4. Discussion and conclusions

The decisions of both programmes -in this case on agenda and media pluralism- are only coherent and can be explained from their political positions. These positions are in short contrary to any questioning of the current political and economic system and especially contrary to Catalonian sovereignism, given the dates of the study (October and November 2017). At the same time, privileged treatment is granted to the thesis linked to the parties which defended the application of Article 155 in Catalonia and especially those close to PSOE.

The former affects media pluralism insomuch as they are the interventions which are most criticized by the State institutions (or those who propose methods of diverse relationships between Catalonia and Spain) those who receive the most counter-arguments.

That the most frequent fellow-debaters are the ones who receive the least refutations could be an indication contrary to that which one would expect from a sufficiently pluralistic debate, and in which the participants do so on equal terms. And above all point to the fact that the number of appearances is not related to informative interest nor diversity but depends on the ideological closeness to the moderator (who carries out the measured counter-arguments).

The data obtained shows a close monothematic approach from Al Rojo Vivo and Las Mañanas de Cuatro of everything related to the Catalonian Independence Process in the broadcasts analysed (25 of each programme).

Given the dates of the study, it is reasonable and even foreseeable that the Catalonian question be one of the topics most dealt with. However, over-representing this issue in the levels registered is a decision with a powerful political impact.

Regarding the hypothesis formulated, we note that:

A) The answer to the first hypothesis is conclusive: both with respect to Al Rojo Vivo and to Las Mañanas de Cuatro, the topics discussed do not correspond to the concerns expressed by the CIS interviewees. Of the 10 main subjects, only 1 (the independence of Catalonia) obtained at least one third of the percentage of people who reported this issue as being one of the top three most important. In fact, it gets more than three times the maximum percentage obtained in the CIS and the decision to treat this issue excessively is what prevents other matters from achieving the attention that the citizens grant it. Therefore, none of the 10 most mentioned problems in the CIS is covered in either of the two programmes studied in a minimally similar proportion to that expressed by citizens in the CIS.

B) There is a great similarity between the agenda displayed on the two programmes analysed, almost to the point of being interchangeable. Thus, the time spent on the 10 topics most dealt with in Al Rojo Vivo shows a Pearson correlation of 0.999 with respect to the time they received on the same 10 topics in Las Mañanas de Cuatro.

C) The participants in both programmes are mainly men: 81.82% in the case of Al Rojo Vivo and 73.68% in Las Mañanas de Cuatro, therefore the hypothesis related to gender equality is ruled out: the 40% figure the law requires in the electoral lists will not be reached.

Given these results, some recommendations for discussion are: the lack of women in political debate programmes (C) could be solved with a legal provision such as the so-called “zipper systems” to oblige the minimum legal requirements of equality to be fulfilled; on the other hand, both the broad ideological and topic parallelism between programmes of