Live from the Chair's YouTube channel, the authors of the book, Carles Pont Sorribes, Antoni Gutiérrez-Rubí and Raquel Quevedo have presented the work, whose retransmission was followed by viewers from various countries such as Spain, Mexico, Argentina and Chile, among others. We also have the participation of two more authors, Santiago Castelo and Nadia Rodríguez, who have been present through recordings previously made and broadcast on a delayed basis, in which they share the reflections of their respective chapters.

Carles Pont, Antoni Gutiérrez-Rubí and Raquel Quevedo.

Carles Pont, director of the Ideogram - UPF Chair of Political Communication and Democracy, thanks the Gedisa publishing house and the authors for their participation in the work and tells us about the origin of the book's production: “The idea that Instagram came up in various conversations and politics increasingly went hand in hand and there was a lack of materials that spoke of this «marriage» between image and politics.”

Next, Antoni Gutiérrez- Rubí, promoter of the Chair, reflects on the fundamental changes that Instagram brings in political communication and emphasizes the importance of plurality in the authorship of the book: “Instagram is a great choreography of looks, of approaches, perspectives ... It seemed to us that a book that had to be from Instagram needed to have a plural, almost mosaic-like and polyhedral view, ”and insisted on three characteristic elements that define the network: plasticity, emotionality and biography.

Raquel Quevedo, professor and researcher at the University of Valladolid, presents the central study axis of her chapter: ‘Dichotomies that operate in the transformation of rulers into stars’. Likewise, she also points out, quoting Giovanni Sartori, that "the visible is above the intelligible" and that "any image reaches us more than a text or a slogan". Quevedo thus highlights the extreme importance of the visual in the field of political communication.

Raquel Quevedo (@Raquerre).

Santiago Castelo, author of the third chapter, 'When intimacy becomes public', puts two issues on the table: First, he points out how the Instagram publicity contributes to the construction of political leadership by appealing to values such as authenticity or sensitivity. In line with this point, it shows, secondly, the birth of a new figure: the political influencer. He concludes by affirming, therefore, that celebrity, as we knew it, no longer exists: now networks replace television and the ordinary beats the extraordinary. AOC as the most paradigmatic example.

Nadia Rodríguez, presents in her chapter, written jointly with Xavier Peytibi: ‘The use of stories in the Democratic campaign, complement or electoral weapon?’. In which they analyze 183 stories from different candidates for the Democratic primaries and check the effect of political disintermediation. The author proposes, in a context such as the current one, marked by Covid-19, the possible change of direction of traditional electoral campaign construction processes. Can Instagram now go from being a complementary instrumental option to becoming a definitive electoral weapon?

As a final reflection, Gutiérrez-Rubí highlights the importance of 3 communicating vessels in the Instagram ecosystem: the personal, the intimate and the private.

Carles Pont Sorribes (@cpontsorribes).