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that made possible the universalization of a certain type of social practice, since it was merely thought as a simple mean to a social end. From the analysis

of some journals published during the early years of radio, such as the Electrical Experimenter andThe Electrical Engineer, and recalling the pioneering expe‑

riences of Lee de Forest, we will show how radio transformed and universalized – along with social, temporal and spatial dimensions − the social practices

of listening to music that were prior developed in Europe since the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. We will show how the first broadcast stations were

conceived as a kind of gigantic theatre. Briefly, we will present how radio broadcasting − the joint action of technology, economics, regulation and social

practices − is linked to the modern concept of audience and was originated in that practice of listening to music.

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Analyzing the Arms Race – ColdWar Conflicts andWorld Political Sophistication in Swedish Men’s (Sex) Magazines

L. Saarenmaa

University of Tampere, Communication and media, Tampere, Finland

Alongside the Scandinavian welfare state, another grand narrative of the Post-War Sweden is the ‘Swedish sin’and the mainstreaming of sexually explicit

media content. In a number of studies (Arnberg and Larsson 2014; Hirdman 2001) and historiographies (e.g. Carelli and Dahlström eds. 2005) the popular

Swedish men’s magazines Fib Aktuellt ([Fib 1933)] 1963-) and Lektyr (1923-) have been analyzed as examples of mainstreaming of sex and liberalization

of pornography in Sweden in the late 1960s and early 1970s. However, throughout the 1960s, both Fib Aktuellt and Lektyr focused, mostly, on other sub‑

jects than sex. Even if the nude centerfold sections got thicker, the majority of the overall content of the magazines focused on crime, violence and world

political conflicts; the escalatingWar in Vietnam, the tensions between the USA and the Soviet Union, and the wars and conflicts in Africa, Central America

and Middle- and Far-East. Furthermore, Fib Aktuellt covered extensively the ongoing Revolution in Mao’s China, while Lektyr focused on the tense relations

between the divided German states and published several stories on defection from East Germany toWest Germany. In both of the magazines, the ColdWar

armament war extensively analyzed in detailed illustrations and graphics, implying that the Cold War configurations were essential sources of masculine

pleasure and excitement in the Swedish leisure time reading. Marie Cronqvist (2004) has discussed the centrality of the‘spy drama’in the Swedish ColdWar

culture. Drawing on analysis of the world political content of Lektyr and Fib Aktuellt during the 1960s and early 1970s, this paper argues, more broadly, for

deep interest in the ColdWar political, ideological, and economic composition in the Swedish men’s media. This is interesting in terms of the world political

role of Sweden as the non-aligned peace mediator on one hand and one of the world's leading armament industries on the other hand. Moreover, this is

interesting in terms of men’s (sex) magazines providing spaces for production and circulation of Cold War images and narratives (Saarenmaa 2015), and

spaces for articulating wars, conflicts and political passions together with sexual stimulation (Saarenmaa 2014).

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Challenges and Opportunities for Communication Research in Spain: Facing the Multimedia Scenario Requires Methodological Updates

M. Vicente

, P. Sánchez

Universidad de Valladolid, Sociology, Segovia, Spain

Universidad de Valladolid, Journalism, Valladolid, Spain

The fast transformation processes experienced within contemporary media landscapes is also influencing the way Communication Research is being con‑

ducted. Consequently, Communication as an emerging scientific field becomes an appealing topic for identifying main trends and emerging challenges in

this changing environment. Approaching the core domains of interest, the most common methods and methodologies and the more frequent objects and

subjects of study turns necessary if one aims to be aware of the constant evolution of our field. Different surveys conducted in Europe and Latin America

point among their main findings to the high presence of an interdisciplinary perspective to Communication as an object of study, the insufficient method‑

ological development and the lack of definition of existing scientific policies applied to this field. This paper pursues two main objectives: first, to identify

the main trends in the Communication Research conducted in Spain between 2007 and 2013; and second, to present the main research challenges faced

by the national scholarship in order to deal with the singularities of the current multimedia scenario. Among the main hypotheses, the scarce presence

of experimental research and the prevalence of conventional mass media as central topic of interest will be tested in the Spanish current state-of-the-art.

This study is built upon a national research project titled MapCom, aiming to produce a mapping of research projects, groups, lines, objects of study and

methods regarding social practices of Communication in Spain. The research team is composed by more than 50 researchers affiliated to 20 universities

offering Communication programmes.This study offers chances to draw an international comparison with other countries, languages and scholarly systems.

Our data are the result of conducting a quantitative and qualitative content analysis of a thousand PhD dissertations and around 150 research projects being

granted funding from the Spanish scientific authorities. All these documents were produced between 2007 and 2013. Our coding book included 28 catego‑

ries clustered in the following groups: object of study; epistemological approach; research methods and techniques; predominant research strands. Among

the main findings already identified, we can point out, at least, five main features: prevalence of descriptive and explanatory studies (almost an 80%)

applied to a documentary field (approximately 60%) without contrasting fields (lacking in more than 70% of the units of analysis), mainly focused on mass

media (more than 45% of the cases) and relying on intentional sampling methods applied mainly on content and/or discourse analysis of texts (around

55%). Lastly, the presence of mixed methods and other strategies of triangulation are not common yet. These preliminary headlines support the evidence

of a reduced presence of online objects of study and an occasional quota of experimental methods in Spain, fostering the need to develop these research

approaches and methods as of the challenges to be faced the Spanish Communication Research scholars.