The International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR) is deeply saddened by the passing of Manuel Parés i Maicas on 27 August.
Manuel served as IAMCR President from 1998 to 2002 and was the founder of the Ethics of Society and Ethics of Communication Working Group. A respected scholar at the Autonomous University of Barcelona and internationally he was a cherished colleague and friend to many in our community.
With the kind permission of their authors, we are honoured to share two tributes to Manuel. The first is by Miquel de Moragas i Spà and Marta Civil i Serra, longtime collaborators of Manuel at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. The second is by Jaume Risquete Sánchez, a journalist and researcher whose doctoral thesis was supervised by Manel.
Photo by Ilija Tomanic-Trivundza in Bremen, Germany, 2010.
Manuel Parés i Maicas, in memoriam
Manel Parés i Maicas (1933–2025), emeritus professor who passed away on August 27, had a long academic career at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) as a professor of communication and manager of academic projects.
He served as secretary of the Faculty of Information Sciences during its first years (1971–1978) and later as vice-rector of UAB under rectors Josep Laporte (1976–1980) and Antoni Serra Ramoneda (1980–1985).
His academic career was marked by books such as Mecenatge, patrocini i comunicació (Sponsorship, Patronage and Communication, 1991) and Ètica, deontologia i comunicació (Ethics, Deontology and Communication, 2011), as well as his contribution to raising the international profile of communication studies in Catalonia and his role as a driving force for international relations through the organisation of congresses and seminars.
Manuel Parés i Maicas (who liked to be identified with both surnames) was a pillar in the institutional projection of the Faculty, managing agreements, grants, scholarships, conferences, and symposia that would later culminate in the organisation of the XXIII conference of the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR) in Barcelona, and in his election as president of this association from 1998 to 2002.
He was one of the founders of the UNESCO Chair in Communication (UAB) in 1989—the first of its kind worldwide—as well as a promoter of several international doctoral programmes.
He also participated in the creation of the Catalan Communication Society, a branch of the Institute of Catalan Studies (1986); the Communication Research Centre (CEDIC) of the Government of Catalonia, directed by Wifredo Espina (1986); and in the creation of new Communication faculties that emerged from the experience of the UAB.
As a professor, he devoted special attention to supervising doctoral theses, with great personal involvement, leaving an indelible memory among his students, and always seeking to open doors and build bridges of understanding between people and institutions.
Miquel de Moragas i Spà
Marta Civil i Serra
Original article in Catalan on the UAB website
A Driving Force of Communication Research: From the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona to the World
For many generations of students of Communication Sciences, from the founding of the first such faculty in Catalonia in 1971 through the first decade of the 2000s, the figure of Professor Manuel Parés i Maicas remains today both endearing and unforgettable. A cultivated, intelligent, affable, and open-minded man, he was an expert in political communication and public relations. His lectures were an endless flow of definitions and citations from authors, many of whom were his colleagues and friends whom he invited to the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (Autonomous University of Barcelona - UAB) to give seminars and lectures. Passionate about teaching, he believed that the university must generate ideas and remain critical, and he warned that it should not be reduced to a mere centre for vocational training.
He was one of the pioneers of communication research in Spain during the 1970s, 80s, and 90s — alongside his friend and fellow professor Miquel de Moragas i Spà — helping make UAB a leading university in this field not only in Spain but also across Latin America. When he was elected President of the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR), he expanded the prestige of Catalonia’s research to Europe and further afield, including Canada and the United States. As a result of his IAMCR presidency (1998–2002), UAB joined projects such as European Media, Technology and Everyday Life (EMTEL), a European research network promoted by the European Union.
Proud of his very humble origins, Parés was self-made and self-taught, managing through great effort to earn both his law degree and his doctorate. An example of meritocracy, he learned French and English at a time when few professors mastered foreign languages. His path, however, led him toward Journalism, Political Communication, and Public Relations — three fields he analysed and taught with a unifying thread that always guided him: ethics. At the same time, he was passionate about academic management and, among other responsibilities, served as Vice-Rector of UAB (1976–1985).
He was one of the founders of the UNESCO Chair of Communication at UAB in 1989 — the very first to be created worldwide — which allowed his doctoral students to benefit from the presence of renowned international scholars such as Jesús Martín-Barbero (the most influential Latin American communication scholar in the English-speaking world alongside Manuel Castells), Josep Rota, Roger Silverstone, and Carlo Marletti.
Already in the 1990s, one of his concerns was the declining role of intellectuals as ethical and socially committed figures. For this reason, among the many initiatives he promoted at the Catalan Government’s Communication Research Center (CEDIC), directed by Wifredo Espina, were conferences, research projects, and collective volumes on the future of intellectuals.
Parés leaves behind numerous academic projects, doctoral theses he directed, seminars and conferences he organised, and a multitude of articles and books, including landmarks such as La ideología regional de la prensa española (The Regional Ideology of the Spanish Press, 1984), Mecenatge, patrocini i comunicació (Patronage, Sponsorship and Communication, 1991), Introducción a la Comunicación Social (Introduction to Social Communication, 1992), and Ètica, deontologia i comunicació (Ethics, Deontology and Communication, 2011). Those of us fortunate enough to have been his close friends will also remember him at his home in Bellaterra, with his enviable library overflowing with books down to the basement. But above all, we will remember him where he felt happiest, in his paradise: setting out to sail in his little boat "Pescallunes" ("Moonfisher") after breakfast, near a small cove in Cadaqués where he had an apartment.
On August 27, he left us at the age of 92, and now gazes out to the Mediterranean from the cemetery of Portlligat.
Jaume Risquete Sánchez
First published in La Vanguardia. Translation by Loretta Di Charles.