Sexual-affective education on Instagram: branded content in Spanish sex shops

ABSTRACT

Modern day branded content generates engagement with users and this participation is taking place on social networks. This article uses methodological triangulation to analyze how the most popular Spanish sex shops manage branded content on Instagram, and how much importance do they give to sexual education in their communication. It is important to analyze this phenomenon in Spain where the values of Francoist dictatorship still persist in certain sectors of society. The results demonstrate that sex shops opt for a communicative model in which the product is relegated to the background, while the dissemination of content on sexual education constitutes the essential element of the branded content.

KEYWORDS:

• Branded content
• sex education
• sexual-affective education
• Instagram

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This article is part of the R&D project Digital-native media in Spain: Strategies, competencies, social involvement and (re)definition of practices in journalistic production and diffusion [PID2021-122534OB-C21], funded by MICIU/ AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and by “ERDF/EU”.

Notes on contributors

Silvia Penelas

Silvia Penelas is a Degree in Journalism from the University of Santiago de Compostela (Spain). She works like a journalist in Radio Coruña. Her research lines are sexual-affective education and sexuality in social networks. For her research work she won first prize in Research Awards In Communication Digital 2022 at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. Email: [email protected].

José Sixto-García

José Sixto-García is a Professor of Journalism at the Department of Communication Sciences of the University of Santiago de Compostela. PhD in Communication and Journalism, he was the director of Social Media Institute (2013–2019) and his research is focused on new media, new narratives and social networks. He belongs to the research group Novos Medios (New Media) [GI-1641 NM]. His publications include works like ‘Co-creation in North American and European digital native media: Web, social networks and offline spaces’ published in Journalism, ‘News Sharing Using Self-destructive Content in Digital Native Media from an International Perspective’ published in Journalism Practice or ‘Spanish Twitch streamers: Personal influence in a broadcast model akin to television’ published in Convergence. Email: [email protected].