Mapping Mediascapes: Exploring the Semantic and Geographic Spaces of Catalonia’s 2015 Independence Movement through Digital News

Abstract

Digital media merges disparate places, communities, and topics in reporting about current events, with both local and international impacts. This study maps the semantic spaces of reporting on Catalonia’s independence movement in 2015 onto geographic space, forming a “mediascape” of interwoven themes and places. It uses topic modeling to determine semantic themes and geographic information retrieval to map the geographies of those themes. A global pattern of distance decay from Barcelona, the center of the Catalonian independence movement, is apparent. This study also compares the particular media themes of professional sport, which is a globalizing force in Catalonia’s geopolitical narrative, and the Scottish independence referendum of 2014. It examines the particular geographies that appear in news articles pertaining to each theme. Contrasting the geographies of Catalonian independence and its relation to soccer and Scottish independence through the media produces a spatial–semantic illustration of how mediascapes form from and influence global geopolitical connections.