Papers by Raul Rodriguez-Ferrandiz
Electra, 2023
Es obvio que las redes sociales han alterado el balance entre lo público y lo privado. Algunos in... more Es obvio que las redes sociales han alterado el balance entre lo público y lo privado. Algunos interpretan que, con la práctica generalizada de las confesiones, los instrumentos de la vigilancia digital y también la pantallización total de uno mismo en redes (no me vigiles, ya te cuento yo…), el espacio privado está desapareciendo. Pero es justo lo contrario lo que sucede: es el espacio público como tal el que está en peligro de extinción, el que se achica cada vez que empleamos el ancho de banda que se nos ofrece para imponerle la estrechez narcisista de un selfie o de una minucia íntima, de un suceso particular, de un evento que solo me atañe a mí y a mi círculo. ¿Cómo afecta eso a la imagen pública del político, y de la política en general, que es el summum de lo público, el espacio al tiempo de la libertad de acción y de la responsabilidad y la rendición de cuentas del hombre político? Resulta sin duda decepcionante ver al político inmerso en una competición banal de egos con sus pares, obsesionados todos por unas “métricas de la vanidad” que les obligan a exponerse constantemente por un puñado de likes que además pueden comprarse (“astroturfing”). Pero ese parece uno de los más indeseados efectos colaterales que han traído las redes sociales: que la alcoba global sustituya a la aldea global. El artículo analiza, de la mano iluminadora y en cierto modo visionaria de Hannah Arendt, qué hemos perdido en el camino cuando el político se erige en celebrity que airea su vida privada, distrayéndose (y distrayéndonos) de su compromiso con la función pública.
It is obvious that social networks have altered the balance between public and private life. Some interpret that with the culture of public confessions, the instruments of digital surveillance, the total screening of the self, the private space is in danger of extinction. But just the opposite is true: it is the public space as such that is in dire straits. It is the public domain, the common world that becomes dwarfed every time we use the bandwidth that is offered to impose the narcissistic narrowness of a selfie or an intimate minutia, a particular event, an event that only concerns me and my circle. How does that affect the public image of the politician, and of politics in general, the space at the same time of freedom of action and accountability of the political man? It is certainly dispiriting to see politicians engaged in a banal competition of egos with their peers, all obsessed by "vanity metrics" that force them to constantly expose themselves and that can also be bought ("astroturfing"). But that seems to be one of the most pervasive and unpleasant side effects that social networks have brought : the global village substituted by the global boudoir. The article analyzes, from the illuminating and almost prophetic reflections of Hannah Arendt, what we have lost in the way when the politician aerates his private life, distracting himself (and distracting us) from his commitment to the public service.
Electra, 2023
The 'cultural industry', as it was described by Adorno and Horkheimer, imposed a new relationship... more The 'cultural industry', as it was described by Adorno and Horkheimer, imposed a new relationship between culture and free time. Based on the analyses of the Frankfurt School, the author writes about the regime of entertainment under the condition of digital culture.// A «indústria cultural», tal como ela foi descrita por Adorno e Horkheimer, impôs uma nova relação entre cultura e tempo livre. Partindo das análises da Escola de Frankfurt, Raúl Rodríguez-Ferrándiz escreve sobre o regime do entretenimento sob a condição da cultura digital.
Media and Communication, 2023
Fake news" was chosen in 2017 as the word of the year by the Collins Dictionary and the American ... more Fake news" was chosen in 2017 as the word of the year by the Collins Dictionary and the American Dialect Society, due to its extraordinary popularity. However, its relevance has been called into question due to its controversy and ambiguity. We have compiled herein 30 definitions from selected dictionaries, academic papers, news agencies, influential media observatories, and independent, certified fact-checkers over the last six years and have carried out a manual relational content analysis on them. We also collected data from four bibliometric studies from academic literature and five surveys on how the general public perceived fake news. In keeping with this three-level systematic review (lexicography, bibliometrics, and public perception) we detected some trends, including a growing drift towards a post-truth-driven conceptualization of fake news. Results also show that the "viral" and "memetic" quality of a rumor prevail over the demonstrable credibility of a source and even the factuality of a reported event; the element of surprise or outrage in the heat of the moment is more powerful than the ironic detachment elicited by news satire and parody; and sharing motivations are definitely less concerned with perceived accuracy than with partisan support, community sentiment, emotional contagion, and a taste for the sensational or bizarre.
