Far Removed From Heteronormativity: Marriage and Same-Sex Couples in a Spanish TV News Program (2011–2020)

Abstract

The news media have acted as a key tool for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, asexual, and other people to achieve new rights but, traditionally, have also acted as drivers of heteronormativity. Studies of same-sex marriage news coverage have centered on studying the journalistic treatment of social and political debates about its legalization. Fifteen years after such marriages were legalized in Spain, this work aims to examine whether same-sex couples appear in TV news that cover the institution of marriage by performing a content analysis of the news broadcast by Spain’s public television broadcaster (Televisión Española or TVE) between 2011 and 2020. The results reveal that such coverage barely makes same-sex couples visible for two reasons: They have never been heard from as sources, and they are sometimes explicitly excluded by the employed discourse, which favors a heteronormative approach.