Debates on the airwaves. Electoral talk shows on the radio: comparison between Spain’s 1982 and 2019 general elections Debates en las ondas. Comparativa de los espacios electorales de coloquio en la radio entre las elecciones generales de 1982 y 2019 en España doxa.comunicación | nº 37, pp. 87-111 | 87 July-December of 2023ISSN: 1696-019X / e-ISSN: 2386-3978How to cite this article: García-Gil, S. and Zamora-Martínez, P. (2023). Debates on the airwaves. Electoral talk shows on the radio: comparison between Spain’s 1982 and 2019 general elections. Doxa Comunicación, 37, pp. 87-111.https://doi.org/10.31921/doxacom.n37a1872Samuel García-Gil. Postdoctorate researcher at the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU). PhD with cum laude mentions and International Doctorate from the University of Valladolid (2022). Accredited lecturer by ANECA, he currently forms a part of the research group “Nacionalismos y culturas políticas en el País Vasco en perspectiva comparada” from the UPV/EHU (GIU 20/02). He is also a member of the project (R&D&i) “Politainment ante la fragmentación mediática: desintermediación, engagement y polarización” (PID2020-114193RB-I00), funded by the Ministry of Science and Innovation (Spain). His publications centre on the History of the media and in particular Spanish radio. He has also been a journalist in media such as El Norte de Castilla.University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), Spain[email protected]ORCID: 0000-0001-9003-3874Patricia Zamora-Martínez. P.h.D in Journalism with cum laude mentions and International Doctorate from the University of Valladolid (Accredited lecturer, ANECA, 2022). She is currently a Margarita Salas postdoctorate researcher at the University of Valladolid and a guest researcher at the Complutense University of Madrid in the group History and Structure of Communication and Entertainment. She is also a part of the research team of the project (R&D&i): Politainment in the Face of Media Fragmentation: Disintermediation, Engagement and Polarization (PID2020-114193RB-I00), funded by the Ministry of Science and Innovation (Spain), and is a member of the recognised research group New Trends in Communication (NUTECO). Her lines of research are framed in the history of television in Spain, non-verbal communication applied to the political sphere and the analysis of infotainment in television programming.University of Valladolid, Spain[email protected]ORCID: 0000-0002-5730-7295Abstract:Since the freedom of information in 1977, Spanish radio broadcasting has served as a space for opinion and public discussion. In 1980, Cadena Catalana broadcast an electoral debate, “the rst of its kind Resumen:Desde la libertad informativa de 1977, la radio en España ha servido como espacio de opinión y discusión pública. En 1980, Cadena Catalana emitió un debate electoral, “el primero en su género (…) después de la Received: 30/11/2022 - Accepted: 08/03/2023 - Early access: 28/04/2023 - Published: 01/07/2023Recibido: 30/11/2022 - Aceptado: 08/03/2023 - En edición: 28/04/2023 - Publicado: 01/07/2023is content is published under Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License. International License

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88 | nº 37, pp. 87-111 | July-December of 2023Debates on the airwaves. Electoral talk shows on the radio: comparison between Spain’s 1982 and 2019 general electionsISSN: 1696-019X / e-ISSN: 2386-3978doxa.comunicación1. Introductione media have been linked to politics since its inception, not only by regulating its activity but also as a “real instrument (organ) of public opinion” (Tönnies, 1979: 264; cit. in Bouza, 1998), capable of having “a considerable inuence on citizens’ perception, opinions and behaviour” (Vladisavljević, 2015: 2). Just as the press and the television had been used as a tool for propaganda and mass mobilisation, the radio was too, to the extent that they transformed the lives of governors and the governed. e radio was created in a historical context that accounts for its use as a political instrument; totalitarian ideologies, Nazism and Communism, “made intensive use of radio broadcasting, both to indoctrinate populations and to spread worldwide” (Cotarelo, 2013: 229).In Spain, the rst broadcasting licenses were granted in 1923 by Primo de Rivera’s dictatorship, which “established systems of control” to prevent “the broadcasting of news, messages or ideas contrary to ocial interests” (Ezcurra, 1974: 295). During the Second Republic (1931-1936), the radio enjoyed greater freedom at the expense of becoming an element that “demanded specic dedication” due to the creation of a Ministry of Communications (Balsebre, 2001: 268). After the Civil War, the dictatorship of General Francisco Franco took over the information monopoly for almost four decades through the ocial Radio Nacional de España (RNE). He exercised tight political control over the radio system (Bustamante, 2013). Spanish radio changed immensely from 1977 onwards amid the democratic Transition. Private radio stations’ freedom of information and the granting of new FM licenses (Balsebre, 2002: 473-481) increased