Communication and Society, 2014
This article analyses the transmedia contents created around 33 Spanish television series broadca... more This article analyses the transmedia contents created around 33 Spanish television series broadcast in 2013 by national and regional TV networks. The article reviews the TV series’ official websites, in which the transmedia contents are made available, and organises the wide variety of transmedia formats created around the sample of TV series, based on the different touchpoint categories, which refer to any content or strategy that allow viewers to engage with a television brand through other media and platforms. The results indicate that there is an overwhelming presence of TV contents that are repackaged or adapted to the new medium or platform and that there is still a lack of transmedia expansion through contents that are actually new, differentiated across media, and narratively relevant.
La maleta de Portbou, 2022
Durante los años de hierro de la comunicación de masas (cuando la TV era todopoderosa y los flujo... more Durante los años de hierro de la comunicación de masas (cuando la TV era todopoderosa y los flujos de sentido único, vertical y difusivo), el humor y la farsa (el fake) eran válvulas de escape que oxigenaban y desautomatizaban, una especie de sacudida que permitía intuir que otros marcos de pensamiento y otras preguntas y respuestas eran posibles. Ahora cada cual es potencial emisor y alimenta sus múltiples canales con material propio o ajeno, pero se diría que el prometedor horizonte que esa nueva situación permitía avizorar no se ha cumplido, ni mucho menos.
El aumento exponencial de los actores de la comunicación ha deparado una alfabetización digital muy epidérmica (en general, la de las tecnologías necesarias y suficientes para la autopromoción del yo), pero es decepcionante pensar qué hemos hecho de la red primero y de las redes sociales después para afinar nuestras habilidades de interpretación, promover el diálogo, echar a volar la imaginación y sobre todo para convertir el humor, la sátira, la parodia, la ironía y la farsa en herramientas que disuelven la rigidez paralizante del partidismo, que derriten los polos de la única manera no desastrosa para el planeta.
… revista de estudios de ciencias sociales …, 2011
Future Internet, 2021
The central thesis of this paper is that memetic practices can be crucial to understanding decept... more The central thesis of this paper is that memetic practices can be crucial to understanding deception at present when hoaxes have increased globally due to COVID-19. Therefore, we employ existing memetic theory to describe the qualities and characteristics of meme hoaxes in terms of the way they are replicated by altering some aspects of the original, and then shared on social media platforms in order to connect global and local issues. Criteria for selecting the sample were hoaxes retrieved from and related to the local territory in the province of Alicante (Spain) during the first year of the pandemic (n = 35). Once typology, hoax topics and their memetic qualities were identified, we analysed their characteristics according to form in terms of Shifman (2014) and, secondly, their content and stance concordances both within and outside our sample (Spain and abroad). The results show, firstly, that hoaxes are mainly disinformation and they are related to the pandemic. Secondly, despi...
Revista de Investigación Lingüística, 2000
Semiotica, 2019
This paper offers a re-reading of the works of Umberto Eco, be they academic, journalistic or lit... more This paper offers a re-reading of the works of Umberto Eco, be they academic, journalistic or literary, with a pseudologic tone: his desire to investigate the mechanisms of lying, and their relation with fiction, falsification, error, secrecy, and conspiracy. The study will review some of his main academic texts in the fields of semiotics, rhetoric, and aesthetics, and will make some references to his recent novels and essay compilations, as well as offer an explanation of how the evolution of his thoughts takes a pessimistic turn. The face of the lie, which initially was aesthetic consolation and consumerist delusion, and then a game of intelligence, a creative stimulus and an interpretive challenge, changes when serves the purpose of extortion, manipulation, and war. In short, it could be argued that Eco became increasingly disappointed by deceptions, and lost faith in fakes and forgeries.
adComunica. Revista científica de estrategias, tendencias e innovación en comunicación, 2021
La Maleta de Portbou, 2021
Hoy día están de moda los términos posverdad y fake news, y su emergencia ha provocado que se des... more Hoy día están de moda los términos posverdad y fake news, y su emergencia ha provocado que se desempolvaran otros más añejos, como propaganda y desinformación. Pero hay otro que quizá no ha merecido tanta atención, y es el de rumor. Los rumores pueden definirse como afirmaciones de hecho sobre personas, grupos, sucesos o instituciones que se propagan de unos individuos a otros y se vuelven creíbles no por evidencias que las sostengan, pues nunca se han probado, sino precisamente porque otras personas parecen creer en ellas. El texto describe la dinámica del rumor a partir de fenómenos probados como las cascadas de conformismo y la polarización de grupos, expone varios estudios recientes sobre los rumores falsos en Twitter y concluye hay un factor humano (y no una oscura trama de mercenarios y programadores de algoritmos y bots para sembrar la red de desinformación) que hace mucho más probable que circulen y sean compartidas las noticias falsas que las verdaderas.
