Spanish Television Research Articles

Combating Disparities in a Pandemic: Increasing Dissemination of Coronavirus Disease 2019 Resources in Spanish.

Disparities exist in access to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)-related health information. We aimed to close a gap in online traffic between English and Spanish COVID-19-related health information on our institution's publicly-facing website by 50% within ten months. We used A3 improvement methodology. Outcome measures were the mean monthly difference between English and Spanish COVID-19 online traffic vis-a-vis (1) total webpage views and (2) unique webpage visits. Process measures were stratification of outcome measures by language. Plan-Do-Study-Act cycles included: Recurring advertisements on a local Spanish television station disseminating up-to-date COVID-19 information, including our institution's Spanish COVID-19 online resources, incorporation of QR codes into clinic discharge paperwork linking to institutional Spanish COVID-19 resources, and leveraging social media to expand reach. Control charts assessed impact over time. There were 1,226,196 total webpage views (369,983 Spanish; 856,213 English) and 1,065,536 unique webpage visits (350,518 Spanish; 715,018 English). Both outcome measures displayed sustained, special cause improvement from a mean monthly difference of 25,397 to 11,321 webpage views (55.4% reduction, June 2021) and 25,066 to 7080 unique webpage visits (71.8% reduction, February 2021) corresponding to special cause improvements in process measures. Improvements were not temporally associated with an intervention but coincided with emergency use approval of the COVID-19 vaccine for children aged 12-15 years (May 2021). Although our interventions did not directly show improvements in our measures, we noted increased page views of Spanish COVID-19-related health information on our institution's publicly-facing website in times of high demand for linguistically appropriate services, including pediatric vaccine roll-out.

The production of Spanish fiction series for SVOD: evolution, trends and strategies

The consolidation of digital television via subscription video on demand (SVOD) services has created an unprecedented increase in the consumption of serialised TV shows, which has had direct consequences on the content production sector. Faced with an increasingly demanding, hyperconnected and discerning audience and a supply of content never previously seen, television production and distribution strategies are involved in a process of change and adaptation. This paper seeks to analyse the production of Spanish television series created to be distributed on SVOD platforms. The aim is to know the role that production companies play in the creation of television series for SVOD so as to identify strategies and cooperative alliances between production companies and platforms and to detect possible patterns and trends in the operations of the audiovisual market. Using a mixed methodology that combines quantitative study with qualitative data analysis, the 88 Spanish TV series and miniseries that premiered on SVOD platforms from 2016 to 2021 are analysed, taking as a starting point the year in which these platforms began operating in Spain. The results confirm a trend towards cooperation between independent production companies and the platforms themselves, while no presence of in-house production is observed. Likewise, the atomisation of the role of production companies in the context of SVOD is shown, a phenomenon that already existed in generalist television production.

Journalists and comedians in the new digital age: a discussion on Spanish audiovisual infotainment between professionals and consumers

Spanish television is increasingly subject to transmedia consumption. Faced with traditional models in which journalists limited themselves to rigorously transmitting information to strengthen their audiences, the networks’ commitment to infotainment, as well as the competition with platforms or with figures from YouTube and Twitch, forces professionals to reinvent themselves, often by resorting to entertainment and show business resources. TV programs such as El intermedio (La Sexta, 2006) and El hormiguero (Antena3, 2006) have been working for years to bring journalists and comedians together in the same space, and others such as Todo es mentira (Cuatro, 2019) interact with audiences through social networks such as Twitter and Instagram. The question is whether these efforts are sufficient or whether we are witnessing a transition period in which interviews conducted by content creators such as Ibai Llanos or Jordi Wild will end up being more highly valued than those of a journalist. To answer these questions, six professionals from the current audiovisual scene were interviewed: Vicente Vallés, Antonio Castelo, Cristina Pardo, Rocío Vidal (La Gata de Schrödinger), José Antonio Lavado, and Jorge Gallardo Camacho, and their reflections were contrasted with those of three focus groups with audiences of different ages. It was concluded that the professionals recognize the necessity of adapting to the digital era and to the new needs of their audiences, but prioritize traditional journalistic rigor and do not fear competition from figures such as Ibai Llanos. However, the audience focus groups consulted, especially the younger ones, admit that they consume more audiovisual content on the Internet than on television.

