Voices from the emptiness. Developing theagentic ruralon Spanish television

Abstract

This article analyses rural representations in the documentary series Ruralitas (2020) on the Spanish TVE. The programme shows that the people living in the countryside have agency and do not conform to common rural stereotypes. Nevertheless, the stories flirt with ideas of the ‘rural idyll’ by focusing on the beauty of the landscape and traditional rural versus urban binaries. However, the series also develops what the author names an agentic rural. The agentic rural not only empowers countryside dwellers and portrays self-determined destinies in the countryside, but also highlights problems associated with depopulation.