Campaign Coverage in Spain: Populism, Emerging Parties, and Personalization

Abstract

The general elections in December 2015 had no precedent in the recent democratic history of Spain. They witnessed many changes—in voting behaviour, the configuration of party systems, the development of new political actors, and the consolidation of new cleavages and subsequent campaign issues. Therefore, since 2015, the political context has developed into an open, volatile, unstable, and multiparty system, which has involved an authentic political earthquake. This chapter analyses the coverage of the Spanish general election campaign in 2015 in various news media outlets (television, print, and online press) following a number of research dimensions in political communication: the tone of the campaign, the identification of issues, the main actors, the populist features, and the different media frames.