Pluralism and social recognition of new newscasts of RTVE (Spain, 2006-2012)

Abstract

Contents of the News programs of the Spanish stateowned television were politically controlled since the beginning of its existence, in 1956. Dictatorship propaganda bodies were in charge of this control at the beginning, and later, since the restoration of democracy, political party in power was monitoring those contents. Spanish society assumed without major criticism, for decades, that the news programs of the public radio and television were just for serving the government (and not the other way round). This perspective started to change with the reform of the organization and the 17/2006 Law. Main sources for the elaboration of this document have been those studies done between 2006 and 2012 by different specialized companies, CIS (Sociological Research Center) RTVE, and the debates held at the Parliamentary control commission, where the support of the citizens to the independent contents of the news services are made clear.