Este artículo analiza los factores históricos y la filosofía política subyacentes al fenómeno de los grupos de presión, beneficiarios últimos de las acciones de lobbying. La puesta en cuestión del racionalismo y el concepto de interés general, la tradición pluralista o el fenómeno asociacionista son algunos de los factores que determinan la "democracia de grupos" donde el cabildeo político florece. También se señalan otras fuentes de fundamentación del lobbying, como los intentos de legitimación jurídica o su inclusión en el mundo de la comunicación y las relaciones públicas.
Este artículo pretende reconsiderar el criterio en función del cual suelen entenderse los ámbitos teóricos clásicos de la investigación en comunicación, así como algunas de sus implicaciones para la docencia de la asignatura "Teoría de la comunicación". Escuelas como la Mass Communication Research y la Kritische Theorie de la Escuela de Frankfurt son manifestaciones de dos actitudes ideológicas distintas ante los medios de comunicación: el funcionalismo y el criticismo. La diferencia fundamental entre estas actitudes no es metodológica o epistemológica, ni depende de la pertenencia a un ámbito geográfico-político. El que las categorías de funcionalismo y criticismo sean actitudes ante los medios permite extender el campo de aplicación de dichas categorías más allá de los sistemas democráticos capitalistas, y considerarlas actitudes universales. ; This paper aims to reconsider the criterion that is usually employed to understand the classical theoretical fields in communication research, as well as some of the implications of that criterion regarding the teaching of "communication theory" as an academic subject. The Mass Communication Research tradition and the Frankfurt School's Kritische Theorie are examples of schools that can be understood as manifestations of two different ideological attitudes towards the media: functionalism and criticism. The main difference between these attitudes is neither methodological nor epistemological, and it does not rely on the belonging to a geographical-political realm. The understanding of the functionalist and critical categories as attitudes towards the media enables us to extend the applicability of such categories beyond the capitalist democratic systems, and to regard them as universal attitudes.
El objetivo de este trabajo es ofrecer una panorámica del modelo de propaganda desarrollado por el lingüista y activista político norteamericano Noam Chomsky, con especial incidencia en el análisis realizado por Chomsky y Edward Herman en «Los guardianes de la libertad». Recorreremos el mecanismo institucional, la estructura operativa de los medios, los efectos y los presupuestos ideológicos de los que parte el modelo, destacando las aportaciones del modelo chomskyano para el estudio del funcionamiento propagandístico del sistema de medios de comunicación ; The objective of this work is to offer a panoramic of the model of propaganda developed by the North American linguist and political activist Noam Chomsky, with special incidence in the analysis made by Chomsky and Edward Herman in "Manufacturing Consent". We will study the institutional mechanism, the operative structure of the media, the effects and the ideological beliefs from which it´s developed the model, emphasizing the contributions of the chomskyan model for the study of the propagandistic operation of the mass media system.
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.
The year of 2011 was one of global change, provoked by an economic crisis that brought neoliberalism into question. In Spain, the activity unleashed by the "15-M" movement culminated in the formation of Podemos, a party that has provoked a political earthquake. Simultaneously, several alternative left-leaning online-only newspapers have erupted in Spain. This article focuses on whether these changes were accompanied by ideological/political shifts in Spanish online-only opinion journalism between 2011 and 2014. A sample of 541 opinion columns was content-analyzed. Results indicate that digital journalism criticizes the establishment, broadens the ideological spectrum, and distances itself from bipartisanship. However, the shift is fundamentally conveyed through the attack and defense of political parties without generating a clearly radical journalism.
The construction of the enemy is a technique whose potential effects are of outmost consequence for the relationships between the media, war and propaganda. In World War II, in addition to the official media, psychological warfare also relied on non-official propaganda conveyed through comic books whose levels of hatred for the enemy are hardly matched. This article aims to shed light on how superhero and war comic books mirror the construction and depiction of World War II enemies in American culture. The authors' research compares the original wartime comics published by Marvel Comics with the representation of the war enemy conveyed by Marvel between the 1960s and the early 1980s. To test whether changes occurred, the authors conduct a diachronic content analysis of comic-book covers from both periods.
The year of 2011 was one of global change, provoked by an economic crisis that brought neoliberalism into question. In Spain, the activity unleashed by the "15-M" movement culminated in the formation of Podemos, a party that has provoked a political earthquake. Simultaneously, several alternative left-leaning online-only newspapers have erupted in Spain. This article focuses on whether these changes were accompanied by ideological/political shifts in Spanish online-only opinion journalism between 2011 and 2014. A sample of 541 opinion columns was content-analyzed. Results indicate that digital journalism criticizes the establishment, broadens the ideological spectrum, and distances itself from bipartisanship. However, the shift is fundamentally conveyed through the attack and defense of political parties without generating a clearly radical journalism.
