Revista de Ciencias de la Comunicación e Información. 2024. Vol. 29, 1-15
ISSN 2695-5016
Alicia López-Balsas[1]. Complutense University of Madrid. Spain.
Javier García-López[2]. University of Murcia. Spain.
Francisco Cabezuelo-Lorenzo[3]. Complutense University of Madrid. Spain
How to cite this article:
López-Balsas, Alicia; García-López, Javier, & Cabezuelo-Lorenzo, Francisco (2024). Quality indicators in countercultural television series. The paradigmatic case of Hung (HBO) [Indicadores de calidad en relatos audiovisuales contraculturales. El caso paradigmático de Hung (HBO)]. Revista de Ciencias de la Comunicación e Información, 29, 1-15. https://doi.org/10.35742/rcci.2024.29.e302
Introduction: The main objective of this research is to unveil the social constructions represented in the TV series titled Hung. Those constructions forge a critical view of everyday structures and represent a break with the vital pattern imposed by most serial fiction audio-visual productions. Methodology: This work proposes, through discourse analysis, a study on the quality marks of a fiction series that offers a new vision on the failure of the American dream and that uses the critique of Western society as a narrative vehicle. Results and Discussion: It is a TV series in which certain quality indicators such as originality, a new way of telling the story and a discursive tone based on sexuality and prostitution remain latent. Conclusions: It is therefore the proposal of a quality story, built based on the irreverent.
TV Series; HBO; American Dream; prostitution.
Introducción: Esta investigación desvela las construcciones sociales representadas en la serie Hung que forjan una mirada crítica de las estructuras cotidianas y suponen una ruptura con la pauta vital impuesta por la mayoría de las producciones audiovisuales de ficción seriada. Metodología: Este trabajo plantea, a través de un análisis del discurso, un estudio sobre los indicadores de calidad de una serie de ficción que ofrece una nueva visión sobre el fracaso del sueño americano y que utiliza la crítica de la sociedad occidental como un vehículo narrativo. Resultados y Discusión: Hung es una la serie de televisión en la que permanecen latentes ciertos indicadores de calidad como la originalidad, un nuevo modo de contar la historia y un tono discursivo sustentado en la sexualidad y la prostitución. Conclusiones: Es por tanto la propuesta de un relato de calidad, constituido sobre la base de lo irreverente.
Series de televisión; HBO; Sueño americano; prostitución.
Throughout the last two decades, major production companies and platforms such as Netflix, HBO, Amazon, CBS, NBC, ABC or ShowTimes have brought to the surface new narrative and formal elements never seen before. The new stories offer intricate plots, temporal deviations and opposing characters whose main purpose is to subvert traditional roles. They seek to connect with an audience that perceives itself as a set of intelligent individuals more versed in audiovisual media than their ancestors.
Television fiction has experienced a great development during the first twenty-two years of the 21st century, sustained by TV series that represent the social complexity of today's societies. Such stories connect with an audience that no longer aspires only to consume dreams but expects to see reflected in fiction series the murkiest spheres of everyday reality. Moreover, it can be argued that current receivers increasingly demand quality audiovisual productions, understood as original, distinctive, transgressive creations and, above all, very close to everyday reality in their dramatic construction (Smith, 2020, p. 183).
Certainly, the quality of television fiction is usually assessed in terms of form and in terms of theme, which implies values and aspects linked to production, investment, audience, cast, direction, production, aesthetic proposal, art direction, photography, or script, among others. The connection of the latter with the methods of interpretation and their possible meaning for the audience is evident. This article will focus on these last two narrative spheres. However, we are aware that the debate on the indicators that shed light on quality in television is still open. Even so, it can be assured that the American production of fictional series operates with a high set of parameters regarding the quality of the story and, therefore, they are the paradigm of quality in the formats there are reference to herein. But what do these stories have that others do not have? The last twenty years have been described by many authors as the third era of splendor of serial fiction, where there has been an audiovisual and even anthropological revision of television (García-López and López-Balsas, 2014, p. 34), a new form of construction of discourse and narratives (Cabezuelo-Lorenzo et al., 2021; Herranz-de-la-Casa et al., 2019, p. 177; Gómez-García et al, 2019; Segado-Boj and Díaz-del-Campo, 2020, p. 231) with new trends and consumption habits (Gallardo-Camacho, 2015; González-Oñate et al., 2020), where today as a result of “the emergence of interactivity and second screens, the audience evolves from its merely active conception to its social consideration” (Tur-Viñes, 2020).
