Alliances of actors and construction of a public arena through transmedia strategy. Analysis of the New Girls 24 Hours project

Abstract

In this article we reflect on the impact of transmedia strategies as a resource to stage (make visible), capture attention and access the public space. We do it in the frame of the controversy about the status of prostitution and the forms of intervention in the fight against sexual exploitation trafficking in Spain. The main objective lies in proposing a mapping of actors (institutional agents, civil society and media actors) of the project Chicas Nuevas 24 Horas (New Girls 24 hours, CHN24H), by the filmmaker and activist Mabel Lozano. We observe, through a multisite ethnography exercise, under the follow the conflict approach defined by George E. Marcus (1995), the network of participative alliances and mediation spaces in the configuration of a public arena (Cefaï, 2011). The analytical journey leads us from the first collaborations of Lozano with specialized organizations, such as the Association for the Prevention, Reintegration and Attention to Prostituted Women (APRAMP) and the Spanish Network against Trafficking, in 2013, until the celebration of the International Day against trafficking for sexual exploitation in 2017, in which the Ministry of Social Affairs assumes the CHN24H project as its own. The graph of the transmedia network analyzed has prioritized the expansion of discourse instead of its deepening, and the logic of “sensitization” to the detriment of participation and orientation to action.