The press in Catalonia: between the digital challenge and nation building

© The Author(s) 2014. This article discusses the challenges facing the Catalan press in a context marked by the digitization and by a political process that demands independence. The media landscape in Catalonia is populated by media produced at Spanish level and at Catalan level, and this applies to the press, radio and television. Mainstream paid-for newspapers, available to the citizens of Catalonia produced at a national, regional, local or state level, whether written in Catalan or Spanish merit discussion. This kind of press is the most influential in the shaping of Catalonian public opinion and therefore plays a central role in the political debate on independence. In this context, newspapers in Catalonia are facing the crisis of the print-only business model and falling revenues from a declining readership base and the subsequent fall of advertising revenue. To face this problem, newspaper publishers are throwing themselves into digital strategies (web, tablet, mobile phones).