plurality and modied the relationship between radio and politics. During its heyday, “radio was discovered as a political weapon” (Talaya, 2017: 89) and became a point of reference for information due to its role in the coup d’etat on 23 February 1981 (Díaz, 1992). Furthermore, radio (…) after the Civil War” (Munsó, 2006: 204). However, radio electoral debates have hardly been studied at the state level. is research aims to identify and examine the political debates produced by Spanish radios for the 1982 general elections –the rst one after the Catalan debate– and November 2019 –the last to date– establishing a comparison as the rst approach towards its technical and formal evolution. An analysis sheet was applied based on the data collected in daily newspaper archives ABC, El País, Diario 16 and La Vanguardia websites and social media proles from radio networks (Cadena SER, Cadena COPE, Onda Cero and RNE). Two national debate programmes were found, Tertulias electorales (1982) and Debates COPE: El voto útil (2019), whose moderators participated in semi-structured interviews. e results reveal a contrast in aspects such as the broadcast channel –from analogue to streaming– and audience participation –from the telephone to social networks– although, none of them brought together any candidates for the presidency.Keywords:Broadcasting; electoral debates; electoral campaigns; interviews; Spain.Guerra Civil” (Munsó, 2006: 204). Sin embargo, apenas se han estudiado los debates electorales radiofónicos a escala estatal. Esta investigación plantea identicar y examinar los debates políticos producidos por radios españolas para las elecciones generales de 1982 –las primeras tras el debate catalán– y noviembre de 2019 –últimas hasta la fecha–, estableciendo una comparativa como primera aproximación hacia su evolución técnica y formal. Se aplicó una cha de análisis, partiendo de los datos recabados en hemerotecas de ABC, El País, Diario 16 y La Vanguardia, webs y redes sociales de radios (Cadena SER, Cadena COPE, Onda Cero y RNE). Se localizaron dos programas nacionales de debate, Tertulias electorales (1982) y Debates COPE: El voto útil (2019), a cuyos moderadores se realizaron entrevistas semiestructuradas. Los resultados revelan un contraste en aspectos como el canal de emisión –del analógico al streaming– y la participación de la audiencia –del teléfono a redes sociales–, aunque ninguno de ellos juntó a los candidatos a la Presidencia.Palabras clave:Radio; debates electorales; campañas electorales; entrevistas; España.
doxa.comunicación | nº 37, pp. 87-111 | 89July-December of 2023Samuel García-Gil and Patricia Zamora-MartínezISSN: 1696-019X / e-ISSN: 2386-3978 participation programmes such as Directo… Directo (RNE, 1981-1985) incorporated telephone conversations with current aairs personalities (García-Gil, 2021: 396) and used the airwaves to exchange opinions freely. In this sense, election campaigns enabled ideas to be confronted and exposed and also included advertising spaces regulated by law1, interviews with the candidates2 or even debates.e radio’s role as a space for political debate has been the subject of few studies compared to television. Several authors have analysed the nature of televised electoral debates from a political communication perspective (Dader, 1998-1999; Berrocal, 2004; Cantavella et al., 2008; Gallego and Martínez, 2013; García-Marín, 2015) or their evolution from 1993 (Marín, 2019) to 2015 (López-García et al., 2018), through comparisons to the European environment (Rúas-Araujo et al., 2020) or its “symbiosis” with social networks such as Twitter (Ruiz and Bustos, 2017; González-Neira et al., 2020).On the other hand, the limited biography on political opinion programmes on radio focuses on talk shows. ey have been the subject of monographs (Toral, 1998; Sánchez, 1994), analyses of linguistic uses (González, 2014; Martínez-Costa and Herrera, 2007), the plurality (Abejón, 2013; León and Gómez, 2011), ethics and deontology, among many other approaches (Santamaría, 1992; López, 1996; Moreno, 2002; Angulo, 2006; Colmenarejo, 2019).Several authors agree that the inception of radio talk shows took place in the programme La Trastienda on Cadena SER in 1984 (Sánchez, 1994: 13). However, there are few references to the rst radio debate programme, especially an electoral one. Among them, Munsó (2006: 187) highlights the special Quatre candidates per a una presidencia (Four candidates for the Presidency), broadcast by Cadena Catalana3 on 17 March 1980, which brought together four of the main parties’ leaders in Catalonia4 for the regional elections. Munsó (2006: 204) describes this debate as “the rst of its kind (…) after the Civil War”.is article takes that broadcast as the rst milestone to propose a new line of analysis, encompassing electoral radio debates from 1980 to the present. However, this approach should not ignore the evolution of the medium, from analogue radio to “cyberradio” (Cebrián, 2008), “post radio” (Ortiz, 2012) or the “radio that can be seen” (Cavia, 2016). e introduction of multimedia logic in conventional radio has given rise to “radiovision” (Palazio, 