Nowadays the terms post-truth and fake news are in vogue, and their emergence has led to dusting of older ones, such as propaganda and disinformation. But there is another that perhaps has not deserved so much attention: rumor. Rumors can be defined as statements of fact about people, groups, events or institutions that spread from one individual to another and become credible not because of supporting evidence, since it has never been proven, but precisely because other people seem to believe in them. The text describes the dynamics of the rumor based on well-known phenomena such as cascades of conformity and group polarization, exposes several recent studies on false rumors on Twitter and concludes there is a human factor (and not an obscure plot of mercenaries and programmers armed with algorithms and bots to seed the web of disinformation) that make fake news much more likely to circulate and be shared than true news.
Arte, Individuo y Sociedad, 2021
Recibido: 2 de febrero de 2020 / Aceptado: 30 de abril de 2020 Resumen. En esta era de posverdad,... more Recibido: 2 de febrero de 2020 / Aceptado: 30 de abril de 2020 Resumen. En esta era de posverdad, fake news y deepfake (específica alteración digital fraudulenta de documentos audiovisuales) es necesario no solo reclamar el compromiso con la verdad del informador, sino la preservación de un espacio para la ficción que no sea estigmatizado. Las ficciones artísticas son territorios delicados que han de mantener su capacidad irrestricta de revelar mediante metáforas o ironías porciones de lo real, y al tiempo imaginar mundos alternativos que desearíamos visitar (o, al contrario, de los que abominaríamos). El texto que sigue repasa cronológicamente y analiza la obra de un excepcional creador de mundos a través de imágenes, Joan Fontcuberta, con la premisa de que cada una de sus colecciones es la metódica construcción de una porción de universo. En cuarenta años de incesante creación (y reflexión sobre ella), ha parodiado gran número de discursos: científico, periodístico, histórico, religioso, artístico y de las nuevas tecnologías. La vía para conseguirlo era crear pequeños mundos y mostrarnos, con ironía, pruebas fotográficas de su existencia: fauna, flora, restos fósiles y aerolitos extraterrestres, constelaciones, accidentes geográficos y razas ignotas, astronautas y milagros, científicos y terroristas, noticiarios, periódicos, curadores de arte y artistas, incluso instituciones museísticas donde esas obras inventadas (doblemente) se expondrían. La suma de esos mundos parciales constituye un Mundo Alternativo Perfectamente Amueblado (MAPA), una cartografía casi tan completa y exigente en su coherencia interna como las que contenían la borgiana Enciclopedia de Tlön o las ficciones de Tolkien o George R. Martin. Abstract. In the era of post-truth politics, fake news and deepfake (specific digital counterfeit of visual documents) it becomes more necessary than ever to claim the commitment to the truth of those who provides us with information. However, we must also ensure the preservation of a space for fiction that won't be stigmatized, that won't be confused with those crude forgeries. Artistic fictions are delicate, fragile matters. On the one hand, they have to maintain their unrestricted ability to imagine alternative worlds that we would like to visit (or on the contrary, we would fear or hate). But on the other, and without contradiction, they must be able to intervene on the real, to reveal by means of metaphors or irony the spirit of time in all its contradictions. The following text analyzes the work of an exceptional creator of worlds through images, Joan Fontcuberta, with the premise that each of its collections is the partial but methodical construction of a universe. In almost forty years of incessant creation (and reflection on it) he has shaped perfectly furnished ironic little worlds: fauna, flora, fossils, aerolites, constellations, geographic features, ethnography, newscast, newspapers and experts, astronauts and miracles, scientists and terrorists, works of art and artists, included art history and museum institutions, all feigned. The sum of these portions constitutes a harmonious whole, a Mocking Alternative Planisphere (MAP), a
Reimagining Communication vol 3 Action , 2020
Transmedia is a subject in vague among researchers devoted to media studies. lt has attracted the... more Transmedia is a subject in vague among researchers devoted to media studies. lt has attracted the attention of narratologists at the crossroads between traditional mass-media narratives -novels, films, television series, comics- and new narratives- videogame-s, web series, mobisodes. fanfiction, fanvids, apps, and so on. lt has also captured the attention of academics interested in media economics. and theoretical deliberation has permeated the professional world (cinema and advertising, especially}. But not only this: Transmedia has crossed the line between fiction and nonfiction. pervading the work routines of journalists and editors, documentary makers, and social actors and politicians most active on the web and also offline, in physical spaces. In this chapter, the concept will be explained as a phenomenon composed of many logics: semiotic (intertextual and intermedia! narratives), economic (industrial advertising, copyright), political (participation, engagement, fanaticism, but also controversy and dissent), and technological (networks, access, screens). And this will be done without hiding the objections that have been raised, the challenges posed and the new opportunities offered.
