The role of social advertising in addressing sociocultural vulnerabiblity. Panorama and reflections on the Spanish case.

Abstract

The aim of this article is to reflect, from the review of relevant international literature on the subject, about the role that media and social advertising can play in the coverage and treatment of situations of sociocultural vulnerability, with special attention to the Spanish case -one of the European countries more severely hit by the global crisis unleashed in the United States in 2008.

As a result of this review of expert viewpoints, the following are summarized: (a) some levels that frequently appear as central nodes of the connection between publicity and vulnerability, (b) the delimitation of collectives and groups that are particularly susceptible of becoming an object of representation, due to their vulnerable condition, and (c) some areas of common confluence in the framing of the problem.

Then, attention is directed towards the narrative strategies in the development of awareness campaigns on poverty and vulnerability, combining statistical information with the relevance of the ways of representing the vulnerable subjects, and resorting to two concrete examples of advertising spots prepared in the bosom of this type of campaigns in Spain.

Among the most relevant conclusions of the text, we find the representational recurrences of certain groups, the importance of working with a very accurate audio-visual language, the preference for focusing the narrative attention in situations of high emotional impact, or the transforming potential that can enclose the advertising medium in environments of social vulnerability. Finally, relevant areas are defined to be addressed in future research stages.