1999; Gallego Pérez, 2010; López-Vidales, 2011), a radio model that uses podcasting and Internet streaming technologies to oer listeners the chance to watch –and not only listen to– multimedia information, live chats, chat rooms or on-demand radio. is has been inuenced by factors such as the impact of television (Pacheco, 2009), the growing use of mobile technology or the Internet, and the search for young audiences (Gutiérrez et al., 2011).Listeners’ participation in today’s radio is managed through social networks, giving rise to “personal radio”, “recorded-reproduced”, or “created-recreated” by users themselves (Cebrián, 2008: 31-32). Moreover, the multiplicity of listening channels also gives rise to the concept of “extended radio” (Kischinhevsky, 2017), which presents multiple listening channels; 21st-century radio has the option to extend listening options, as “the web and the app oer alternative signals to the listener”, which are also live (Legorburu et al., 2019: 73). All these elements help to determine how this evolutionary leap has also changed the conception of radio debate since its origins.1.1. eoretical approach to the radio debate genre Although this article aims not to investigate the denition of the radio debate, an approach to the theory of radio genres is presented, which is necessary to clarify the object of study. e particularity of the radio medium forced us to adapt to the traditional theory of
90 | nº 37, pp. 87-111 | July-December of 2023Debates on the airwaves. Electoral talk shows on the radio: comparison between Spain’s 1982 and 2019 general electionsISSN: 1696-019X / e-ISSN: 2386-3978doxa.comunicaciónjournalistic genres to better contemplate “the properties of oral communication, the transience of the message and the presence of non-linguistic elements” (Martínez-Costa and Herrera, 2004: 116). us, the radio genre is understood as “each of the ways of harmonising the dierent elements of the radio message- especially the word- in such a way that the resulting structure can be recognised as belonging to a characteristic modality of radio creation and broadcasting” (Merayo, 1992: 173).e same authors who recognise debates as a radio or audiovisual genre5 locate it within the dialogic or appellative genres, “models of representation of reality constructed through the contributions of current aairs’ personalities who seek to enrich the journalistic account” (Martínez-Costa and Díez, 2005: 130). e round table, debate and talk show are grouped under the same umbrella, genres that share the discursive dynamics and the role of the moderator-presenter, framed in modalities such as “the organisation of the polemic” (Prado, 1980; Martí, 1990), “polemic and dialectic attitude” (Martínez-Costa and Díez, 2005: 150; Marta-Lazo and Ortiz (eds.), 2016: 101-102) or “debate” (Merayo, 1992: 176; Rodero, 2005: 229-235; Cebrián, 2007: 128).e round table brings together “experts or qualied people on a topic of public interest” who contribute “complementary or opposing” points of view (Marta-Lazo and Ortiz (eds.), 2016: 107), while the debate and the talk show aim to confront ideas, each with its distinctive features. e literature attributes qualities such as periodisation, regular participants at the debates- panellists–, a relaxed nature, the possible participation of listeners and the alternation of topics inuenced by current aairs (Merayo, 1992; Marta-Lazo and Ortiz (eds.), 2016; Santos, 2003). However, taking the aforementioned authors as a reference, the most common characterisation of radio debate includes: –several participants, limited in number –who can go individually or in two opposing groups– who represent opposing stances; –the impartial presenter-moderator, in charge of maintaining the rules of the debate, respectfully but encouraging controversy; –the basic structure composed of the presentation of the topic and the participants, the presentation of arguments and each speaker’s conclusion; –the times set in advance for each debater may be strict or exible; –live broadcasting; –and the expertise on a previously agreed upon topic of interest and controversy. e expansion of radio talk shows contrasts the scarce treatment of debates to the extent that it is considered a genre that is only “for television” (García de Castro, 2014: 43). Cadena SER (2017: 110) highlights in its stylebook, “unlike the talk show or round table, debates do not usually have a regular space in the programming […]”. is shows the exceptional nature of debate programmes, which explains why special broadcasts are reserved for signicant events such as elections. Although debates are not only reserved for politicians, this genre is shown as an ideal vehicle in an electoral context due to contrasting ideas intrinsically, which allows for “developing new proposals to all kinds of problems posed by society” (Martínez-Costa and Díez, 2005: 144).5 Even, the Cadena SER stylebook recognises debate as both a radio subgenre –“dialogue between two or more people who hold opposing stances”– and as a programme format, including the particular case of “face-to-face” between two people (Cadena SER, 2017: 82; 110-111).
