El discurso sobre los términos 'populismo’ y ‘populista’ en los titulares de la prensa española

This paper presents the results of a quantitative-qualitative analysis of the discursive values of the words ‘populismo(s)’ and ‘populista(s)’ in a corpus of news headlines published in the digital editions of the Spanish press media El País, El Mundo, ABC, La Vanguardia and El Periódico. Based on a critical epistemic discourse analysis approach and on framing theories, this study focuses on the grammatical and lexico-semantic dimensions of both terms, in order to identify the interpretative frames the newspapers elaborate around this current phenomenon. We also assume that media discourses participate in the construction of the interpretative framework of political discourses. The results show that, with few differences among these media, both words often co-occur with negative nouns and verbs. This discourse frames the idea that there is a growing threat that should be prevented, mainly in relation to certain political Spanish and European political leaders.