Communicating nationalism in a changing Europe: The media coverage of Catalan’s attempt at independence

Abstract

Since 2008, Europe is immersed in a situation of political and social upheaval marked by, among other processes – such as the Brexit, the Scottish referendum on independence or the growth of new populist parties – , the strengthening of nationalism in Catalonia. In this context, the role of the media is crucial, since they are the main transmitters of what occurs abroad and, depending on how they present the information, a spread of pro-independence trends in regions with a historically strong nationalist sentiment throughout the continent can be more or less likely. In order to know the differences regarding the coverage of nationalism, this study applies a Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) to the text present in the main article on the Catalan referendum of October 1st, 2017 published online by the most-read newspapers in Portugal, Switzerland, UK, Italy, Scotland and Northeast Italy. The analysis concludes that the media not only report differently depending on the characteristics of the territory where they operate, but also that some of them use the information as a tool to indoctrinate society.

Keywords

• catalonia
• europe
• nationalism
• referendum
• online newspapers
• independence