News sources and political pluralism in the coverage of European issues on Spanish television

Abstract

The research analyses the use of information sources in television news on European issues and its relationship with political pluralism and pluralism of information through direct observation of a sample of selected stories. The results reveal that political and governmental representatives still occupy a relevant position in the informative space. In addition, the visibility of those sources is enhanced my means of individual appearances given on camera and through text-picture correspondence. Civic sources, consisting of anonymous citizens, reach a similar degree of representation but only in news including direct quotes. On the other hand, an increase of the number and types of news sources do not necessarily ensue a larger degree of political pluralism. To the contrary, it has been proved that Spanish television networks tend to express unique opinions in the news and often show a clear political orientation in favor of the European integration process.

Keywords

• uentes de información
• asuntos europeos
• pluralismo político
• pluralismo informativo
• noticias televisivas.