The representation of touristification in media through mapping: the case of Malaga

Abstract The touristification agenda has had considerable representation in the media in recent years because of tourism specialisation in cities. Existing literature has focused on using content analysis; however, previous content analyses have not typically been mapped. The main objectives were to conduct an in-depth measurement of urban tourism issues covered in the press and the stakeholders involved, but spatially. To show the spatial representation of touristification, Malaga is used as a case study as it is an emerging tourist city. The article analyses the content of 166 news items on touristification in Malaga published in the most-read local newspapers up to and including the year 2020. Data categorised were mapped to assign a sum of news articles about touristification issues at neighbourhood level. Density mapping shows a common pattern for each category: an over-representation of the city centre and a reduction in the number of news items per neighbourhood as we move away from the old town. A Pearson correlation coefficient shows a high spatial correlation between neighbourhoods in the press with several citizen initiatives geolocated on them. A spatial analysis shows where the negative impacts of tourism intensification happen, which may serve as a basis for the local administrations to develop an urban policy to safeguard residential use in those neighbourhoods under tourism pressure. This work serves as a basis for new research on touristification: the addition of case studies to identify common urban patterns and the definition of a social conflict index through the geolocation of the stakeholders involved.

The representation of touristification in media through mapping: the case of Malaga A representação da touristificação nos meios de comunicação através da cartografia: o caso de Málaga

