The daily press and political communication: The perception of the Statute of Catalonia in twelve daily Spanish newspapers

The research presented in this article analyses the perception of the new draft Statute of
Catalonia in the Spanish written press. The study was performed by analysing the
editorials and the front pages published in twelve newspapers all over Spain between
the 1st of October and the 15th of December 2005. The new draft Statute of Catalonia
triggered an oversized debate that converted the media into a true political arena, a
public locus where the media and politicians displayed a host of cooperative or
competitive ideological strategies. The article concludes that the new Statute was
harshly rejected in the majority of newspapers, especially in some of the national
broadsheets, and it tries to pinpoint the differences among these twelve newspapers.
The research also dissects the strong and weak points of the draft Statute in the
newspapers analysed.