Show Me Who You Respect and I Will Tell You What Your Culture Is

Television shows can vary greatly between cultures, and it is possible that they may display what moral values are most important to a culture. In order to evaluate whether this is true the first author conducted a content analysis of the valence of moral values in French and Spanish television shows. This study analyzed the French show “Lupin” and the Spanish show “La Casa de Papel” which are both from the genre of crime and evaluated the valence of how the moral values of group loyalty and respect were depicted. Based on data from previous studies, the hypothesis was that the Spanish show would portray group loyalty as positive more often than the French show and would portray respect for authority negatively more often than the French show. The hypothesis was supported with regard to respect for authority, but not group loyalty which suggests that the hypothesis could be true but further research would be needed.

Voices from the emptiness. Developing the agentic rural on Spanish television

This article analyses rural representations in the documentary series Ruralitas (2020) on the Spanish TVE. The programme shows that the people living in the countryside have agency and do not conform to common rural stereotypes. Nevertheless, the stories flirt with ideas of the ‘rural idyll’ by focusing on the beauty of the landscape and traditional rural versus urban binaries. However, the series also develops what the author names an agentic rural. The agentic rural not only empowers countryside dwellers and portrays self-determined destinies in the countryside, but also highlights problems associated with depopulation.

ALLUSION AS ONE OF THE FORMS OF SOCIAL AND CULTURAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE CHARACTERS OF THE SERIES (BASED ON THE CONTENT OF THE SPANISH TELEVISION SERIES EL PUEBLO)

The article deals with the research of the speech features of the characters of the Spanish television series and also the analysis of the stylistic means of the development of speaker’s character according to his verbal behavior.
 The relevance of the study is conditioned by the interest in creating allusions and their functional significance as linguistic units with rich cultural meanings, and their pragmatic impact in characters’ speech.
 The aim of the research lies in distinguishing the role of allusions in creating the speech character of a speaker and their significance as a cultural and semantic form of speech.
 We used several methods, i.e., continuous sampling, systematization of the language units due to the definite criteria, component analysis, descriptive and cognitively-discursive approach.
 The article is based on the language material of the Spanish television series El Pueblo (The Settlement). The object of studying is its characters’ speech; the subject of studying is allusion as a stylistic method and its functions in verbal component of the audio-visual text.
 According to the problem of study, the list of words and word-combinations was compounded for being analyzed due to the criteria.
 Based on analysis and classification of the content we have got the statistic data. It was identified that 50% of the cases under analysis are allusive proper nouns, that clarifies that allusions reveal the information in compressed form, giving an opportunity for further profound and multiple interpretation.
 Upon conducting the research we came to a conclusion that there is a great variety of allusions on the characters and popular facts of the Spanish culture in the series El Pueblo, and their functions are not only aesthetic, expressive and educative, but forming the personality and the sense of each character.

The Language of the Weather Forecast in Italian and Spanish Television Broadcasts: Linguistic-Descriptive Analysis of the End of Winter on RTVE and TG5 Television Channels

