This thesis analyzes the information published on the Gypsy community from the beginning of our democracy to the present day in the Spanish broadsheets, the most steadfastly influential and significant press, often referred to as the “quality press”. The journalistic representation of the Gypsies is the key involved in spreading the most prevalent socio-cultural image of the Gypsies. My aim is to understand –after an eternity of presence and coexistence, and then of constitutionally establishing that all Spaniards are ‘equal’ before the law– how far newspapers have played an influential role in a particularly obscure situation. This prejudice is largely transmitted via discourse. According to Van Dijk, discourse can become an influential type of discriminatory practice. The symbolic elites (including the newspapers publishers and senior journalists), those that hold sway over discourse within the society, are a current example of groups that are involved in cases of abuse of power or domination. These prejudices are acquired and are usually learned through communication and, therefore, negatively biased regard from us to them. The Gypsies are The Others because they have lived with Us group for centuries, but again and again throughout the ages, have never been like us. Looking at all this, the concern is how the most influential elements of the press have behaved in the representation of the Gypsies as an ethnic group? My hypothesis suggests that the quality press, as part of the major media, has failed to represent Gypsies in a fair and balanced way. Taking into account the importance of this section of the press, the impact of its opinion and its power as part of the economic and ideological elite, if there had been real objectivity in the social representation of this ethnic group, Gypsies would be perceived in a fairer way these days. Because the perception of the Gypsies is still so negative, I believe that the parameters of press quality, of social ethics and the consideration owed to the minorities, which the major papers presume to pursue, have not been applied. My research is mainly based on the analysis of a corpus of data from which I to extract reliable conclusions. As my aim is to analyse the period from the consolidation of democracy in Spain, I have divided the larger historical context into periods of special significance that I felt were representative. I have arrived at a division into seven two-year periods which are relevant, for different reasons, for the media representation of the group in order to analyse what has been published. The first period includes the years 1981-1982 and the last period includes the years 2009-2010, an important period due to its being marked by the expulsion of the Romani people from Eastern Europe by the then French President, Sarkozy that it generated a great deal of media coverage in Spain. In order to offer a wide coverage of the news, I chose three daily newspapers that were present in this entire era (, and that have been significant from a journalistic point of view but also socio-economically, ideologically and politically. This first is El Pais, centre-left newspaper that has occasionally undergone ideological changes; the second is ABC, the most classic and conservative media outlet, which is usually identified with the positions of the centre-right or right-wing; and finally, La Vanguardia, a centre based media outlet. I have selected texts of various kinds –both subjective and informative– that exceed the length of a short news item, and that contain the word gitano, gitana, gitanos o gitanas (Gypsy and Gypsies in Spanish language) in the headline, introduction, subheading or caption. Once the texts were gathered, I decided to carry out an analysis both from a quantitative and qualitative approach. For the qualitative approach, I will choose those that, due to their length, structural importance, or location within the newspaper, could be considered especially appropriate and representative. So, these articles –21 in all–, one per broadsheet and period, will be analysed. But I aimed for greater depth in the analysis of these texts. What I am interested in are those aspects which are not so obvious, what is not seen on the surface or can be glimpsed using mere quantitative data. To do this, I have used the research approach known as Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) which due to its heterodoxy, and its suitability for the analysis of discourses containing discriminatory discourse is particularly appropriate for my research. In my case, I have chosen categories taken from the Discourse-Historical Approach (DHA) of Ruth Wodak and collaborators, that places great importance on the historical perspective of texts, and their evolution. We will focus on the part of the DHA that deals with detecting certain common discursive strategies in texts which have an impact on the public and which are based on two main patterns: a positive self-presentation of Us and a negative presentation of the Others (that includes the Gypsy group). I analyse a set of common strategies in discriminatory discourse with discursive categories inherent to the ideological analysis of texts referring to minorities (from the work of Van Dijk) looking for a complete journalistic account on how Gypsies are represented as a group. Taking all this into account, we come to the conclusion that the delegitimization of the Gypsies as The Others is usual. But each newspaper is different in some aspects: El País is more progressive and condescending towards the exogroup: La Vanguardia moves in a contradictory direction in order to serve its editorial interests and policies; ABC acts normally in an aggressively reactionary fashion regarding the Gypsies. The major newspapers analyzed are Media which we should use if we are more interested in dominant ideologies and discourses –and stereotypes contained therein- rather than marginal voices such as those of the Gypsies. And a miserable and negative racial-image of the ethnic group has been the most widely used, contrary to what is expected of the most important newspapers that are identified with the informational rigor, social respect and journalistic quality.Esta tesis analiza la representación de los gitanos como grupo en la prensa diaria española de referencia. La población gitana proviene de la India y está presente en España desde el siglo XV. Sin embargo, hoy, seis siglos después, un gitano que no encaja en un estereotipo de degradación social –o de artista - no es considerado gitano, algo que se ha agravado con la llegada de gitanos de Europa del Este. En suma, el estereotipo de que los gitanos son individuos oscuros y retrasados, y de que lo son además voluntariamente (sin que medie racismo) es aún muy grande. La hipótesis de trabajo de la tesis apunta hacia que la prensa de referencia española no ha cumplido en la representación de los gitanos el papel de rigor periodístico que se puede esperar de los grandes periódicos. A causa de la importancia de esta prensa y de la imposición de su mirada, si hubiera habido un rigor real en su representación de la etnia, la imagen de los gitanos como grupo sería hoy percibida de un modo poco sesgado. La tesis tiene una estructura donde el análisis del corpus de datos soporta el peso principal. Se disponen siete períodos de dos años, en los que el primero comprenderá los años 1981-1982 y el último, 2009-2010. En relación a este seguimiento, he escogido tres diarios presentes en toda esta época. Se trata de El País, ABC, y La Vanguardia. El análisis aplicado utiliza primero herramientas informáticas cuantitativas validadas internacionalmente. Se aborda luego un análisis cualitativo que busca en primer lugar cuáles son los temas (unidades de significado) con mayor cobertura periodística. Luego, se escogen los textos que, por su importancia estructural, van a resultar especialmente representativos (21 en total). Analizamos más tarde y en profundidad la construcción interior de esos textos. La investigación recurre para ello a la corriente investigadora del lenguaje en uso conocida como Análisis Crítico del Discurso (ACD). Adaptamos categorías tomadas del Enfoque Histórico-Discursivo (EHD) de Wodak y colaboradores. Señalaremos estrategias discursivas que se basan en la auto-presentación positiva del grupo de Nosotros y en una presentación negativa de los gitanos como Los Otros. Observamos también recursos discursivos comunes en textos mediáticos con carga ideológica sobre minorías (según la obra de Van Dijk). Los resultados del análisis confirmarán que la deslegitimación de los gitanos como Los Otros es muy regular, y que no se reconoce que exista racismo hacia ellos. No obstante, vemos variaciones: El País aparece más progresista y condescendiente en la representación étnica; La Vanguardia se mueve en sentidos contradictorios en esa representación (según intereses editoriales); y ABC se muestra cíclicamente agresivo con los gitanos en conexión con los temores sociales más conservadores. Observaremos que los diarios analizados en esta tesis son fuentes obvias a las que recurrir si uno está más interesado en ideología y discurso dominantes –que en las voces al margen (como la de los gitanos). Y que una imagen discursiva problemática, ligada a miserias y negativamente étnica ha resultado la más potenciada.