Claves de razón práctica, 2020
Las ficciones siempre cuentan, pero no podemos darlas por descontado. Pese a lo que pueda parecer... more Las ficciones siempre cuentan, pero no podemos darlas por descontado. Pese a lo que pueda parecer, no son especies tan adaptadas al medio (a los medios) que podamos desentendernos de su destino. Como cualquier magia, viven de sutiles equilibrios, en un estado de absoluta y casi milagrosa fragilidad. En este artículo hablo de dos peligros que las acechan: los conspiranoicos, que inventan ficciones y pretenden que las asumamos como situaciones de hecho, y los autoficcionalizadores, que se esfuerzan por dar pátina de obra de arte a lo que es poco más que vida vivida con postureos y guiños irónicos.
La maleta de Portbou, 2020
Resumen
Ficción tiene que ver con fingir. Se trata de fingimientos lúdicos, que no buscan nuestro... more Resumen
Ficción tiene que ver con fingir. Se trata de fingimientos lúdicos, que no buscan nuestro mal ni pretenden engañarnos sobre un estado real de hechos. Son puros juegos de la imaginación. Y son fingimientos compartidos, pactados: el fingidor y el destinatario lo saben, pero fingen a su vez olvidarlo por un tiempo para entregarse a la creación uno y al disfrute el otro. Las ficciones nos permiten vivir muchas vidas sin salir de la nuestra. Consiguen que nos pongamos en riesgo de morir sin morirnos, vivamos romances sin compromiso, cometamos crímenes horrendos o nos venguemos de ellos sin culpa y sin castigo, pasemos un miedo atroz y luego nos riamos de nuestro propio miedo, experimentemos la vergüenza de una situación embarazosa sin salir por ello nuestro ego malparado, reparemos o empeoremos los hechos de la historia sin ser acusados de creernos "hechos alternativos".
Se trata, pues, de fingimientos que entrañan una habilidad o potencia humana extraordinaria. Y un gran poder entraña una gran responsabilidad, como dijo alguien (un personaje de ficción, de hecho), aunque se ejerza sobre mundos posibles o potenciales. En el texto hacemos un alegato a favor de los relatos de ficción, sean cuentos, novelas, películas, series de televisión, comics o cualesquiera otros medios de expresión que vehiculan historias de la imaginación.
Abstract
Fiction has to do with factitious and with feigned. But fictions are playful pretenses, which do not seek to harm us or to deceive us about a factual situation. Moreover, they are shared pretenses, after mutual agreement: the pretender and the recipient know it, but they pretend to forget it for a while and devote to the creation and to the enjoyment, respectively. Fictions allow us to live many lives without leaving ours. They take us on the verge of death without dying, live romances without compromise, commit horrendous crimes or take revenge on them without guilt and without punishment, be scared stiff and then laugh at our own fear, experience the shame of an embarrassing situation without worrying about the consequences, toning down or, on the contrary, worsen the facts of history without being accused of believing "alternative facts."
In brief, fictions are pretenses that involve an extraordinary human ability and power. And with great power comes great responsibility, as we know (by the way, from a fictional character). In this essay we make a plea in favor of fiction narratives, be they tales, novels, movies, television series, comics, videogames or any other means of expression that convey stories of the imagination.
El profesional de la información, 2019
The article exposes post-truth politics and fake news meaning, origin and precedents. Recent case... more The article exposes post-truth politics and fake news meaning, origin and precedents. Recent cases of both expressions
are described and discussed. We offer and value the interpretations that have been given of these phenomena, around
a double axis: those that demonstrate its continuity (as novel incarnations of demagogy, propaganda or disinformation)
as opposed to those that emphasize its novelty, and those that put the accent on technology versus those that speak of
a true epistemological transformation or discover the psychological motivations that subtend them. Finally, corrective
measures are summarized and discussed: regulation or self-regulation of contents, fact-checking, monitoring of search
algorithms and digital literacy programs.
Semiotica, 2019
This paper offers a re-reading of the works of Umberto Eco, be they
academic, journalistic or lit... more This paper offers a re-reading of the works of Umberto Eco, be they
academic, journalistic or literary, with a pseudologic tone: his desire to investigate the mechanisms of lying, and their relation with fiction, falsification, error, secrecy, and conspiracy. The study will review some of his main academic texts in the fields of semiotics, rhetoric, and aesthetics, and will make some references to his recent novels and essay compilations, as well as offer an explanation of how the evolution of his thoughts takes a pessimistic turn. The face of the lie, which initially was aesthetic consolation and consumerist delusion, and then a game of intelligence, a creative stimulus and an interpretive challenge, changes when serves the purpose of extortion, manipulation, and war. In short, it could be argued that Eco became increasingly disappointed by deceptions, and lost faith in fakes and forgeries.
