32 | nº 29, pp. 19-41 | doxa.comunicación

July-December of 2019

What does the digital press talk about when it talks about nutrition? An analysis of elpais.com...

ISSN: 1696-019X / e-ISSN: 2386-3978

The second person (appealing to the reader) is frequently used or even the first person: “Putting bread in the freezer and other huge mistakes” (elpais.com, 21/06/2017), “You might tend to put on weight if you use sweeteners” (elpais.com, 31/07/2019), “What you need to know to keep your cholesterol under control” (lavanguardia.com, 22/03/2017), “How much calcium we should take depending on our age” (lavanguardia.com, 27/06/2017).

Headlines that allude to a list, quite common in digital journalism, represent 7% of the total: “Five foods you should never buy at the supermarket” (elpais.com, 22/05/2017), “The worst 5 trending diets to lose weight” (lavanguardia.com, 22/06/2017).

Finally, under the “demonstrative” description we have grouped together headlines that hint at the existence of certain information by using a demonstrative adjective or pronoun: “These snacks can be more effective than medicine” (elpais.com, 28/06/2017), “This food might be the key to fighting obesity” (28/11/2017).

4.4. Framing

The selected contents were divided into the previously defined frames.

Table 9: Types of predominant framing in the texts on nutrition.

Source: Compiled by author.

As shown in the table attached, the percentage distribution for predominant framing in the texts does not differ greater between the newspapers being analysed. In both cases, the Solutions/Recommendations framing is the most usual, covering over 50% of the sample. Entman (1993: 52) explains that the frames can “suggest solutions”. This focus indicates an intention to assess and be useful for the reader in matters concerning their food. This would be the case of articles such as “If you want to lose fat and gain muscle, follow this diet” (elpais.com, 26/01/2017) or “Strawberries, one of the best antioxidant fruits” (lavanguardia.com, 19/03/2017). In general, this refers to texts that suggest eating alternatives to make nutrition healthier. The second most used framing is Diagnosis. This frame appears in 25.6% of texts from elpais.com and in 28.5% from lavanguardia.com. “Our food is increasingly safer but less healthy” (elpais.com, 14/03/2017) and “New consumers demand food adapted to their lifestyle, proximity and digitalisation” (14/03/2017) are two examples of this type of focus. Responsibility framing demonstrates the greatest differences between elpais.com (14.9%) and lavanguardia.com (8.5%). This framing aligns news on nutrition with complaints on the people responsible for certain food issues: “A packaged hamburger is not a hamburger” (elpais.com, 04/03/2017), “The surprising quantity of sugar in these ‘healthy’ foods” (lavanguardia.com, 30/07/2017).