Several members of the INPOLITYOUNG project took part in the 2026 Conference of the Asociación Española para la Investigación en Comunicación (AE-IC), held in Pontevedra, with different contributions focused on the study of digital political communication, platforms, and computational methodologies applied to communication research.

As part of the session “Communication and Digital Culture”, chaired by Juan Miguel Aguado Terrón from the University of Murcia, Mercè Oliva, Reinald Besalú, Aleix Martí Danés and Ona Anglada-Pujol presented the paper “Pedro Sánchez, fitness and Pokémon: Spanish YouTubers as agents of political socialisation”. The presentation addressed the role of Spanish YouTubers as relevant actors in processes of political socialisation, particularly in relation to the ways in which digital content can contribute to shaping imaginaries, references and political interpretive frameworks among young audiences.

In addition, Alan Tapscott and Jordi Justicia presented the paper “Unravelling YouTubers’ discourse: methodological challenges of topic modelling and network analysis” in the session of the Working Group on Computational Methods and Big Data Analysis in Communication, chaired by Carlos Arcila Calderón from the University of Salamanca. Their contribution focused on the methodological challenges involved in analysing the discourse of content creators on YouTube through topic modelling and network analysis, an approach that is particularly relevant for studying large volumes of digital data and the dynamics of political discourse circulation on platforms.

Finally, Carles Pont-Sorribes, member of the INPOLITYOUNG project, participated as a speaker in Plenary Session 2: “Communication in Crisis: Trust, Leadership and Social Responsibility”, held in the Assembly Hall of the Faculty of Communication. The session was chaired by María Isabel Míguez González from the University of Vigo and also featured contributions from Alfonso Armada —Reporters Without Borders—, Sonia Ruiz Moreno —journalist— and Cicilia Krohling Peruzzo —State University of Rio de Janeiro. Pont-Sorribes delivered the presentation “Crisis and Institutional Communicative Disorder”, which focused on the challenges of institutional communication in crisis contexts and on the importance of trust, leadership and social responsibility in the contemporary communication ecosystem.

INPOLITYOUNG’s presence at the AE-IC 2026 Conference highlights the project’s contribution to the study of transformations in political communication in digital environments, as well as its commitment to combining theoretical, methodological and applied perspectives in order to understand the role of platforms, content creators and digital discourses in young people’s political socialisation.