Public Relations Review 39 (2013) 558–562

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Public Relations Review

Strategic communication applied to nation building in Spain:

The experience of the Catalan Region
César García ∗
Central Washington University, Department of Communication, Bouillon Hall, Room 230, 400 East University Way,
Ellensburg, WA 98926-7438, United States

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: This article analyzes how strategic communication is being used in the case of regions,
Received 6 August 2012 “imagined communities,” or the so-called “stateless nations,” for nation-building purposes.
Received in revised form 4 June 2013
It focuses on the case of Spain’s Catalonia region in the years since the devolution of
Accepted 12 July 2013
power and approval of the Second Statute of Autonomy in 1979. The different successive
Catalan governments have made intensive use of mass media campaigns and other soft
Keywords:
power methods to enhance Catalan identity. Main efforts have focused on the promotion
Strategic communication
Public relations of the Catalan language, culture, sports, and symbols through public relations, mass media
Nation building campaigns, the implementation of laws, and the deployment of public diplomacy tactics
Regions with the dual purpose of reaching internal audiences. Although a significant part of the
Spain Catalan population is alienated from politics, the overall outcome has been positive for
Catalonia Catalan nationalism: identification with Spain has decreased while dual Catalan/Spanish
and Catalan-only identification has grown during this period.
© 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

Catalonia is considered part of a group of regions, “stateless nations” (Conversi, 1997; Gibernau, 2006), “imagined com-
munities” (Anderson, 1991) or “virtual nations” (Tubau, 1999) such as Flanders, Quebec, and Scotland, that have a strong
sense of identity, which they try to project both internationally and among their own citizens.
This paper argues that the use of strategic communication by the Catalan government, since the enactment of the Statute
of autonomy in 1979, has been successful in creating a stronger Catalan identity in contemporary Spain.

2. Literature review

The concept of strategic communication has been defined as “the purposeful use of communication by an organization to
fulfill its mission” (Hallahan, Holtzhausen, Van Ruler, Verčič, & Sriramesh, 2007, p. 3). These organizations have a multidis-
ciplinary vision of communication and tend to integrate public relations and other communication functions such as public
diplomacy in their strategic communication efforts (van Dyke & Verčič, 2009).
Strategic communication seems an appropriate umbrella under which to analyze nation-building communication efforts
because it permits the reconciliation of different conceptions regarding the relationship between public relations, public
communication, and propaganda.

∗ Tel.: +1 509 963 1097; fax: +1 509 963 1060.

E-mail address: garciace@cwu.edu

0363-8111/$ – see front matter © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pubrev.2013.07.006
 C. García / Public Relations Review 39 (2013) 558–562 559

The Catalan case combines mass media soft propaganda, and the promotion of sports, tourism, and cultural events for
public diplomacy purposes with foreign audiences as well as to persuade internal publics.

2.1. The triumph of soft power

Soft power can be defined as the way “a country may obtain the outcomes it wants in world politics because other
countries – admiring its values, emulating its example, aspiring to its level of prosperity and openness – want to follow it”
(Nye, 2004, p. 5). But soft power also means the capacity of the country to attract its own citizens (Nye, 2002, 2004).
The Catalan regional government has been able to make the idea of being Catalan an attractive one among a majority of
Catalans. The intensive use of public media, an example of soft power (Nye, 2004), is partly responsible for this success.
Despite the persistent use of soft power methods to create an exclusive Catalan identity perceived as different of the
Spanish identity, the successive Catalan governments have conveyed a relative image of moderation in Catalonia and in
the rest of Spain. For example, during the last three decades Catalan regional governments have reached agreements with
the different national governments. Indeed, its current main speaker in the Spanish parliament, Josep Antoni Duran i Lleida
claims to be much more moderate than the rest of his party. A proof of the double language of Catalan nationalism in the
rest of Spain and Catalonia is ABC, historically the main conservative newspaper in Spain, awarded “Spaniard of the year”
its main leader for more than two decades, Jordi Pujol, a fierce Catalan nationalist, in 1984.
There have been, however, examples of hard power, particularly the implementation of Catalan-only linguistic laws that
have generated symbolic violence in some segments of Catalan society (Martínez-Herrera, 2002). Nonetheless, considering
that Spanish is the first language for 55% of the Catalan population (Idescat, 2008), the reaction against these laws has not
been as strong as might be expected.

