2. Methodology

One of the original contributions of this research has been the retrieval of the book Morphology of the Folktale, a well-known work by Russian folklorist Vladimir Propp (1895-1975) 1, published in 1928, as a basis for developing a morphology of the journalist. His study of 100 marvellous tales of his country’s folklore establishes the original matrix from which the remaining universal stories emerge, with a set of irreducible narrative elements that he calls “functions of the characters”, 31 in total. In our work, after analysing the 135 Spanish films with journalists, we have obtained a morphology of the reporter with 21 functions (San José, 2017).

Propp’s theories were later revised and broadened by authors such as Roland Barthes, who established three levels. In ad-dition to functions, he proposed actions and narration. Other ideas emerged from Algirdas-Julien Greimas, who paid more attention to syntax.

In the first phase of the study, quantitative methods have been used by defining and narrowing down the sample to achieve a general filmography of 220 titles, and one that is specific with 135. The work is based on an extensive compilation of feature films produced in Spain. An intense search from the beginning of Spanish films up to the present day served to find and consolidate the ‘general’ filmography with the aforementioned 220 titles. Afterward, a ‘specific’ filmography was developed through the selection of titles with main or secondary roles until the figure was set at 135.

From the first films viewed, the information was collected on analysis sheets in two databases using Filemaker software:

Database 1: Film analysis sheets: general database with information about the films. The fields and formulary used repro-duce those proposed by the database of the Spanish Film Library.

Database 2: Journalist analysis sheets: Journalism-specific database with key data for the investigation. The fields and for-mulary contain information related to the journalist’s role as well as information from Database 1.

The decision was made to stop at 135 as it became apparent that the functions to produce the morphology were repeated, at which time it was considered that enough “irreducible functions” had already been collected from the characters, as happened to Propp with the stories of the Russian tradition.

The 21 functions are divided into three areas.

First area: refers to the section in which journalists carry out their profession.

Second area: refers to the journalists’ personalities.

Third area: refers to whether they are considered heroes or villains.

Presentation of the data has been performed using the following guidelines:

Definition of the action has been as precise as possible for the 21 functions.

A conventional sign with a capital letter indicates the function.

A number has been assigned for each media: press (1), radio (2) and television (3).