doxa.comunicación | nº 37, pp. 87-111 | 91July-December of 2023Samuel García-Gil and Patricia Zamora-MartínezISSN: 1696-019X / e-ISSN: 2386-3978 1.2. Televised electoral debates in Spaine lack of study on the radio debate contrasts with televised debates, which have become a popular event in electoral campaigns, despite their brief history in Spain (Hernández-Herrarte and Zamora-Martínez, 2020). Regarding the debates between the leaders of electoral lists6, the rst face-to-face debate was broadcast on Antena 3 on 24 May 1993 between Felipe González (Partido Socialista Obrero Español, PSOE) and José María Aznar (Partido Popular, PP). A week later, both participated in a second debate on Telecinco. After 15 years without electoral debates7, in the 2008 elections, two debates were broadcast between the candidates Mariano Rajoy (PP) and José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero (PSOE), which brought together 13 and 11.9 million viewers, respectively (Barlovento, 2019a) and sparked a new interest to date in the study of television debates (García-Marín et al., 2018). In 2011, the same format was repeated with two PP-PSOE debates, although this time, only one event was held, pitting Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba and Mariano Rajoy against each other. e renouncement of the two-party system, consolidated in 2015 with the rise of Podemos and Ciudadanos (Martín Jiménez et al., 2017: 63), altered the usual dynamic of these debates by opening up space for more candidates. In the 2015 general elections, two types of debates were combined: a four-way debate between Pedro Sánchez (PSOE), Pablo Iglesias (Podemos), Albert Rivera (Ciudadanos, C’s) and the vicepresident of the government, Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría (PP); and a week later, the usual face-to-face debate, this time between Pedro Sánchez and Mariano Rajoy.e 2016 elections featured a single televised political debate where, for the rst time, the four candidates with the most signicant representation in the Congress: Mariano Rajoy (PP), Pedro Sánchez (PSOE), Albert Rivera (C’s) and Pablo Iglesias (Unidos Podemos, UP) took part. Its broadcast meant breaking away from the classic two-way debate. Since then, in the last electoral campaigns in April and November 2019, the televised debates have been organised with all the candidates in mind. us, two four-way debates were planned for the April elections in which Pedro Sánchez, Pablo Casado, Pablo Iglesias and Albert Rivera took part. In the 2019 repeat election, a single television debate was held on 4 November, with the ve most important leaders of the electoral lists in terms of voting intentions: Casado, Sánchez, Iglesias, Rivera, and Santiago Abascal as a newcomer (VOX).Since 1993 11 electoral debates have been televised in Spain featuring the presidential candidates. e evolution of these debates (Image 1) shows the usual presence of the journalist moderators, the multiplicity of channels interested in broadcasting them and the high level of interest they generate. Image 1. Electoral debates between candidates for the Presidency of the Government televised in Spain6 Although they have been studied less, Spanish television has also broadcast electoral debates with more than two candidates –in two editions of La clave (TVE) in 1982, but without Felipe González or Adolfo Suárez (Berdón-Prieto and García-Gil, 2020: 348-349)–, with no leaders of the electoral lists –such as Narcís Serra (PSOE)-Miquel Roca (CiU) in the 1989 general elections– or others in municipal and regional elections (Luengo, 2011: 84).7 e 1996, 2000 and 2004 general elections did not have any election debates with presidential candidates.
92 | nº 37, pp. 87-111 | July-December of 2023Debates on the airwaves. Electoral talk shows on the radio: comparison between Spain’s 1982 and 2019 general electionsISSN: 1696-019X / e-ISSN: 2386-3978doxa.comunicaciónSource: created by the authors based on González-Neira et al. (2020), and Barlovento Comunicación (2019a, 2019b, 2019c) e IPMark (2019)1.3. Objectives and hypothesesis research aims to identify and examine the electoral debates that Spanish radio produced prior to the general campaigns of 1982 and November 2019. Both correspond to dierent political contexts: –e 28 October 1982 elections, called for by the president of the government at the time, Leopoldo Calvo-Sotelo, gave the absolute majority to Felipe González’s PSOE. ese elections are “considered (…) as the denitive sign of the end of the Transition” (Tranche, 2016: 113).