Based on the methodology of Calsamiglia-Blancafort and Tusón-Valls (1999) and Thompson's (1996) influential analysis of television fiction in the 1980s and early 1990s, it is known that the quality of these stories is directly linked to the critical insight with which they address the social environments to which they refer. As Cascajosa-Virino (2006, pp. 23-33) demonstrates, indicators of quality include the choice of established creators, innovation in genre and narrative structure, the importance of pay channels, and the inclusion of taboos in the plot.
In the new way in which the digital citizen engages by deferred consumption of programs broadcast on conventional television, deferred audiences are increasing (Gallardo-Camacho and Sierra-Sánchez, 2017, p. 172) and the crisis of traditional commercial television is evident (Sotelo-González et al., 2020, p. 1623). Similarly, the transmedia phenomenon is already a reality that attracts the attention of academic research in the audiovisual area (Villena-Alarcón, 2014, p. 15; Hidalgo-Marí and Segarra-Saavedra, 2020, p. 113; Miranda-Galbe et al., 2021).
Similarly, there is a new way of looking at the image in the current digital context (Deltell-Escolar and Alfeo-Álvarez, 2016), where in addition audiences are increasingly active, moving from view to share (Dafonte-Gómez and Martínez-Rolán, 2016) with a whole huge network of digital platforms at our disposal (Liberal-Ormaechea and Cabezuelo-Lorenzo, 2018, p. 136). All these elements are commonly found in the fiction series produced by HBO (Feuer, 2007, p. 145).
If there is a combination of the typical characteristics of quality in serialized fiction and the critical view of society, the archetypal case of Hung (HBO, 2009-2011) can be found. This work is the result of the analysis of its 30 chapters divided into 10 installments in each of its three consecutive seasons, broadcast between 2009, 2010 and 2011. In this series, which has now become a cult series a decade later, certain elements of everyday life such as the family, the work environment or the educational environment are represented in terms of their miseries and not their successes, as fictional productions have been accustomed to projecting to date. Thus, there is a critical representation of the society in which the characters develop. Therefore, there is a rupture of what is usually considered as politically correct and some taboos about sexuality and the American way of life, which had already been seen, are unveiled.
However, the aim of this paper is to unveil the main quality indicators that may be contained in television fiction series that propose countercurrent or dissident ways of life and how the social constructions represented are deployed in the story. For this purpose, as a paradigm, the audiovisual discursive analysis of the series Hung has been chosen, which forges a critical view of everyday structures and represents a break with the vital pattern imposed by most serialized fiction audiovisual productions.
This paper presents a study of a fiction series that offers a new vision of the failure of the American dream and uses the critique of Western society as a narrative vehicle. A series in which certain quality indicators remain latent, such as originality, a new way of telling the story and a discursive tone based on sexuality and prostitution. Undoubtedly, this series proposes a quality story, built on the basis of irreverence.
Traditional audiovisual fiction, that which was projected by the great cinema and television productions of the 1950s and 1960s in the United States, was set on the basis of the morals of the time and offered lessons on the ways of life to be followed. It even went as far as the creation and development of the myth of the intergalactic hero such as Superman or Flash Gordon (Piñeiro-Otero, 2020). But the so-called crisis of celluloid and death of traditional cinema in the second half of the twentieth century (McGowan and Deltell-Escolar, 2017, p. 335) has brought a new audiovisual narrative and imposes an evaluation on the concept of the antihero, which is very well seen in the dystopias of the 1970s in which stories against the American dream are offered. In the past, in most cases, the model citizen was presented as a person with the ability to build a successful future through constant effort and the capacity to take advantage of the opportunities he/she encounters along the way. This has also been continuously reflected in other communication tools such as advertising spots and political propaganda (Viñarás-Abad and Llorente-Barroso, 2020, p. 153).
