Political Polarization and Noisein Spain's Investiture Debates (2000–2023)
- Aurken Sierra Universidad de Navarra https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1749-7888
- Jordi Rodríguez-Virgili Universidad de Navarra https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7952-5664
- Clara González-Tosat Universidad de Navarra https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4910-1211
Resumo
This research analyzes political polarization in Spain between 2000 and 2023 through the examination of investiture debate speeches. Combining manual coding with automated text analysis in Python, 83 speeches were examined to track patterns of ideological and affective polarization across the shift from bipartisanship to a fragmented multi-party system. The findings show a sustained increase in ideological distance and emotional hostility, particularly after 2015, with leaders using more adversarial language and emphasizing ingroup unity. The analysis concludes that parliamentary discourse has become markedly more polarized, with a decline in conciliatory language and reduced opportunities for cross-party agreement.
Biografias do Autor
Assistant Professor in the Public Communication Department of the Communication Faculty of the University of Navarra. His research focuses on political communication, ideological polarisation and trust in the media. He participates in research groups such as 'Journalism, Political Communication and Democracy' and 'Narrative, Violence and Memory', as well as in European-funded projects such as ReMeD (Resilient Media for Democracy in the Digital Age) and Iberifier Plus. His recent publications include studies on trust in news in Southern Europe, the use of Telegram by Spanish political parties and the Digital News Report Spain 2024, which analyses journalistic quality and news plurality in the age of artificial intelligence.
Associate Professor of Political Communication at the University of Navarra. He is head of the Research Group "Journalism, Political Communication and Democracy" and a researcher at the Center for Internet Studies and Digital Life at UNAV. He was a Visiting Scholar at the Graduate School of Political Management at The George Washington University. In 2016, he was awarded the Excellence in Teaching in Political Communication Award at the Napolitan Victory Awards (Washington D.C.). His recent publications include articles in Media and Communication, Journal of Iberian and Latin American Research, Observatorio OBS, El profesional de la información, or KOME, and book chapters in publishers such as Routledge, Tecnos, and Éditions L'Harmattan
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