3. Methods

This paper uses Catalonia as a case study for how the governments of regions work to be perceived as nations. The
author uses a historical-critical method to investigate the connection between the strategic communication management
in a nation-building process and the attitudes of the population since 1979. The paper applies a holistic approach that takes
into account the interaction between mass media campaigns, public relations, public diplomacy, and government policies.

4. Analysis of results

4.1. Soft power methods

4.1.1. Mass media campaigns

Through the control of the autonomous public media apparatus, the Catalan government has framed issues, manufactured
stories, and built slogans to achieve its goals.
The most common method has been the use of national territorial socialization tactics that question the legal frame of
Catalonia as a region within Spain:
“TV3 [Catalan public TV] not only contributes to shore up the nation, but also to construct the myths and symbols of
nationalism and to socialize them as those of all Catalonia. TV3 is more than a television station, since it not only aspires
to entertain or inform, but also to nationalize [. . .] Thus if the objective is to construct the paisos catalans [Catalan
countries], the weather maps will reflect these territories; if Catalan must be the only language of the country, the
soap operas show a country in which–ignoring the socio-linguistic reality – no-one speaks Castilian” (Santamaría,
1999, pp. 50–51, in Etherington, 2003, pp. 265–266).
The Catalan government owns the main media conglomerate in Catalonia, Corporació catalana de mitjans audiovisuals
(CCMA), a public broadcast service in Catalan with six television broadcast channels and four radio stations, among other
companies. Its 2543 employees (CCMA, 2010) are equivalent to roughly 40% of the entire radio and television workforce in
the region (Idescat, 2009).
With regard to television consumption patterns, the cumulative audience of the conglomerate of public channels rep-
resents 23% of the total (Baròmetre de la comunicació i la cultura, 2012). This data acquires more relevance if we take into
consideration that 56% of the Catalan population says that their primary source for political information is main regional
public channel TV3’s newscasts (Centre d’Estudis & d’Opinió, 2012).
The public radio broadcast system, Catalunya ràdio, also clearly leads audience rankings with approximately one third of
the entire generalist audience (Baròmetre de la comunicació i la cultura, 2012). As part of its mission to promote the Catalan
language, the Catalan government also offered important subsidies to RAC1, the second most listened-to radio, valued at
669,235 euros in 2010 (Lavozdebarcelona.com, 2011). Therefore, the regional government directly or indirectly controls
two-thirds of the radio landscape.
The level of penetration of newspapers among Catalans is significantly low, with only 43% of the population reading some
kind of newspaper (Baròmetre de la comunicació i la cultura, 2012). But certainly, the most prominent characteristic of the
Catalan press is its high reliance on public funds via direct subsidies. In 2010 the Department of Culture gave out 10 million
560 C. García / Public Relations Review 39 (2013) 558–562

Euros to print media and 3 million to digital newspapers (Tercero, 2012a,b). Furthermore, El Punt Avui, the only one of the
three main newspapers published exclusively in Catalan, is co-owned by the regional government (El Punt Avui, 2012). The
Catalan government supplements these direct subsidies with indirect contributions via ‘institutional publicity’ in the private
media that in 2012 ascended to 23.4 million Euros (Generalitat de Catalunya, 2011).
A clear example of political pressure in the media was seen with the simultaneous publication in 12 Catalan newspapers
of a united editorial called ‘The dignity of Catalonia’ (La Vanguardia, 2009), a journalistic resource usually reserved for
situations of national emergency such as a coup d’etat, conceived here as a way to intimidate the Spanish constitutional
court in the case of an eventual limitation of the Third statute of autonomy.

4.2. Use of Catalan institutions

Catalan institutions have not only promoted the Catalan identity but also tried to manage the entire civil society.
Indeed, most cultural activities and numerous organizations have come to depend on support from the Catalan govern-
ment (McRoberts, 2001). This occupation of the public sphere has effectively persuaded many Catalans that not only does
the regional government support the “nation-building” process but so does the entire Catalan society.

4.3. Public diplomacy

4.3.1. Sports
4.3.1.1. Barcelona Football Club (BFC). Indeed, almost since its foundation in 1899, BFC has been used as a vehicle of expression
for Catalan identity (Salvador, 2004). BFC is “the main news player in Catalonia” (Xifra, 2009, p. 7), generating 21.8% of the
entire media coverage, more than the City of Barcelona (19.7%) and the Catalan government itself (8.4%) (Bañeres, 2000).
The public positioning of the club, and the exclusive use of Catalan flags during national and international matches
seems to acknowledge a full nationalist communion between BFC and its supporters. The symbolic force of BFC is constantly
exploited for political purposes. One of the most memorable examples came when, in the middle of a football match and
with the consent of the Barcelona Football Club (BFC), the Coordinator of pro-Catalan language associations displayed a large
banner in favor of the promotion of the Catalan language and a map in which other Spanish regions appeared as a part of
the països catalans (Vázquez, 2005).

