ormats, the audiovisual communication journal, presents issue number five (2009), with a desire for renewal which becomes apparent in its structure, and in the organisation of and approach to the matters dealt with. Well aware that it is an academic journal, whose research rigour and excellence continue to constitute its basic goals, Formats accentuates the will to bring its research to the social and cultural forums involved in audiovisual production. Hence it was decided to organise this issue thematically into three sections.

The monograph with which the journal opens, entitled “Imageries of science fiction”, deals with a subject that highlights the centrality of audiovisual communication in contemporary culture, and its integration in the aesthetic, social, political and ethical concerns of the collective. Indeed, it tackles one of the contemporary audiovisual genres most involved with the complex transformation of our society and at the same time blessed with the most interdisciplinary extensions when performing research. The set of six articles comprising it present a tour through the media of some of its most significant contemporary manifestations, in the different fields –literature, cinema, television, comic and video game- in which the genre is seen.

The dossier devoted to Joaquim Jordà establishes Formats as a journal that seeks especially to touch on the expressive and artistic nature that the manifestations of audiovisual culture can have. To this end, the study goes into depth on an author of prestige in the field of cinema, who, in addition to his memorable teaching at Universitat Pompeu Fabra, has, in the last fifteen years, become one of the key authors in the renovation of the Catalan audiovisual panorama, and whose international renown has not ceased to grow since his death. More than constituting a homage, the dossier’s two articles analyse Jordà’s cinema from the textual study of the films themselves, looking, complementarily, at an area so far little investigated in studies devoted to this filmmaker: the particular filmic treatment of the human testimonies that structure his documentaries.

The review of books which closes the issue is a brief collection of critical summaries of some recent publications –of books and of a DVD- which, the authors consider, constitute international points of reference in this dialogue between audiovisual communication and contemporary thought for which the journal aims to become a periodical platform.