638.5
Programme Articulation As a Communication Strategy Element on the Theatre Field in Spain

Tuesday, July 15, 2014: 8:30 PM
Room: Booth 57
Distributed Paper
Alba COLOMBO , Arts & Humanities, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain
Enrique BANÚS , Universitat Internacional de Catalunya, Spain
Throughout their programme, cultural institutions express their outlines and their vision of culture, selecting what it is considered essential and adequate for their audience. On this situation could be considered that the programme is part of the mission and definition of these institutions and should be reported as such as singular element.

Nowadays, on Spanish cities, some cultural institutions develop a certain specific role on the society; as social and cultural centres; as elements to identify society cultural attitudes; as well as educational centres and entertainment infrastructures. Therefore theatres are playing a special role on several cities in Spain, so that they are decisive in creating a theatre and culture experience and in influencing the culture consumption of the immediate society.

On a globalised world the proliferation of communication strategies of different kind of cultural institutions are basically essential on a contemporary crisis of the cultural sector. Spain and its theatre field is not an exception. Actually, throughout their programme, theatres express their outlines and their vision of culture, selecting what it is considered essential and adequate for their audience.

The model proposed for the analysis is based on three different aspects; the first one is the cases selection criteria; the second one is the analysis of the programme and the third one is based on the analysis of the communication done in each case. A comparison between programming strategies –based on the analysis of the documents but also on some in depth interviews- before will provide insights on whether the programme is influencing the theatre landscape not only in terms of the look specific performances but also in the content priorities and, therefore, in the message. Hence this paper focuses on the actual controversy about public theatres and their audience, relating the programme structures with theatre communication strategies.