Introduction
The paradigm shift in communication due to digitalisation has changed human interactions over recent decades (Arjona-Martín;Méndiz-Noguero;Victoria-Mas, 2020), and these relationships are taking place in a highly complex and continuously evolving scenario (Kim;Kang;Lee, 2021).Moreover, 'cyberculture' and its influence on social practices are predominant in the current context (Durmus, 2021;Lévy, 2007;Turner, 2021).Thus, media ecology has evolved towards message convergence and dissemination through different broadcasting nodes, which sometimes leads citizens to increase their participation and raise levels of democratic involvement (Jenkins;Ford;Green, 2013;Kobayashi;Ikeda;Miyata, 2006;Viché González, 2018).However, these changes occur in the classical public sphere simultaneously with the digital one (Dahlgren, 2018).These spheres overlap and alternate and, in the resulting mix, the former continues to be characterised by the power of mainstream media and the shaping of public opinion (Benkler, 2015;Matthes, 2012).In this regard, media discourse aims to address both audiences including the political one, showing the strong and reciprocal influence of all spheres involved (Aruguete, 2017).
Open access information is a democratic feature (Suárez-Villegas et al., 2017), so the existence of media resources apart from large communication conglomerates contributes to democracy (Roel;Lafuente, 2005).Moreover, with the advent of the digital press or 'cybermedia' (Mayoral Sánchez;Abejón Mendoza;Morata Santos, 2016), not only have traditional media been forced to update their practices but they have also joined social networks to manage content and relate more fluidly and closely with their audiences (Caldera-Serrano;Romo-Fernández;Gómez-Crisóstomo, 2017;Cortés-Campos, 2016).Thus, social networks and digital editions have contributed to increasing public trust in the media, since they promote collaborative spaces for participation in the digital sphere (Lara, 2008;Torres-Martín;Castro-Martínez, 2021).Indeed, the traditional public preference for reliable media to access information has also been maintained during the SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) pandemic due to the high demand for information (Masip et al., 2020), especially from established and long-established sources (Casero-Ripollés, 2020).
The role of the media as 'gatekeepers' (De-León-Vázquez, 2003;White, 1950) makes filtering inevitable to select, prioritise or reject information that is considered newsworthy (Wolf, 1987), thereby deciding de facto what does or does not appear in media coverage.In this context, the agenda-setting theory is applied, which shows how the media influences the population about what they should think in the short term and what issues should be relevant to public opinion (McCombs;Valenzuela, 2021).In this regard, the well-known agenda-building process is how those themes become part of the public debate.Eilders (1997) argues that if an issue is considered significant, it must achieve a high level of congruence in several media so that they all focus on the same topic similarly.This approach is related to framing theory, which is based on the idea that the news frames the shape and condition in which events are presented through messages, establishing which news stories dominates and which does not (Muñiz, 2020;Semetko;Valkenburg, 2000;Vreese, 2005).
The presence of social movements has proliferated in the digital public sphere over the past few years.Nevertheless, only when the channelling of their demands is effective outside the digital space does it produce real recognition by the administration, so they must gain recognition as part of the public sphere (Sosa Valcarcel;Galarza Fernández;Castro-Martínez, 2019).When movements manage to make themselves public in the media, public protests are, arguably, not an effective way of communicating their demands (Smith et al., 2001).To address this, they can be planted in public opinion using other strategies to obtain coverage and communicate their messages and demands.
Urban tourism has been one of the most widely covered topics in newspapers around the world in recent years (Table 1).The stakeholders involved, such as residents, take issue with the touristification phenomenon (Colomb;Novy, 2017), especially in southern European cities (Sequera;Nofre, 2019).The term 'touristification' refers to the use of public space by tourists and how their demands replace residential use and local trade for peer-to-peer (P2P) accommodation and franchises, respectively (Brossat, 2019;Vollmer, 2019).This has a negative impact on residents due to the growth of tourism in their cities, such as the expulsion of inhabitants in the name of 'tourism gentrification' (Gotham, 2005).Thus, many conflicts and disputes have emerged from defending the right to the city and the local identity of existing urban populations (Blanco-Romero et al., 2019;Calle Vaquero, 2019;Valdivielso;Moranta, 2019).
All of them analyse the journalistic treatment of touristification through their discourse, but it is necessary to have a spatial perspective to identify the urban areas that the press focus on.Although, in this regard, Mínguez, Blanco-Romero and Blázquez-Salom (2022) map the spatial distribution of the number of news items published in the period analysed, the sum of news is desegregated by regions since the study area refers to a country.On a lesser scale, Ley and Teo (2014) map gentrification events reported by one of the newspapers considered in the analysis.However, these stories are represented by points and accounted for by neighbourhoods and districts, it is not possible to identify on a map which event is most news according to the sum of the news that report it.In this regard, it is necessary to define how to map thematic content from newspapers by neighbourhood as a territorial unit.Not only is it important to show which urban areas are reported in the press, but it is also necessary to identify on a map which stakeholders take part in the conflict  of interest because of urban tourism.A few research studies list stakeholders by actors' groups such as residents, market agents or tourists, but it is not shown where they operate through their geolocation (Boager;Castro, 2022;Egio-Rubio;Fernández Toledo, 2020;Grant;Derksen;Ramos, 2019;Guizi;Breda;Costa, 2020;Lehmann et al., 2020).From a territorial perspective, few studies have focused on mapping touristification using newspaper-related content and stakeholders.Such studies would allow an in-depth analysis of the spatial representation of the touristification processes in a city.This is the research gap that serves as a basis for the present work.
The current work presents a methodology that can be used to map touristification content from newspapers by neighbourhoods and identify the actors that take part in the conflict of interest because of overtourism.The main goal is the spatial representation of (1) covered touristification issues that are measured according to the sum of news articles by neighbourhood as territorial unit and (2) stakeholders involved through geolocation.This would help identify urban areas where the negative impacts of tourism intensification take place as well as those with conflicts of interest between the local population and visitors, among other actors.The identification of these issues and actors on a map will allow local administrations to adopt future urban policies to address tourism gentrification in those neighbourhoods at risk of being touristified or under tourism intensification.

