CFP. Changing Imaginaries: Body, Identity and Representation in Contemporary Audiovisual Culture

The international journal Miguel Hernández Communication Journal invites submissions for the special issue “Changing Imaginaries: Body, Identity and Representation in Contemporary Audiovisual Culture”. This special issue calls for research that analyzes the relationship between forms of representation and the production of meaning in contemporary audiovisual culture. The deadline for the submission of full articles (via the journal’s platform) is 1 October 2026.

Under what conditions do changes in the representation of bodies and identities also transform the social imaginaries that works mobilize? Imaginaries refer to the shared ways of understanding social existence, relationships with others and the expectations that organize them (Taylor, 2004). These collective constructions do not change uniformly: a work may challenge certain conventions while reproducing others.

Audiovisual culture is a privileged space for the construction, reproduction and questioning of social and cultural imaginaries. Through different languages, genres and formats, audiovisual productions take part in shaping the ways in which bodies, identities, social relations and individual and collective experiences are represented. In this context, the audiovisual not only constructs representations of reality but also intervenes in it by generating new forms of perception, identification and understanding of social and cultural phenomena.

Framing, editing, color, voice and sound are never neutral choices: they guide attention, establish distance and identification, and construct the legibility of bodies and experiences. The relationship between the gaze, identification, sexed embodiment and the construction of gender constitutes one dimension of this problem in mainstream narrative cinema. The analysis of visual and sound techniques makes it possible to examine the subjectivities being represented, but also how aesthetic and narrative choices produce meanings about them, in commercial productions and established genres as well as in experimental practices and emerging formats.

The representation of bodies and the configuration of subjectivities and identities lie at the core of this special issue. We are interested in the ways in which audiovisual works construct femininities, masculinities and subjectivities in relation to gender mandates and power structures, as well as representations of desire, consent and violence, and the possibilities and limits of agency. Techniques such as autofiction, performance or the use of the fantastic make it possible to examine how works negotiate between ascribed identities and lived experiences. We are also interested in analyzing the extent to which archetypes, the conventions of audiovisual genres and strategies of hybridization reproduce or challenge dominant imaginaries.

Experience also has a spatial and temporal dimension. Urban territories, ways of inhabiting and forms of everyday life provide frameworks for analyzing the representation of collective bonds and exclusions. Archives, memory and reminiscence make it possible to examine how images and sounds organize interpretations of the past and sustain or transform inherited imaginaries. Images can function as devices for the evocation, reconstruction and resignification of memory, articulating complex relationships between experience, remembrance and representation.

Alongside these spatial, temporal and memorial dimensions, the transformations of contemporary audiovisual culture have given rise to new forms of circulation, reception and participation. Distribution through streaming platforms has reshaped the conditions of circulation of and access to audiovisual content, raising questions about the continuity and resignification of imaginaries. Video games and interactive formats, in turn, raise questions about the role of participation in the construction of narratives and experiences, as well as about their relationship with learning and cultural mediation.

This special issue seeks to explore these phenomena from a critical and interdisciplinary perspective, addressing both the formal, aesthetic and narrative dimensions of the works and their social and cultural implications. We welcome papers on film, series, television, photography, digital platform content and interactive formats, whether focused on a single medium or attentive to their intersections. Case studies, comparative research and theoretical or methodological contributions addressing these issues from contemporary or historical perspectives are welcome, as is research on the formation, persistence and transformation of imaginaries and forms of representation. Particular consideration will be given to papers that analyze the relationships between transformations in audiovisual languages and the processes through which contemporary imaginaries are constructed, reproduced or challenged.

Thematic Lines

Without being limited to them, contributions addressing the following lines are encouraged:

•    Representation of bodies and construction of identities and subjectivities: gender, sexuality, desire and power relations.

•    Narratives and aesthetics of representation: characters, visual and sound techniques, genre conventions and hybridization.

•    Memory, archive and experience: evocation, working through the past and articulation of individual and collective memories.