Este artículo estudia la tendencia a la espectacularización en el tratamiento de la información política televisiva en España. Realizamos un estudio de espacios informativos, así como una comparación de los anteriores con los contenidos de programas de infoentretenimiento (infotainment). El análisis de los informativos se centra en los canales autonómicos Canal Sur y Canal 9RTVV, mientras que la muestra de infotainment abarca diez programas procedentes de cadenas tanto privadas como públicas.A partir de un análisis de contenido temático, los resultados indican similitudes entre los informativos y el infotainment en lo relativo a la espectacularización, siendo la personalización el indicador clave. Asimismo, existen diferencias, tanto en la forma en que los canales autonómicos dramatizan la información política, como respecto a la espectacularización en el infotainment. ; This paper focuses on the trend toward spectacularization in political information that is broadcast on Spanish television. We perform a study of newscasts, and we compare the newscasts with the content of infotainment programs. The analysis of television newscasts centers on two Spanish regional channels: Canal Sur and Canal 9RTVV. The infotainment sample comprises ten programs collected from both private and public TV channels. A thematic content analysis provides data that indicate similarities between newscasts and infotainment programs with regard to spectacularization, being personalization the key indicator in this respect. At the same time, there are differences regarding the way regional channels dramatize political information, as well as differences pertaining to spectacularization in infotainment programs.
Este artículo estudia la tendencia a la espectacularización en el tratamiento de la información política televisiva en España. Realizamos un estudio de espacios informativos, así como una comparación de los anteriores con los contenidos de programas de infoentretenimiento (infotainment). El análisis de los informativos se centra en los canales autonómicos Canal Sur y Canal 9RTVV, mientras que la muestra de infotainment abarca diez programas procedentes de cadenas tanto privadas como públicas.A partir de un análisis de contenido temático, los resultados indican similitudes entre los informativos y el infotainment en lo relativo a la espectacularización, siendo la personalización el indicador clave. Asimismo, existen diferencias, tanto en la forma en que los canales autonómicos dramatizan la información política, como respecto a la espectacularización en el infotainment. ; This paper focuses on the trend toward spectacularization in political information that is broadcast on Spanish television. We perform a study of newscasts, and we compare the newscasts with the content of infotainment programs. The analysis of television newscasts centers on two Spanish regional channels: Canal Sur and Canal 9RTVV. The infotainment sample comprises ten programs collected from both private and public TV channels. A thematic content analysis provides data that indicate similarities between newscasts and infotainment programs with regard to spectacularization, being personalization the key indicator in this respect. At the same time, there are differences regarding the way regional channels dramatize political information, as well as differences pertaining to spectacularization in infotainment programs.
Ideology and political ideologies in general have been addressed both from theoretical and applied perspectives by media and communication scholars in an attempt to reveal whether pluralism is present or absent in the media. However, the complexity of such a task has proven to be high as well as very problematic. The efforts to systematise the study of ideology in the media in order to make it objective and systematic have been scarce. This paper tries to contribute to such systematising by providing a method to analyse political ideologies in the media that aims to be objective and replicable in the political context of Western democracies. Our work was inspired by previous studies that were mostly conducted in the field of political sciences and political communication. The main goal of this paper is to reach a deeper comprehension of ideology, in general, and political ideology in particular, and to conceptualise a method that aims to be instrumental in the analysis of the media from the viewpoint of political ideologies but without being restricted by traditional labels that may reproduce cultural biases. The theoretical-analytical method here suggested addresses ideologies in newspapers to identify worldviews according to four general values: individualism, communitarianism, egalitarianism and elitism.
Estados Unidos, prestando atención a las relaciones establecidas con el movimiento conservador y el Partido Republicano, y a las repercusiones de esta conexión sobre el panorama ideológico de los medios de comunicación estadounidenses. Se tienen en cuenta los antecedentes empresariales de Murdoch, así como su procedencia y el proceso de adquisición de medios de comunicación en Estados Unidos. También analizamos la forma en que ciertos medios de Murdoch han funcionado como una voz mediática para ciertas facciones de la derecha estadounidense, siendo el canal de televisión Fox News paradigmático al respecto. El apoyo de Murdoch a candidatos republicanos en las elecciones presidenciales de 2000, 2004 y 2008 se considera una extensión política de su apoyo ideológico a la derecha ; This paper analyzes the media arrival of media mogul Rupert Murdoch in the United States. We focus on the ties with the American conservative movement and the Republican Party, and on those ties' consequences regarding the ideological landscape of American media. Murdoch's business past is taken into account, as well as the country Murdoch comes from, and the process of media acquisition in the United States. We also focus on the way certain media owned by Murdoch have worked as a media voice for certain factions of the American right. In this regard, Fox News Channel can be cited as a paradigmatic mass medium. Murdoch's support for Republican candidates in the presidential elections of 2000, 2004, and 2008, is regarded as a political extension of his ideological support for the right-wing.
