Spain’s Public-Service Television in the Political Ring: El País and the Electoral Battle Over Television (1979-1981)

Abstract

By putting the focus on Spain’s national daily El País, this paper discusses the role played by the Spanish public broadcaster Televisión Española in the several election processes that took place during Adolfo Suárez’s last legislature between March 1979 and January 1981. Following a qualitative analysis of the newspaper’s coverage of those elections, our research foregrounds the intense battle fought by the contending political parties over the neutrality of television, which thus became an electoral weapon in the context of accusations that the Government was using it in order to serve its own interests. The paper likewise underlines the new role played by “the small screen” during the phase that followed the consensus period, when the public broadcaster became one of the main issues vented by the opposition and by the critical media in order to undermine the Executive.