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

This article analyses public subsidies for the media awarded by Spain’s autonomous communities in the years 2018, 2019 and 2020. The aim is to establish the amounts and the number of beneficiaries, as well as what such subsidies represent as a proportion of the main beneficiaries’ operating incomes. To that end, 38 calls for applications for subsidies issued by nine autonomous communities were analysed, as were their respective decisions. The total amounts, the itemised subsidies received by each media outlet, and the three main beneficiaries per call have been identified. For the main beneficiaries, the subsidies as a proportion of their operating incomes have been calculated. It is concluded that the press sector received the largest volume of subsidies but is not very financially dependent on them. However, many examples of private radio and television outlets whose activities are maintained by public funding were observed. In the audiovisual sector, it was found that public subsidies represented more than 20% of some beneficiary’s total declared income, and even up to 50% in some cases.

Advertising by influencers on YouTube and Instagram has become a common practice, which includes the incorporation of advertising into their audio-visual productions as well. This study is being conducted to determine whether TikTok users from Germany, France, Spain, and Italy are using the social network to advertise products and services, and whether they are promoting products that are banned by TikTok. Using content analysis, 320 videos from 16 European tiktokers in Germany, France, Spain and Italy have been studied based on gender and nationality. The tiktokers ranged between 17 and 21 years of age with more than one million followers. The results confirm that tiktokers maintain a balance between the content they post and the advertising they insert. Both genders include a similar percentage of advertising and, based on nationality, French and Spanish tiktokers are the ones who use the most advertising in their work. Product placement is the most popular format for tiktokers of both genders in France, Spain and Germany, whereas branded content is preferred by Italian male tiktokers. None of the tiktokers of the four nationalities have violated the rules imposed by TikTok, as they have refrained from publishing illicit or dangerous products, either because of measures being taken by the social network itself to limit the exposure to these types of products, or as the result of self-regulation by the tiktokers in order to avoid being removed from the social network.

This article takes a closer look at the training of data journalists by examining in detail the postgraduate courses offered in Spanish universities. The starting point is a systematic compilation of the official degrees in this field that can be found in the databases of the Spanish Ministry of Universities, as well as a comparative analysis of the existing degrees for two academic years (2020/2021 and 2022/2023). This quantitative study is complemented by a survey of Spanish-speaking data journalism professionals about their training. The goal of this research is to shed light on current training in this discipline, which is one of the most promising for the future of journalism. The findings reflect an emerging but still evolving educational landscape consisting of fourteen specialised data journalism degree programmes, all of which will be offered as postgraduate programmes in the 2022/2023 academic year. These postgraduate programmes are primarily internal and offered by private universities. However, our survey of professionals showed that only 7% of communication specialists have training in this journalistic field. Consequently, Spain is one of the countries where data journalism has not yet fully taken hold in newsrooms due to a lack of adequate training and appropriately trained professionals.

The launch of Disney+ in Spain in March 2020 coincided with the Covid-19 pandemic and a period of home confinement for many Spaniards. This study examines the advertising and engagement strategy used by Disney+ on Twitter and Instagram, analyzing 2,268 messages. The platform’s social media use is similar to that of its competitors, with Twitter used for user engagement and Instagram used for content promotion. However, the study finds that the platform missed the opportunity to emphasize its unique qualities and appeal to the brand’s values. Despite this, Disney+ generated significant engagement during its launch month, reflecting high levels of user anticipation. Popular original productions such as The Mandalorian and Aladdin, as well as acquired content like The Simpsons, indicate the brand’s focus on a family or broad-spectrum target audience, in contrast to the younger and niche audiences favored by its competitors.

The main objective of this research was to analyse the spatial representation constructed in the fiction TV series Antidisturbios (Riot Police) (Movistar+, 2020). It sought to look at how space is constructed in the narrative, consider the role it plays in it, and assess whether space reflects a specific sense of location related to Spanish identity. A methodology based on textual analysis was used, with emphasis on spatial representation. An analysis tool was applied to evaluate a variety of scenes from the series. The analysis found that narrative space was of crucial importance for the background of the story and that Madrid played a prominent role in the narrative. Antidisturbios portrays a city that represents the symbolic centre of the Spanish state, understood as a space of hegemonic power that brings together the political and economic elites. At the same time, it presents a contemporary, recognisable, and inclusive geography, which contrasts with the image of the capital in the public and political debate about identity. The city that the series constructs refers to and questions a specific historical period where several of the social problems in current Spanish society are looming.

