Vol 19, No 37 (2020): Julio-Diciembre

This study investigated cultural pieces of advertising to indicate the ways that publicists deploy socio-cultural resources as normative channels of persuading readers to consumption. To achieve that goal, ten advertisements of financial, food, and telecommunications industries, harvested from The Punch newspaper, the Internet and erected advertising frameworks, functioned as data of analysis. After stratifying the advertisements into appropriate organizations, the terminology of ‘Below the clause’, functioned as the processing instrument. This allowed the application of graphic illustrations to account for the frequency of communicative components. The analysis revealed the employment of nominal groups (the lessons; this Eid) as playing dominant roles in the constructs, verbal groups (taste; celebrate) and prepositional phrases (from all of us at Fidelity Bank®; of commerce), also operated as stimulating structures. Although negligible, minor clause (Happy Workers’ Day; Eid Mubarak) are relevant grammatical elements of inducement. Besides anchorage and relaying functions interlocking the texts, one observed ambiguity (your work; Bae) in the Union Bank® and Wema Bank® advertisements. Connotations facilitated the communication of Mama don land and the big bottle of Coca-Cola®; the spirit of our nation and green-white-green dresses; your work and Maman Aisha; and the sacrifice of Christ with the crown of thorns. Contexts such as Yorùbá traditions, family  ffairs, religious nuances, savings, and historical notions are propagated cultural endowments that influenced the advertisements’ meaning potential. As a result, the analysts might suggest that advertisers ought to consistently decorate their campaigns with cultural fortunes. Such behavior has the capacity to educate and influence readers to consumption in their various regional domains. 

This article explores a literature review on different proposals to assess media and information literacy (MIL) competencies in citizens seeking to define the fundamental MIL skills and competencies to be considered in national curricula and assessment schemes. The study is based on qualitative content analysis to map and systematize the main MIL frameworks, research reports, and their practical applications/experiences. This qualitative technique allows the combination of categories (dimensions) and correlation of individual indicators (skills and capabilities) to group subcategories (components). The study inquires Unesco’s framework, as well as the authors upon which this theoretical approach was built, together with the European Commission’s views on media education. It gathers their principal propositions on media competence assessment and sets a reflection on information literacy and Educommunication as a contribution strongly developed in the Ibero-American context. A broad analysis of digital competencies related to media and information literacy is also included in the study. A new interpretation is given to the studied concepts to draw a structured systematization of competences on media and information literacy that sets a framework to assess and design MIL programs, actions or curricula. Finally, it proposes a map of skills and competences in MIL that allows the future creation of methodologies and strategies for the visibility, promotion, strengthening or evaluation of MIL. 

Since some decades ago, the convergence of media through a screen, the digitalization of communicative processes and the emergence of new informational practices reconfigure the journalism exercise and formation. This article shows the results of exploratory research around how journalism students get informed on current events and how they disfavor a certain type of news content. The main goal is to inquire about the disposition and preferences of information consumption in journalism students. For that, an opinion poll was performed to students of two private universities in the Metropolitan Region of Chile as an intentional sample. The research suggests that there are some generalized digital abilities among the students with different emphasis for informing themselves, i.e. perception schemes that might generate distinctions between informational preferences and verification of the information received according to their gender and university. Furthermore, an online exercise performed afterward, showed that despite the prevalence of digital abilities, their information practices are far from a newsworthy assessmen tbased on checking methods. 

From the inquire to the conceptual references that intervene and structure the studies on gender identity and the need to locate the, in the social and cultural contexts, as well as from the intention to establish a relationship with the collective representation and the contemporary languages, this study reviewed different conceptual axes through an exploration of diverse theoretical currents.

As a finding of this exploration, the study could identify mutations on the concepts, the paradigms and the communication flows that are configured through contemporaneity. The study makes evident the necessity for rethinking the usual classifications of modernity, i.e. overcome the binary categories for understanding gender. In this sense, it is necessary to take into account the communicative dimension implied by gender, no as a classificatory dimension of the human, but as a social and cultural process determined by the representations of each time and by its inherent communicative elements. Likewise, the study was able to establish a relation between three categories that allowed it to make evident contact points with gender identity studies through the collective representations of the territory, of fashion and identity, as well as from the social and cultural conditionings typical of the contemporary subject.

