a more professional outlook towards the platform. Finally, for all of them, Instagram constitutes a serious game, and many of them admit to feeling too exposed. As a result, they have implemented self-surveillance practices, such as consulting with peers before posting photographs, using secondary accounts and deleting posts.

This paper proposes the delimitation of a literary territory, or of certain speech acts as a form of expression specifically dissociated from religious and philosophical discourses, and the corresponding adaptation of such acts to the small and big screens. Expropriations, or confidences by characters on the verge of death, are used as a trope to convey this specific idea. They refer to a kind of speech that no longer bears the weight of worldly events, but that does not attempt to ignore the consequences of having been in the world. With this reconceptualization of the term, this article seeks to identify an ethics of the human intensity in three specific sequences: two stories for cinema and television –Visconti’s The Leopard, and the final episode of Brideshead Revisited– and André Gide’s “literary testament,” Et nunc manet in te.

This paper analyses the pre-professional journalistic culture of Ecuador, Cuba and Venezuela based on the degree of permissiveness held by Journalism students in regard to controversial ethical practices and their views of the media and the journalistic profession. We surveyed a probabilistic sample of 1,273 students from 21 universities enrolled on their first course (Ecuador=500, Venezuela=390, Cuba=383) in 2016. The results show that future journalists are reluctant to accept questionable journalistic practices, and hold a pessimistic view as to the quality and confidence of the media and the profession. We found that the degree of permissiveness is related to the perceived risk-reward analysis in terms of the quality of journalism in Cuba and Ecuador, and that the student perceptions of ethics differ in Venezuela and Ecuador. We conclude that, despite their political similarities in terms of having left-wing Governments, perceptions in the three countries diverge.