The configuration of the democratic Valencianist press (1976-1987)

Abstract

The end of Franco’s repressive system against Valencia’s culture built up a favorable environment for the development of the Catalan-language press. During Spain’s democratic transition and in the first autonomous regional legislature, between 1976 and 1987, 112 magazines published in Catalan or in bilingual format with preferred use of this language made their appearance in Valencia, forming the first Valencianist press of the democratic period. To analyze this press, we carried out research on thirteen newspaper libraries and archives. This allowed a statistical study of the sector to determine its characteristics. One of the conclusions of this paper is that these publications did not consolidate a normalized market in terms of readers or advertising, nor were they decisive in linguistic normalization. These media encountered many political and economic difficulties in a historical context muddled by the so-called “Battle of Valencia” and the conservative regionalism known as Blaverisme, which questions the unity of the Catalan language and its normalization.

KEYWORDS: new Valencianism, Valencian identity, political autonomy, Battle of Valencia, minority language, linguistic normalization.