Analysis of the different communicative approaches adopted by different television networks.

The principal aim of this research is to identify the differences in the co mmunicative approaches adopted by different television networks when relayi ng the same news item. In a more specific sense, a comparative study of tel evision news bulletins was carried out in order to: analyse variations in e xpressing the news item; establish categories in order to compare the news content of the different networks; analyse the relative importance of each news item in relation to the global content as regards duration; study the relationship between the time given to the news on each network, and determ ine whether or not the duration of news items varies in accordance with the treatment given by each network. The main procedure applied in this resear ch is content analysis as this technique allows us to pass from purely verb al data (news items), using observational techniques (video recordings of t he news bulletins of the different networks), to its division into categori es (quantification) with a view to classifying the same for posterior analy sis and interpretation. Some indicators which are specific to expression an alysis were selected in order to analyse the formal plane, such as T.T.R. ( type token ratio), redundancy and discourse style and, to complement the co ntent analysis, quantative analysis techniques (ANOVA, MANOVA and log-linea r analysis) were also used. This last technique allowed us to observe possi ble differences in the average duration allotted to each news item by the d ifferent television networks and evaluate whether or not this variation in duration also implied a difference in the treatment of the news item. The r esults produced comparative and global information, per television network, on the indicators revealing discourse style as well as general computation s of the different gramatical categories and textual units used. Furthermor e, they show interesting divergencies between the television networks as we ll as giving clues as to the motives behind the Variations in the treatment of the news items.