Los think tanks y su presencia en la agenda mediática española/ Think tanks and their presence in the Spanish media agenda

Abstract

Resumen

El estudio que se expone a continuación intenta abordar el papel que tienen los think tanksen la prensa española. Los laboratorios de ideas centran su actividad en crear y reformular ideas con el objetivo de difundirlas a la opinión pública y que esta las acoja y las tomen como propias, la mayor parte de estas enfocadas al ámbito político. Por tanto, los medios de comunicación tienen un papel fundamental en el desarrollo de estas organizaciones. Para la consecución de los objetivos de este estudio se ha realizado una revisión bibliográfica a fondo del tema expuesto y, además, se desarrolla una metodología cuantitativa a través de un análisis de contenido de los cuatro periódicos con mayor promedio de difusión según la Oficina de Justificación de la Difusión (OJD). Gracias a la aplicación de esta metodología se han obtenido resultados y conclusiones sobre la relación entre los laboratorios de ideas y los medios de comunicación en España. Todo esto, junto al planteamiento de la pregunta de investigación: ‘Los think tanksespañoles difunden su actividad y sus ideas a través de medios de comunicación afines a su ideología política, situándose en la misma posición del espectro político’. La presencia, las estrategias y las técnicas que estas organizaciones utilizan para la difusión de su actividad son algunas de las secciones que este estudio expone. Asimismo, se obtienen conclusiones acerca de nuevos think tanksespañoles que han irrumpido en la presa, como Politikón y sus relaciones con el periódico El País, abriendo futuras líneas de investigación.

Palabras clave:Think tanks, laboratorios de ideas, medios de comunicación, prensa española, relaciones públicas.

Abstract

The following study attempts to address the role of think tanks in the Spanish press. These institutions focus their activity on creating and reformulating ideas with the aim of disseminating them to the public opinion and that the latter welcomes them and takes them as its own, most of these are focused on the political themes. In addition, the information provided by think tanks that have greater participation and, therefore, appearances in the media, are characterized by achieving greater legitimacy. Therefore, the media have a fundamental role in the development of these organizations. In order to achieve the objectives of this study, an in-depth bibliographic review of the subject has been carried out, dealing with different areas that are found around these think tanks: definition, typologies, functions, objectives and the importance of communication for these institutions. It has also focused later on contextualising and characterising how these institutions are and how they carry out their activity in Spain, as the study seeks to focus on the Spanish reality. In the same way, in order to obtain a more faithful image of the state of think tanks in the Spanish territory, a quantitative methodology has been developed through an analysis of the content of the four newspapers with the highest average circulation according to the Oficina de Justificación de la Difusión(OJD): El País, La Vanguardia, El Mundoand ABC, by means of a systematic random k-ima sampling consisting of periods of seven days. Thanks to the application of this methodology, results and conclusions have been obtained regarding the relationship between think tanks and the media in Spain. All this, together with the research question: Do Spanish think tanks disseminate their activity and ideas through media related to their political ideology, placing themselves in the same position of the political spectrum?, which has allowed to develop results and conclusions about the possible ideological affinity between media and laboratories of Spanish ideas. The presence, the strategies and the communication techniques that these organisations use to disseminate their activity become an axis of great importance and, therefore, of relevance to the field of communication. It should also be mentioned that this study has been able to draw conclusions about new Spanish think tanks that have broken into the Spanish dam, such as Politikón and its relations with the newspaper El Paísor the characteristic case found between the newspaper ABCand the think tanks Instituto de Estudios Regionales y Metropolitanos de Barcelona, since the newspaper accuses of having privileges thanks to the affinity of the institution with the mayoress of Barcelona. Thanks to the discussion and conclusions of this study, future lines of research are opened up, as the phenomenon of idea laboratories continues to develop in Spain.

Keywords:Think tanks, ideas laboratories, media, Spanish press, Public Relations.