Catalan Journal of Communication & Cultural Studies - Current Issue

The present study aims to examine the treatment of obesity as an epidemic in the Spanish press during two different time periods. The first period is from 2000 to 2005 when obesity was declared an epidemic by the World Health Organization, the second period of study is from 2015 to 2020. For this study, a content analysis was made from a framing perspective. In the selected sample it was observed that the predominant frame in the two time periods changed. The frame of attribution of responsibility was the most used in the first period and the frame of conflict in the second. Variations in the use of frames were also observed depending on the newspaper, the year of publication, the subject matter and the subjects involved.

The sitcom How I Met Your Mother (2005–14) applies a narrative with a transmedia perspective, using advertising techniques that had been unusual for its genre up to that point. We refer to the reverse product placement tool as a technique to expand the narrative in a ground-breaking way through books apparently written by one of the characters in the series. This study explores the communicative dimensions applied by its developers through an exploratory-descriptive methodology that offers a qualitative analysis. We conduct a bibliographic study alongside an exclusive interview with the co-creator of the series, Carter Bays. Consequently, our study dissects the communicative process from a semantic and advertising perspective with an international reach. Finally, the results identify a paradigmatic case that takes advantage of the communicational context to build a transmedia narrative, giving rise to an intertextual and parasocial interpretation.

This study investigates the online news framing of police and protesters in Europe by looking at three late 2020/early 2021 protests: the vigil for Sarah Everard, killed by a police officer, the 47th Athens Polytechnic uprising anniversary rally and the protests against the imprisonment of Catalan rapper Pablo Hasél. A qualitative content analysis was conducted to analyse a sample of 114 articles, gathered from six ideologically opposed news outlets in the three countries. The results indicate that police actions are predominantly located within either the ‘police brutality’ or the ‘order-maintenance’ frame depending on the political orientation of the outlet while the framing of the protesters appears to be more fragmented. Results also suggest that it would be inaccurate to claim that only the right-wing press insulates the police. Overall, this study found media framing to be dependent on the perceived level of deviance of the protest.

This article highlights diversity and pluralism in the field of public relations. It challenges the normative ideals that books have traditionally taught us about how communication between organizations and their public should be. A review of the importance of personal and patronage relationships in non-western countries from every continent (Latin America and Southern Europe, China, India and Sub-Saharan Africa) shows a rich and complex reality about how communication happens. It reveals that we do not live in a perfect, predictable world – not necessarily a negative factor, but rather a source of richness. This should not be surprising news since the United States, Canada, Australia and western EU countries represent approximately just 8 per cent of the world population. A main diversity factor in strategic communication is the importance of patronage relationships, often ignored or minimized in books on the subject. Offering multiple perspectives aims to show how the importance of considering the construction of personal relationships as part of the strategic menu of organizations should not be stigmatized or considered an undesired outcome to eradicate. In most societies, patronage relationships and personal relations play a large role when organizations build relationships with their public.

This commentary assesses what impact the generational divergence of audience preferences alongside the platform convergence of content creators will have for minority language media outlets and researchers working in this subdiscipline. An overview of the history of minority language media studies depicts this in two waves – first with ‘traditional’ media forms, followed by a second wave with the emergence of social media as a mass form of speakers’ consumption and participation habits. The commentary then outlines the stark generational divergence of social media consumption which has bought TikTok and Instagram to the fore at the expense of Facebook and Twitter, followed by demonstrating institutional actors’ adoption of creating short-form audio-visual content directly for such emerging channels. The conclusions suggest a third wave of minority language media literature will face different challenges as a result, potentially leading to a possible switch towards qualitative over quantitative methods due to less publicly accessible data.

In the past decade, the strength of populist forces, especially those of the far right, has grown considerably in Europe, influencing European politics and modifying the composition of European institutions, and in particular the European Parliament. This essay posits that populist and non-populist narratives in EU institutions have evolved through the dynamics of polarization and reciprocal influence across multiple crises, from the start of the Great Recession in 2007 to the outbreak of war in Ukraine in 2022. Depending on the results of the upcoming 2024 European elections, and especially in the case of a successful outcome of far-right populist parties, there might be more radical changes in the dominant forces and discourses of EU institutions.

Review of: Reggaetón: Una Revolución Latina (Reaggeton: a Latin Revolution), Pablito Wilson (2022)

Bilbao: Liburuak

ISBN 9-788-41923-4-018, h/bk, €25.00