Exoplanets and their increasing visibility as news items in the newspapers ABC and El Mundo (1990-2018)

Abstract

The Internet is involved in an ongoing reconfiguration of new spaces for communication and fresh opportunities for scientific divulgation. The national press, such as ABC and EL MUNDO, have managed to migrate together towards the digital environment. This environment offers greater prominence to issues related to the discovery of extrasolar planets. This research demonstrates that these planetary objects are the protagonists of the great discoveries that Astronomy made in the last decade of the 20^th century, from the discovery of the first being published in the press to the over 4000 extrasolar planets known today. The media, in their work to communicate these astronomical discoveries, have developed their capacity to provide greater news coverage. This paper studies the changes in news items on exoplanets published in the print editions of the  ABC and EL MUNDO, from 1990 to 2014, and compares this coverage with that which can be counted in the digital editions of these media on extrasolar planets from 2001 to 2018. These newspapers are found to have increased the number of items published  in their digital versions relative to the printed ones. This work shows that these newspapers have developed greater interest in communicating discoveries in astronomy.