Los debates electorales, ¿el último reducto frente la mediatización? Un estudio de caso de las elecciones generales españolas de 2015

The Mediatization of politics reaches its maximum expression with electoral campaigns, in which political actors strive to launch their persuasive messages to the public, in order to reach and, ultimately, convince the voters. This article aims to analyze the political discourse in the electoral debates televised during the 2015 Spanish Presidential Elections. The objective of the analysis is to observe which topics stood out during the political actors’ interventions and to determine if mediatization affects the content of the electoral debates, or if, on the contrary, these spaces remain as forums for the detailed discussion of various public policy issues. For this purpose, we propose an analysis of content based on seventy categories of analysis, grouped in four blocks: policy issues, political issues, campaign issues and personal issues. The results clearly indicate that sectoral policy matters control the political discourse; therefore, electoral debates, despite the reach of mediatization, still constitute spaces for detailed exposition and the confrontation of public policies.