“Media of Spain”
The country I chose for this assignment is Spain. I chose this country because my mom is originally from Spain. I have been there four times, so I have a person connection on how their media is handled since I saw it with my own eyes. But reading more about this country explained more and expanded my acknowledge. I believe the type of media system Spain uses is social responsibility theory. Spain is a democratic country and has the freedom for media and press through the supreme law. As the book shares, the social responsibility theory “best describes the system of mass communication in democracies” (Pavlik, J. V., & McIntosh, S. (2019). Converging media: A new introduction to mass communication. New York: Oxford University Press.) The United States also uses the social responsibility theory.
Print media in Spain has to be one of the lowest sources of media used by the Spaniards in today’s generation. In 2015, 107 newspapers were published and a total circulation of 2.1 million copies a day. But, in 2006, they had a total circulation of 4 million. Their circulation was dropped by half (https://medialandscapes.org/country/spain/media/digital-media). This same result of print is shown in the United States. Print reached it’s highest in the late 1950’s and remained more and less stable during the 60’s and 70’s, but had a huge decline in 1990’s (https://medialandscapes.org/country/united-states/media/print). The newspaper circulation in the United States just keeps on declining. The most popular print press in Spain is, El País. It reached a circulation of over 185,000. It also had a decline in 2008, because of an economic crisis and still to this day has damaged the company. Because of the crisis, journalist were fired. The company went from having 899 journalists in 2008, to 334 in 2015 (https://medialandscapes.org/country/spain/media/digital-media). Comparing the most popular print press in the United States, are the three national companies USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times.
Radio audience in Spain has stayed stable in recent years. Spaniards use the radio as a major scope and information. It is the genuine catalyst for public opinion https://medialandscapes.org/country/spain/media/radio. The listeners for the radio reached 25.9 million in March 2016. 11.4 million used general radio and 14.5 used radio mainly for music https://medialandscapes.org/country/spain/media/radio. This shows that Spain uses the radio mostly to listen to music and get their news information from a different source of media. The United States and Spain have a slight difference here, because radio stations are owned by larger companies since the FCC has relaxed on the number of stations a company can own https://medialandscapes.org/country/united-states/media/radio. The National Public Radio has gained more audience since the 2016 elections, which drew them 14–15 million listeners on the daily now. Because of this, they are now the most popular and used news broadcast nationals. They also have a success with podcasts which several million people a year download their podcasts https://medialandscapes.org/country/united-states/media/radio. Podcasts have started to become very popular in recent generations. I believe they may just be easier and tend to not have as much commercials like the radio has.
Television has some of the same things as the United States, but there is also a slight difference in Spain. The one thing that Spain and the United States have in common is that television is the number one source people receive information from. In Spain, television carries a larger share from other media by 60 percent. Something that is different is that 90 percent of the total advertising is shared and distributed between two companies https://medialandscapes.org/country/spain/media/television. Spain also uses six factors to break down their television. Two large private audiovisual corporations, which are Mediaset España and Atresmedia, which are also the leaders in audience and advertising. Another factors are National Public Television, Digital television platforms, generalist channels, specialized channels, and systems of subscriptions like Netflix. Private channels broadcasting nationally with a smaller audience, regional public television and local television channel https://medialandscapes.org/country/spain/media/television.
The United States national broadcast networks are the lead of the system and they still are very important. The most important channels in the United States would have to be ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, and Univisión (which is a spanish news channel) https://medialandscapes.org/country/united-states/media/television. Our television media isn’t broken down into six factors like Spain’s, so that is something that is different between us.
Spain and the United States have a slightly difference when it comes to digital media. Digital media is the largest share of advertising revenue in United States. In 2017, which was 38.4 percent of the total. Google and Facebook were the leading advertising market with 60 percent of the ad revenue. Google and Facebook are still continuing to grow and were expected to rise their percentage in 2018 and I am sure they did https://medialandscapes.org/country/united-states/media/digital-media. Digital media in Spain just recently increased a couple years ago in 2017. Internet there was the second most used. Television still being the most used media https://medialandscapes.org/country/spain/media/digital-media.
As seen, Spain and the United States pretty much have the same media use besides some differences in certain areas. The only difference we saw was in television and digital media just barely making a rise in the country, when it has been popular in the United States. Since both countries use the social responsibility theory the law doesn't really intervene in the press and what is said and what the residents watch, read, and listen to. Spain has the same freedom of speech like the United States. Being able to have a freedom of speech and press is a blessing to have, because not most countries can and it is something important to have to express yourself and the views you have.