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Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
key topics and representation of actors involved in the conflict. These can help in
uncovering the ideological position of the newspaper, and whether this is a
consequence of the political and geographical structure of the country where it can be
found.
To do this, a table has been designed, including the semantic and global-coherence
macropropositions (or big units) (Van Dijk, 1996) of the articles, their definition of
conflict, their characterization of actors, and those contextual features which can help
in the location of conflict. These features have been selected by relying on Grice’s
(1975) Cooperative Principle, which proposes that both sender and receiver try to ease
the communication process by following and accepting a number of non-regulatory
principles related to the amount of information, its (true) quality, its relevance, and its
discursive organization.
This Cooperative Principle coincides with Charaudeau (2005)’s description of a
communication contract which regulates the relationship between the information
senders (the mass media) and its receivers (consumer society). It stipulates that
communication shall abide by the following requisites: there shall not be any lie, the
different reported actors shall be treated fairly and in a balanced way, information shall
be separated from opinion, and it shall be always true.
If these principles are followed, the analysed informative texts should provide the
reader with true and measured information, regardless of the ideological beliefs of the
press where they are produced and those of their readers.
Results
Spanish newspapers
In the selected dates, 34 news stories, 4 front pages and 2 editorials about the
Ibarretxe plan are published in El País. Those articles published between January 31
and February 3 are included under the heading “Parliamentary debate over the
‘Ibarretxe Plan’” within the section about Spain. The heading changes twice and we
can read “The situation in the Basque Country” until February 6, and “Pre-campaign at
the Basque elections” afterwards.
In general terms, the ideological point of view of this newspaper can be described as
Spanish centralist, and they do not approve any proposal based on an idea of a State
within which more than one nation is recognized. The unity of the state is defended and
any other complementary or shared sovereignty rejected. It is diametrically opposed to
the plan, which is described as “not democratic” and “not constitutional” and
understood as an element aimed at unsettling the system.
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