Populism, media discourse, Polysemy, newspaper leadlines, political representation
The article analyzes the use and semantic evolution of the term populism in the headlines of the digital newspaper elpais.com between 2012 and 2018. Based on a corpus of 201 headlines, the study examines the word from a lexico-semantic and pragmatic perspective in order to identify its connotative values and its role in the media construction of political discourse. The theoretical framework draws on approaches such as framing, agenda setting, mediatization, and semantic-discursive analysis, revealing the polysemic nature of the concept and its use as an evaluative label in diverse political contexts. The results show a significant semantic expansion of the term, often associated with threats to democracy, polarization, economic and social crises, citizen resentment, and manipulation, although its potential role as a political response to inequality and as a vehicle for democratic renewal is also acknowledged. The study concludes that populism functions as a dynamic signifier subject to contextual reinterpretation, whose meaning depends on media usage, linguistic resources, and the ideological orientation of the journalistic discourse.
El vocablo «populismo» en los titulares de elpais.com
Maria Candida Munoz Medrano
2025-01-01
Abstract
The article analyzes the use and semantic evolution of the term populism in the headlines of the digital newspaper elpais.com between 2012 and 2018. Based on a corpus of 201 headlines, the study examines the word from a lexico-semantic and pragmatic perspective in order to identify its connotative values and its role in the media construction of political discourse. The theoretical framework draws on approaches such as framing, agenda setting, mediatization, and semantic-discursive analysis, revealing the polysemic nature of the concept and its use as an evaluative label in diverse political contexts. The results show a significant semantic expansion of the term, often associated with threats to democracy, polarization, economic and social crises, citizen resentment, and manipulation, although its potential role as a political response to inequality and as a vehicle for democratic renewal is also acknowledged. The study concludes that populism functions as a dynamic signifier subject to contextual reinterpretation, whose meaning depends on media usage, linguistic resources, and the ideological orientation of the journalistic discourse.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
