Abstract

Relations between journalists and Public Relations professionals have been the subject of various investigations. In a context in which great precariousness in the media coincides with an increase and professionalization of communication agencies, we propose to study their informational relations. Our objective is to determine the perceptions of journalists and Public Relations professionals regarding their work and profession, identify how the influences between these two groups of professionals are established, and evaluate their routines and interactions. This research has been carried out using the qualitative discussion group technique (n = 43). Among the results, the media’s weakness stands out in the face of Public Relations that is experiencing a golden age, capable of exercising not only a relationship of influence that fits with the “determination model” but also aspiring to journalistic disintermediation. 

Abstract

Relations between journalists and Public Relations professionals have been the subject of various investigations. In a context in which great precariousness in the media coincides with an increase and professionalization of communication agencies, we propose to study their informational relations. Our objective is to determine the perceptions of journalists and Public Relations professionals regarding their work and profession, identify how the influences between these two groups of professionals are established, and evaluate their routines and interactions. This research has been carried out using the qualitative discussion group technique (n = 43). Among the results, the media’s weakness stands out in the face of Public Relations that is experiencing a golden age, capable of exercising not only a relationship of influence that fits with the “determination model” but also aspiring to journalistic disintermediation. 

Abstract

The study of think tanks in Spain has been growing in the last few years with an equally increasing number of social and grassroots movements. This article offers content analysis results from a selection of eight Spanish think tanks in the digital press during a seven-year period, adding new conclusions to previous literature for the same period. Not only does this research explore the appearance on the media, but also the type of mentions and authorship of the articles and blogs included in the digital press, contributing to a deeper study of think tanks. The objective of this study is to analyse the limited presence of Spanish think tanks in media outlets and whether their appearance is ideologically motivated. The article built a constructed week sampling and followed a content analysis methodology to gather quantitative and qualitative elements from the selected sampling (n=1,101). The paper concludes that the presence of think tanks in the Spanish digital press is limited, causing not only a lack of knowledge of their existence but also raising questions about how they try to impact on the policymaking process.

Abstract

The core hypothesis of the theory of agenda setting is that there is a process of transfer of salience from the media agenda to the public agenda. Since its original conception in the early 1970s, the explanatory model of ‘issue-agenda setting’ (first level) has been extended to help explain the transfer of the media’s ‘attribute agenda’ (second level) and ‘network agenda’ (third level) to the public agenda. This article provides a review of the agenda-setting model and its theoretical and empirical development, ending with a section that summarizes and discusses research studies published in this area in the last five years in Spain. Despite the broad influence of the agenda-setting theory in communication research in this country, Despite the broad influence of the agenda-setting theory in communication research in this country, many of the studies use the theory as a general framework for conducting a content analysis, withouh empirically testing any process of salience transfer.

Abstract

Transsexuality has found a place in both the Spanish collective mindset and media. To analyze the portrayal of this type of sexual diversity in the media, we evaluated its presence in cybermedia, its preeminence in journalistic texts, and the issues addressed in its media coverage. A quantitative content analysis (N = 24,363) of the journalistic texts published during the period 2000–2020 by 13 generalist Spanish cybermedia was carried out, using both rule-based classification and unsupervised topic modeling. The results highlight an increase in journalistic texts about transsexuality, in which three inflection points and four phases or distribution changes can be distinguished. The preeminence of this topic within the analyzed pieces has also increased, and the issues covered have diversified over the years. Overall, these data confirm the newsworthiness that this type of sexual diversity achieved throughout the first two decades of the twenty-first century. Media attention especially highlights the newsworthiness of aspects such as conflict, the protagonist’s notoriety, or periodicity through anniversary journalism. Likewise, the results also suggest that the media offer an increasingly complex portrayal that favors both the visibility and the understanding of the different dimensions and characteristics that intersect in these realities.