Articulo_1_EN_Doxa_29

1. Introduction

For some time, the Spanish press has been shining a spotlight on nutrition, as a subsection of the general topic of food. One study performed by Fúster, Ribes, Bardón & Merino (2009) in 2006 on 15 newspapers found that over that year, 1,432 news articles has been published on food, of which more than half (56%) corresponded specifically to the “Nutrition and Health” section. Other regional studies found similar results. Consequently, the Agencia Catalana de Seguretat Alimentària (Catalan Food Security Agency), working with the Pompeu Fabra University Scientific Communication Observatory in Barcelona, drafted the first of its 6 pilot SAM reports in 2007 on Food Safety in the Media. In that year, analysis on 5 newspapers found a total of 530 texts on food. 211 of these items (39%) fit into the topic of “Diet and nutrition”.

Following a similar focus, Elika, the Basque Foundation for Agrofood Safety, promoted writing a series of reports between 2012 and 2015 on Food Safety in the 9 most widely read newspapers in the Basque Country. The last of these reports (2015) compiled 2359 food-related items of information, of which 406 (17%) fit into the field of “Nutrition, health and allergies.”

At least two PhD theses have studied the relationship between media and nutrition over the last few years. Carretero (2016) analysed information on nutrition compiled by elmundo.es and elpais.com during the first semester of 2014. Aranceta (2015), in turn, in the paper entitled Periodismo y alimentación (Journalism and Food), looked at the question of information sources in the area of food and health, among other aspects

Other studies also deserve a mention such as Alzate (2013) who looked at nutritional dietary contents in El País, El Mundo, ABC and La Voz de Almería in 2011 or Demonte (2017) who studied social representations of food in the Argentinian written press during 2009-2014. Alzate (2013: 24) indicated a lack of specific sections on nutrition and specialisation from the journalists addressing these topics. Demonte addressed the role of the media when promoting “certain practices that are congruent with the biomedical-nutritional discourse” (2017: 14).

Concern about nutrition is not exclusive to the press and extends to other media supports. Declerq, Tulkens & Van Leuven (2018) compiled audience reactions on Twitter and Facebook regarding an info-entertainment programme on food, broadcast in Flemish by Belgian public television. The authors highlight that the information on nutrition elicits refutation, debate and suggestions from audiences; but does not have such a great effect on changing habits. On the other hand, Angela Bernabéu-Peiró (2015) addressed radio broadcasting on food and nutrition via Radio 5 Todo Noticias.

Other research has focussed on food advertising. After studying adverts in 5 South African magazines, Abrahams et al. (2017) found that 59% of them applied to unhealthy food. In turn, Leroy et al. (2018) carried out diachronic research to determine how meat consumption was treated during 2001-2015 by the MailOnline, the digital version of the British tabloid The Daily Mail. This study sheds light on what are occasionally contradictory points of view adopted by this newspaper regarding the pros and cons of consuming the food in question.

This research aims to offer in-depth analysis on how nutritional topics were treated over 2017 in elpais.com and lavanguardia.com. According to readership figures concerning the Spanish digital press drawn up by ComScore (table 1), in November of that year, these newspapers stood first and third, respectively, in the ranking, with 18.928 and 16.471