Case study
This qualitative study aims to understand the tourism gentrification phenomenon through its representation in local newspapers, using Malaga as a case study because it has experienced a tourism intensification process over the last decade (Chamizo-Nieto et al., 2022a).This tourist destination has three features that explain its touristification process in the urban centre and neighbourhoods close to it (Calle Vaquero, 2019): (1) a low-cost hub airport; (2) a cruise port for large shipping companies; and (3) a wide range of cultural and leisure activities.Thus, these tourist services have been increasing from 2009 to 2019: (1) the total number of air passengers has almost doubled (+170.86%),making Malaga the airport with the fourth highest number of passengers (19,858,656) to Spain in 2019 (Aeropuertos Españoles y Navegación Aérea, 2009, 2019); (2) the city of Malaga rose in the Spanish ranking of quality and innovative cultural offerings from nineteenth to the fourth place (Observatorio de la Cultura, 2009Cultura, , 2019)); and (3) even though the number of cruise passengers has decreased by nearly 10,000 in 2019 (476,973) compared to 2009 (487,955), the port of Malaga ranked in 2019 sixth in the national port ranking: down by just one place after a decade (Puertos del Estado, 2009Estado, , 2019)).

Sample
A few studies have examined a collection of news items from the most-read newspapers according to a media audit (Boager;Castro, 2022;Guizi;Breda;Costa, 2020).Following the work of Egio-Rubio and Fernández Toledo (2020) in the Spanish context, this study is based on the significant impact of print newspapers or Kiosko y Más and Orbit measured in terms of daily readers according to the Asociación para la Investigación de Medios de Comunicación (AIMC, Association for Media Research) media audit.Thus, this research focuses on highly-read local newspapers in Malaga from April 2019 to March 2020 (Table 2).Newspapers with local circulation in Malaga are considered, but not those that cover regional or national news.Moreover, the news articles studies do not belong to a single newspaper to avoid possible editorial bias.The news collection belongs to the newspapers Diario SUR, Málaga hoy and La Opinión de Málaga.It is highlighted that the Diario SUR newspaper ranks first with 148,000 daily readers above national newspapers and with more than twice the impact based on readership of a sports newspaper, which is in second place.It is also pointed out that the La Opinión de Málaga newspaper shares the same impact with one of the national circulations over the same period.Within this selection, sport and economic newspapers have been discarded because the former focus on a specific topic, which does not cover touristification processes, and the latter just works with quantitative data.
Source: own elaboration based on data provided by AIMC.
The collection of news items was carried out using the online archives of the three newspapers selected.The literature review shows current works, which gather news about the topic of research using mainly the keyword 'Airbnb' (Hassanli;Small;Darcy, 2022;Lehmann et al., 2020;Ozdemir;Turker, 2019).Likewise, a few research studies also include other keywords such as 'sharing economy' or 'collaborative consumption' (Ozdemir;Turker, 2019), and 'Uber' (Lehmann et al., 2020).Focusing on the tourism gentrification phenomenon, recent studies consider the keywords 'turistificación' (touristification) (Egio-Rubio; Fernández Toledo, 2020) and 'gentrification' with other related terms using the Boolean operator AND to combine search terms (Adelman;Balta Ozgen;Rabii, 2019;Ley;Teo, 2014).To have a holistic approach to the tourism gentrification phenomenon in the case of Malaga, the following keywords in Spanish were used to search for news: (1) 'turistificación' (touristification); (2) 'gentrificación' (gentrification); and (3) 'apartamentos turísticos' (peer-to-peer accommodation).The last keyword considered is a widely known Spanish term, which focuses on how conventional housing use is replaced by a P2P accommodation model.Moreover, this keyword includes other ones implicitly, such as viviendas turísticas (holiday housing), alquiler turístico (short-term rental) and apartamentos vacacionales (holiday apartments).
A total of 143 pieces of written news were traced that included the keywords considered within the title and body of the news in the historical series up to and including the year 2020.
However, news items that do not offer content in which the tourism theme plays a more central role were excluded from the sample, even if they include at least one keyword.In addition to this first collection, a total of 23 news items have been included in the sample for being cited in the first search and covering the research topic, resulting in a final sample of 166 news items with an uneven quarterly frequency among the three newspapers analysed (Figure 1).The sum of news items could differ depending on the number of newspapers analysed or if the study area is regional or national in scale.However, the total sample collected in Malaga is representative of the city in the selected period considering previous works, which cover locations at different times and variable territorial scales (Table 1).

