ABSTRACT
Local media policies do not always respond to the needs and demands of local news media and the local communities in which they operate. In some cases, such as Catalonia, local media policies are strongly mediated by national and state interests. Local news media have played a key role in Catalonia’s nation-building project and successive Catalan governments have subsequently developed different local media policies. This chapter analyses the elements at play in the development of local media policies in Catalonia. It explores the interplay of a multi-level political system, with competing nation-building projects in the aftermath of a dictatorship. The analysis shows a powerful policy intervention in the local media sector mediated by both the clash of two nation-building projects (Spanish and Catalan) and partisan interests that have shaped the Catalan local media landscape for four decades.
