Barcelona, 18 February 2021. The Plenary Committee of the Ideograma – UPF Chair in Political Communication and Democracy has reunited to present the 2019-20 academic year report. It’s been two years and a half since the signing of the agreement between Pompeu Fabra University and the public communication consultancy, ideograma.

As you know, the activities of the Chair are oriented at research, the transfer and dissemination of generated knowledge, trying to send their reflections and proposals through the organization of diverse activities aimed at both specialized audiences and the general public (congresses, seminars and/or conferences; own publications –notebooks, monographs, etc.- and articles and interventions in the media).

As a result of Covid-19, the meeting had to be held telematically, in which we were able to count on the attendance of different UPF members such as the UGA communications team, represented by Cristina Gorgues and Mayte Sánchez, Josep Fernández-Cavia, head of the Communication department, Frederic Guerrero Solé, deputy director of research at the Department of Communication and Pau Fernandez, responsible for institutional fundraising. The team of the Ideograma – UPF Chair was made up of its promoter, Antoni Gutiérrez-Rubí, the director Carles Pont-Sorribes, the deputy director Reinald Besalú and the coordinator Aleix Martí. We have also had the rest of the members of the Joint Committee, Cristina Martínez, Santiago Castelo and Ariadna Romans, ideograma consultants.

Two books published: Comunicación política en tiempos de coronavirus and Instagram en la estrategia de construcción de liderazgo político

One of the main objectives of the Chair is to work on new communication channels, understand how politics and public institutions use platforms such as Twitter, Instagram or Facebook. In this context, during 2020, we have published Instagram en la estrategia de construcción de liderazgo político, a work oriented to the analysis of this social network in its use for election campaigns.

Like everyone else, the Chair's activities had been affected by the Covid-19 virus. In the time of the rise of the global pandemic we published Comunicación política en tiempos de coronavirus. An eBook whcih reflects the main challenges that the management of the pandemic would pose and what political communication of the main political leaders should
be like to deal with it.

Two investigations in the framework of credibility

Through the continuous collaboration with the company YouGov Spain, in 2020 we continued to expand the research framework of information credibility with two researches in the context of Covid-19.

The first of these: Analysis of credibility of information according to the attribution of sources in times of COVID-19 was presented to the press on November 24, 2020. This research explores the credibility of the information sources of the written digital press.

The next research, not yet published, is Analysis of the credibility of the information on Twitter according to the type of opinion leader in the context of the Covid-19. A research focused on the social network Twitter and how it affects the credibility of the message the
type of issuer.

Knowledge transfer

The Ideograma – UPF Chair Award is also one of the initiatives that has been launched in recent months. This award seeks to reward the best Master's Thesis in the field of political and institutional communication.

It is also worth noting the academic publications made during this year: WhatsApp com a eina d’informació política. Pràctiques desiguals entre homes i dones en l’espai digital in the magazine Comunicació and WhatsApp como canal de información política en España: credibilidad, perfil de usuarios y compartición de contenidos in the academic magazine El Profesional de la Información.