However, since the so-called second period of splendor of cinematographic and television fiction, these representative dynamics seem to change. Above all, in the recent first decade of the 21st century, the antihero representation has been strongly manifested (Freire-Sánchez and Vidal-Mestre, 2022, p. 246 and Gómez-Flores, 2021). It is a character operating in a society affected by pollution and marked by a severe economic crisis, which leads communities to redefine their essential goals and, consequently, their life experiences.
The discursive figure of the antihero is a reconfiguration of the typical hero and the surrounding universe. Even so, the antihero is not a new character in classical literature. In fact, the Spanish literature of the Golden Age is full of allusions to the antihero, represented through the rogue, the main character of countless picaresque novels. The antihero is, in any case, a character opposed to the hero, a negative version that clashes with the prevailing system, although he/she fulfills the typical narrative roles of the classic hero. But this new hero is more isolated than the genuine version. The character is disappointed with society, no place can be found within the community and rejection is a portrayed feeling.
To clarify what has been said so far about the antihero, it is convenient to refer to Vogler's taxonomy (2002, p. 72). In this way, it can be found, broadly speaking, two variants of unconventional protagonists or antiheroes:
- Typology 1: Individuals who share similarities with traditional heroes but are distinguished by a high tone of cynicism or by carrying some significant wound.
- Typology 2: Tragic protagonists, who may not win our approval and whose actions others might even regret, but who manage to let them develop sympathy.
Following this classification, it is possible to realize that some classic characters of television comedy can be included in this classification (Álvarez, 1999). Many characters are currently integrated into this narrative. Characters such as Homer Simpson, Dr. House, Peter Griffin or Tony Soprano embody antiheroes in an archetypal way. Today, fictional creation on television in the United States has evolved beyond hackneyed plots and predictable endings, moving away from the conventionally fortunate plot.
This dynamic of narrative construction has to do with the environment in which fictional television discourses are inserted. Today's societies are composed of a multitude of anti-heroes who are part of a majority collective identity. The subjects of today's Western societies are, for the most part, permanent losers who yearn for a dream that, like all dreams, is usually artificial and unattainable. So the proposed idea of the antihero reflected in today's television fiction has much to do with the conception of postmodernity understood as a way of life.
Postmodernity is a concept intimately linked to the changes that have been taking place since the end of the twentieth century. It is a concept that contains within itself the idea of constant change in the social and cultural spheres. Current societies are determined by a socioeconomic system of growing production and consumption (García-López, 2015). In fact, the economic crises, so current, are part of these socio-cultural flows associated with the system of exacerbated consumption. But it is necessary to point out that the concept of postmodernity has been given a multiple dimension. Postmodernity has been given the entity of an idea of the world, of a cosmovision; but postmodernity can be seen as a concrete cultural experience and, in addition, postmodernity defines a certain social condition.
In any case, the idea of the antihero as handled by current audiovisual fiction is subject to the project of postmodernity. The background of the postmodernity project referred to herein begins in the 1980s, when a group of intellectuals begin to debate from a critical perspective on the established social and cultural conditions (Bauman, 2001).
This idea assumes the need for structural change. In spite of all that has been said, some authors do not agree with the idea of postmodernity. However, the handling of this idea is necessary since it turns the society in which we live into a scenario that can change; the idea of postmodernity highlights all the negative consequences of the imposed sociocultural dynamics.
The notion of the antihero represented in television fiction seems then to break with the ideal posed by modernity, fixed in the idiosyncrasy of the Enlightenment and, therefore, in progress. The antihero of our daily life is the champion of involution and, in essence, confronts the idea of excessive social progress. In fact, advertising and audiovisual fiction have at times generated the somatic stereotype of a man linked to an aesthetic linked to a total influence of bigorexia, an apparent vigor, which in truth is an obsession (Fanjul-Peyró, 2008). Thus, the antihero represented in today's fiction encloses the sense of a progress that paradoxically provokes involution.
However, the contradiction is part of the portrait of an antihero that is beginning to form the narrative core of a multitude of fiction series, which transgress traditional themes and are rooted in the current global socioeconomic decadence. These vicissitudes ar related to certain quality indicators in television fiction, precisely because the deviation from the norm.
