9/11 was a turning point not only
for the collective imagination and popular culture, but also for practically
all fiction material written for television, particularly in terms of the way
stories are constructed, the psychological analysis of the characters, the loss
of identity and the kinds of conflicts presented.

The symposium analysed some of the
effects of 9/11 on television fiction by observing whether the series merely
reflect reality or provide criticism to help viewers in this changing
environment.

The symposium speakers included
Audiovisual Communication professors, TV and film critics, and people who write
about the audiovisual industry. They pointed out some of the most important
keys to today's TV series.

Enric Ros, a professor at the school Estudio de
Cine and the Universidad de
las Artes Cinematográficas y Escénicas de Barcelona and the author of the book It's not TV. Las series de ficción en la era de la postTV (It's Not TV: Fiction Series in the Post-TV Era), said, “TV
series are not only a reflection of today's society; sometimes they also offer
a view of ideal societies as a way of criticizing the world we live in”. Ros said, “This critical trend of fiction
in the United States has not occurred on Spanish television channels, which
tend to make programmes that are simply entertaining to help viewers escape
reality”.

To highlight TV’s ability to
address current topics, Fernando de Felipe, a professor in the Faculty of
Communication Sciences at Universitat
Ramon Llull and the co-author of Ficciones colaterales: las huellas del 11-S en las series
made in USA (Collateral Fictions: The Stamp of
9/11 on Series Made in the USA), said, “It's
very easy for television to refer to the most important events at each moment
in history. This ability makes it different from film”.

The
aim of the symposium was to show students the main trends in current TV series
and give them a broad vision of the world of television beyond what they learn
in class. The symposium ended with a roundtable session on  the experiences and perspectives of TV
fiction with the participation of other professionals in the industry, such as
scriptwriter Joan Marimón, who has worked on the
series Poblenou and Ventdelplà, as
well as Javier J. Valencia, the author of the book Twin Peaks: 625 líneas
en el futuro (Twin Peaks: 625 Lines in the Future). One
of the points that was stressed the most was the need to have extensive
knowledge of culture and the human condition to write good scripts for
television.