Weather information is of great importance to society due to the impact of the physical environment on everyday life. As a result, popular tradition has disseminated many proverbs related to human activities that have been the subject, over time, of scientific studies, intending to verify the veracity of such predictions. For this reason, this article initially presents a brief bibliographical and regulatory analysis of the evolution of atmospheric language and a presentation of the bodies that regulate its communication in Spain and Italy. Subsequently, a corpus of weather reports extracted during December 2022 from an Italian and Spanish news channel will be illustrated to study the communication of weather forecasts from a macro- and microstructural linguistic level, given the need for studies in both languages. For this purpose, Speechnotes will be used for the transcriptions, and Sketch Engine to create the corpus. As a result of the analysis, Spanish news programmes devote more time to the space of time, show a much higher speed of locution than the Italian corpus, provide a more significant number of mechanisms to show probability and uncertainty, and a great variety of linguistic-discursive strategies to exemplify the scientific context. We also find a recurrent gerund, which we will call an "atmospheric gerund". In Italian, on the other hand, we find greater deixis, more synthetic information, and less dynamism in the interaction with the data. Funding This work has been funded by the Margarita Salas grants for the training of young doctors (2021-2023) of the University of Salamanca

Debating Sexual Consent in the Teen Series The Hockey Girls: Reactions of Instagram Audiences

ABSTRACT This article analyses discussion of a narrative concerning sexual consent in a 2019 Spanish television series broadcast on Netflix called Les de l’Hoquei (The Hockey Girls). A thematic analysis was conducted on 105 comments made in response to three posts on the show’s official Instagram account (all dated 27 May 2019), which summarise the series’ storyline about the absence of sexual consent in the relationship between two main characters. The findings revealed two contrasting views. On the one hand, there were comments that interpret the situation by referring to stereotypes of romantic love, ignoring the conflict over sexual consent and instead treating the break-up as a problem that the couple should resolve in their own private way. On the other hand, there were comments that identify what happened as a situation of sexual non-consent, where the aspects that generated the most controversy were the use of the word ‘rape’ and the male character’s responsibility for not having heeded the non-verbal signals given to him by his partner. From the perspective of relationships and sex education, it is concluded that audiovisual content and exchanges on social media can be useful tools when it comes to learning to acknowledge non-verbal signs of non-consent.

The role of space in Spanish television fiction. The «Antidisturbios» Case (Movistar+, 2020)

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.

Use of Twitter during Televised Election Debates: Spanish General Election (28 April 2019) vs. French General Election (24 April 2022)

Social media have become key in political communication, playing a crucial role in election campaigns due to their fast, ubiquitous communication. This paper focuses on the comparison of the use of the social network Twitter in Spanish and French public and commercial television stations, during the last televised debates held during their general elections (2019 and 2022). It seeks to find whether conversation and interaction with their audiences take place, and whether these meet the dialogic principles set forth by Kent and Taylor adapted to Twitter by Ribalko and Seltzer to include usefulness of information, generation of return visits and dialogic loop preservation. To do this, the content of the general Twitter profiles of two French television stations, together with their profiles focused on informative content, were analyzed before, during and after the televised election debate held on 20 April. Likewise, the Twitter profiles corresponding to two Spanish television stations, together with the profiles corresponding to their news programs, were studied before, during and after the televised election debates held on 22 and 23 April. After screening all their posts, those referring to the debate and generating the largest engagement figures were selected, in order to compare the topics covered in the televised debates with those covered in Twitter. The results reveal that the information-focused accounts originate more posts whose content is linked to the televised debates, in contrast with the general accounts. Furthermore, both the unidirectionality of their content, and the lack of dialogue and interaction between these accounts and their audiences, become apparent, in addition to the minimal occurrence of “debate about the debate” flow among users.

Formula for the success of humor journalism formats on television according to their professional teams

Success on television can be measured according to a series of variables. In this work, a theoretical review was carried out to determine its main factors, complemented with 34 in-depth interviews with the heads of the seven longest-running journalistic humor formats on Spanish television from 1990 to 2015. Owing to their importance in terms of broadcasting and support from society, these enable an evaluation of entertainment as it is linked to information, as both a societal need and technique for escapism, thus depicting the enhanced importance of the television medium in terms of how its content, characters, and structure form part of our collective history. The conclusions have a social character in revealing what the public has consumed, and an economic character, as they decipher what works on television, using a method based on five factors: content, technical execution, awards and reviews, audience, and context. The interviewees provide the keys to the success of the audiovisual cultural industry, characterized herein using 100 categories. For television professionals, success is a utopia that is achieved only by those who combine high-quality content and excellent technical execution, for which they receive awards and strong reviews that reinforce their image with the audience, whose numbers and opinion determine, together with the context, competition, and market conditions, their time on air. Their statements reveal that differentiation, talent, the backing of the network, and creative freedom based on tenacity are fundamental features. Achieving success is a complex task, with a proven formula that does not only represent a limitation but also enables innovative contributions from other genres.

