Framing news on risk industries: Local journalism and conditioning factors

Abstract

This work describes the results obtained from a study of the journalistic handling of news related to the petrochemical industrial complex in the area of Tarragona (Spain), one of the most important such complexes in Europe. The research questions referred to how and in which sense the petrochemical industry is reported in the local newspapers and which conditioning factors must be taken into account to understand this treatment. The author applied frame analysis to a corpus of 1337 news items, conducted in-depth interviews with selected journalists, and analysed vocabulary choices and information sources. The results show that the industry was largely framed in economic terms and that almost three-quarters of the news articles on the sector were framed positively. The study highlights the fact that proximity is a conditioning factor that affects how journalists work, and points to the social and political context as a strong influence on how discourse regarding petrochemical risk develops.

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