The role of the written press during the Spanish transition to democracy

Abstract

This study describes the relations between the press and political power, during the Spanish transition to democracy in the late 1970s, focusing on discursive relations between political actors with power or challenging power and the media which interpreted their developments. It analyses how the main media, in the discourse of their news stories and editorials, framed events to construct a ‘reality’ for the public, aiding or impeding the construction of a democratic public sphere. The study is based on an analysis of journalistic discourse in ABC, La Vanguardia, El País (daily newspapers) and Triunfo (a weekly political magazine) in their coverage of key events in the period between the death of Franco (November 1975) and the approval of the Basque and Catalan statutes (November 1979).