Audiovisual co-creation has always had a pedagogical nature, which has been maintained in its adaptation to digital communication, although it is applied in different ways. This study analyses the pedagogical proposals in collaborative interactive non-fiction in the digital environment, and compares them with previous projects of participatory practices. As case studies we selected five interactive audiovisual projects that stand out for their educational intent and their preparation of teaching resources, and analyzed their pedagogical proposals. First, we looked at pedagogy in pre-digital or analogical collaborative creation, which was used to develop an original analytical table. We used this table to study the five collaborative projects through three identified categories. The results show that these categories continue in initiatives today, although the findings show a shift in the pedagogy about audiovisuals, particularly concerning the technical aspects, as well as a weakening of the connection between learning and participation in the collective production. Finally, we can highlight that combining educational practices with collaborative production on the Internet is important to increase citizen participation and give a social perspective to this audiovisual modality.

The analysis of science fiction narratives is valuable to explore possible futures. This article analyzes the representation of technology in the television series Years and Years (2019), a co-production by the BBC and HBO created by Russell T Davies. This audiovisual narrative depicts key problems of the present in a representation of the near future, enabling the identification of new socio-technological paradigms. We applied the method of Causal Layered Analysis (CLA), a prospective analytical tool used both for the study of diverse current phenomena and for the design of possible futures, which includes the levels of the litany, systemic causes, discourse/world vision, and myth/metaphor. The analysis showed that Years and Years offers a vision of a world in chaos, based on a global capitalist and technological project that threatens fundamental rights, and the existence of the human species. In the series, technologies are imbibed in all the fundamental systems of Western societies, pushing common people into obsolescence. Three narratives uphold the myth of the dominion of science and technology: the technological transcendence of human beings, the irrelevance of humans before technology, and the ubiquitous panopticon of digitized power. Through its bleak version of the future Y&Y puts into focus aspects of technological development that make us reflect critically and urgently about the present.

Disinformation has become a global problem affecting mass media, governments and citizens globally. Besides the loss of trust in the media and its weakening influence, exposure to all manner of messages on social media in recent years has paved the way for disinformation, which has become a considerable challenge for journalism. According to the 2022 Edelman Trust Barometer, Spain is one of the countries most concerned about this phenomenon (Edelman, 2022). However, is this concern shared by Spanish journalist associations? What training initiatives are being carried out for future journalists to counter the spread of disinformation? How should fact-checking be taught in university? This study aims to answer these questions by using a dual methodology. First, a review and analysis were undertaken on the different training initiatives for bachelor’s and university-specific master’s degree students. Then, 15 in-depth interviews were conducted with experts, including fact-checkers, experienced journalists and representatives of sectoral associations, to ascertain their views on fact-checking and disinformation. The main results show that Spanish universities offer few training fact-checking-related initiatives, particularly at bachelor’s degree level, although more and more university-specific degrees and master’s degrees on this topic are becoming available. Furthermore, most interviewees view specialised training for the next generation of journalists as a key factor for fighting disinformation, and they provide guidelines to achieve this.

Digital media is usually understood as a tool that helps the social and participatory ideal of museums and cultural institutions to materialize. This ideal has its roots in the reflections that, since the 1980s, new museology and critical museology movements have developed around the renewal of cultural organizations: a transformation that places the visitor at the center of the institution, revises their stories about its collections and invites institutions to be more participative with the public. Seeking to identify the characteristics that these theories adopt in practice, this article investigates the forms of participation implemented on Instagram by six Spanish cultural institutions: Museo Nacional del Prado Museum, Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Museo Nacional Reina Sofía, Museo Guggenheim Bilbao, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Barcelona (MACBA) and Centro de Cultura Contemporánea de Barcelona (CCCB). By way of a content analysis of their publications over the span of 6 months, patterns and trends have been identified within the communication strategies of these organizations. The results indicate a clear predominance of minimalist participatory forms (those oriented towards access to practical information and the discovery of collections) over maximalist modalities related to collaboration or co-creation. In general terms, there is also a considerable presence of audiovisual formats in the publications analyzed, showing the great capacity of these institutions to adapt to the latest changes in Instagram.

The way in which diversity is conveyed through the media can reflect the attitude of the communicators themselves and contribute to shaping society’s attitudes towards diversity. The aim of the study was to identify how diversity is conveyed by the University to the Society. A content analysis of diversity-related news items in the University’s Institutional Newspaper Journal of the Pablo de Olavide University (DUPO) (626 news items out of 3,186 published between 2016 and 2019, a full rector’s term) was conducted. Heterogeneity in diversity was identified: gender, functional, cultural, sexual, religious and age, with gender and functional or disability diversity being predominant. Dissemination of diversity was linked to the fields of social sciences, humanities and sport. Communicators were government teams, with a slightly larger role for women. In conclusion, the institutional communication of diversity carried out from the most common official communication channel of the university analysed is the majority compared to the actions of professors and researchers, and a heterogeneous conception of diversity was found, linking it to issues of gender, inequalities and violence.