We examine the implementation of social robots in real-world settings during the COVID-19 pandemic. In particular, we analyze the areas in which social robots are being adopted, the roles and tasks being fulfilled, and the robot models being implemented. For this, we traced back and analyzed 240 deployment cases with 86 different social robots worldwide that have been adopted since the coronavirus outbreak. We found that social robot adoption during this period was strongly related to the use of this technology for crisis management. The social robots’ capacity to perform the roles of liaison to minimize direct contact among humans, safeguard to ensure contagion risk-free environments, and well-being coach to protect mental and physical health, is key to explaining adoption within this context. The results of the study offer a complete overview of social robots’ utilization in real life settings during the pandemic.

Introducción: Operadores públicos y privados de las emisoras radiofónicas generalistas buscan en las redes sociales nuevas formas de explotación de contenidos que generen cambios en la cadena de valor de la marca y desarrollen un modelo de negocio diferente. Objetivos: Definir las sinergias entre la radio convencional y las redes sociales en la radio generalista española a partir del análisis de cuatro programas de prime-time considerados máximos exponentes de la marca radiofónica. Metodología: A través de la técnica cuantitativa de análisis de contenido se estudian los roles del emisor y la audiencia en las redes sociales y la radio convencional. Conclusión: Pese a la ampliación de las vías para la participación de la audiencia, el estudio demuestra una ausencia casi total de interacción lo que exige el establecimiento de sinergias entre la radio convencional y las redes sociales como estrategia para explotar el potencial de estos espacios virtuales.

Research on the introduction of the gender perspective in higher education -specifically in the field of Communication degrees in Spain- is scarce, considering the crucial role of media content in promoting gender stereotypes in society. Currently, the adoption of this perspective at the university teaching is a requirement from the European Higher Education Area, the Spanish university policies, and the Spanish government legal framework. The objective of this paper is to study, through the technique of quantitative content analysis, the presence and expression of the gender perspective in the teaching guides of the Audio-visual Communication, Journalism and Advertising degrees from 6 Spanish universities. The sample of the study consisted of 812 teaching guides from the 2018-2019 and 2019-2020 courses. The results indicate that in 2 out of 8 teaching guides, gender perspective features-related are included mainly concentrated in subjects specialized in gender, so their scope is not transversal to the teaching plan of the degrees. In addition, women are underrepresented as references in the bibliographies, and it is mostly the female professors who intend to correct this bias. We concluded that the teaching guides analysed lack a gender perspective. The results of this research are expected to contribute to raising awareness of the need to include it transversally in the teaching plans of Spanish university degrees.

Social robots are specifically designed to interact with humans by engaging in social behaviors. In education, these machines are progressively adopted to support learning processes. Despite this trend, there is a lack of research that maps the implementation of social robots for education in real settings. To address this gap, we used a documentary research method to identify and classify cases of social robot deployments in educational contexts worldwide. In total, we traced back and analyzed 206 cases of social robots deployed in 28 countries, involving 43 different robot models. These robots were identified in kindergartens, primary and secondary schools, universities, and occupational therapy centers, among other institutions. The most prevalent functions of these robots are edutainment, entertainment, teaching programming skills, and offering psychological support. This study provides a comprehensive overview of social robots’ current applications in the educational sector, with implications for future adoption.