The paper pantheon: traditional elites and mass culture in Spanish obituaries

Abstract

In spite of its value as barometer of cultural change, obituaries have scarcely been explored by Spanish scholars. This study of the obituaries published by the newspapers El País, ABC and La Vanguardia aims to partially fill that gap. The analysis has revealed that theirs authors are mainly recruited from the newspapers’ staff; the rest are members of the local elites chosen through affinity or friendship with the deceased. The people’s lives and deaths portrayed in their texts suggest a hierarchy dominated by personalities from the worlds of politics, sport, culture, arts and media, born in Spain or in affluent Western countries, and overwhelming male. It can be concluded that this “paper pantheon” provides a sound basis for invsetigating the dominant values in the Spanish society and the press role in the collective remembering and social consecration processes.