Carlota Coronado Ruiz

Historical science fiction: from television memory to transmedia memory in El Ministerio del Tiempo

ABSTRACTThis article examines the first season of the Spanish television series El Ministerio del Tiempo (The Ministry of Time), broadcast by the public network Television Espanola in the first trimester of 2015. First we consider a number of interpretive problems arising from the representation of history on television. Then, through a qualitative analysis of the series’ content, we review its main narrative features and explore its combination of historical reenactment, science fiction and memory discourse. We end by analyzing the representations of history generated by interpretive or creative communities of followers of the program through linked transmedia practices. We will argue that El Ministerio del Tiempo is a hybrid product that, while novel, also evidences the persistence of certain traditional representational modes. Its innovative and appealing focus is based on genre hybridization and strategies for representing the past that are potentially open to the introduction of uchronias. It has add...ABSTRACT This article examines the first season of the Spanish television series El Ministerio del Tiempo (The Ministry of Time), broadcast by the public network Televisión Española in the first trimester of 2015. First we consider a number of interpretive problems arising from the representation of history on television. Then, through a qualitative analysis of the series’ content, we review its main narrative features and explore its combination of historical reenactment, science fiction and memory discourse. We end by analyzing the representations of history generated by interpretive or creative communities of followers of the program through linked transmedia practices. We will argue that El Ministerio del Tiempo is a hybrid product that, while novel, also evidences the persistence of certain traditional representational modes. Its innovative and appealing focus is based on genre hybridization and strategies for representing the past that are potentially open to the introduction of uchronias. It has additionally been able to mobilize a significant, active and creative fan community. The series has offered the contemporary Spanish television drama scene a model for renewal; however, its plotlines suggest a simplified, conservative vision of the past, as well as a banal, essentialist view of the nation. The article holds that the transmedia practices generated around El Ministerio del Tiempo have also been influenced by this nationalist framework, and that responses from the fan community have not disputed the hegemonic meanings proposed by the original story.

Mujer y ámbito laboral en la ficción española sobre la Transición

This paper studies from a gender perspective, the discourse built around the work progress on women in recent decades, in Spanish television series, contextualized in the historical period of Transition. For this purpose, it have been selected two representative cases: Cuentame como paso (TVE-1, 2001) and La chica de ayer (Antena 3, 2009). The analysis focuses on professional disputes raised in this historical moment and its future development, based on a conception presentist.

El cine informativo: ¿El arma más fuerte? La recepción de los noticiarios cinematográficos "Luce" durante el fascismo

The Luce newsreel was a fascist-pivotal propaganda instrument. Mussolini thought movies were the strongestweapon; however, the efficiency of cinematographic propaganda on people did not work as well as expected,especially nonfiction. This article intends to value, through oral testimonies, the influence of Lucenewsreel on the Italian population during fascism, the degree of truth of film news, and which of those piecesof news were more repeated, as well as the influence of the Italian and its leader image on the collective mind.

Parallel Stories, Differentiated Histories. Exploring Fiction and Memory in Spanish and Portuguese Television

Integrated into an international project on the characteristics of historical fiction on TV in Spain and Portugal during 2001–2012, the study traces the main aspects of these productions as entertainment products and memory strategies. Historical fiction on Iberian television channels express qualitative problems of interpretation. Its development must be related to issues such practices, meanings and forms of recognition, and connected with specific memory systems. The article explores a set of key–points: uses and topics of historical fiction; its visions through similarly proposals; polarization in several historical times, and its convergent perspectives about Franco and Oliveira Salazar as Iberian contemporary dictators.

Sin presencia ni gloria. El trabajo femenino en la información cinematográfica italiana (1945-1954)

The working women’s image during the first post war years is analyzed, from 1945 until the arrival of television (1954) as shown in the Italian cinematographic news reels. A quantitative and qualitative analysis of the news featuring working women is made, and the types of professional activities which are normally linked to them and they way they are portrayed are established. This visual representation is contextualized in the legal framework related to the working situation, created by the government of the chosen period. This way, we can compare the image offered by the cinematographic news with the reality of the working Italian women. It is shown that the period’s cinema offered an idealized vision of the women’s working conditions and granted women a secondary role inside the news‘s priorities.