The construction of news in Julen's case: a comparative study of media coverage*

Abstract

The present article, containing a mixed and comparative press study, aims to analyse the media coverage of a news story eventually known as “Julen's case”. The impact of the story has been analysed with a specific method: First, 72 national and international media sources were analysed using Mynewsonline. Then, these were compared with the different perspectives offered by Spanish newspapers El País, El Mundo and ABC, with special attention paid to the theory of Framing. Julen's story was selected as the case study due to its extraordinary impact on both local and international media. The results confirm that the coverage analysed in the sample did not merely recount the event in a factual manner. Instead, the media focused on sensationalist angles and criteria, such as emotional conflicts related to sorrow, pain and morbid fascination. In order to increase their income, the media let themselves get entangled in a mediatic circus.