Barcelona launches its flagship project to promote Catalan on social media
The House of Digital Creation in Catalan will be located on Glòries Island and will have a budget of three million in the first two years.
BarcelonaBarcelona presented this Friday its contribution to promoting Catalan in one of the key spaces where its future is at stake: the digital environment. From the Saló de Cent, the City Council launched the House of Digital Creation in Catalan, a new facility with which it aims to contribute to fostering new benchmarks in the world of social media. It's a way for Catalan—which is already the primary language of only 35% of Barcelona residents—to reach a younger population, which is often no longer accessible through traditional media.
The new facility is the result of the agreement reached by the ERC (Republican Socialist Workers' Party) and the PSC (Spanish Socialist Workers' Party) for the 2025 budget. This Friday, the leader of the Republicans in the council, Elisenda Alamany, boasted about her group's influence over the municipal government and argued that "this must be mandate zero for [the Catalan government]. In this sense, he said that "the health of Catalan is in the hands of the new generations" and that "if Catalan has a relevant place in the digital environment, it is evident that the future of the language will be assured."
Alamany argued that if in the past there have been generations who have accessed Catalan through the Super3 Club, translations of the Harry Potter books and Catalan rock, now is the time to make way "for creators of content in Catalan." An objective to which the new House of Digital Creation in Catalan must contribute. The fourth deputy mayor, Jordi Valls, has added Strong Horse on the list of cultural phenomena that have contributed to the consolidation of a "first-class language" like Catalan, and has called for the public sector to help generate references.
The person in charge of providing details about how this new facility will operate was Marta Salicrú, Commissioner for the Social Use of Catalan at Barcelona City Council. "We want it to be a home to welcome creators and provide them with services so they can establish themselves and become leaders," she said. The goal is to identify the needs of the projects that come to the Casa de la Creación and assist them in aspects that can range from training in administrative matters to helping organize public events and connecting creators and economic stakeholders to seek funding.
Despite its public presentation this Friday, the Casa de la Creación will still have to wait a while to begin operating. The goal is to hold a major event on November 20th to kick off the project, and for the first calls to attract initiatives to be launched by early 2026. Initially, the Casa will be temporarily located in the El Convent building owned by Barcelona Activa in the Born neighborhood, but the final location of the facility will be on the ground floor of Isla Glòries, a social housing building. The project will have a budget of three million euros spread over 2026 and 2027.
Collaboration between 3Cat and Betevé
Among the project's particularities is the presence of 3Cat, Betevé, and the Accent Obert platform as driving forces, who will contribute to conceptualizing the space and providing training and spaces for creators. Rosa Romà, president of the Catalan Corporation of Audiovisual Media, emphasized the importance of reaching out to social media at a time when traditional media lack the "massive force" they had in the 1980s, and explained that they will channel some of the projects they were already promoting with content creators through the Casa de Creación.
From Betevé, director Georgina Ferri emphasized that reaching out to young audiences is also part of the DNA of the new team leading the Catalan capital's public television network. She has made Betevé equipment, which is not in use for certain hours of the day, available to the Casa de Creación. "We want to share our experience to help create future role models for younger generations," she said. These generations, as Genís Roca, president of Accent Obert, has emphasized, hold the key to the health of the Catalan language. "Content creation is undoubtedly one of the places where our present and our future are at stake," he said.