Repressing the masses. newspapers and the securitisation of youth dissent in Spain

Abstract

In this article we analyse the discourse of conservative commentators and journalists who produced critical items against 15-M mobilisations between 16 May and 30 September 2011 in three newspapers: Abc, Libertad Digital and La Razón. The effort on the part of conservative jour-nalists to deride and frame 15-M mobilisations as a threat should be considered repression; more precisely, these mechanisms should be seen as part of a broader strategy of repression of youth dissent, a strategy where conservative media outlets, through the securitisation of protesting, col-laborate with conservative political parties, the police and some segments within the criminal legal system. The examination of the repressive behaviour of the Spanish media reveals a surprising parallelism between the present and a past that was thought to have been long overcome. In their fierce criticism of 15-M activism, Spanish conservative commentators have brought crowd psychology back to life-the popular theory that, until well into the twentieth century, summarized certain nineteenth-century intellectual andcultural elites' fear of middle and working-class activism.