The “ultra-processed” discourse of the Spanish digital press

The “ultra-processed” discourse of the Spanish digital press

Abstract

The label of “ultra-processed” is in the spotlight due to its lack of consensus when defining it, as well as the harmful effects derived from its consumption (Babio et al. 2020; Revenga, 2021, among others) although own media include advertising from the industries of this type of food (Morales, et al 2017).

The objective of this study is to identify the presence of this term in the content that deals with diets in the digital editions of the four most widely read general information newspapers (elpais.com; elmundo.es; abc.es and lavanguardia.com) in a decade of study: from 2011 (which enters into force Law 17/2011, of July 5, on Food Safety and Nutrition) until December 2020.

The search has recovered 1648 articles and with them, the T-LAB software has been applied. This tool consists of a set of linguistic, statistical and graphical tools for the analysis of the texts. After applying the different analyzes, the results show that, in the ranking of the frequency of the terms that appear in journalistic content, “ultra-processed” occupies position 62. Likewise, the attributes with which it is related are products such as “red meat”, “pastries” and “sugar”, as well as with “precooked” and “additive”.

Cómo citar

Roger-Monzó, V. Martí-Sánchez, M. (2021) The “ultra-processed” discourse of the Spanish digital press. Comunicación presentada en el congreso ESIC-IMATde 1-2 de julio de 2021