#CICNews | III International Symposium on Political Communication

Published on 3 December, 2021

The III International Symposium on Political Communication, organised by the Multidisciplinary Analysis of Discourse and Political Communication Group, was held on 1 and 2 December at the Faculty of Philology and Communication. This edition, under the title «Reflections and Reverses. Symbiosis between political communication and audiovisual fiction», focused on the frictions between reality and fiction in political communication, an issue that the lecturers addressed from different perspectives and through a variety of case studies.

The symposium kicked off in the Aula Magna with the institutional welcome by Dr. Joan G. Burguera, Vice-Dean of Teaching Staff and Communication at the Faculty of Philology and Communication and lead investigator of the organising committee. It was followed by the presentation of the book El relato público, the result of the first seminar on political communication held in 2019, with the participation of the co-editors of the book, J. G. Burguera and Meritxell Martínez, teacher on the degree in Communication and Cultural Industries (by its Spanish acronym, CIC), and Meritxell Anton, teacher and Director of Publications and Editions at the University of Barcelona.

The event continued with the conference «"I am not a princess, I am a Khaleesi". When the political class discovered television series», given by Dr. Concepción Cascajosa, Permanent Lecturer at the University Carlos III of Madrid and President of RTVE's Equality Observatory, in which Cascajosa explored the use of television fiction in the construction of the political narrative in Spain. Afterwards, Javier Olivares, creator and executive producer of the TV series The Ministry of Time (2015-2017), and Dr. Anna Tarragó, professor of the CIC degree, held a dialogue in which they discussed Olivares' work, exploring the limits an alternate history as a tool to encourage imagination and political thought.

The first day concluded with a session on the representations of power, especially in audiovisual fiction, presented and moderated by Olatz Larrea. It featured presentations by Juanjo Caballero, who analysed the use of the aside in the audiovisual adaptations of House of Cards (Michael Dobbs, 1989); Manuel Garín, who traced the use of the stock exchange bell as a political and economic signifier, and Mikel Peña, who explored the struggle for power in The Favourite (Yorgos Lanthimos, 2018).

The second day of the symposium was structured in two blocks, from reality to fiction and from fiction to reality, a back and forth in which the speakers explored the bidirectional filtrations between political communication and audiovisual fiction. The first session, presented and moderated by Dr. Tarragó, featured Sílvia Cabezas, who analysed Maixabel (Iciar Bollain, 2021); Dr. Burguera, who dissected the translation of Clara Campoamor's life into film fiction; Dr. Larrea, who made the figure of Harvey Milk visible through his film representation; and Dr. Endika Rey, who closed the session with an intervention on No (Pablo Larrain, 2012).

The second session, presented and moderated by Dr. Endika Rey, featured Dr. Jaume Aguilar, with a lecture on borrowing of fiction to political communication or, more specifically, to propaganda; Roger Cuartielles and Meritxell Martínez, with a detailed analysis of the influence of Money Heist (Alex Pina, 2017-on air) on present-day social movements, and Joan Julibert, with a talk on the blurred border between fiction and reality. Finally, Dr. Juanjo Caballero, Head of Studies of the CIC degree, gave the closing speech that brought this year's symposium to a close.