million unique users. These are the digital editions of the two best-selling general information newspapers in 2017, according to OJD data, with an average of 175,041 copies sold daily in the case of El País and 105,811 for La Vanguardia.

The study attempts to provide continuity to other research, such as the aforementioned papers by Fúster et al. (2009) or Alzate (2013), which demonstrated concern in the written media for matters revolving around nutrition and looked in depth at the characteristics (contents, authorship, sources, genres, focus points, etc.) of this type of text.

The relevance of the nutrition theme in the field of communication is merely a reflection of an advanced society that wishes to know increasingly more about and have further control over food and its health implications. It is worth recapping a study carried out by ComScore (2018) on internet users from Germany, France, United Kingdom, Spain and Italy which showed that 130 million people from these countries visited a food-related site in 2018. On the other hand, in its White Paper on Food Safety, the European Commission highlighted the consumers’ right to “expect information on food quality and constituents that is helpful and clearly presented” (2000: 4). In addition, in its Framework Research Programme Horizon 2020, the European Union states “Food Security, Sustainable Agriculture and Forestry, Marine, Maritime and Inland Water Research and Bioeconomy” as the second of its priority social challenges.

2. Objectives and hypotheses

This aim of this research is to analyse the characteristics of texts on nutrition published by elpais.com (121) and lavanguardia.com (168) during 2017. This analysis develops around the following research questions:

1. What are the overarching themes in the selected media? Is there a high match between them?

2. As this is a specialised journalistic field, are their specific characteristics of text authorship? Are professionals in this field highly specialised?

3. Which main sections, genres and types of headline are chosen when addressing nutrition topics?

4. What is the prevailing framing for these texts?

5. What type of sources do the selected media use? Is any type of source prioritised?

6. Is this type of news capable of eliciting comments from readers?

In an attempt to answer these questions, we are proposing the following hypotheses:

H1. The overarching themes are related to the concept of healthy food. These topics coincide broadly in the two online newspapers being studied.

H2. The degree of specialisation in the selected newspapers is not excessively high for topics concerning nutrition. This leads to a large number of different authors.

H3. Nutrition topics are found in sections that match themes for what the press is calling “Lifestyle”. As these are extended or permanent news topics, the interpreting genres are better adapted to this type of topic, which is reflected in headlines that are a far cry from editorial standards,