Journalistic Independence and Public Funds: Institutional Social Communication as a Distortion of Competition in the Information Market

Abstract

This research focuses on the scientific and journalistic controversies about the effects of the budget that the Spanish administration uses for institutional social communication through the media, as a potential distortion for fair competitiveness in the journalistic market. We expose the problem and then review the discourses about this phenomenon in both the academic literature and mainstream newspapers. When we compare the coverage made by traditional newspapers and the native digital media, we identify a lack of attention both in established mainstream journalism and in academic research, in contrast with the strong criticism within these recently created digital newspapers. This observation converges with the fact that the mainstream press receives much more funding from regional and national governments, becoming much more dependent on the administration.