The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the ways we interact with each other, with digital media being more present than ever in our lives, especially during the lockdown periods. Much research has focused on the negative effects of lockdown on mental health, such as increasing anxiety and depression (Sharma et al., 2020), among others.  However, there is also research focused on the potentialities of media for open learning and remaining connected during moments in which face-to-face interaction has been reduced, highlighting the opportunities for collective co-creation arisen during that period using different media. Along this line, a few studies have reported different ways in which people have created ways of combating social isolation through cultural, arts and social activities developed online (Kim & Cho, 2020), contributing to reducing distress and other mental health issues.

One such activity are Dialogic Gatherings of Films (DGF). Dialogic Gatherings were first developed in 1978 in an adult school in Barcelona as a Dialogic Literary Gatherings (Soler-Gallart, 2019), and they were then extended to different countries, contexts, and modalities, including Dialogic Theological Gatherings, Dialogic Scientific Gatherings, or Dialogic Pedagogical Gatherings, among others. Dialogic Gatherings are based on collective creation of meaning through an egalitarian dialogue around high quality texts or artwork. In the case of DGF, participants select films due to the relevance of the discussions they propel, rather than due to their cinematographic quality, and engage in an egalitarian dialogue around them.

Although DGF were created more than 20 years ago, the research presented in this paper is the first one conducted on them thus far. The particular DGF studied for this paper was specifically developed during the lockdown period in Spain from March to May 2020, being carried out every other day during such period. Hence, although the foundation of the present DGF is the same as of other DGF and Dialogic Gatherings, this one does not represent all DGF, as it was developed specifically to tackle the first coronavirus lockdown in Spain. In the case of this particular DGF, participants would watch the film from their own space, and would gather with the rest of participants via zoom to engage in a one-hour dialogue on it. Before engaging in this dialogue, one of the participants would introduce the film for around five minutes providing historical, cultural and social context, and then a moderator would open the floor for anyone to participate. Given the struggle many people in different countries went through during the lockdowns, the current study aims at analyzing the impact of this DGF on participants while facing the lockdown. The paper poses the following research question: how did participating in a DGF impact participants’ lives while facing the coronavirus lockdown?

To that end, an online questionnaire created specifically for the purposes of this study was administered to all DGF participants. Of them, 53 completed the questionnaire and the informed written consent to participate in the study, which was independent from participating in the DGF.

Results highlight the impact of DGF on improving participants’ personal welfare and attitudes towards the management of the lockdown, advancing living together and online relationships, promoting creativity and motivation in their professions, and enhancing openness towards a diversity of perspectives and realities.

The DGF presented in this paper is in line with European strategies to improve citizens’ mental health and cultural and open learning. The impact it has achieved among diverse individuals provides hope for the universal value of high-quality dialogues on films that spark rich cultural, socio-historical and scientific debates. Future research should study the transference of this Dialogic Gathering into different European and international contexts.

This study is based within the communicative framework. The communicative methodology (CM) has been recognized by the European Commission as a requirement for research projects funded under its Framework Programmes due to its social impact (Redondo et al., 2020). The communicative approach entails establishing an egalitarian dialogue between researchers and research participants, in which the former contribute scientific knowledge and the latter contribute knowledge from their lifeworlds and experience, thus co-creating new knowledge and collective meaning that helps improve people’s lives. Participants in the study were 53 individuals, 38 women and15 men between 24 and 69 years old, from different nationalities, including Spanish, Chilean, Romanian, Uruguayan and Brazilian. All of them were participants in the DGF, many of whom are university researchers who are also participants in a Dialogic Intellectual Gathering on the main theoretical and scientific bases of different disciplines. Although not all participants in the study – as well as in the gathering – were researchers, most had a profession around education, either as teachers – in different school years – or as researchers and university professors. A qualitative online questionnaire was developed for the purposes of this study. Following the communicative approach, researchers followed a dialogic design in the development of the questionnaire, in which they first asked participants about the main issues to be highlighted in the questionnaire, then elaborated an initial proposal, then sent it to some DGF participants to review it, and lastly developed the final version of the questionnaire by introducing participants’ feedback. As a result, the questionnaire was composed by 50 questions – 31 open-ended – divided into 3 sections. Once the questionnaire was developed, an email was sent to all people participating in the lockdown DGF with the questionnaire, an information sheet on the purposes and implications of the study, and informed written consent ensuring anonymity and voluntary participation. Among all participants – there were up to 85 participants throughout the different DGF, with an average of 60 in each session –, 53 completed the questionnaire and informed written consent. Once all data were gathered, a hand analysis was conducted to identify main benefits that the DGF had for participants. First, three main categories were established: professional benefits, personal benefits, and COVID-19-related benefits. After reading through the responses several times, several categories emerged within each of these three.

Findings from the present study can be divided into four groups: 1) improving personal welfare and attitudes towards the management of confinement; 2) bettering living together and online relationships; 3) increasing motivation and creativity in the professional domain; and 4) promoting openness to a diversity of perspectives and realities. First, most participants explained that being part of the DGF helped them have a more optimistic attitude towards the lockdown, and that the in-depth discussions and reflections in which they engaged propelled personal welfare and personal reflections. Second, the DGF impacted participants’ relationships with other people. For instance, among people living together throughout the lockdown, the DGF became a special event in their daily lives, enriching at-home conversations as well as online conversations with other people who did not participate in the DGF. Third, participants stated that the DGF increased their motivation towards their jobs, transferring the content and the democratic form of engaging in dialogues in the DGF into their professions. Last, engaging in these dialogues allowed participants to become more open towards a diversity of opinions and perspectives, increasing their knowledge on diverse cultural, historical, social and scientific issues. In a world that is ever changing with COVID-19 surges and related measures and with increased online learning and interactions, the DGF developed specifically to face the first lockdown in Spain has contributed to overcoming isolation and promoting digitally mediated contexts full of high-quality cultural, historical, social and scientific dialogues among participants.

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