Institutional Advertising in the Spanish Parliament

This article presents the results of a study about the legislation of institutional advertising in the Spanish Congress, which is understood as an arena for political communication. The research is focused on the analysis of the parliamentary initiatives and the corresponding parliamentary debates, with special emphasis on the legislative initiatives prior to the 2005 Law of Advertising and Institutional Communication, and its value as predecessor of other regulations. The first proposal of the law, still rejected, was taken by different political forces as the basis for subsequent regulative proposals concerning institutional advertising. The position of different groups, and their arguments, shows a clear lack of coherence in many cases. The comparison of the different initiatives in different Spanish chambers –and the debates around them- is a first step to establish the policy memory which, beyond the specific case of institutional communication, becomes a very useful instrument in the field of Political Communication.