Audiovisual Representation in Spanish and European Election Debates

Abstract

The presence of ever more conflicting stances between Europhiles and Eurosceptics has revealed some audiovisual discourses unknown until now. The fragmentation of inconclusive narrative discourse and staged situations with a clear intent to clash all make it necessary to analyse in detail the role given by the audiovisual media to the European process of democratisation. This study addresses the audiovisual discourse in Spanish public television (TVE) with the intention of discovering how the different topics addressed in debates are dealt with in audiovisual production, and whether those topics have benefited from certain decisions by the production team that are subjective a priori. Using external codifiers, the intensity of each question has been checked and the result has been correlated with the dependent variables “[camera] shot with question while listening” and “shot with question with split screen”. The variables have been subjected to descriptive analyses, correlation with hypotheses, and bivariate analyses using Pearson’s correlation (Rx-y). The results indicate a clear difference in the modes of television representation between national Spanish and European debates. It is discussed whether this audiovisual differentiation may condition the perception that the audience may have of European politics.