doxa.comunicación | nº 37, pp. 87-111 | 93July-December of 2023Samuel García-Gil and Patricia Zamora-MartínezISSN: 1696-019X / e-ISSN: 2386-3978 –In contrast, the 2019 10 November elections were a repeat election. e PSOE won the previous elections on 28 April. Still, the incumbent governnment presided by Pedro Sánchez called the polls again, given its inability to obtain sucient su-pport for the investiture. For this extraordinary situation, the electoral campaign was reduced to eight days. ese two events have been chosen as a way of approaching this eld, which provides guidance on how the evolution of the radio medium may have aected the performance of radio debate. Considering the rst electoral debate (1980) as the antecedent of Cadena Catalana (Munsó, 2006), we start from this to establish two extremes of time to compare the rst and the last general elections since then. We include debates between presidential candidates and between representatives of political parties to broaden the eld of study. e general objective is specied in three specic objectives. –SO1. To nd out the format of the electoral debates broadcasted on radio, particularly their duration, topics, guests and participation. –SO2. To explore how the debates broadcast throughout Spain developed through the role of moderators and the audience. –SO3. To compare the possible similarities and dierences between the 1982 and 2019 state broadcast debates with an im-pact on the inuence of digital radio.Based on these objectives, the following research hypotheses are proposed: –H1. In the 1982 and 2019 elections, the radio brought together the heads of electoral lists or candidates for the Presidency to debate, given their obvious public interest. –H2. e debates produced in 1982 led to more active and direct audience participation than those of 2019. –H3. Broadcasting localised debates in 2019 mimicked more television features than in 1982, in line with today’s “radio that can be seen”.2. MethodA quantitative analysis (content analysis) and a qualitative analysis (semi-structured interview) were carried out to address the objectives and respond to the hypotheses. By combining these methods, the results could be compared more easily, guaranteeing the reliability of the research as a whole (Martínez, 2005; Varela, 2014).Firstly, the content analysis method was used because of its ability to examine communicative messages systematically, objectively and quantitatively (Berelson, 1952; Wimmer and Dominick, 2010; Rie et al., 1998). As the two periods are so far apart, the search for information to form the research corpus has been adapted to each study period. For the compilation of data on the 1982 debates, the primary sources used were the newspaper archives of three general newspapers in Madrid (ABC, El País and Diario 16) and one in Barcelona (La Vanguardia), which were selected because of the wide circulation and proven relevance as opinion shapers (Reguero, 2018: 16-17). In addition, the search was completed with the weekly magazine Tele-Radio, RTVE’s ocial medium. e press search covers news or opinions of the radio coverage of the general elections and the advertising spaces broadcasters hired to promote their special programming.
94 | nº 37, pp. 87-111 | July-December of 2023Debates on the airwaves. Electoral talk shows on the radio: comparison between Spain’s 1982 and 2019 general electionsISSN: 1696-019X / e-ISSN: 2386-3978doxa.comunicaciónFor the 2019 elections, searches were carried out in the digital newspaper libraries of ABC and El País and on radio station’s websites, using key words and tags such as “radio”, the name of the broadcasters and “general elections”. In particular, the four most listened-to general radio stations at the time, according to the Estudio General de Medios (EGM), were consulted: Cadena SER, Cadena COPE, Onda Cero and RNE8; in addition, the publications related to electoral debates on the Twitter proles of the four radio stations within the time frame analysed were also examined.e study period includes the campaign, reection and voting days of each election call, plus the three working days before and after. erefore, in the rst case, they run from 1 to 31 October 1982; in the second, they cover 29 October to 13 November 2019 (Image 2). e 2019 electoral rerun reduced the number of campaign days, so the second period is shorter than the rst.Image 2. Research study periodsSource: created by the authorsAll the data have been used to complete an original analysis comprising three categories and fourteen variables (Table 1). e rst block focuses on the broadcast’s recording data, considered a fundamental dimension when coding: the second refers to the periodicity of the broadcast –“regular content”– is understood as that which is broadcast regularly and has several broadcasts. At the same time, “specials” are aired on a one-o basis without any expected continuity. Finally, the third section 8 According to the second wave of the 2019 EGM, Cadena SER had 3,966,000 daily listeners; Cadena COPE, 2,926,000 listeners; Onda Cero, 1,807,000; and RNE, 1,174,000 (AIMC, 2019).