Hung can be seen as an exemplary case of quality in fiction series of the last decades. It is a serialized fiction product that contains the characteristics of the traditional black comedy, since it uses black humor in its argumentation. However, the social and psychological environment it represents corresponds to the changing society of the moment and the allusion to personal failure configures the epicenter of its plot. It is a product of HBO and, therefore, it is not a formal and thematic product convinced by the weight in the plot of the antihero. Like most of the series produced by HBO, it seeks interaction with an educated and cultured audience and, therefore, has a large cast of actors, relies on complex scripts, invites the receiver to reflect on its stories and narrates socially controversial issues (Thompson, 1996, p. 413-15).
The series is produced by Alexander Payne, who won an Oscar for the adapted screenplay of Sideways (2004) and created by Colette Burson and Dmitry Lipkin, creator of The Riches (2007-2008), which received very good reviews. In its first season, Hung was a resounding success in the United States and was one of the fiction series with the highest average audience, with nine and a half million viewers watching each episode, according to HBO's own data.
The series tells the tortuous story of Ray Drecker (Thomas Jane), his children, his ex-wife, his two pimps and the clients. The connections between the characters are constant, although the main plot is sustained by Ray, the true core of the story. Ray is a man who feels like a failure because he has not achieved his dream; in his student days he had been the star of the baseball team, he was married to a beautiful woman with whom he had fathered two children and considered himself a popular and successful person. But a major injury cut short his sports career and problems began to multiply. He was forced to abandon his sports career and had to settle for being a high school basketball coach and a mediocre teacher.
The series begins when the protagonist suffers a series of misfortunes and realizes that he has lost everything in life. His wife decides to leave him for a wealthy dermatologist because she is unwilling to accept that she is married to a permanent loser. Ray's house burns down and is almost destroyed. As a result, his finances take a nosedive, and his children must move in with their mother. However, the struggle for social integration leads him to rethink his work and he finds an extra job. Taking advantage of his great attribute, his large penis, he becomes a gigolo, to escape from the decadent situation in which he had been plunged.
Hung constructs a transgressive discourse, as he relates experiences that are veiled in today's American society, due to prejudices and certain social conventions. The protagonist is an antihero who manages to overcome the taboo to become an integrated subject within the suspicious and conventional American society. It is a representation of the postmodern antihero, understood as an archetype within today's television fiction series.
The story proposed by Hung presents a series of indicators of quality in television serialized fiction, which we study through the narrative analysis of the first season of the series, with special emphasis on the characteristics of the character as the core of the story, as well as his contextual links with the other characters and with his social environment.
A priori, the critical generation of the main character and the secondary characters, the complex relationships between the characters, the critical perspective of the world created around Ray, his characteristics and his behavior will speak to us about the quality of the series.
The social and family relationships depicted in Hung show a critical discourse with the American society of the time. It is made clear that socioeconomic success is fundamental to achieving success in life. Ray, whose life has been dismembered, can only get out of his situation by turning to an activity that is too libertine for a puritan society. In order to get money that makes community recognition possible in a society in which it is essential not to be a failure, sex is shown as an escape route and as a means to reach the social zenith. In current American fiction, the protagonist is the opposite character to the traditional role represented in the construction of the American dream (Cabezuelo-Lorenzo et al., 2010 and 2013) that is as finished as the European dream (Poch-Butler et al., 2020, p. 44) or as shown from the myth analysis when studying the universal plots of Netflix, Prime Video and HBO contents (Fedele et al., 2021).
The treatment of unconventional topics such as sex, seen from a natural and open perspective, makes it possible to consider this series as transgressive, since it violates to some extent the established moral precepts in a systematic way. Likewise, the family depicted does not correspond to the cliché, to the American desire. The family is shown with its virtues and its problems. In fact, at the beginning, the family breaks up and gives rise to a series of vicissitudes supported by the protagonist's sexual decision.
The individuals projected by the series are broken characters, with many vital problems, who constantly try to get out of their vulgar situation and try to force their integration and escape from discrimination. In this sense, there are a series of characteristics of the characters that break with traditional treatments and make this series a quality product, due to the unprecedented exposure of the experiences of everyone.
