Framing Income Inequality: How the Spanish Media Reported on Disparities during the First Year of the Pandemic

Abstract

This paper addresses the problem of how Spanish digital media reported income inequality during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. In this way, the goal was to study the framing of definition, contextual aspects, and depth. For this article, a tool was designed to analyse the content of the items. An analysis of news published by six digital media in Spain from March 2020 to February 2021 was conducted using content analysis. Within a sample of 2727 media stories in which there was a connection between the coronavirus and inequality, a stratified sample was used (n = 958) according to the content production by quarter and by media. The results of this study show that income inequality was the most common type of inequality reported in the media, and they cantered more on the micro level. Also, it appeared to be linked to the social gap and showed poverty as the main consequence. The frame was focused on social issues, international and national contexts, and expert sources. Finally, different levels of depth can be observed in the news items analysed, depending on the frame.