Television and Political Polarisation in Spain and Andalusia. The Case of the 2023 Spanish General Elections

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.54790/rccs.102

Keywords:

polarization, general elections, electoral campaigns, political parties, media, Andalusia

Abstract

Political polarisation is, in recent times, one of the great hot topics in political science. However, there are still few studies that address it on television and from a regional perspective. For this reason, the aim of this paper is to compare political polarisation by television channel and political party in Spain, incorporating an Andalusian perspective. We captured the news broadcasts of five channels during the 23-J election campaign in Spain. We operationalised polarisation as affective distance, calculated using sentiment analysis, and estimated ANOVA models to compare the means of polarisation by channel and party. The results show that media coverage of Vox and Sumar is more polarised than that of PP and PSOE, although with variations by channel. We also found that the media coverage of the Andalusian regional channel shows more positive sentiments than the national channels.

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Author Biographies

Paloma Egea-Cariñanos, University of Granada

FPU in the Department of Political Science at the University of Granada. My line of research focuses on the rural world and the different approaches to it from the political parties, the media and the territory. political parties, the media and the urban territory. territory. Through rural political science, I have experience in working with ideology, political and electoral behaviour. I am a double graduate in Law and Political Science (UGR), Master in Constitutional Law (UIMP-CEPC) and Postgraduate in Applied Social Research (CIS).

Daniel Bianchi, University of La Laguna

FPU in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the University of La Laguna (ULL). Member of the Centre for the Study of Social Inequality and Governance (CEDE-SOG) at the ULL. His line of research covers the study of social inequality, with special attention to the intergenerational transmission of inequality through the educational system. He has experience in the use of quantitative social research techniques in the fields of Sociology of Education, Sociology of Health and Political Sociology. Graduate in Sociology (ULL) and Master in Social Problems (UNED).

Mario Delgado-Lillo, University of Granada

Double degree in Law and Political Science and Administration. He has been a collaborating student in the Department of Political Science at the University of Granada. Incipient line of research in political communication focused on content analysis of traditional media.

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2025-01-08

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Egea-Cariñanos, P., Bianchi, D., & Delgado-Lillo, M. (2025). Television and Political Polarisation in Spain and Andalusia. The Case of the 2023 Spanish General Elections. CENTRA Journal of Social Sciences, 4(1). https://doi.org/10.54790/rccs.102

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Vol. 4 No. 1 (2025): CENTRA Journal of Social Sciences (FIRST ONLINE)

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