Sistema Regional de Información
en línea para Revistas Científicas de América Latina,
el Caribe, España y Portugal

Democratic participation still is the way forward for societies that seek permanent peace through the exercise of active citizenship. Since 2012, the European Citizens’ Initiative instrument has emerged in the process of drafting legislative acts of the European Union. One of the facets of this citizenship is to enable citizens to become involved in decision-making through participation in the exercise of legislative initiative. The Lisbon Treaty introduced the right to the ECI. The aim is to actively involve citizens in the European decision-making, giving them an indirect form of legislative initiative. Information technologies (IT) are the essence of up-to-date organizations in general, and changes in this field are occurring at an uncontrollable pace, interrupting traditional models and forcing organizations to implement new models, new ways of working and communicating. In this context, the European Commission, not ignoring the relevance and transformations inherent in the use of IT, has included its use in several areas, namely in the European Citizens’ Initiative. In this research is analysed how much a platform available in the European Citizens’ Initiative context is used in petitions and the evolution of this same use until the completion of the review in 2018.

This paper analyses the evolution of citizen participation in the preparation of municipal budgets in Madrid, as well as the role of public communication in the process. To this end, the three years in which citizen collaboration has been requested (2016, 2017 and 2018), have been compiled, and after analyzing the data, it has been concluded that there is growing interest by citizens in these participation mechanisms, although the figures are still quite small. Moreover, it has been shown that these organized groups play an important role in presenting proposals. Finally, it has been determined that participation requires a previous process of deliberation and a certain degree of expert knowledge in order for the results to be viable and sustainable, not only desirable.

The objective of this research is to analyze the role of social networks in digital public diplomacy as well as citizen participation in validating the positions and interests of States and governments. It is based on three phases of content analysis: a) internal analysis of the content or publication b) causes c) effects. For one year (2017-2018), the posts of four States, two European and two American, were followed up as case studies. Special attention was paid to the social networks of heads of state in relation to issues of international interest, and a comparison was made through content analysis. From July 2017 onward, a systemization of the posts encountered was initiated. The main results show an active, participatory role on the part of public users– citizens. We can speak of the phenomenon of the global citizen (Martínez, 2004). For their part, decision makers/ government leaders have an active role in social networks and seek to communicate and validate their actions, almost from the moment they make or announce their decisions, in order to know the reactions of citizens. States make use of social networks in the context of what is defined as digital public diplomacy.

This paper aims to conduct a historical and conceptual review of authorship in television production, taking auteur theory applied to the television media as a reference. For this purpose, the qualitative methodology has been used to carry out a bibliographic and documentary analysis of the author concept in the film and television industry. Despite the collaborative nature of television production, the results obtained suggest the importance of the TV series executive producer’s individual authorship during this process, who is also known as the “showrunner”. They are ultimately responsible for the project’s production, applying a creative and personal style to their entire work. The authorship, influenced by the television channel and the audience, promotes the consideration of fiction TV series as a quality cultural product, which affects its promotional strategies.

Every discourse is intertwined in a complex network of other discourses, institutions, power relations, and symbolic production, the importance of which is decisive in shaping the social realm. The bodies of these discourses are the object of this study, which reflects on the mediation feature of typefaces. Through an analysis of the use of Blackletter characters during the Nazi period and the previous struggle between Blackletter and Roman characters during the Renaissance, the research exemplifies the cultural processes involved in forms of visualization in the digital age. The impact of information technology affects the creation of the modern collective imaginary which modernity uses to justify its own dynamic, its cultural and cognitive narratives, and its historical development. Typography is a central element of this contemporary collective imaginary, and while it is a sign, it becomes the setting for the struggle between different definitions and meanings: a battle for the possession of the sign that extends to the most trivial areas of everyday life. That is the reason why typeface shouts.

Productions carried out during the third golden age of television enjoy widespread popularity today. Within some of the TV series in this category, women who hold positions of power can occasionally be found as in the TV show analyzed in this article, which is Vikings. In this series, one of the main protagonists, Lagertha, amasses great admiration from the female audience. In order to know if this success corresponds to the reality of the character (her personality and the actions she takes), this study will carry out an analysis to determine the archetype of the protagonist and to develop a semiotic study of the character and her power relations with other subjects.

Many authors agree on the current relevance of brutalist web design, a trend inspired by the popular architectural style which, in turn, is distinguished by the rawness of its materials, the geometric shapes or the absence of decoration. This study uses Content Analysis to discover whether it is possible to interpret web-brutalism as a movement with distinctive features and, if this is found to be the case, to make a description of the term based on visual communication techniques as the main variable. After evaluating 50 websites from the catalogue of Brutalist Websites, the study concludes that the most recent meaning refers to a highly heterogeneous movement whose works, based mainly on visual tension, only share the attributes of provocation and creative freedom, which brings it closer to other contemporary trends in postmodern graphic design, such as New Ugly.

This study analyses toy advertising broadcast in Spain over the 2014/15 Christmas period. The goal is to begin a quantitative review of how family is represented in commercials. Initially, it reviews the concepts of childhood, relates them to the concept of socialisation and offers a short analysis of the advertising phenomenon. The results evaluate the presence of types of emotions, values and actions associated with the gender of the characters featured, and the frequency of parent– and grandparent–character appearances in toy ads targeting children is quantified. The limited presence of these characters establishes a basis for discussion about the role of said characters as necessary figures of reference and authority in child development. A final reflection is also proposed regarding the homogeneity of the representations of gender associated with the characters’ roles, for both adults and children. Lastly, this paper justifies interest in widening the study to international level, to make it possible to check the degree of similarity and of contrast in said representations as a way to contribute to understanding and viewing the family in advertising discourses.

Los métodos de comunicación síncrona en los entornos virtuales de aprendizaje son una realidad cada vez más presente en la universidad. Sin embargo, aún no conocemos de forma sistemática cómo los profesores conciben estas tecnologías en la práctica. Este estudio tiene por objetivo explorar la práctica declarada de profesores de enseñanza superior con la plataforma Blackboard Collaborate. Con tal fin, se entrevistó individualmente a ocho docentes del Departamento de Psicología de una universidad a distancia. Se indagó acerca de su uso real, uso ideal y su valoración global de la plataforma. Los resultados indican que las profesoras emplean la plataforma Blackboard Collaborate con distintos objetivos y en diversos formatos, pero que en las prácticas más habituales prima más la transmisión de información que la construcción de conocimiento. Según el profesorado, el uso ideal de la videoconferencia implicaría aumentar el número de sesiones, fomentar la participación del alumnado, incrementar su dominio del contenido y cambiar el rol de docentes y discentes. A la hora de valorar la herramienta, las participantes tienen como marco de referencia la enseñanza cara a cara y apuntan en relación a ésta varias ventajas, pero también ciertas limitaciones. No obstante, su valoración global de Blackboard Collaborate es positiva. A partir de estos resultados se plantean implicaciones para la formación de los docentes y para el diseño de futuras investigaciones en estos entornos virtuales síncronos.

This paper considers MALL as an effective instruction method to develop teens' writing performance. The results indicated participants' development of content and ideas, organization and mechanics, vocabulary, and language use. The comparison of the experimental groups (viz. Smart teens & Amazing teens) with the control groups showed a noticeable development.