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Papers by Raul Rodriguez-Ferrandiz
It is obvious that social networks have altered the balance between public and private life. Some interpret that with the culture of public confessions, the instruments of digital surveillance, the total screening of the self, the private space is in danger of extinction. But just the opposite is true: it is the public space as such that is in dire straits. It is the public domain, the common world that becomes dwarfed every time we use the bandwidth that is offered to impose the narcissistic narrowness of a selfie or an intimate minutia, a particular event, an event that only concerns me and my circle. How does that affect the public image of the politician, and of politics in general, the space at the same time of freedom of action and accountability of the political man? It is certainly dispiriting to see politicians engaged in a banal competition of egos with their peers, all obsessed by "vanity metrics" that force them to constantly expose themselves and that can also be bought ("astroturfing"). But that seems to be one of the most pervasive and unpleasant side effects that social networks have brought : the global village substituted by the global boudoir. The article analyzes, from the illuminating and almost prophetic reflections of Hannah Arendt, what we have lost in the way when the politician aerates his private life, distracting himself (and distracting us) from his commitment to the public service.
El aumento exponencial de los actores de la comunicación ha deparado una alfabetización digital muy epidérmica (en general, la de las tecnologías necesarias y suficientes para la autopromoción del yo), pero es decepcionante pensar qué hemos hecho de la red primero y de las redes sociales después para afinar nuestras habilidades de interpretación, promover el diálogo, echar a volar la imaginación y sobre todo para convertir el humor, la sátira, la parodia, la ironía y la farsa en herramientas que disuelven la rigidez paralizante del partidismo, que derriten los polos de la única manera no desastrosa para el planeta.
Nowadays the terms post-truth and fake news are in vogue, and their emergence has led to dusting of older ones, such as propaganda and disinformation. But there is another that perhaps has not deserved so much attention: rumor. Rumors can be defined as statements of fact about people, groups, events or institutions that spread from one individual to another and become credible not because of supporting evidence, since it has never been proven, but precisely because other people seem to believe in them. The text describes the dynamics of the rumor based on well-known phenomena such as cascades of conformity and group polarization, exposes several recent studies on false rumors on Twitter and concludes there is a human factor (and not an obscure plot of mercenaries and programmers armed with algorithms and bots to seed the web of disinformation) that make fake news much more likely to circulate and be shared than true news.
Ficción tiene que ver con fingir. Se trata de fingimientos lúdicos, que no buscan nuestro mal ni pretenden engañarnos sobre un estado real de hechos. Son puros juegos de la imaginación. Y son fingimientos compartidos, pactados: el fingidor y el destinatario lo saben, pero fingen a su vez olvidarlo por un tiempo para entregarse a la creación uno y al disfrute el otro. Las ficciones nos permiten vivir muchas vidas sin salir de la nuestra. Consiguen que nos pongamos en riesgo de morir sin morirnos, vivamos romances sin compromiso, cometamos crímenes horrendos o nos venguemos de ellos sin culpa y sin castigo, pasemos un miedo atroz y luego nos riamos de nuestro propio miedo, experimentemos la vergüenza de una situación embarazosa sin salir por ello nuestro ego malparado, reparemos o empeoremos los hechos de la historia sin ser acusados de creernos "hechos alternativos".
Se trata, pues, de fingimientos que entrañan una habilidad o potencia humana extraordinaria. Y un gran poder entraña una gran responsabilidad, como dijo alguien (un personaje de ficción, de hecho), aunque se ejerza sobre mundos posibles o potenciales. En el texto hacemos un alegato a favor de los relatos de ficción, sean cuentos, novelas, películas, series de televisión, comics o cualesquiera otros medios de expresión que vehiculan historias de la imaginación.
Abstract
Fiction has to do with factitious and with feigned. But fictions are playful pretenses, which do not seek to harm us or to deceive us about a factual situation. Moreover, they are shared pretenses, after mutual agreement: the pretender and the recipient know it, but they pretend to forget it for a while and devote to the creation and to the enjoyment, respectively. Fictions allow us to live many lives without leaving ours. They take us on the verge of death without dying, live romances without compromise, commit horrendous crimes or take revenge on them without guilt and without punishment, be scared stiff and then laugh at our own fear, experience the shame of an embarrassing situation without worrying about the consequences, toning down or, on the contrary, worsen the facts of history without being accused of believing "alternative facts."