Ray Drecker ends up as a high school history teacher and basketball coach, despite his very high expectations for the future. When his wife leaves him, he moves with his twin sons into his parents' dilapidated house and tries to make it as a gigolo, taking advantage of his very favorable physical characteristics.
Tanya Skagle (Jane Adams) is the character who induces Ray to enter the body trade. In fact, Tany becomes his pimp and oversees getting him clients. Tany has a changeable personality and feels like a failure. Although she is the one who sets the pillars of the business, when Lenore enters the scene, Tanya will have to fight to protect a lucrative situation that she herself generated.
Lenore Bernard (Rebecca Creskoff) is Tanya's former partner at the law firm she works for. She is a stunning and popular woman who acts as a threat to Tanya and the business she shares with Ray. It can be said that Lenore is a shrewd and amoral character that dilutes the Manichean treatment typical in fictional TV series.
Jessica Haxon (Anne Heche) is Ray's ex-wife. As it is known, she left him for a wealthy dermatologist and, through money, will try to win the respect and admiration of her children. Jessica is a woman without confidence and frivolous, aspects that oppose Ray and intensify his depressing situation.
Damon Drecker (Charlie Saxton) is Ray and Jessica's son and Darby's (Sianoa Smit-McPhee) twin brother. He is a teenager trying to find his identity and find a place within the group, despite his physique and his father's problems. His situation is also complex, as he encounters several social obstacles, in a big city like Detroit and in a society where social merit has a lot to do with money and beauty.
Darby Drecker is the daughter of Jessica and Ray and Damon's twin sister. She has a more mature personality than her brother and she behaves in an uninhibited way in her social relationships, although she is not a pretty girl either. Her ultimate purpose in life is to have fun and, to achieve it, her behavior is often rebellious and with unpredictable consequences.
Ronnie (Eddie Jemison) is the dermatologist doctor who wins Jessica's heart and, to some extent, causes the separation of the marriage with Ray. He is a person who does not usually express his feelings. To Jessica, he is a protective and model husband. However, his dull demeanor can become tiresome to Jessica, and Jessica's behavior will also test Ronnie's limits.
The relationships that occur during the narrative between the different characters reveal a subtle critique of Western society and its behavioral modes. Although the discursive core is formed by Ray, the antihero, according to Freire-Sánchez's model (2022), who believes that antiheroes are not born, they are forged, through a plot arc and storytelling. In the same way, the way the behavior of the other protagonists is presented expresses a generalized disappointment with postmodern life and, after all, with the prevailing socioeconomic system. The squires of the antihero hold their position by virtue of their misfortunes and hardships and not according to their worthiness to support the positive experiences of the protagonist. The critical standpoint itself within the story already configures a differentiating fact with respect to the audiovisual fiction products of the first and second golden age. It can be said that social criticism is one of the strongest indicators of the quality of the discourse. However, there are other types of indicators that tell us about the quality of the series, which will be presented in the following section.
The study of the cinematic character or any audiovisual fiction format is born from previous research and studies in the field of literature and theater, indisputable previous narrative referents in which the character appeared as a narrative category at the service of the development of a story, according to Pérez-Rufí (2016, p. 550).
There are a series of discursive characteristics in Hung that provide substantial information regarding the quality of the audiovisual story. These characteristics respond to the social environments and the relationships that occur between the characters. Quality is linked to truthfulness and the use of correct language suitable for the target audience, according to Tur-Viñes (2006).
The Hung TV series presents an innovative discourse, which differentiates it from other fiction series, even from other HBO products. The contraction of the main character as an antihero whose narrative strength lies in his penis is already a singularity powerful enough to forge a radical difference with the other series. The outstanding feature then resides in the profession of gigolo that Ray chooses to get out of his problems. Moreover, it is not only the extravagance of the protagonist's representation, the narrative core, that concentrates the characteristic of originality. The critical function of the story is the other outstanding feature that makes the series a different product, although it is true that other HBO series also contain a high degree of social criticism, as in The Sopranos.
On the other hand, the components of the narrative, the world view of the protagonist, the settings and environments in which the story is contextualized and recreated, the tone of the discourse and finally the narrative structure stand out.