This research allowed the establishment of lines of analysis for basing the overcoming of taxonomical and anachronistic approaches that typify in a binary way the gender identity. It also allowed the identification of territory as a key factor in interpretation, of fashion as a direct variable from the mentalities point of view and  dentity as a concept that works as a condition of possibility of the self-referentiality and the referentiality of the other in the subject. This way, it is possible to resignify practices from their existential experience with gender.

This research has as its main goal analyzing the post-truth phenomenon and its influence in the conformation of a society whose type of collective identity assigns great value to its beliefs and emotions in the construction of public opinion. This phenomenon creates political polarization that degrades democracies in societies that exclude the opinion of those who does not think as the collective body, which takes place, especially in social networks.

The method employed in this research is the hermeneutic one, given that it allows the analysis of some specific facts —that were recognized indifferently— to locate the post-truth concept in a political context that is conjunctural in several geographical spaces of the world. These spaces will be interpreted in the light of postmodern philosophy and critical reflection.

One of the most important reflections that arise from this research is that the objectivity pretended by the traditional epistemology has rapidly weakened in front of the fact that the belief systems have demanded citizenship. These systems summarize certainties in the collective imaginary, in the realm and knowledge of reality, of facts, of feelings, and intentions of people independently of the fact that judgements correspond or not things themselves. Thus, this allows us to see  hat these belief systems divert human beings, the common citizen, from objective reality, which also deviates  hem from truly critical thinking. 

This research work analyzes a chapter of children television titled “La asombrosa excursión de Zamba a la Revolución Industrial” (Zamba’s fantastic trip to the industrial revolution), program broadcasted in 2014 in Argentina. Is an audiovisual production based on the renowned comic series La asombrosa excursión de Zamba (Zamba’s fantastic trip). This public television program was created in 2010 by the producer house El perro y la luna (The moon and the dog), in the plenary Peronist-kirchnerist period and was popular until the first year in office of the conservative president Mauricio Macri. Through a quantitative analysis of this material, the study identifies how this product presents to Argentinian kids the differences between the socialist and the capitalist economic systems through animated creations of Adam Smith and Karl Marx. This program is based upon the valency of the speeches performed by these historical characters, the consequences of their actions and the contexts and environments in which they are represented by the audiovisual product. Thus, this program represents a historical and ideologically managed narrative that identifies the animated thread with the political project of the Peronist government that ruled Argentina in the years 2003 to 2015. As a min conclusion, the study could determine that the format of the program denotes an evident propaganda bias that influences in the appropriation of a historical version and an economic model, given that it takes place in a public media and is directed towards children audience. 

This article pretends to determine the current state of the professional practice of the public relations professional in Peru, in the context of the time of big data and digital automation in comparison with the other Latin-American countries. The goal of this research is to discover the benefits and disadvantages of the big data tool in the realm of strategic communication and its use in professional practice. Likewise, the main goal of this article is to get to know how familiarized the Peruvian professional is with these tools for the achievement of its communicational goals. This research analyzed the results of the work performed by Latin American Communication Monitor, who examines the trends and challenges in strategic communication through a questionnaire applied to public relations and communications management professionals. The statistical result displays that Peru, in contrast to other Latin-American countries such as Colombia and Mexico, is at the bottom in the use of automation due to a reduced knowledge in big data for the planning of communication strategies The information shows that there is an awareness of its importance, but its use is very limited among the polled professionals. This knowledge is circumscribed to monitoring the data analysis for social networks and e-commerce channels. The perspective opened by this research for the future is to identify how this technology allows intelligence to be applied to new corporate communication strategies. 

