Censorship is a polysemantic term. Strictly speaking, it only refers to decisions undertaken by legally recognized public institutions to determine what audiences can see and what they cannot see. 

Nevertheless, it would be naive to ignore that, beyond this exact or strict sense, social perceptions about censorship constitute a broader field. Almost daily, reading the press it is easy to acknowledge that the term censorship is used to describe any attack on freedom of speech or even the very notion of freedom.  

In this issue, we approach different ways of establishing the notion of censorship in cinema and television. The first video essay scrutinizes the decisions of European television networks, which, after modifying the audio tracks of anime series through dubbing, greatly alter their original meanings (Daniel Ferrera); the second one tackles how conservative cultures can limit the margins of the sayable, pointing out the very infrequent presence of the naked body in Uruguayan cinema (Agustín Fernández). Third, Niamh Thorton’s work offers a deontological reflection on the ways in which images of physical violence are represented. To conclude, the last video essay focuses on an early historical example of how films partake in the communicative processes and ideological fights for cultural hegemony (Manuel Palacio / Ana Mejón).

We are also adding a new section to the journal, “From the Archive”, curated in this issue by Sonia García López. It attempts to establish a dialogue with the different contents of the dossier by analyzing Juan Sebastián Bollaín’s Sevilla 2030 (2003), a film that has never been officially released until now.