Politainment on Twitter: Engagement in the Spanish Legislative Elections of April 2019

The mediatisation of politics is based on the logic of spectacle. Politainment defines the phenomenon in which political information is trivialised by the hybrid narratives in which it is included and its anecdotal tone, with the aim of reaching an audience that seeks entertainment rather than information. This phenomenon has reached the digital sphere; the media, political parties, and prosumers are interested in using the new communicative context to expand their audience or become producers of new narrative formulas that act as a loudspeaker for online infotainment policies or discourses. This research examines the engagement obtained by politainment producers on Twitter, a network where debates about television content are concentrated. The article examines the tweets issued by Spanish television programmes that carry out politainment. The research focuses on the Spanish general elections held in April 2019 to establish whether this social network acted as a sounding board for television broadcasts and how it contributed to fixing ideas and content. The researchers conducted a content analysis on a sample of 7,059 tweets and 2,771 comments. The results show that the production, promotion, and communication strategies of programmes on Twitter are still scarce and unoriginal. The behaviour of prosumers is not very creative, active, or interactive, preventing the creation of a debate on Twitter or the construction of a horizontal (user–user) or vertical (user–programme) interaction on the content published.

Global TV Horror

Global TV Horror

Netflix, Spanish television, and La casa de papel: Growing global and local TV together in the multiplatform era

This institutional-industrial analysis evaluates how Netflix’s post-2016 rebranding efforts resulted in its ongoing transition from a centrally-managed multinational corporation, based mainly in Silicon Valley, to a more decentralised transnational operation with multiple interconnected headquarters worldwide. Utilising a blended macro-micro critical perspective, Netflix’s October 2015 debut in Spain is examined as an inflection point for this subscription video on demand (SVOD) change agent, Spain’s then-traditional TV infrastructure and the transnational television industry. Netflix’s eventual integration into the Spanish television landscape and its transnational distribution of La casa de papel [ Money Heist] (2017–21) serve as a two-fold object lesson into how glocal relations occur during TVIV.

La Colorimetría Cinematográfica Aplicada A Los Nuevos Formatos Periodísticos Televisivos: El Caso del Programa Español Lo de Évole

With the irruption of multi-screens that the Netflix era has brought about, a good part of the old visual formulas, especially television and reporter ones, have become outdated. This is especially observable in television formats strongly linked to reporter journalism, such as Spaniards around the world, Street travelers and others. In recent years, a trend of adaptation of cinematographic codes to television products has already been perceived, but the Covid-19 pandemic and the ban on theatrical exhibition in cinemas around the world has precipitated a change in the model of consumption. This article presents an investigation on a nuclear element: the cinematographic colorimetry used in journalistic television programs, specifically, one of the most watched journalistic programs on Spanish television: Lo de Évole.

Loyalty in the Newsroom. Employment Relationships in Public Service Broadcasting

ABSTRACT Very little research has decried the chronic deterioration of the working conditions of journalists. Public service broadcasters, which are often seen as paradigms of stable employment relationships, have been influenced by a highly competitive industry characterised by the outsourcing of content generation and the erosion of working conditions. The Spanish Public Radio and Television Corporation (RTVE) is no exception, in a context also influenced by the political clientelism distinguishing Mediterranean media systems. Accordingly, this study resorts to the classical exit, voice, and loyalty model to stress the importance of employment relationships for journalists. From this perspective, the analysis of TVE newsroom discourses invites the exploration of the role of the supervisor in access to employment and career opportunities, as well as its possible polarising effects that make it difficult for journalists to offer their full loyalty to the citizenry.

