La dialéctica entre las narrativas mediáticas identitarias y los procesos de identificación

Abstract

With this theoretical and argumentative thesis, we provide the conceptual and methodological basis for studying the link between mediatic narratives and processes of identification that individuals and groups make in society. Personal and social identities, both faces of the same currency, form part of a series of processes of meaning. That is because they vary over space-time flow, they adapt to life circumstances and, especially, they are constantly changing due to social interaction. Thus, the configuration of identifications (national, professional, religious or gender ones, among others) is here proposed as the result of the dialectic between the mediatic identity narratives and the identification processes. The first developed and conveyed by the media, and the second performed by individuals and groups. This research explores the symbolic, mythic and narrative character of mediation and identification processes. And it try to demonstrate the important socializing role of the media and their ability to influence the processes of identification. For us, the media function as social constructors of reality and they create frames of symbolic meaning that facilitate to individuals the understanding of the surrounding shared environment. Similarly, the mediatic narratives show images of what we are and what are the others, which determine the construction and the psychic and social transformation of subjects and groups. We are interested the most in how the images of 'I', 'We', and 'Them' are configured by the media. And above all, the way in which subjects reinterpret and relate and identify with these images. So this thesis explains and justifies the power exercised by the media as an essential host structure and a source of inspiration for the cognitive, affective and effective processes own of identification. We explore in detail the configuration of the media collective imaginaries, the shared memory and tradition. Also we paid special attention to how the media construct shared beliefs and everyday reality. Finally, we treated the way the media influence the processes of identification. The exploration of the proposed dialectic have a transdisciplinary character. So we build bridges between different disciplinary fields and approaches, among which are the Philosophical and Cultural Anthropology, the Hermeneutics, the Narratology, the Social Psychology, Sociology of Knowledge and, specially, Media Communication Studies in its constructivist side. One of the general conclusions of our study is that there is a dialectic between the two processes studied. On one hand, the media narratives influence the processes of identification. On the other hand, personal and colective identification processes generates also colective imaginery about identity.

Date of Award	12 Jul 2012
Original language	Spanish
Supervisor	Lluis Albert Chillon Asensio (Director)