In brief, fictions are pretenses that involve an extraordinary human ability and power. And with great power comes great responsibility, as we know (by the way, from a fictional character). In this essay we make a plea in favor of fiction narratives, be they tales, novels, movies, television series, comics, videogames or any other means of expression that convey stories of the imagination.
are described and discussed. We offer and value the interpretations that have been given of these phenomena, around
a double axis: those that demonstrate its continuity (as novel incarnations of demagogy, propaganda or disinformation)
as opposed to those that emphasize its novelty, and those that put the accent on technology versus those that speak of
a true epistemological transformation or discover the psychological motivations that subtend them. Finally, corrective
measures are summarized and discussed: regulation or self-regulation of contents, fact-checking, monitoring of search
algorithms and digital literacy programs.
academic, journalistic or literary, with a pseudologic tone: his desire to investigate the mechanisms of lying, and their relation with fiction, falsification, error, secrecy, and conspiracy. The study will review some of his main academic texts in the fields of semiotics, rhetoric, and aesthetics, and will make some references to his recent novels and essay compilations, as well as offer an explanation of how the evolution of his thoughts takes a pessimistic turn. The face of the lie, which initially was aesthetic consolation and consumerist delusion, and then a game of intelligence, a creative stimulus and an interpretive challenge, changes when serves the purpose of extortion, manipulation, and war. In short, it could be argued that Eco became increasingly disappointed by deceptions, and lost faith in fakes and forgeries.
It is obvious that social networks have altered the balance between public and private life. Some interpret that with the culture of public confessions, the instruments of digital surveillance, the total screening of the self, the private space is in danger of extinction. But just the opposite is true: it is the public space as such that is in dire straits. It is the public domain, the common world that becomes dwarfed every time we use the bandwidth that is offered to impose the narcissistic narrowness of a selfie or an intimate minutia, a particular event, an event that only concerns me and my circle. How does that affect the public image of the politician, and of politics in general, the space at the same time of freedom of action and accountability of the political man? It is certainly dispiriting to see politicians engaged in a banal competition of egos with their peers, all obsessed by "vanity metrics" that force them to constantly expose themselves and that can also be bought ("astroturfing"). But that seems to be one of the most pervasive and unpleasant side effects that social networks have brought : the global village substituted by the global boudoir. The article analyzes, from the illuminating and almost prophetic reflections of Hannah Arendt, what we have lost in the way when the politician aerates his private life, distracting himself (and distracting us) from his commitment to the public service.
El aumento exponencial de los actores de la comunicación ha deparado una alfabetización digital muy epidérmica (en general, la de las tecnologías necesarias y suficientes para la autopromoción del yo), pero es decepcionante pensar qué hemos hecho de la red primero y de las redes sociales después para afinar nuestras habilidades de interpretación, promover el diálogo, echar a volar la imaginación y sobre todo para convertir el humor, la sátira, la parodia, la ironía y la farsa en herramientas que disuelven la rigidez paralizante del partidismo, que derriten los polos de la única manera no desastrosa para el planeta.
Nowadays the terms post-truth and fake news are in vogue, and their emergence has led to dusting of older ones, such as propaganda and disinformation. But there is another that perhaps has not deserved so much attention: rumor. Rumors can be defined as statements of fact about people, groups, events or institutions that spread from one individual to another and become credible not because of supporting evidence, since it has never been proven, but precisely because other people seem to believe in them. The text describes the dynamics of the rumor based on well-known phenomena such as cascades of conformity and group polarization, exposes several recent studies on false rumors on Twitter and concludes there is a human factor (and not an obscure plot of mercenaries and programmers armed with algorithms and bots to seed the web of disinformation) that make fake news much more likely to circulate and be shared than true news.
Ficción tiene que ver con fingir. Se trata de fingimientos lúdicos, que no buscan nuestro mal ni pretenden engañarnos sobre un estado real de hechos. Son puros juegos de la imaginación. Y son fingimientos compartidos, pactados: el fingidor y el destinatario lo saben, pero fingen a su vez olvidarlo por un tiempo para entregarse a la creación uno y al disfrute el otro. Las ficciones nos permiten vivir muchas vidas sin salir de la nuestra. Consiguen que nos pongamos en riesgo de morir sin morirnos, vivamos romances sin compromiso, cometamos crímenes horrendos o nos venguemos de ellos sin culpa y sin castigo, pasemos un miedo atroz y luego nos riamos de nuestro propio miedo, experimentemos la vergüenza de una situación embarazosa sin salir por ello nuestro ego malparado, reparemos o empeoremos los hechos de la historia sin ser acusados de creernos "hechos alternativos".
Se trata, pues, de fingimientos que entrañan una habilidad o potencia humana extraordinaria. Y un gran poder entraña una gran responsabilidad, como dijo alguien (un personaje de ficción, de hecho), aunque se ejerza sobre mundos posibles o potenciales. En el texto hacemos un alegato a favor de los relatos de ficción, sean cuentos, novelas, películas, series de televisión, comics o cualesquiera otros medios de expresión que vehiculan historias de la imaginación.
