Framing Austerity in Spain: The Influence of Sources and Economic Policies Over the Media Discourse

ABSTRACT

European countries responded to the economic crisis of 2008 by adopting austerity policies that deeply transformed their economic and social model, leading to a general decline in welfare. This study attempts to demonstrate how the media contributed to legitimise this kind of policies by portraying them as the only possible alternative, focusing on the Spanish press. To this end, we carry out a Content Analysis of the frames used by two Spanish newspapers to address the policies applied in response to the crisis between 2008 and 2015. Additionally, this article links through a Z-test the frames reproduced by the media with the type of sources that promoted them, a dimension of the crisis coverage that remains largely unexplored. It also analyses the evolution of the media discourse throughout the crisis. The results show how coverage was dominated by frames that legitimised austerity by presenting it as the only existing option. In a relevant way, both elitist and alternative sources mostly promoted frames that legitimised austerity, although in a different way. On the other hand, the legitimisation of austerity was exercised more intensely in the crisis periods in which these policies were being applied more strongly.

KEYWORDS:

• Economic journalism
• economic crisis
• austerity
• framing
• ideology
• Spanish media
• cascading activation model

Declaration of Conflicting Interest

The Author declares that there is no conflict of interest.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 For a further explanation on framing theory development and approaches, see Ardèvol-Abreu (2015).

2 For more details on the selection of dates and keywords, see Rios (2019).

3 27% of the frames identified in La Voz de Galicia and 28,6% in El País where located in editorials (1% and 7,3%, respectively) and opinion columns (26% and 21,3%).

4 The generic frames established by previous researches do not adapt to the objectives of our object of study (e.g. Neuman, Just, and Crigler 1992; Rhee 1997). We find that the use of specific frames is more suitable, since “it offers specific results to accurately examine the media treatment (…) of a particular topic” (Ardèvol-Abreu 2015, 432).

5 Consequently, this agent cannot be included in the Z-test.

6 In the case of La Voz de Galicia, the academic agents cannot be included in the test because only promoted the second frame.

Additional information

Funding

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.