Catalan Journal of Communication & Cultural Studies - Volume 7, Issue 1, 2015

This article examines the practices of constructing gender in the media by elaborating on one specific journalistic work process: the cover photography of the Finnish Prime Minister for a weekly news magazine. We draw from gender theory and Goffman’s concept of social performance in asking how gender is constructed in journalistic work. Women leaders must both prove their capability as politicians and manifest their femininity. Our case study explicates how this double discourse emerges in the photographic studio and how journalists struggle with two parallel scripts they try to follow: one of journalistic neutrality, and another of feminine beauty. The metaphor of two scripts follows Goffman’s idea of social performance with actors performing frontstage and backstage roles. Our ethnographic account shows that journalistic work processes can be ambiguous. We argue that gendered media discourses affect journalistic work in ways not visible in media representations. Thus, to understand these mechanisms, a more ethnographic approach is needed in media research.

This article intends to contribute to the debate on whether Twitter can be a complementary tool or an alternative to traditional media. Based on a qualitative and quantitative exploratory approach, the research focuses on the coverage of social issues to explore the informative capacities of Twitter. The sample consists of more than 1000 tweets covering the marches that occurred in Spain in July 2012 against the government’s public policies. The results show that less than 25 per cent of tweets could be considered as strictly informative. Due to its lack of informative focus, high degree of emotion, repetitive contents and personal writing marks, the power of Twitter seems to be rather an opinion and emotion net organizer than a reporting tool: we cannot consider it an informative source in the cases explored.

For many scholars, critics as well as fans, fidelity to the source material is the key word in a debate on film adaptation. This article, however, scrutinizes the issue of fidelity by reflecting on the character and story of Batman that has been so often rebooted and reinvented in its long history of comics and movies that one can wonder what the original is. Acknowledging today’s widespread cross-media exchange of narratives, the article shows that fans’ reactions to the filmic adaptations are as diverse as is the range of retellings of the Batman story. Focusing on the different interpretations of the villain Bane in the recent film franchise, it demonstrates that most fans prefer a sense of faithfulness towards the ‘essence’ of the character rather than an accurate resemblance in appearance or look. The study further acknowledges the growing importance of fans in the creative and economic process of adaptation.

This article presents the main findings of a Media Uses Study (MUS), carried out in Catalonia in the context of a wider study of adolescents’ reception of television fiction programmes. Its main aim was to provide a general picture of Catalan adolescents’ media uses and leisure preferences. Method included a survey of 239 adolescents aged 15 to 18, and three focus groups. Adolescents’ media usage was characterized through the following elements: the weight of media-related activities within their leisure diet, the media equipment available, and the uses attributed by teenagers to the mobile phone, the Internet and television. Among the main results, the importance of the peer group in relation to both leisure and media activities must be emphasized. Moreover, adolescents’ media usage can be described according to a double dynamics, with new media being used as tools for socializing and communication, and television especially for shared viewing with the family.

This article shows the research results on the exhibitions devoted to Salvat-Papasseit and Raimon at Arts Santa Mònica Creativity Centre, Barcelona. This article is part of a global research project on the presence of Catalonian museums in social media. The main goal of this research is to examine the dissemination and communication strategy used by Arts Santa Mònica in social media platforms. Our methodology consisted in elaborating and applying quantitative and qualitative parameters and indicators for the analysis. Significant data were obtained using the tracking engine DigiDocSpider and were also provided by the centre itself. According to the results, Arts Santa Mònica has a relevant presence on social networks and it is also very active on them. In addition, the centre has a very dynamic website and a significant number of visitors, both virtual and on-site. On the other hand, the results also show the necessity for using new generation tools and for information updates. We conclude this article by arguing for including the above-mentioned tools as a way to improve social participation in cultural life and social media, not only as a way to target audiences in exhibitions but also as actual tools of collective participation. We have used this research project to take a look at how literature is represented online, thus suggesting future research lines regarding both literature and digital technologies.

In this article, I undertake an analysis of the Spanish film, Bosque de sombras/The Backwoods in order to explore the shifting representations of the forest in the national cinema. I suggest that, during the dictatorship and the period of the transition following Franco’s death, the forest was utilized by film-makers as a site in which to express subversive political ideas. In the twentieth century, this rich tradition continues and yet, as the film which is used here as a case study demonstrates, with a significantly altered perspective. Rather than returning to the same denunciation of Falangist policies that had been the hallmark of much earlier Spanish cinema, el cine del bosque has now become a medium through which film-makers can explore more contemporary anxieties about masculine and regional/national identities, a focus of particular interest, given the current debate about an independent Catalan state.

The Civic Web: Young People, the Internet, and Civic Participation, Shakuntala Banaji and David Buckingham (2013) Cambridge and London: The MIT Press, 208 pp., ISBN: 9781138849129, p/bk, $49.95; ISBN: 9780415527699, h/bk, $225.00; ISBN: 9780262317801 (e-book), $21.00

The Routledge Companion to Media and Gender, Cynthia Carter, Linda Steiner and Lisa McLaughlin (eds) (2014) London and New York: Routledge, 670 pp., ISBN: 9780415527699, h/bk, £140.00; ISBN: 9780203066911 (e-book), £140.00

Visual Propaganda, Exhibitions, and the Spanish Civil War, Miriam Basilio (2013) Farnham: Ashgate, 304 pp., ISBN: 9781409464815, h/bk, £70.00

Spanish Cinema in the Global CONTEXT. Film on Film, Samuel Amago (2013) New York/Oxon: Routledge, 199 pp., ISBN: 9780415854252, h/bk, $105.10; ISBN: 9780203755568 (e-book), $73.58

A Companion to Spanish Cinema, Jo Labanyi and Tatjana Pavlovic´ (eds) (2013) Malden, MA and Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 664 pp., ISBN: 9781405194389, h/bk, £157.20; ISBN: 9781433102134 (e-book), £125.99

Desenfocadas. Cineastas españolas y discursos de género, Barbara Zecchi (2014) Barcelona: Icaria editorial s.a., 246 pp., ISBN: 9788498885682, p/bk, 18€