322 | nº 31, pp. 315-340 | doxa.comunicación
July-December of 2020
Analysis of the discursive framing strategies used in Spanish press headlines regarding the electoral coverage...
ISSN: 1696-019X / e-ISSN: 2386-3978
For example, newspapers report on events that took place during the election campaign;
[Ex. 1.] Radical groups disrupt Vox rallies in the Basque Country (El Pais, 13/04/2019)
[Ex. 2.] Early morning attack on the national headquarters of Vox (La Vanguardia, 25/04/2019)
The decisions of the Central Electoral Board (Junta Electoral Central),
[Ex. 3.] The Election Board Headquarters vetoes Vox for the debate, but allows Junqueras to campaign (ABC, 17/04/2019)
The participants on the election lists;
[Ex. 4.] Henríquez de Luna, former PP city councillor with Esperanza Aguirre, moves to Vox (El Confidencial, 21/04/2019)
Or the voting forecasts based on the polls;
[Ex. 5.] Vox surpasses Cs (Ciudadanos) and PSOE on Madrid City Council (El Mundo, 15/04/2019
They even publicise the prices at which support is given to the main political parties in betting shops, to help “spot trends”, as stated in the following news item:
[Ex. 6.] The bets give the same options to Sánchez and Casado... and Abascal is third (El Confidencial, 24/04/2019)
In second place are headlines that deal with political issues, which is a term that refers to texts related to the ideology of political parties in Patterson’s classification (1980):
[Ex. 7.] Boycotts of PP, Cs and Vox events unite right-wingers against Sánchez (El País, 15/04/2019)
alliances and similarities between different parties,
[Ex. 8.] Vox joins Podemos to reject an initiative of the PP in favour of bullfighting (ABC, 12/04/2019)
[Ex. 9.] Marine Le Pen: “We have very friendly relations with Vox. This political party is inevitable” (El Español) 20/04/2019)
or their relations with civil society. Numerous headlines reported Vox’s decision to ban access to its rallies by journalists working for certain media, but it should be noted that each newspaper chooses a different lexical selection to report on this issue:
[Ex. 10.] Vox continues with the expulsion of journalists after the veto of El Español (El Español, 18/04/2019)
[Ex. 11.] Vox purges journalists from the only channel that provides information on the party (El Diario, 18/04/2019)
[Ex. 12.] Reporting on Vox amid insults, bans and threats: “You are a disgrace. We will always be in confrontation with you” (El Diario, 25/04/2019)
[Ex. 13.] Elections 2019: Santiago Abascal is not aware of the ban on journalists at Vox events but supports his communication team (OK Diario, 24/04/2019)
Thus, in [Ex. 10], El Español opts for a durative verb and a self-reference in order to present the media itself as a victim of Vox’s actions, but at the same time they make it clear that they were not the only journalists affected by the decision of this political party to deny their coverage of the party’s campaign events; In the headline shown in [Ex. 11], the subject