Congenere has been created as a forum to share different theoretical and empirical approaches to the models, processes and limits of identity as manifested in the media discourse. The first edition of the conference brought together professional opinions and university research results to address how gender is represented in advertising from a particular perspective: highlighting gender stereotypes in advertising that influence people's behaviour, especially the young. In this edition we will debate media constructions of identity, means of exclusion, interpretations of reality and cultural formats expressed in advertising, while also paying special attention to the impact of electronic media, a new audiovisual environment with its own language.

The conference will focus on a controversial and transcendental topic analysed by specialists from within a wide range of disciplines: sociologists, advertising professionals, media directors and others with responsibility over the contents of publications and television programming, representatives of public institutions (advertising observatories, government institutes of women, equal rights organisations), researchers in philosophy, anthropology, language and linguistics, and communications. At the same time, the conference focus coincides with one of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals: promoting gender equality and women's autonomy.

The conference was the initiative of the research group ARPA, dedicated to the analysis of how the contents of audiovisual screens are received, and made up of lecturers from the UdG, the UB, the Miguel de Cervantes European University in Valladolid and the University of the Basque Country. Various services of the University of Girona as well as different social public services have expressed interest in collaborating in support of this event.

We believe that this conference may provide an opportunity for a multidisciplinary approach to a social problem that, far from being solved, is still one of the pending issues of fully democratic societies like ours: gender violence, stereotypes and gender inequalities promoted by advertising.