This is Ray's way of seeing and interpreting the world. The protagonist's perspective is strongly influenced by the context in which he operates. Who he is and what drives him to do what he does. Circumstances, his life experiences, lead the character to become what he is: a failure. In addition, his social environment, preferably his work and family environments, are not favorable to overcome his pessimism and his economic level does not allow him to avoid his identity crisis. All these eventualities build the figure of the antihero that Ray represents and lead him to sell his body, breaking the moral rules imposed by the society in which he lives. All this world view of the protagonist gives rise to the configuration of the story as it is presented to us.
The topical characteristics of the social framework in which Ray and the other characters live help in the development of a critical discourse of society and the social relations involved, which, at present, do not pose excessive ethical problems. The plot takes place in Detroit, capital of the State of Illinois, which is presented as an industrialized and decadent city. Each scenario represents a function that, in turn, helps us to define our protagonist and to delve into the psychological dimension of the characters around him. The environments or satellite scenarios are: the high school where he works, which is for Ray a kind of prison that reminds him daily of his social failure; Ray's shattered house and the adjoining tent where he currently lives, where he shares moments of complicity with his children and Tanya and where he experiences certain moments of hope; the places where he meets his dates (hotels, restaurants, luxurious homes), where Ray escapes from his life misery; Tanya's house, where Ray receives the insecure advice of his friend and businesswoman and where he generally comes clean and is able to relieve his sorrows.
The series sets a discourse of black humor, cynical at times. It should be noted that the taboo subjects from which the narrative develops, such as sex and prostitution, are better accepted by the potential audience when they are treated with a certain irony. Nevertheless, many scenes involving sex are depicted from a light-hearted perspective and a tone of parody. This allows for a greater connection with the audience and their inner world.
Apparently, the Hung series follows the classic plot outline of the exposition- climax- denouement, although the problems presented are not always solved in the same chapter but are usually closed in the following chapter to keep the viewer in expectation. In addition, it presents a linear structure, supported, at various times, by flashbacks that reinforce the narrative. However, if looked at the narrative distribution of the first season, it will be evident that there is an essential feature: Ray Drecker is introduced into prostitution in a gradual and almost veiled way, so that the viewer is introduced into the protagonist's life little by little, to understand why he reaches that extreme. The viewer can even come to identify with the protagonist and accept his condition and his world view, despite the fact that it is not something that is highly valued in an increasingly puritanical Western society.
It is not easy to find discourses whose perspective on society is configured in critical or unfavorable terms with the established system. Almost all fiction narratives on television, until the so-called third golden age, spoke to the receiver of happy and possible worlds. Hung connects with its audience through the representation of the miseries of contemporary society, characterized in terms of postmodernity. In this sense, the following points should be highlighted by way of conclusion.
1.- The in-depth analysis of the series and its characters shows how nowadays the antihero assumes the role of protagonist without complexes. To do so, the figure of the antihero is used, represented in the protagonist, Ray Drecker, built based on the quality indicators presented here. In this sense, the antihero archetype constructed in Hung is not a hero endowed with virtues, he is not a character capable of saving others, but rather he is an unfortunate individual, who is plunged into a deep sense of failure due to a series of unexpected fatal circumstances. The non-hero represented through Ray has more to do with what Vogler (2002, p. 72) states: “tragic heroes, main characters of a story who may not be admirable or to our liking, whose actions we may even deplore”. The life journey of Hung's protagonist leads him to a moral and personality transformation (Savater, 1992).
2.- The new type of male antihero shows a new masculinity, a personality of his own, full of strength and weaknesses. So that this type of characters develops affinities and phobias, but serves to connect with the viewer, because the audience feels identified with this type of characters that approach the real world and the miseries that flood the daily experience.
3.- In short, Hung is the result of a fusion of genres in which drama and black comedy prevail. In addition, the surrealist tone and the worldview of the main character are important in the forging of the plot, which intermingle to capture the attention of an educated audience that is sensitive to the problems represented and is willing to take a critical stance against the established social schemes.
All this makes Hung a quality series, which speaks confidently to its receivers, who share with Ray, albeit in the form of cognitive representations, the desire to break with certain impositions of the current system that make up one of the paradoxes of the American dream.
