Smartworking and pandemic: the position of actors in mass media representations of Spanish newspapers

Abstract

This study analyzes the positioning of the social actors involved in the issue of smart working in Spain, from its mass media construction, in the context of the Covid 19 pandemic. For this purpose, a set of news items was selected from the Spanish digital portals: El País and El Mundo, between September and December 2021, after the enactment of the Smart working Law in Spain.

Methodologically, a qualitative approach was used, focusing on social meanings, with a socio-semiotic approach (Verón, 1987) for the analysis of the construction of discourses on the media surface. Thematic categories were used on the basis of which the positions of the actors involved, represented by El País and El Mundo, were analyzed: employers, government, workers and trade unions. We also analyzed the positions that the mass media themselves, as social actors, took on this labour modality.

Thus, from the analytical study on what was made visible in the mass media about the position of the actors, we sought to identify the main definitions that circulated about smart working, flexibilisation, decentralisation of labour, workers' rights, etc.