Shaping public Opinion for confrontation : catalan independence claims as represented in spanish, catalan, valencian, and basque editorials

2017

Editorials represent a newspaper’s principal means of ideological positioning and serve to identify the attitude of each newspaper and its readership to some of the main actors in any given conflict, especially those that are political in nature. Catalonia’s independence movement has experienced a surge in recent years. The turning point came in July 2010, after Spain’s constitutional court ruled against some aspects of Catalonia’s Statute of Autonomy (the legislation regulating the relationship between the Catalan autonomous community and the Spanish state). The ruling annulled some of the articles of the statute. The demonstration in support of Catalan independence that took place on Sep…