•    Space, territory and everyday life: ways of inhabiting and representation of urban and cultural experiences.

•    Audiovisual production and circulation: cultural industries, platforms and conditions of visibility of works and representations.

•    Reception and participation: interpretation, appropriation and resignification of images and narratives.

•    Video games and interactive formats: playful experience, learning, heritage and cultural mediation.

Keywords

Audiovisual culture; representation; social imaginaries; body; identity; gender; audiovisual narrative; audiovisual aesthetics; memory; reception.

Suggested Bibliography

Assmann, A. (2011). Cultural memory and Western civilization: Functions, media, archives. Cambridge University Press.

Butler, J. (1990). Gender trouble: Feminism and the subversion of identity. Routledge.

Butler, J. (1993). Bodies that matter: On the discursive limits of “sex”. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203760079

Cuenca-Orellana, N., Dueñas Mohedas, S., & Martínez Pérez, N. (2026). Entre el escándalo y la vergüenza: Representación de la violencia sexual digital en la serie Intimidad (Netflix: 2022). Atlánticas. Revista Internacional de Estudios Feministas, 11(2), 2–26. https://doi.org/10.17979/arief.2026.11.2.13078

Culp, E. (2020). Hacer tiempo: Estrategias críticas del arte en lo político. Universidad Iberoamericana.

Depetris Chauvin, I. (2023). Escuchar la materia vibrante: Habitar y recordar el territorio desde una perspectiva fílmica sensorial. Punto Sur, (9), 149–169. https://doi.org/10.34096/ps.n9.12644

Lobato, R. (2019). Netflix nations: The geography of digital distribution. New York University Press. https://nyupress.org/9781479804948/netflix-nations/

Martínez, K., Martínez Pérez, N., & Fernández Ruiz, M. (2023). Edad y género en videojuegos indie: The Cat Lady. Investigaciones Feministas, 14(2), 275–286. https://doi.org/10.5209/infe.87631

Mulvey, L. (1975). Visual pleasure and narrative cinema. Screen, 16(3), 6–18. https://doi.org/10.1093/screen/16.3.6

Rodríguez-Blanco, S., & Moya-Madrigal, G. (2023). Performatividad, subversión de género e injuria en la serie mexicana La casa de las flores (Netflix, 2018): Un modelo de análisis de la disidencia sexogenérica para series de ficción en español. Revista Prisma Social, (40), 103–134. https://doi.org/10.65598/rps.4959

Rodríguez-Blanco, S., & Santiago-Hernández, V. (2025). Crítica al régimen topofóbico de representación: Contravisualidades del feminicidio y la desaparición forzada en México. Confluenze. Rivista di Studi Iberoamericani, 17(1), 64–88. https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.2036-0967/21886

Taccetta, N. (2023). Archivo de sentimientos o marco afectivo: El cine de la inmediata posguerra de Malvinas. Imagofagia, (28), 252–274. https://dialnet.unirioja.es/descarga/articulo/9206829.pdf

Taylor, C. (2004). Modern social imaginaries. Duke University Press. https://www.dukeupress.edu/modern-social-imaginaries

Tornero Lorenzo, P. (2024). La experimentación en el arte audiovisual y en el cine: El lenguaje narrativo abstracto como experiencia temporal, de ruptura de un modelo espectacular y de masas. AusArt, 12(1), 63–83. https://doi.org/10.1387/ausart.25789

Guest Editors

Sergio Rodríguez-Blanco. Lecturer and researcher at the Complutense University of Madrid. His research explores the relationships between aesthetics, politics and discourse in photography, visual culture and non-fiction. His work examines regimes of visibility and the relationships between hegemony and dissent in mainstream culture and in documentary and archival practices.

Natalia Martínez Pérez. Lecturer and researcher at the University of Burgos. Her research focuses on television studies and gender studies, with particular attention to female authorship and representations of gender and sexual diversity in television fiction, film and video games.