The unnoticed challenge. Conflict framing on the Catalan independence referendum

Abstract

Framing theory has sometimes studied political news from a deductive perspective that predefines certain news frames. Specifically, conflict framing has been identified as a common ingredient of political news. This research puts forward the hypothesis that the Spanish press has represented the proposal of a referendum on Catalan independence (9-N) with the characteristics of a conflict frame. Content analysis was conducted of a sample of news from the front page of the main Madrid and Barcelona newspapers (El País, El Mundo, ABC, La Vanguardia, El Periódico and El Punt Avui). Beside the calculation of descriptive statistics for these variables, the existence of a statistically significant association was quantified between the variables. This topic appeared on the front page of the newspapers analysed every day, with a level of formal importance ranging from high to maximum. Intensive use of conflict framing was detected, with three out of four news using half of the criteria that define the phenomenon. Conflict was significantly and positively associated with the importance index. Press from Madrid used conflict more intensively and described criminal features and negative evaluations with reference to the actions of Catalan institutions and officials, which were not presented in the Catalan press.