Content analysis procedure
To explore the main topics covered by the newspapers from Malaga, a dual qualitative and quantitative analysis has been conducted first: (1) an approach to the themes of interest or categories; and (2) general knowledge about the stakeholders involved, identifying those active citizen initiatives that put forward proposals to mediate in the conflict.To do so, the qualitative software Atlas.ti22 was used to store news and to perform content analysis by coding topics and citizen initiatives, thanks to the classification of units of texts, words, phrases, expressions and quotations and even illustrations such as graphs and tables.These categories of analysis were based on those considered in the literature (Table 1), but confined to the context of Malaga.Therefore, coding was carried out to identify the thematic and main subjects discussed in each of the news items collected.Table 3 presents the categories used for analysis and content issues related to each of them as well as the sum of news items in which they are covered.Second, the analysis of the collected and categorised data was mapped through Geographic Information System (GIS; QGIS 3.10) considering the entire municipality of Malaga.In this regard, the neighbourhood is defined as the territorial unit to analyse the representation of touristification in city (N = 417).
Neighbourhoods-polygons shape file posted on an open-data platform from local administration serves as the base geography for data implementation (Ayuntamiento de Málaga, 2020).Thus, (1) categories are mapped according to the neighbourhoods mentioned in the news where the topics appear, and (2) citizen initiatives are geolocated with latitude and longitude coordinates to show where they act over the city, and they were grouped by GIS to assign a sum of listings to each neighbourhood.Moreover, data are stored by neighbourhood in a comprehensive database to define the bivariate correlation between the sums of news articles about touristification that report on each neighbourhood and the number of citizen initiatives geolocated on them.For this purpose, the statistical package IBM SPSS 27 was used to define the Pearson correlation coefficient.

Results and Discussion
Six categories have been assigned to the news items according to the content addressed (Table 3).Moreover, the geographical specificity of the news is considered at the neighbourhood level thanks to the mention of streets, squares, buildings, districts or even neighbourhood names in the news.Content analysis and neighbourhood coding show a total of 95 neighbourhoods with representation in newspapers from the total of 417 making up the entire municipality of Malaga (Table 4).To measure the representation of the touristification categories in the press, a red gradient has been chosen to identify mainstream neighbourhoods by ranges according to the Jenks natural breaks optimisation (Figure 2).R5 and R4 identify those over-represented neighbourhoods with the highest values, whereas R1 has the lowest; R0 refers to those neighbourhoods in the press  which focus on at least one of the six themes' content, but they do not report on a specific category separately.It is highlighted that the historic centre ranks first on the list at the top of news items which report every touristification category.Moreover, the city centre tops the list within the fifth range (R5), but not those neighbourhoods close to it, which are in a lower range (R4).This shows how print media focus on the old town as expected due to this urban area centralising tourist facilities (Chamizo-Nieto et al., 2022a).Additionally, there is a strong and significant correlation (r = 0.812; p < 0.001) between the number of news items which report neighbourhoods and the number of citizen initiatives geolocated there.This suggests that the spatial spread of the debate over the city is dependent on the old town and surrounding neighbourhoods, which allows protest and resistance movements to emerge in those neighbourhoods with tourism intensification (Chamizo-Nieto et al., 2022b).
Focusing on the sample's temporal distribution (Figure 1), it is highlighted that the first news item collected includes the term 'gentrificación' (gentrification) for the first time in Málaga hoy.In this regard, it was not until 8 years later, in 2016, that the selected keywords started to be included in local news articles.Thus, the volume of news articles related to touristification is minimal at the beginning of the period analysed (2008)(2009)(2010)(2011)(2012)(2013)(2014)(2015)(2016), but increases strongly to more than 50% of the total from 2017 until the emergence of COVID-19 in 2020.Simultaneously, the mean length of news items increases according to the mainstream relevance of touristification as a key social issue, especially from April to June 2018, because of several events such as: (1) citizen participation meetings and collaborative urban design in the European context of Integrated Sustainable Urban Development Strategies (ISUDS); (2) regulatory developments for the establishment of a noise pollution limit in several areas of the old town; (3) the demand for a common legislative framework on short-term rentals to regulate Airbnb offerings; and (4) emerging local protests and resistance movements against the rapid rise of P2P accommodation.
All newspapers considered show differences in the number of news items published: La Opinión de Málaga is in first place, with a total of 75 news items, followed by Málaga hoy and Diario SUR, with 55 and 36 articles, respectively.Likewise, a content analysis by categories shows differences in the topic published even spatially (Figure 2).It is pointed out that some topics feature repeatedly in a wide-ranging collection of news items about tourism issues (Table 3): 58.43% on access to housing problems due to the lack of long-term rentals replaced by P2P accommodation (C4).This topic is also related to its regulation (57.23%;D1) to avoid the displacement of inhabitants to the   et al., 2022a), which has also increased the sightseeing attractiveness of franchises in the city centre (Barrera-Fernández;García-Bujalance;Scalici, 2019).This tourism specialisation is also detected in other topics related to, although to a lesser extent, the loss of day-to-day commerce (24.70%;C1).Other newsworthy topics about safeguarding the local identity and culture of residents (E2) and tourist accommodation (D2) stand out with the same newspapers' representation measured in news coverage with a 47.59% frequency.
There is also an ideological use of touristification according to the political narrative, the interests of publishers and the social context at the posted moment (Gin;Taylor, 2010) March of 2020.However, some of the different actors involved provided different narratives from a critical viewpoint on the revival of tourism, but they were under-represented.Thus, from this date until the end of 2020, the critical discourse against tourism issues diminished considerably.Thus, 25 of 41 news items collected focused on a positive outlook in favour of tourism reactivation, whereas 11 were against the return to pre-pandemic tourism in the short term, and 5 were impartial.