Abstract
Fiction has to do with factitious and with feigned. But fictions are playful pretenses, which do not seek to harm us or to deceive us about a factual situation. Moreover, they are shared pretenses, after mutual agreement: the pretender and the recipient know it, but they pretend to forget it for a while and devote to the creation and to the enjoyment, respectively. Fictions allow us to live many lives without leaving ours. They take us on the verge of death without dying, live romances without compromise, commit horrendous crimes or take revenge on them without guilt and without punishment, be scared stiff and then laugh at our own fear, experience the shame of an embarrassing situation without worrying about the consequences, toning down or, on the contrary, worsen the facts of history without being accused of believing "alternative facts."
In brief, fictions are pretenses that involve an extraordinary human ability and power. And with great power comes great responsibility, as we know (by the way, from a fictional character). In this essay we make a plea in favor of fiction narratives, be they tales, novels, movies, television series, comics, videogames or any other means of expression that convey stories of the imagination.
are described and discussed. We offer and value the interpretations that have been given of these phenomena, around
a double axis: those that demonstrate its continuity (as novel incarnations of demagogy, propaganda or disinformation)
as opposed to those that emphasize its novelty, and those that put the accent on technology versus those that speak of
a true epistemological transformation or discover the psychological motivations that subtend them. Finally, corrective
measures are summarized and discussed: regulation or self-regulation of contents, fact-checking, monitoring of search
algorithms and digital literacy programs.
academic, journalistic or literary, with a pseudologic tone: his desire to investigate the mechanisms of lying, and their relation with fiction, falsification, error, secrecy, and conspiracy. The study will review some of his main academic texts in the fields of semiotics, rhetoric, and aesthetics, and will make some references to his recent novels and essay compilations, as well as offer an explanation of how the evolution of his thoughts takes a pessimistic turn. The face of the lie, which initially was aesthetic consolation and consumerist delusion, and then a game of intelligence, a creative stimulus and an interpretive challenge, changes when serves the purpose of extortion, manipulation, and war. In short, it could be argued that Eco became increasingly disappointed by deceptions, and lost faith in fakes and forgeries.
En canvi, conjugar desinformació i poder té a veure amb la mentida, no amb el secret. El secret és el que és però no pareix (i no apareix); la mentida és el que pareix (i apareix, de vegades emfàticament) però no és.
El que resulta característic del nostre temps potser són les quantitats ingents de poder que són gestionades per agents de desinformació, no per acumuladors d’informació reservada. La palanca del poder no s’exerceix ara des del desnivell entre el saber i la ignorància.
No és que la mercaderia informativa s’haja devaluat, sinó que ha canviat el criteri de valor: el que resulta valuós ja no és que s’assemble més a un estat real de coses sobre el món que permeta prendre decisions i preveure escenaris futurs amb més encert, sinó que es compartisca més, assolisca amb això un efecte de realitat i esdevinga una profecia autocomplida, amb independència de l’estat dels fets. Ja no es veri-fica, es reï-fica de tant repetir-la: a la força creadora de realitat, demiúrgica, de la mentida s’hi afig: 1) la facilitació tecnològica de la seua viralitat; 2) la dessecació, per acumulació de sediments tòxics, de les fonts de saber a les quals és possible remuntar-se per a contrastar-la, i 3) la sàvia conducció, riu avall, del corrent de mentides perquè arribe als destinataris més sensibles, aquells sobre els quals exercirà un efecte més poderós, permanent, i alhora reproduïble. En altres paraules: es crea i es viralitza el missatge desinformador, i en eixe mateix gest se ceguen les fonts del relat autoritzat que podria enfrontar-s’hi i desmentirlo en un curs alt no contaminat, es multipliquen els afluents i s’esborren les empremtes d’eixa operació.
Cal, per tant, abordar les variants que el fenomen de la desinformació ha adquirit en els últims anys, sense obviar el fet que remet a pràctiques ben conegudes, com ara el rumor maliciós, la sàtira i la paròdia informatives, la propaganda, les teories de la conspiració o les notícies enganyoses. Però sobretot convé aclarir quins matisos nous adopta: la postveritat com a marc epistemològic i brou de cultiu sociològic i cultural, les fake news com el seu braç secular i armat, l’economia de l’atenció com a horitzó d’eficàcia en l’àmbit cognitiu, la polarització i l’excitació de passions com el seu combustible emocional, la transparència com a mantra que sembla un conjur i en realitat té efectes sedants i hipnòtics (la benzodiazepina de la desinformació) i la intel·ligència artificial i els algoritmes com el seu arsenal tecnològicament optimitzat. I tot això aprofitant la inestimable col·laboració de la nostra vanitat digital, la de tots i cadascú.
