Coverage of VOX in Spanish media: Spain’s far-right between mainstreaming and pariahing

Abstract

Long seen as an exceptional case in the European Union due to the absence of a populist radical right party, with VOX Spain now also has an electorally successful contender on the far-right. Since the rise of the party, there have been concerns about its influence and normalisation, exemplified by its involvement in local and regional governments but also its treatment in the media. This article analyses whether and how media coverage of VOX normalises the party through the lens of what has been called “mainstreaming” and “pariahing”. Analyzing three Spanish newspapers of different ideological background ─centre-left El País, centre-right El Mundo and the conservative ABC─ during three different moments of importance for the party, the article first explores key descriptive dimensions such as the number of articles on VOX in the different titles, the sources used, and VOX’s placement within news stories. Second, it zooms in on how the news outlets’ label the party and what this entails in terms of mainstreaming or pariahing. Taken together, the analysis shows that there are significant differences in the way different Spanish media cover the party, determined by the left-right ideological affinity of the newspapers, with the mainstreaming of the party becoming more pronounced the further the outlet is on the right of the political spectrum.