Data mapping
To further improve the diagnosis of touristification, categorised data mapping serves to show the differences between topics spatially.Figure 2 maps the six categories defined around touristification issues.Neighbourhoods mentioned in the press (N = 95) are mapped according to the sum of news items, which covers everyone, and they are coloured with a red gradient by ranges according to the Jenks natural breaks optimisation.The mainstream neighbourhood is the old town for all categories (R5), and the surrounding ones are at a lower level (R4).The spatial urban pattern is as follows: there is a decrease in the number of news items per neighbourhood as we move away from the historic centre, but not gradually in the case of the COVID-19 pandemic category.The neighbourhoods around the historic centre are considered a new growth area for sightseeing facilities due to the old town's tourist attractiveness (Chamizo-Nieto et al., 2022a).
One of the most-covered impacts of this specialisation on tourism in this area is the displacement of long-term rentals (97; C4), considering that P2P accommodation is increasing (95; D1) in competition with hotels (79; D2), and all in the context of a process of intensification of tourism (100; E1).Due to this, there is an over-representation of the city centre and neighbourhoods close to it, as shown on the map (see top 7 in Table 4).Likewise, these neighbourhoods belong to the city centre, which contains most of the urban regeneration priority locations (66; B1-3) also widely reported in the press throughout all design phases (Chamizo-Nieto; Nebot-Gómez de Salazar; Rosa-Jiménez, 2020).It is highlighted that not only are newspapers focused on the city centre and surroundings, but they also cover the coastline.However, it is noticed that there is a lesser representation on the waterfront eastwards and some of the outlying neighbourhoods of the old town (R3).It shows where future urban areas of tourism development might lie and where touristification issues might occur far from the city centre and its surroundings.In this regard, the spatial representation of the touristification process over the city not only displays where issues happen, but also shows new areas as 'gentrification mainstream' (Holm, 2013)

