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Political bias and journalistic opinion genres: the editorial
Álvaro Ramos Ruiz & Ismael Ramos Ruiz
University of Granada
SPAIN
alramos@ugr.es & iramos@ugr.es
This work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport under the
FPU (Formación de Profesorado Universitario) grant program; and the University of Granada
(Research Project EcoMeta [PPJI_B-12]).
Abstract: Greece was the first European country to receive financial assistance in 2009, so
media covered this fact in order to inform people. The aim of this study is to compile a
specialised corpus of editorials from Spanish newspapers and to carry out a lexical-semantic
analysis so as to identify the ideological positioning. To do this, w employed a quantitative
analysis using Sketch Engine®enabled, and a qualitative analysis using Lingmotif®.
Keywords: ideological bias – economic press – editorial – journalistic genres – sentiment
analysis
1 Introduction
Triggered by the recession of 2008 and the structural weaknesses in the country’s
economy, Greece became the first European country to face sovereign debt at the end of 2009
[1]. The crisis led to a loss of confidence in the European Union and the strength of the single
currency [2] and required bailout loans on three different occasions from La Troika (the
European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund).The
financial assistance had significant political and social repercussions and received wide
coverage in the European media, especially the press.
Due to its participation in the political and social sphere [3],the press uses the different
journalistic modalities within the opinion genre to publish not only information but also
opinions about the main social and political events. Thus, newspapers fulfil the social function
of defending ideological plurality and contributing to the formation of public
opinion.Traditionally, this has been mainly the role of the editorials, which clearly reflect the
ideological bias or positioning of the newspaper.
2 ProblemFormulation
Considering that the ideological line of each newspaper may be identified through
different linguistic elements, the objective of this study was, firstly, to compile a specialised
corpus comprised of editorials from Spanish newspapers that covered the Greek bailouts and,
secondly, to carry out a lexical-semantic analysis so as to identify the ideological positioning of
the newspapers selected.
3 ProblemSolution
The theoretical framework of this study was based on the notion of ideological bias or
positioning in journalistic information [4] [5] and in order to analyse it, it was necessary to
examine the characteristics of the editorial by using different theoretical approaches [6] [7] [8]
[9]. The selection of the texts compiling the corpus was carried out by means of an adaptation of
the method proposed by the Pragglejaz Group [12], and exposed in our previous studies [10]
[11]. The corpus was composed of 179 editorials from three Spanish newspapers: El País, El
Mundo, and Expansión.
The methodology used was based on the proposal by Jiménez Yáñez [13] [14], which
analysed the image of the Catholic Church, and other works [15] [16]focusing on the
Congreso universitario internacional sobre la comunicación en la profesión y en la universidad
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identification of bias in Spanish journalistic texts.Two analytical approaches were employed:a
quantitative analysis using Sketch Engine®enabled us to obtain a list of frequently used words
and keywords while, with the aid of Lingmotif®, we were able to make a qualitative analysis of
lexical combinations, phraseological structures and collocations that provided information about
sentiments in each text.
The quantitative analysis revealed that the third bailout received more extensive
coverage in the three journals, which was possibly due to the election of the Syriza government
or the national referendum.Some terms, such as ‘Grecia’, ‘rescate’ or ‘deuda’(Greece, rescue or
debt) reflected this idea.
The qualitative analysis allowed us to retrieve the lexical combination of different
terms, such as ‘Grecia’, ‘rescate’, ‘Tsipras’ and ‘Gobierno’, among others. For example,
‘Grecia’was accompanied by the verbs ‘asfixiar’, ‘necesitar’ o ‘incumplir’ (suffocate, need or
breach) or the nouns ‘deuda’, ‘reflotación’ or ‘problema’. Therefore, all these terms reflected a
country in a critical situation. For example, ‘Grecia necesitare formas profundas y políticas
rigurosas, no sospechas delirantes a cargo de políticos populistas’ (Tsipras debería estar
agradecido en lugar de airear ridículos complots, El Mundo, 02/03/2015).
Focusing on combinations of the term ‘Government’, it was observed that words, such
as ‘despilfarro’, ‘dilapida’ o ‘ineficiencia’ (spendthrift, wastage, dilapidated or inefficiency)
were used in El Mundo, making the journal’s negative stance clear. For example, ‘La UE aprieta
a Grecia tras dilapidar su Gobierno toda la credibilidad’ (La UE aprieta a Grecia tras dilapidar
su Gobierno toda la credibilidad, El Mundo, 13/07/2015). On the other hand, in El País, the use
of collocates, such as ‘capacitar’, ‘conseguir’, ‘alianza’ o ‘eficacia’ (train, achieve, alliance or
effectiveness), indicated a less pessimistic attitude. For example, ‘El Nuevo Gobierno griego
será de unidad nacional y, en principio, reunirá a un elevado número de tecnócratas’ (El lobo
griego, El País, 07/11/2011). Finally, in Expansión, the term received a more neutral treatment,
clearly seen in theuse of ‘medir’, ‘perfilar’ o ‘coalición’ (measure, shape or coalition). For
example, ‘La decisión de Yorgos Papandréu de dejar aparcado el referéndum sobre el plan de
ajuste y rescate a cambio de formar un gobierno de coalición en Atenas no ha despejado aún las
dudas sobre el futuro político de país’ (Grecia no ha disipado aún muchas dudas, Expasión,
07/11/2011).
4 Conclusion
According to the results obtained, the ideological position of the Spanish newspapers
regarding the Greek bailoutswasestablished.The corpus analysis helped to obtain useful
examples of usages that corroborate the theoretical assumptions about bias in editorials, which
are one of the most important and relevant genres in the press.
The novelty of this study consisted in the use of a double approach: a quantitative
model, which provided statistical data on frequencies, and a qualitative model, which offered
information about the bias and feelings projected into each editorial from the different journals
composing the corpus. Finally, this study will serve as a springboard for future studies related to
the identification and analysis of bias in the press, both in opinion and information texts.
References:
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