Dialogue in and between Different Cultures - International ...

82 Natàlia Izard & Clara-Ubaldina Lorda
brief allusion in Cuatro, the allusion to the possibility that the Government is able
to convince the French society of the eventual good effects of the project.
The same monolithism is to be seen in the introduction of the demonstrators.
Their actions might be narrated with sympathy or solemnity, but they are
considered in one and the same block, while the journalists from F2, the same as
several witnesses who speak, carefully distinguish the rioters from the rest of the
participants in the demonstrations. Furthermore, no witnesses are shown in the
Spanish channels, with the exception of two demonstrators on TV3, both of them
opposed to the CPE.
Once these common aspects have been outlined, we must note that the three
Spanish channels present different orientations in the narration of events.
La 2 stresses the festive side of the demonstration, insisting on the confrontation
between the young people and the government. In this perspective,
there is a nod to the events of May ‘68, while other, more comparable moments in
the political and social history of France, are silenced. These same events are,
however, rightly mentioned in the news in F2.
Two particular features of the news in La 2 can be explained by a long
tradition from the Spanish mass media: first of all, the information about the
moral support from the Archbishop of Lyon, which reminds us of the important
weight of the Catholic Church in Spain; secondly, the total lack of reference to the
cities other than Paris, which could be cautiously associated to the rather centralist
vision of the nationwide mass media in Spain (as opposed to the regional mass
media).
As for TV3, they stress the problems of the young people and they show an
interest in being neutral by distancing themselves from the facts by using the
hearsay construction with ‘it is said’ for the founded opinions on the demonstrators
and even for the comparison with the Spanish macrobotellón, made through a
foreign newspaper. We think, in addition, that in this case, the reference to the
demonstrations in other cities can be due to the particular sensitivity of a regional
channel.
And, last, the journalist from Cuatro, on the streets, is the only one to sketch
the Government’s point of view. Yet, this channel emphasises the conflict and the
riots, without any analysis of the opposed points of view. At the same time, the
journalist’s comparison with the Spanish youth movement leaves an aftertaste of
censorship. We could venture that, in a general way, the look at those young
demonstrators, for more or less acceptable reasons, is very severe.
All in all, the news stays on a very general level: even if cities other than
Paris are mentioned, the actors are kept anonymous, they are “backgrounded”
(van Leeuwen 1996:39).