Ideology, Politics, and Opinion Journalism: A Content Analysis of Spanish Online-Only Newspapers

This study examines the ideological slant of Spanish digital-native opinion journalism. Political-ideological pluralism is a well-researched topic in media and journalism studies, yet there is less research regarding this topic when it comes to exclusively online media. This paper addresses that gap...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Pineda, Antonio, Almiron, Núria
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2013
País:España
Institución:Universidad de Sevilla (US)
Repositorio:idUS. Depósito de Investigación de la Universidad de Sevilla
OAI Identifier:oai:idus.us.es:11441/104831
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/11441/104831
https://doi.org/10.31269/vol11iss2pp558-574
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Ideology
Politics
Content Analysis
Online-Only Media
Pluralism
Spain
Descripción
Sumario:This study examines the ideological slant of Spanish digital-native opinion journalism. Political-ideological pluralism is a well-researched topic in media and journalism studies, yet there is less research regarding this topic when it comes to exclusively online media. This paper addresses that gap concerning the ways online-only opinion journalism can be defined in terms of their political ideology, and to what extent extreme ideological positions are represented in online journalism. Evidence from a content analysis of opinion columns appearing in the most widely-read Spanish online newspapers, during the month of May 2011 shows a general anti-left bias in the opinion sections of the newspapers, as well as a representation of the political extremes that is slightly more lenient with the extreme right. In line with Hallin and Mancini’s theory of polarized political news environments in countries like Spain, our results show that this polarization is characterized by a strong—but not always explicit—dominance of right-wing views.