This article retakes the concept of community expressive audiovisual works (CEAW) and its close relation with recreation. This study is based on some results of a research project. Its goal is to make evident the importance of developing educommunicational processes in the short and mid-term in which not only audiovisual languages are involved, but also other types of ludic and creative forms of expression. The project had a qualitative research method based on deep observation and dense description of classical ethnography, as well as audiovisual and virtual ethnography. The main findings, from the perspective of communication-based on mediations, is that the CEAW have their place in the center of communities, in the uses, the relations, and the bonds that are created within the communication processes. Besides working as social mediations in the sense proposed by Martín-Barbero (1991), they are shaped by semiotic mediations or  udic and creative languages (Mesa, 2004). In conclusion, it is considered that the CEAW create social transformation possibilities because they develop processes that transcend movies, recognize the social and historical aspects, strengthen the collective identity and make possible a fluid relation between subjects and contexts.

The purpose of this work is to characterize the peace contents construction processes in the San Buenaventura Estéreo and Radio B radio station of the Bello municipality (Antioquia, Colombia), in accordance with the directions suggested by the national and international organizations in pro for creation of narratives that aid the historical memory of this locality. The study is justified given that it is based upon the constructive research typology that allows the comprehension of how radio producers and audiences in this place, recognized as a violent scenario, are building a peace culture from reconciliatory narratives based on its own violence. The methodology closely follows peace constructivism, the reason why the study is qualitative and descriptive with a convenient non-probabilistic sampling; because of how few the stations are, only those chosen had productions in this line. Various techniques for data production were employed as   documentary review of the contents for peace category in the radio productions: Por las calles de mi barrio (Through the streets of my neighborhood), with neighborhood leaders; Locutores por la paz (Broadcasters for peace), with children; and En clave de paz (In peace key), with armed conflict actors. Besides, semi-structured interviews were performed in group workshops with directors and producers of the studied stations based on the principles for radio production and historical memory categories. The proactivity of the producers and their interest in generating these programs in a context were the endogenous capacities of the inhabitant of Bello operate as a resilience resource stand out as the main findings. The analysis points towards that the new narratives produced in these media aid the historical memory for peace construction in the municipality, where the participants see in the radio and their duty opportunities for learnings relevant for their lives that can be strengthened with academia for ensuring their sustainability with the education of younger generations. 

This article displays the results of the research project Construcción de cultura política propias y ciudadanía en las prácticas comunicativas de dos colectivos de jóvenes de la localidad 18 Rafael Uribe (Construction of own cultural policies and in the communicative practices of two young collectives from the Rafael Uribe 18th locality) to contribute to the current debate on the relationship between communication and education. Theresearch is aided by a political and cultural approach of communication thatstudies the social practices and production of sense by articulating two concepts: citizenship and communication. Methodologically, this study was based in reflexive ethnography that allowed the description of the social and cultural context and the analysis of communication practices of the two collectives in tension with the school formation in matters of citizenship and peace. The main finding is that two collectives have different bets for the production of sense. In one hand, Colectivo Sin Fronteras (Without Borders Collective) interpellates with its practices the classroom formative processes, interrogating the masculinity paradigms through the resignification of the body which allows them to be open to other ways of living citizenship. In the other hand, Colectivo Somos (We are Collective) centres its practice of peace culture through the production of radio programs that associate contents with a citizenship that defends women’s and LGBTQ rights, policy rupture with prejudices and awareness on the day to day treatment in the school scenario.

This article analyzes the metaphor “the public is the family”, composed by the singer Abel Pintos (1984, Bahía Blanca, Argentina) to communicate something about his relationship with his followers. Primarily, the study performs a brief account of the artist's life, its works and its current activity as an art promoter. After that, the study reviews the main characteristics of mass movements, particularly those related with the relationship between artists and their public (high level of cohesion, organized around common goals, support and admiration for a public character, internal references, common symbols, and use of products with the artist brand. After that, this text exposes its research methodology and presents the results of the discursive analysis of some of the publications and comments on Facebook in which the metaphor focalized earlier is present. From these, the study extracts the characteristics of the relationship between Abel Pintos and its followers and other conceptualizations will be set on stage to talk about this relationship. The most relevant of them consists of constituting a community with a bond as strong as a family bond. Another of the characteristics is the organization initiatives for making products or offering communal services, internal references, creation of identity vocabulary, (e. g., the adjective abelian), performative language, and great admiration for the Argentinian singer. Besides, the study points out the occasional inconsistencies between the metaphor “the public is the family and some events that contradict that conceptualization. At last, the study presents its conclusions.