Multimodal discourse on the Spanish energy crisis: A critical analysis of news in international and Spanish online media

Abstract

This study examines the multimodal discursive construction of the 2021 Spanish energy crisis in online newspapers, a crisis marked by energy price surges and severe consumer impact. Drawing on Social Semiotics, with a critical stance, a multimodal discursive analysis of headlines and images in 20 articles, from Spanish and International newspapers, is carried out to critically look at how the energy crisis is constructed in the discourse. The results reveal a significant difference between the two data sets. From an international perspective, Spain enacts a protagonist role and engages in proactive crisis management and resolution, while the Spanish articles focus on citizens’ predicament, constructing crisis as an eventuation and ignoring the human social roles played in it. Both similarly show, however, the power of the interplay of multimodal resources in consolidating specific interpretations and reproducing divergent views on the same crisis.