La cobertura televisiva de la crisis del PrestigeAgendas, encuadres y discursos en los noticiarios españoles

Resum

ABSTRACT On November 13th 2002, the oil tank Prestige sent an SOS that meant the starting point for one of the main environmental disasters of the Spanish history. The oil spills extended during the following months lead into a political crisis and a social confrontation. This doctoral thesis analyses the television coverage of four TV channels (TVE1, TV3, Antena 3 and Telecinco) from November 2002 until February 2003. By means of a case of study, and mainly using both quantitative content analysis and discourse analysis as research methods, this thesis rebuilds the media agendas designed by each channel, establishing meaningful comparisons between the editorial decisions and mapping the corporate and informative strategies of each TV station. The theoretical framework refers initially to Ulrich Beck's risk society, linking directly this wide concept to some of the current trends of the contemporary journalism. Furthermore, some of the main contributions coming from the Communication Sciences field are also revisited in order to deepen the knowledge about audiovisual information. In this topic, a detailed study about the newscast as a salient TV format is also completed. Crises are presented as periods when the production routines become accelerated, highlighting both the strengths and the weaknesses of daily journalism. As a matter of fact, crises are one of the richest context for Communication Research. Results underline the excessive salience attributed to live coverage, the obsession for quantifying all the news dimensions, the growing presence of the image or some features pointing to a sensationalist approach. Detailed study of each of the main individuals and groups involved in this episode allows to see to portrait displayed by each channels, showing interesting contrasts. Besides that, crises are also strategic opportunities for the channels. When a crisis breaks down, any channel has the chance to rethink its own position in the overall market. The behavior of Telecinco is specially remarkable, as one can find a clear editorial shift that cannot be explained by appealing only to journalistic criteria, but it also points to decisions taken in a wider scope. On the other hand, the rest of the channels relied on alternative strategies, showing their own independence to choose any editorial positions and any news style. This doctoral thesis contributes to a better understanding of the journalistic approach about crises. Its added values refer to a longer period of analysis in comparison with the usual crises' studies and to the use of TV newscasts as the source of information, instead of the dominant presence of the press as analytical corpus.