People are denied access to Basque culture. Although they are mainly in Spanish, most of the citizens who are consumers of various media in the Basque Country know Basque, there is no doubt, and data from CIES confirm this – 51% of the readers of El Correo speak in Basque, 73% of El Diario Vasco, 90% of Naiz. But the media in Spanish and Basque draw very different cultural landscapes. A people are denied Basque culture, and many Castilian speakers live without contact with Basque culture.

The result is evident: in the media entirely in Basque, seven of the ten creators that appeared most in 2023 work exclusively in Basque, while in Spanish, three in ten do so in Basque, but none in Basque. In the bilingual ones, the eighth place of the top-10 is occupied by Harkaitz Cano; in the Basque ones, the top-10 is ordained by Joseba Sarrionandia, Harkaitz Cano, Mikel Laboa and Esti Urresola. Among the names that are repeated in both lists is Urresola, which is no coincidence, as 20,000 species of bees had a general reputation last year.

The research group NOR presented in the third edition of the Educating in Creativity, living in culture, organized by the Transmission Group of Cultural Creation that emerged around the UEU and supported by public institutions, a new report that has emerged from the oven entitled The presence of culture in the Basque media. The event was held at the San Agustin cultural centre in Azpeitia (Gipuzkoa).

24.246 contents of “Culture” in 2023

The report was prepared by the members of the NOR research group of the UPV/EHU and was prepared by the coordinator of the Basque Media Observatory, Libe Mimenza, of the NOR group, accompanied by Naroa Burreso and Ane Martínez. As Mimenza said, a question was taken as a starting point: What media space do Basque body builders have in Euskal Herria?

A total of 11 media outlets in Euskal Herria have carried out an analysis of the landscape mapped in 2023. The digital exhibition work of the Culture section of ARGIA 2023 has been analyzed, as well as the following media: Berria, Arabako Alea, Goiena, Kazeta, Naiz, El Correo, El Diario Vasco, Noticias de Navarra and Eitb.eus.

A total of 24,246 contents were published last year in the Culture sections of the media. Of these, 8,500 went to Euskera and 15,700 went to Spanish. In percentage, about 35% in Basque, 65% in Spanish. Of the analyzed media, the most part published was El Correo, and the least, Kazeta.

In the Corpus CHRISTI a work has been carried out to attract cultural entities and creators of the Basque culture. It's a revealing fact. Of the 9,532 agents presented, 5,637 correspond to the Basque Country, around 60%. It is an interesting headline, that band of media that in the media framework of the Basque Country exist, offers a wide margin to external cultural productions, 40% of the total pieces of the Culture section. So, here it is locked in and stretches out the outside, while no one stretches out the outside here.

In the research work, the decision of the moment of production must be taken into account: in a single medium of communication, cultural agents published only once are excluded. The rest inside, provided that it is a production carried out in the Basque Country.

Predominance of music and literature

Of the 5,637 creators of the Basque culture that appeared in the media, almost 92% worked in a discipline or, rather, in a discipline. Those who act on more than one occasion are, in general, the bertsolaris.

Broadly speaking, the NOR report has given some keys to highlighting. By far, in both Basque and Spanish, musicians have the most presence in the media, followed by literary creators and film and audiovisual creators.

It must be borne in mind that, in absolute terms, there are more literary creators than musicians – the data confirm that this is the case in their presence in the media – but musicians play a greater role. They have also pointed out that bertsolaris are fewer in number, but that the level of appearance is very high. At the other end are the plastic arts and the performing arts.

Before mentioned El Correo y Kazeta in the number of pieces, but a rapprochement is necessary. And that's that Kazeta gives a lot of space to the bertsolaris, and El Correo, relatively small. This marks the way, as in other cases the presence of bertsolaris is relatively higher in the Basque media, as well as in the Basque versions of the bilingual media. In the contents in Spanish there is no bertsolarism, hardly. Eitb.eus is the exception, as the Basque and Spanish versions are very similar.

In the case of Naiz, they note that there is a big difference. In the articles in Basque, all the people who have had a presence in the culture do something in Basque, and eight out of ten do it only in Basque. On the contrary, as for the Spanish content, the graph is shown as El Correo.

In El Diario Vasco, they do not even match the contents, let alone. There is no promoter dedicated exclusively to Euskera on the Spanish-language pages, but always in Euskera. And the vast majority of those who appear in Spanish are dedicated exclusively to Spanish. It is curious that the most repeated name in the Culture section of El Diario Vasco is Julian Iantzi.

Set of four point conclusions

At the end of the presentation, Mimenza has completed the list of elect for the grand final. The first conclusion has been the evidence of intuition: "The media in Basque and bilingual, as it has become clear, represent different cultural and cultural landscapes of the Basque Country. The media in Basque give more importance to creations in Basque and the media in Spanish little". He has given significant examples of this in Naiz, El Correo, Diario Vasco and Noticias de Navarra. In fact, in the Basque versions of these media there is a presence, more or less, of the Basque and the body builders who work in Euskera, but they are rejected in the Spanish articles, "to the point of getting closer to the caricature". "Traction vs Brake (or at least neutralization)," says Mimenza.

The second conclusion is that in this series of eleven media, about 40% of the articles of culture were of external culture. Mimenza clearly said: "Our media, especially bilingual media, are generators of culture from outside," he added.

Third: You can't select a culture that's not transmitted. It's the second evidence that gets to intuition. "There is a potential audience that is not receiving Basque culture, but is not given food, is not taught," the rapporteur concluded.

And finally, the assignment to the Basque media: "Reality has changed, but we seem to be talking about old cartographies," said the director of the Capitol. In other words, the research team considers that the media do not know their current audiences well and that they are still working for the socio-linguistic reality that existed 40 years ago.

"It is time to project the communication system, the cultural system, later in the present, to begin to map what we are, so that dead culture, rather than living culture, triumphs," concludes Libe Mimenza.