Depopulation and the environment: an approach to narratives from the Valencian media

Abstract

A significant number of municipalities in inland rural Spain have been experiencing a systematic population loss. Social concern and sensitivity towards these areas has increased considerably in the last decade, a fact that can be partly attributed to the role of the media. The media serve as amplifiers of the situation of these rural municipalities (and of their different actors, especially local politicians), contributing to this growing social awareness while at the same time echoing how all this is addressed in the public agenda. This paper analyses depopulation in the regional press of the region of Valencia between 1996 and 2022, using the digital newspaper library My News. The central objective is to analyse the presence of environmental issues in depopulation, identifying other related topics, and analysing the different narratives that have been formulated and to which the written press contributes in a decisive way. From a methodological point of view, in order to address a large sample of news items (853), firstly, a quantitative and qualitative analysis is conducted (using AntConc software), which makes it possible to define the different themes and the relationships between them. Here the results point, on the one hand, to the potentialities linked to the environment (and related sub-themes, such as heritage) and, on the other, to the negative effects, such as the abandonment of the countryside and its relationship with depopulation. Secondly, a content analysis is carried out, focusing on the different narratives on environmental issues in the context of rural depopulation. Special attention is given, by way of example, to the narrative justifying the installation of wind farms in the inland areas of the region of Valencia.