Production values as program quality signals in Spanish linear TV: A comparison of two periods

Technology disruption, digitalization and media convergence have triggered a profound crisis in the television industry. In this context, quality is an essential strategic element for success, especially when consumers have learned through their experience with VOD, becoming more demanding and less loyal customers. Then, has the importance of quality signals changed with the emergence of new online alternatives? And the quality perception among viewers? Our research explores four production values (the host, content, the set, and technical quality) as TV program quality signals and their effect on the quality perception of entertainment programs of Spanish broadcasters. We compare two years: 2012 and 2016, a period during which the Spanish television market changed due to appearance of OTT services. Using t-tests and regression models, we establish that the importance of quality signals varied over this period, with content proving more important and the set less so in 2016 as compared with 2012. Additionally, in 2016, the results show that the quality perception of linear TV entertainment programs depended more on subjective elements such as liking and satisfaction than on objective elements, as it was in 2012. Finally, our findings are discussed, and some managerial implications and future research are suggested.

Moving forward to improve SDH: the needs of Spanish audiences

ABSTRACT Although Subtitling for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing (SDH) is well established as a modality of audiovisual translation, many questions remain to be answered about viewers’ real needs. Despite the improvements in UNE standard 153010:2012, Spanish digital television broadcasters still do not offer equal SDH services. This limits the audience’s access to the multimedia content on their channels. This study aims to discover the needs and wishes of Spanish viewers regarding the subtitling services currently offered by Spanish digital television, to highlight the subtitle features that should be modified to enhance the accessibility of subtitling services. To collect this data, a survey was created and distributed among both the d/Deaf and hearing audiences of Spanish digital television. A total of 104 volunteers took part in the study: 42 d/Deaf and Hard of Hearing and 62 hearers. The results show that the two groups have similar opinions about the Spanish SDH service, which might benefit all users. Indeed, the new goal is to offer the best solutions for subtitling services to the widest audience possible. The study also confirms many of the findings of the Long questionnaire in Spain by Arnáiz-Uzquiza, and in the UK by Romero-Fresco.

Opinion of television managers about their viewers and their interest in science: audience images and lack of scientific content on television

Science does not occupy a prominent place on Spanish television, possibly due to those in charge of the creation, production, organization, and programming of content. Previous research has shown that television executives have mental images of their audiences that they actively use in their professional practice. This study adopts a mixed, qualitative-quantitative method to determine the beliefs of Spanish television executives regarding the attitudes of their audiences toward scientific programs and content. The study began with two focus groups, each made up of five professionals, to identify a wide range of attitudes. A Likert-scale questionnaire was then applied to examine the level of agreement with those attitudes among 450 employees of different types of private and public networks from six different regions of Spain. The main findings are that Spanish television managers do not believe that their viewers enjoy scientific topics or have any interest in them. However, professionals with previous experience of the production of scientific content tend to have a slightly more positive attitude about the opinion of general audiences regarding televised science. Hence, familiarity with televised science positively impacts the appreciation of such content on television. This research highlights the fundamental role of network managers in explaining the lack of science on Spanish media. Its results are coherent with previous studies confirming that TV professionals have preconceived images about their audiences that are derived from their own preferences and that guide their decisions.

A complex mode of screen translation: the case of advertisements on Spanish television

This study on the translation of television commercials explores several aspects of this very specific audiovisual translation subtype. Firstly, it looks into dubbing and the language policies on Spanish television, which are issues affecting the decisions on the translation of television advertisements. Secondly, it approaches the notion of a TV ‘spot’ as an audiovisual text whose main components, image and sound, form a cohesive unity that is meant to trigger a persuasive effect, but may vary in translation. Finally, it analyses an example of a television spot, in English and in Spanish, focusing on the manipulation of the text when it is translated for Spanish television channels.