in this language and analyses in particular the functions of service journalism carried out by these media through two channels: that of bringing this population together and that of facilitating their stay in the area.

Penalva and Brückner (2008) analysed the newspaper Costa Blanca Nachrichten3, the version of the subject addressed in this research produced in Alicante, and concluded that it is not a medium that transmits social demands. They also found that, in terms of interculturality, neither is it perceived as a hybrid medium, but instead acts as an intercultural medium among the German population. Brückner (2008) corroborated these results in another study carried out on the same newspaper.

The rest of the research on foreign media has focused on other nationalities and geographical areas, for example, the Canary Islands (Acirón Royo 1997; Martín Hernández 1990; González Cruz 1991), the Balearic Islands (Marimon & Vicens 2013) or Madrid (Retis 2008). Research has also been carried out on Latin American residents in this last Community (Gómez & Santín 2009; Mas Giral 2017).

Other scholars have addressed the problems of this kind of press, such as (cost-)free media (Santos Díez & Pérez Dasilva 2012; Rosell 2008; González Cortes 2009; Santos Díez 2008), that of translation studies (Taillefer de Haya 2005) and, of course, that of tourism, where other nationalities have been analysed in depth (Fernández & Mendoza 2007; Ocaña & Lar-rubia 2012; Mazón 2018; Delgado Peña & Sortino Barrinuevo 2018; Millares 2018; Lakssfoss 2018; Woube 2017). Television has also devoted some attention to the subject in an audience study that examined young Britons on the Costa del Sol (Sáiz Díaz 2016).

This research aims to provide new data in this field of study, the conceptualisation of which is not yet fully agreed upon. In the literature consulted, various terminologies have been detected: ethnic press, press in the diaspora, immigrant press, foreign press, press for minorities or delocalised press (Blau 1998; Lacroix 1998; Gómez Mompart 2008). In this research, the most frequent term, “foreign press”, has been chosen to study the case of the German population, which, despite being the second most numerous group of Europeans both on the Costa del Sol and in the rest of Spain, has nevertheless received far less attention from scholars.

3. Objectives and Methodology

The initial hypothesis of this research is that German residents on the Costa del Sol are in favour of the European project and that the media targeted at this group help them in their process of integration. However, these media have shortcom-ings as they do not meet all the information demands of their consumers, as foreign residents in this geographical area.

This research has three objectives:

To determine the socio-demographic characteristics of this active audience (the German residents) on the Costa del Sol.