Aspectos demográficos en la prensa españolael discurso periodístico en el diario El País durante el decenio 1990-2000

Abstract

The purpose of the study is to elucidate the daily El País' discourse of media construction and to discem the ideology with which the collective imagination built on the demographic aspects of the West' s most critical period in regard to birthrates, a time during which Spain recorded the lowest birthrates in its history. The study is based on methodology founded on quantitative and qualitative content analysis. This type of analysis has recourse to the "new frame" which, understood as a way of thinking, is conceptualized as the ideological interpretation offered by a joumalistic point of view. Our results indicate that El País went along with the Malthusian ideology of the United Nations, which wamed of an uncontrolled population explosion in this century and of the dangerous consequences for economic and social progre ss, as well as the burden on raw materials, natural resources, and the planet's support capacity. The UN close1y linked social and economic development to population control, the so-called pessimistic or neomalthusian line which sees in population growth and economic backwardness a cause and effect relationship, a line to which El País adhered. In the present day, those predictions are outmoded, and perhaps we ought to admit that it is not the fall in the birthrate that has brought about economic and social progre ss, but rather that economic and social progress has contributed to lowering the birthrate.