Discrimination and stigma in press accounts of Spain’s June 26

Abstract

How are differences (origin, sexuality, gender, age, disability, mental health and religion) used in the political-media message? Analysis of the content of all headline elements (6,942 units in total) of the newspapers El País, La Vanguardia, El Periódico de Catalunya, Ara and El Punt Avui which covered the campaign for Spain’s 26 June, 2016 elections – together with qualitative viewing of three videos that went viral at the time – reveal that discrimination on the basis of origin, disability and age was more pejorative, and, at times, stigmatizing than it was for the other groups analysed. Nevertheless, in general, all these groups received little media attention (whether positive or negative). Only 1.2% of the headlines, sentences or phrases analysed use attributes of diversity to express an idea.