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Conceptualization: López-Balsas, Alicia; García-López, Javier and Cabezuelo Lorenzo, Francisco. Methodology: López-Balsas, Alicia; García-López, Javier Validation: López-Balsas, Alicia; García-López, Javier and Cabezuelo Lorenzo, Francisco. Formal analysis: López-Balsas, Alicia and García-López, Javier. Data curation: López-Balsas, Alicia; García-López, Javier and Cabezuelo Lorenzo, Francisco. Drafting-Preparation of the original draft: López-Balsas, Alicia and García-López, Javier. Drafting-Revision and Editing: López-Balsas, Alicia; García-López, Javier and Cabezuelo Lorenzo, Francisco. Supervision: López-Balsas, Alicia; García-López, Javier and Cabezuelo Lorenzo, Francisco. All authors have read and accepted the published version of the manuscript: López-Balsas, Alicia; García-López, Javier and Cabezuelo Lorenzo, Francisco.
Funding: No funding has been provided.
Acknowledgments: To María Dolores Cáceres Zapatero, PhD. Professor at the Complutense University of Madrid, and Principal Investigator of Group 940057 DIALECTICAL MEDIATION OF SOCIAL COMMUNICATION (MDCS) (Complutense University of Madrid). Conflict of interest: There is no conflict of interest by the authors.
Alicia López-Balsas
Researcher in training in the PhD program in Audiovisual Communication and Advertising at the School of Information Sciences of the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM) where she is preparing a thesis on the creation and production of fiction in Spain, analyzing the business models that have been created in the current context of streaming platforms. In the professional field, she has more than a decade of experience in the world of television. She holds a degree in Advertising and Public Relations from the San Antonio de Murcia Catholic University (UCAM) and an Official Master's Degree in Film, Television and Interactive Media from the Rey Juan Carlos University (URCJ) in Madrid.
Orcid ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8785-8568
Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=es&authuser=1&user=9rIVK8YAAAAJ
Javier García-López
Full Professor at the School of Communication and Documentation of the University of Murcia (Spain) where he teaches different undergraduate and graduate courses. Previously he was a teacher and researcher at the Remote University of Madrid (Udima) and at the University San Jorge (USJ) in Zaragoza. He holds a PhD in Advertising and PR from the University of Murcia and a degree in Advertising and PR from the Catholic University of San Antonio de Murcia (UCAM). He has a Master's Degree in Criticism and Philosophical Argumentation from the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (UAM). He is the author of more than fifty academic publications in leading journals and books.
Orcid ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7306-4289
Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ALxpku4AAAAJ&hl=es&authuser=1
Francisco Cabezuelo-Lorenzo
Professor in the Department of Journalism and Global Communication of the School of Information Sciences at the Complutense University of Madrid. He holds a European PhD in Information Technologies, Structures and Treatments from the Complutense University of Madrid and a PhD in Humanities from the Universitat Abat Oliba CEU in Barcelona. He was a postgraduate fellow of the “la Caixa” Foundation at McGill University (Canada) and of the Caja Madrid Foundation at The Queens University of Belfast (Northern Ireland, UK). He holds degrees in Journalism (UCM), Advertising and Public Relations (UCJC) and Art History (UCM). He is the author of over a hundred magazine articles and book chapters published in Spanish, English, French, Italian, Catalan and Portuguese. He developed a wide experience in the media, news agencies and press offices, before joining the university.
Orcid ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9380-3552
Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=Udr8QWAAAAAJ&hl=es&authuser=1
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[1] Alicia López-Balsas is working on her doctoral dissertation in the PhD program in Audiovisual Communication, Advertising and Public Relations at the Complutense University of Madrid. She holds an Official Master's Degree in Film, Television and Interactive Media from the Rey Juan Carlos University (URJC).
[2] Javier García-López is Professor at the School of Communication and Documentation of the University of Murcia, where he also holds a PhD. He holds a Master's Degree in Philosophical Criticism and Argumentation from the Autonomous University of Madrid (UAM).
[3] Francisco Cabezuelo-Lorenzo is Full Professor in the School of Information Sciences at the Complutense University of Madrid. He is the author of more than a hundred indexed publications in the field of Communication Sciences published in Spain, the rest of Europe and America.