Este libro trata sobre las muchas magias de la ficción y se recrea en algunos de sus personajes: desde los Swann y Odette de Proust hasta los Deckard y Roy de Blade Runner, Lolita y Humbert, Rick e Ilsa, el matrimonio Tura de Ser o no ser, el Frank Underwood de House of Cards, los ángeles dubitativos de El cielo sobre Berlín, los humanos protésicos de Black Mirror, las elecciones morales en Extraños en un tren, La calumnia o Negación. las ficciones cuentan siempre, pero no podemos darlas por descontado. Viven en un ecosistema delicado, muy frágil. Pese a lo que pueda parecer los mundos de ficción son casi tan vulnerables como el mundo a secas que habitamos, y que tanto y tan justamente nos preocupa. Nos imaginamos ingenuamente que esos mundos imaginarios son producto de una energía inagotable o renovable, que son una especie tan abundante y adaptada a los medios que podemos desentendernos de su destino, pero el libro también describe algunas amenazas. Conspiranoias y selficciones serían dos de ellas.
This book is about lying and some nearby terms: fakery, forgery, hoax, concealment, error, fiction, irony, secrecy, conspiracy. It is not intended to make a moral or the opposite, a kind of apology of the lie. It's about reflecting on certain lies, because in this era of post-truth politics, we really don't know what the state of the lie is, if lies are not what they used to be. We present, analyze and evaluate some examples of post-truth politics (the fake news and the "alternative facts" of the Trump administration), media events such as the "Ecce Homo" retouched in Zaragoza or New Journalism's new non-fiction novels. We review Umberto Eco's essays and novels, as well as Joan Fontcuberta's overwhelming photographic montages. We analyze fake documentaries, movies, TV series "based on real events", reality TV shows and top secret documents uncovered by WikiLeaks.
In brief, our point is halfway between De Quincey and Wilde: lying as one of the fine arts and post-truth as the decadence of lying. Lying is a work of intelligence, a subtlety of the spirit. It demonstrates staggering persuasive, narrative, even gestural qualities. Post-truth is an explosion that seems to come out of the bowels, which shows a politically incorrect sincerity, but it is a sign of rudeness, bad manners, besides being mendacious. Post-truth politics is the banality of lying, to paraphrase Hannah Arendt. Therefore, there are different types of lies. Just as an expert in bombs in front of an artifact that must be dismantled, just as a medical officer of an interstellar mission in full autopsy of an alien's corpse, we can feel disappointed and even ashamed by the simplicity of the mechanism or interested and even admired for its refinement.
En este libro se analizan y se discuten las últimas bazas del intelectual llamado un día apocalíptico, y también las que emplea el nuevo intelectual integrado, en relación con una también remozada neotelevisión. Esa enemiga íntima suscita ahora nuevas angustias y nuevas esperanzas. Unos denuncian la atrofia de la percepción y de la imaginación, el cinismo disolvente, la invasión de los simulacros, el compulsivo "zapeo" en un océano de irrelevancia. Otros defienden la estimulante fabulación de todos los mundos, la cordial ecúmene tecnológica, la quiebra de ominosos cielos ideológicos.
Y a todo esto, ¿qué es del espectador, mirón intermitente, paseante domiciliario de visita a los pasajes televisivos? ¿Cómo conjuga su disposición de ánimo, arrellanado en su sillón, y las imágenes de la actualidad, a menudo escalofriantes y terribles? ¿Cómo vive sin esquizofrenia ni frivolidad en ese mundo doméstico, a la vez confortable y horrendo?
Frankenstein y el cirujano plástico es una guía multimedia de semiótica de la publicidad que se ofrece como un itinerario de lectura de la comunicación publicitaria, ejemplificada con más seiscientos anuncios de prensa, radio y televisión de la última década.
número de lógicas a la vez semióticas (intertextuales e intermediales,
narrativas), económicas (industriales, publicitarias) y tecnológicas
(redes, accesos). Todas ellas nos obligan a repensar el relato, sobre el
que una sólida teoría había sido ya edificada, pero en una época que
ya ha hecho de él en cierto modo la forma básica que adoptan
nuestras experiencias vitales, tanto individuales como colectivas,
cuando se transforman en discurso que permite darles sentido,
comunicarlas y orientar nuestras acciones. Si a eso añadimos la
dimensión transmedia (esa incontinencia del contar propia de los
nativos digitales, que hace virtualmente irrestricta la expansión de los
universos narrativos, ficcionales o no) sin duda se abren a la reflexión
continentes nuevos. El capítulo introduce las principales cuestiones que surgen a partir de la diseminación transmedia de los relatos. El volumen está prologado por Román Gubern e incluye una entrevista de los coordinadores a Carlos A. Scolari.