Elecciones 2000: Carrera de caballos y partidismo mediático

Abstract

Electoral campaigns are a propitious frame for the study of the relationship between media and politics, because of the intensity of the information flow and the generated expectations. The case of the elections of 2000, March the 12th in Spain is of great interest due to the new features introduced by the political alignments and the developed political marketing tools. Taking the mediation theory as a reference point and based upon content analysis data of headlines of two newspapers (El País and El Mundo) it is demostrated that media have taken an active part in the electoral game. Because of the presence of the political actors, the new subjects which have been introduced and the tone of the published message, this campaing could be outlined as a «horse racing» campaign.