The research project MOVEP ("Visual Motives in the Public Sphere. Production and Circulation of Images of Power in Spain, 2011-2017", Ref. CSO2017-88876-P) published a special issue in the academic journal Communication & Society, under the coordination of UPF professors and researchers Jordi Balló and Ivan Pintor Iranzo.

The issue, made up of 15 articles, includes the collaboration of the MOVEP members Fran Benavente-Burian, Ana-Aitana Fernández, Santiago Fillol, Manuel Garin, Mercè Oliva, Alan Salvadó, Glòria Salvadó-Corretger and Brunella Tedesco-Barlocco.

In line with the theoretical concerns of Aby Warburg and the field of political iconography, the publication proposes the existence of a set of motifs displayed in the media representation of public life that, in their evocation of images belonging to visual or audiovisual arts, appeal to a sedimented knowledge within the spectators and to a concrete narrative economy.

The articles that comprise the special issue, although with a defined iconographic interest, analyze different aspects of power, ranging from political, monarchical and economic power to civil power, with an emphasis on the specific imaginary produced by the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to what Balló and Pintor Iranzo highlight in the editorial, the objective of the issue “is the search for dialogue and interaction between experts in cinema, visual arts and researchers in social and political communication in order to establish core principles of the self-production system of images of power that characterizes our time ”.