Pou Amérigo, María José

La agonía y muerte del Papa ha supuesto para el ciberperiodismo un momento especialmente significativo por la convergencia de determinadas necesidades informativas y nuevos avances tecnológicos que ha puesto a prueba las prácticas periodísticas tradicionales. Este texto pretende reflexionar sobre ese fenómeno y sus implicaciones de futuro.

Las imágenes periodísticas son objeto de debates y controversias. Desde la niña de Trang Bang hasta las imágenes de niñas y mujeres en el terremoto y la epidemia de cólera de Haití en 2010, los comentarios se suceden sobre el valor simbólico y comunicativo de lo representado. Las imágenes de prensa reconocidas como “Foto del año” por la World Press Photo en el periodo comprendido entre los años 2000 y 2011 representan conflictos y catástrofes internacionales en las que los protagonistas son principalmente mujeres, niños y niñas; se trata de imágenes cargadas de drama y pathos. Los ejes de la discusión son la jerarquización en portada frente al derecho a la intimidad, la visibilidad de las personas enfermas y víctimas de catástrofes y la respuesta social ante las imágenes a través de la red. The journalistic images are subject to debate and controversy: from the girl of Trang Bang to the most recently images of women and female kids during the earthquake and the cholera epidemic in Haiti in 2010, comments on the symbolic and communicative value of the pictured subject keep occurring. The press images awarded as “photo of the year” by World Press Photo in the period between 2000 and 2011 represent international conflicts and disasters where the main characters are mostly women and children, plenty of drama and pathos. The axes of the discussion are the main photography situation on the daily journal front page, against the right to privacy, the iconic representation of the sick people and victims of disasters and the social discussion through the network.

This paper focuses on media representation of the Catholic Church during the first months of the coronavirus pandemic in Italy and Spain. The purpose is to know when and how the Catholic Church starred in the news; how its actions were presented, and using which frames. The work analyses the coverage of the Church in Corriere della Sera and El Pa ıs between January and May 2020 and connects the deductive process (news frames by Semetko and Valkenburg) with the inductive process (setting common places or topoi) in order to get a better understanding of the news-framing. Findings show that both newspapers gave prevalence to news about the charitable work of the Catholic Church during the pandemic instead of about conflict with the political authorities because of restrictive measures. When it comes to the relationship with civil institutions, a positive image of the Church was offered, one that portrayed her as ready to collaborate and apply the preventive measures recommended by the health authorities. The positive perception is more frequent than the negative one when there are dualities in the topoi that are found in the interpretation of the facts.