doxa.comunicación | nº 37, pp. 87-111 | 95July-December of 2023Samuel García-Gil and Patricia Zamora-MartínezISSN: 1696-019X / e-ISSN: 2386-3978 deals with formal and descriptive aspects. e book of variables was developed using the ve characteristics that Sánchez Aranda (2005) considers essential to correctly dene the categories of any code: “mutual exclusion” allows us to dierentiate the variables formulated: “homogeneity”, to establish standard criteria when selecting each sample unit: “relevance”, to identify the best variables for analysis; “clarity”, to eliminate doubts about the term used among dierent people, and “productivity”, to think about what the most enriching aspects for establishing conclusions are. Table 1. Analysis sheetBROADCAST-Broadcaster or radio station-Starting day-Start time-Duration-Programme titlePERIODICITY-Regular or special content-One or more broadcasts/transmissionsFORMAT-eme(s)-Guests-Moderator-Place-Public presence at the debate-Listener participation-OthersSource: created by the authorsOn the other hand, semi-structured interviews were conducted with the moderators of the debates found –and, therefore, limited to the radio station’s professionals that produced this genre–. is technique makes it possible to collect data on the object of study in real-time and to introduce new questions that had not been contemplated in the script to clarify terms, ambiguities and formalisms with the interlocutor (Denzin and Lincoln, 2005; Hesse and Leavy, 2011; Díaz-Bravo et al., 2013). Its exible nature has contributed to it being the most common method in social research, guaranteeing a desired level of depth. Once the hemerographic search had been completed and the electoral debate programmes broadcasted at the national level had been identied –in line with the second specic objective and the verication of the second hypothesis– their moderators were interviewed: the journalists Miguel Ángel Nieto González9 (Tertulias electorales in Antena 3 de Radio, 1982) and Antonio Herráiz Ayuso10 (Debates COPE: El voto útil, 2019). e interviews were conducted via telephone on 2 and 9 November 2022, 9 In 1982, Miguel Ángel Nieto directed the news programme El Primero de la mañana on Antena 3 Radio.10 In 2019, Antonio Herráiz directed the news programme Mediodía COPE on Cadena COPE.
96 | nº 37, pp. 87-111 | July-December of 2023Debates on the airwaves. Electoral talk shows on the radio: comparison between Spain’s 1982 and 2019 general electionsISSN: 1696-019X / e-ISSN: 2386-3978doxa.comunicaciónand the questionnaire script was organised into three sections. e rst focused on the management and previous production of the broadcast; the second dealt with the technical questions of the format, and the third addressed the development and result, highlighting the role of the moderator and the listeners.e Debates COPE… of 2019 were available on YouTube and viewed beforehand; however, it was impossible to locate recordings of the 1982 Tertulias electorales. e absence of sound recordings is a limitation of radio research, as until the end of the 20th century, “broadcasters (…) used to get rid of most of their sound archives after the legal period” of preservation (Marcos et al., 2018: 665-666).3. Results In this section, the results obtained from the content analysis are presented rst, followed by the results of the interviews.3.1. Results of the content analysis3.1.1. October 1982 electionse 1982 October election campaign gave rise to numerous special programmes. Among them, a prominent presence of debates and colloquiums on local or regional radio stations has been identied. One example was Especial elecciones 82 (Election Special 82), on Radio España de Madrid, from 4 October to 26 October, Monday to Friday, from 6 to 7pm. is “informative news programme”, with 17 “colloquiums”, invited the political parties represented in Madrid and occasionally, other parties “to be designated for each programme, enriching its content” (ABC, 1982a: 72). Each day, it dealt with an in-depth topic, from health and education to culture and the environment11. Daniel Vindel moderated these debates, which were prepared by eight people headed by its director Fulgencio Sánchez12. e advertising for the special (Image 3) appealed to the listeners as they could participate by asking candidates questions on the telephone.11 e “discussion” dealt with the following themes: presentation (days 4 and 5): culture (day 6), interior and public order (day 7), international relations (8), territorial administration-autonomy (11), environment and quality of life-ecology (12), health and social security (13), education and university (14), transport, tourism, and communications (15), Armed Forces (18), public works and housing (19), work (20), economy and the Treasury (21), agriculture, shing and food (22), justice, abortion and divorce (25) and summary and closure (day 26) (Diario 16, 1982: 8).12 Information provided to this research by Francisco Vela Teruel, editor of the radio station in 1982 (F. Vela, personal communication, 9 November 2022).