Jordi López-Sintas

Systemic crises disrupt cultural production and collective meaning-making, yet digital platforms increasingly mediate how societies articulate identity, value, and solidarity under disruption. Drawing on platform theory and affective publicness, this study examines how Spanish cultural discourse was reconfigured on Twitter during the early COVID-19 pandemic (2019–2020). Analyzing 78,908 geolocated tweets through computational topic modeling, discrete emotion mapping, and spatial-temporal analysis, we trace shifts in thematic salience, geographic distribution, and affective valence before and during the national lockdown. Results reveal twelve discursive topics that consolidate into three cultural themes: artistic production, culture as everyday practice, and dimensions of Spanish identities. Geospatial mapping demonstrates how platformed visibility reproduces Spain’s historical territorial pluralism—Mediterranean corridors express hybrid regional-cosmopolitan identities, Madrid anchors institutional and national framing, and peripheral municipalities negotiate cultural equity through critical advocacy. Crisis conditions did not homogenize digital culture; instead, they catalyzed affective realignment, intensifying positively framed regional solidarity, shifting discourse from celebratory consumption to infrastructural preservation, and polarizing sentiment around social and resource inequality. These findings challenge dominant narratives of crisis-driven national cohesion, demonstrating that platforms function as agonistic cultural fields where territorial pluralism is preserved, amplified, and emotionally mobilized under systemic disruption. The study advances digital sociology and computational cultural studies by theorizing platform-mediated crisis discourse as a site of structural negotiation rather than cultural erasure, and offers empirical and theoretical insights into how digital ecologies shape collective meaning-making amid societal rupture.

Purpose: Grounded in social practice theory, this study aims to describe the coordination of the eating practices of a socially diverse sample of individuals, half of whom have shifted toward healthier and more sustainable diets, while the other half have not. Design/methodology/approach: Qualitative data were collected through semi-structured interviews with 32 individuals. Through reflexive thematic analysis, the authors examine informants’ eating practices to understand how social and material environments facilitate or hinder the adoption of healthier diets. Findings: The authors’ findings indicate that changes in eating practices are shaped by coordination, asymmetric negotiation and a sense of belonging. The fragility of plant-based practices does not primarily stem from weak commitment but from a lack of infrastructural support. Individuals revert to dominant eating practices not because they lack knowledge, awareness or moral concern, but because the social and material environment privileges asymmetric coordination. Eating is fundamentally a practice of social integration. Consequently, maintaining a healthy social life frequently takes precedence over maintaining dietary consistency. Sustainable transitions will therefore succeed only when environmentally aligned practices become socially effortless, when they allow individuals to preserve belonging without friction. Practical implications: Political interventions play a pivotal role in reshaping the “rules of the eating practice” by transforming the environments in which people perform it. Thus, the authors’ findings could help governments aiming to transform current eating practices. Originality/value: This research advances social practice theory while simultaneously offering a framework for the systemic transformation of food systems. The authors’ key theoretical contribution lies in identifying asymmetric negotiation as the mechanism through which multiple eating practices coexist.

Purpose: This study aims to explore the motivations behind consumer purchasing decisions that account for the well-being of future generations, with a particular focus on how rational and emotional drivers influence intergenerational concern. Design/methodology/approach: Grounded in responsible environmental behaviour theory, we conducted a survey of a representative sample of Spanish consumers. The analysis focused on identifying the roles of rational and emotional motivations in shaping purchasing decisions related to intergenerational well-being. Confirmatory factor analysis, linear regression and latent class regression were used in the analysis. Findings: The results reveal that while both rational and emotional drivers influence intergenerational concern, their effects are not uniform across the population. Instead, two distinct social mechanisms were identified, each linked to specific social contexts – one primarily driven by rational considerations, the other by emotional motivations. Originality/value: This study provides novel insights into the systematic heterogeneity underlying intergenerational concern in consumer behaviour. It highlights the need for further cross-cultural and longitudinal research to understand the varying influence of rational and emotional drivers on sustainable consumption choices.

This study explores individual and country-level differences in cultural participation across Europe, using a most-different-systems design and the 2008 debt crisis as a quasi-experimental treatment. We identified distinct patterns of highbrow (six within-country patterns and three between-country clusters) and lowbrow (four patterns and three clusters) cultural participation by analyzing Eurobarometer, European Values Study, and World Bank data with multilevel latent class regression modeling. Results show that in socioeconomically and culturally modernized countries, an individual’s social position has less impact on cultural participation. In addition, these countries experienced a less-pronounced negative effect from the 2008 debt crisis on cultural participation.

The association between socio-economic inequalities and cultural participation has been extensively studied but not often from a cross-national perspective. This chapter examines the disparities in cultural participation within and between European countries by comparing cultural participation before and after the EU debt crisis in 2008. European countries have responded unevenly to the social challenges this financial crisis poses, with its repercussions being more severe in the Mediterranean and Eastern European countries. This study scrutinises the interplay between individual resources and the welfare state by comparing two Eurobarometer data sets from 2007 and 2013. The analysis identifies patterns of systematic heterogeneity in cultural participation among 28 European countries, shedding light on both within- and between-country drivers of inequality. Furthermore, the findings underscore the influence of the socioeconomic context on Europeans’ cultural participation, which is particularly accentuated during periods of economic turndown. The findings imply that understanding how a country’s welfare policies mediate the relationship between social status and cultural engagement is crucial for fostering inclusive societies, a topic that is explored further in the discussion.

Working with SEM and cross-sectional data, and depending on the studied phenomenon, assuming an acyclic model may mean that we obtain only a partial view of the mechanisms that explain causal relationships between a set of theoretical constructs, given that variables are treated as antecedents and consequences. Our two-step approach allows researchers to identify and measure cyclic effects when working with cross-sectional data and a PLS modelling algorithm. Using the resources and appropriation theory and the sequential model of internet appropriation, we demonstrate the importance of considering cyclic effects. Our results show that opportunities for physical access followed by digital skills acquisition enhance internet usage (acyclic effects), but also that internet usage intensity, in reverse, reinforces both digital skills and physical access (cyclic effects), supporting Norris (Digital divide: civic engagement, information poverty, and the internet worldwide. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2001) social stratification hypothesis regarding future evolution of the digital divide.

This study aims to explore the complex effects of post-purchase retargeting ads on consumer behavior, with a focus on expectation confirmation, satisfaction, and repurchase intentions. Additionally, it examines the influence of time spent online on these effects. Anchored in expectation confirmation theory (ECT), the study analyzes responses from 396 Saudi Arabian e-tourism customers who encountered competitive retargeting ads after purchasing an e-tourism package. The analysis employs partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) and multigroup analysis (MGA) to test the hypotheses. A notable finding is the direct negative impact of retargeting ads on expectation confirmation: increased exposure to such ads post-purchase seems to diminish the perception that initial expectations of the product or service are being met. The negative effect of these ads also indirectly influences satisfaction and repurchase intentions. Furthermore, the MGA results indicate variations in this negative impact based on the time spent online. Specifically, the more time consumers spend online, the stronger the negative impact, leading to a significant decrease in satisfaction and repurchase intentions. These insights reveal the complex nature of post-purchase retargeting ads and underscore the importance of accounting for consumers’ online behavior. They offer valuable direction for marketers to refine retargeting strategies to better resonate with consumer expectations.