4.3.1.2. Organization of and presence at international sporting events. Catalan nationalists have used the organization of inter-
national sporting events to offer public demonstrations of Catalan identity. The most memorable was the celebration of the
Barcelona olympics in 1992, when many people in the audience carried Catalan flags and displayed “freedom for Catalonia”
and “Catalonia is not Spain” slogans on t-shirts and banners during the inauguration ceremony (Hargreaves, 2000).
Likewise, the Catalan government has made efforts to promote Catalan sports internationally through the international
recognition of Catalan federations of minority sports such as korfball, pitch and putt, futsal, rugby and Australian football.
The Catalan government has also supported nongovernmental actors such as the pro-Catalan national teams platform. In
2005, this organization promoted a campaign called “one nation, one team” to encourage Catalans to publicly demonstrate
their support for national teams.

4.3.1.3. Culture, arts and letters. One of the Catalan government’s methods to stimulate cultural products in Catalan has been
the creation of literary awards. Indeed, there are more than 1000 literary awards in Catalonia (Generalitat de Catalunya, 2012),
a number of them financed by the regional government.
The regional government has also tried to link the personality of the main Catalan artists to the image of Catalonia as a
means to project Catalonia internationally. That was the case of the celebration of special events such as the “Gaudí year” in
2002, and “The Dalí year” in 2004 with a national and international activity program.
A main effort of the Catalan government has been to develop a Catalan replica for every Spanish cultural institution, such
as the Catalan academy of cinema. Nonetheless, the affirmative action given to the culture produced in Catalan has created
some frictions with Catalan writers and artists whose main production is in Spanish. Such was the case when the Catalan
Department of Culture promoted a representation of Catalan-only authors at the German book fair in 2009 that excluded
some of the most international Catalan authors (El País, 2007).

4.3.1.4. Catalonia’s foreign delegations. The Catalan regional government has set up 38 commercial offices as well as 5 political
delegations across the world in places such as Paris, London, and New York. They cannot be considered embassies properly
because only legal states can accredit ambassadors, but they are embassies in the sense that they assume the functions of
political representation (Noguer & Martí, 2009).
In sum, the capillary process derived from soft power methods offers pros and cons. The use of mass media has involved
a high level of manipulation in order to create a virtual nation, ignoring certain realities. But, simultaneously, the Catalonia
brand (and, very particularly, the Barcelona brand) would not have been possible without the good governance always
required by quality branding of places (Anholt, 2009). It has created value for Catalonia as well as Spain as a whole.
 C. García / Public Relations Review 39 (2013) 558–562 561

5. Discussion

In 1979, 68% of the Catalan population said they felt only Spanish or as Spanish as Catalan: 35% identified themselves as
Spanish only or more Spanish than Catalan, and 33% felt equally Spanish and Catalan (Martínez-Herrera, 2002). In 2012, 50%
felt only Spanish or as Spanish as Catalan, while the other 50% felt more Catalan than Spanish (30%) or only Catalan (20%)
(Centre d’Estudis & d’Opinió, 2012).
In 2001, 37.5 of Catalans still thought of Catalonia as a nation (CIS No. 2,410, 2001), whereas today 65% believe it should
be a state within a federal Spain or an independent state (Centre d’Estudis & d’Opinió, 2012).
It can be argued that the strategic communication efforts by the Catalan government have generated alienation from the
political process among some strata of the population, particularly the lowest social strata, since Catalan nationalism can
be understood as a top-led project (García, 2010; Miley, 2007). This fact was evident in the last referendum to approve the
Third statute of autonomy in 2006, where barely 50% of the population voted.

6. Conclusion

The Catalonia experience demonstrates that persuasion is at the core of strategic communication (Hallahan et al., 2007).
This experience also acknowledges how government policies can be considered an integral part of the whole communication
process (Taylor & Kent, 2006). The governments of regions with a high degree of autonomy often have the capacity to enact
policies that counteract the laws of the nation-state as expressions of soft power. The implementation of a certain linguistic
policy may be perceived as hard power and inconvenient by some Catalan residents and a gesture of disaffection toward the
rest of Spaniards, but from an international perspective it is perceived as a legitimate effort to protect a local culture in an
increasingly globalized and uniform world.

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