Conclusion
Media visualise and legitimise claims in the eyes of the public.This source is mainly considered in communication studies, but the present work serves to promote further research with the press also from the perspective of urban studies.Within the context of urban tourism, the press focuses on the touristification agenda in those tourist destinations with considerable tourism intensification, especially in the city centre.Based on content analysis, categorised data mapping may serve as a basis for the local administration to identify urban areas under touristification and elaborate urban policies to tackle this phenomenon.Moreover, mapping citizen initiatives shows the different actors involved in the tourist city.The spatial correlation between the sum of news items by neighbourhood about touristification and active citizen initiatives located in shows where the negative impacts of urban tourism happen and reveals the need to regulate tourism intensification and safeguard residential use.In this regard, the identification of the stakeholders involved can be used for new research on indicator systems to measure urban areas undergoing touristification, including the definition of a social conflict index.Spatial content analysis using most-read local newspapers is presented as a method to locate where touristification issues spread and shows not only urban areas under tourism intensification, but also new ones in progress.In this regard, local newspapers provide qualitative information that can be quantified through GIS mapping.This geospatial information shows how the touristification phenomenon covered in the press spreads over the city: which areas are over-represented, how they relate to each other spatially, where the negative impacts of tourism happen and which new places are at risk of being touristified.
, as shown by discourse analysis in Malaga.Thus, the most-read local newspapers' coverage of local tourism development is controversial, as 55 news articles are in favour, whereas 94 are against, and 17 of the sample do not take an explicit position on the debate.It is highlighted that the COVID pandemic affected discourse narratives in Malaga and in the rest of Spain(Mínguez; Blanco-Romero;   Blázquez-Salom, 2022).The declaration of a state of alarm brought in healthcare measures such as the lockdown of the population, closed borders and suspension of any non-essential activity.It generated different narratives of economic reactivation due to the dependence on tourism and the adoption of health guarantees for promoting COVID-free destinations.Like the Barcelona press (González-Reverté; Soliguer-Guix, 2022), these messages in the journalistic narrative were also reflected in the most-read newspapers of Malaga from the start of the state of alarm-14 th because of urban tourism.Focusing on the citizen initiatives (Figure3), 229 are represented in the most-read local newspapers batched by stakeholder groups, such as neighbourhood associations and emerging platforms.However, 153 are located in the municipality of Malaga and 88 of them are active according to their proposals posted in the press to tackle touristification.Notably, there is a strong positive correlation between the representation of neighbourhoods in the press according to the sum of news articles that report them and the number of active citizen initiatives located there (r = 0.777; p < 0.001), which seems to indicate greater activism where negative-growth tourism impacts happen.Nevertheless, this spatial relationship does not occur in those neighbourhoods categorised by R3: those neighbourhoods close to the old town and surroundings and along the coastline.This lesser citizen response in urban areas to the process of touristification could explain the emergence of resistance movements once tourism specialisation is at its peak.

Table 1 -
Studies on touristification through content analysis in newspapers.

Table 1 -
Studies on touristification through content analysis in newspapers.
*The start date analysis and the sum of news items analysed for each newspaper, and in total are shown where data are provided in the cited study.Source: Authors (2022).

Table 2 -
Daily readers in Malaga from April 2019 to March 2020.

Table 3 -
Thematic content of the labels about touristification in Malaga press.
* A news item can cover more than one category or subcategory.Source: Authors (2022).

Table 4 -
Thematic content in the Malaga press about the neighbourhoods covered by newspapers (N = 95/417).

Table 4 -
Thematic content in the Malaga press about the neighbourhoods covered by newspapers (N = 95/417).

Table 4 -
(Ioannides;Röslmaier;van der Zee, 2019;Jover;Díaz-Parra, 2022)covered by newspapers (N = 95/417).'Allcitizeninitiatives'refers to active and non-actives ones.**Anewsitemcan cover more than one category.The neighbourhoods mentioned in the press have been listed according to the sum of news articles covering the defined categories (A-F) in them, with the highest at the top and the lowest at the bottom.Data have been tagged by ranges in a sequential colour code according to the Jenks natural breaks optimisation (Figure2): the lowest values are in white and the highest ones are in red.Source: authors.cityedge(Ioannides;Röslmaier;vander Zee, 2019;Jover;Díaz-Parra, 2022).That issue has been largely influenced by the tourism intensification policies spread across the city for the last decade (60.24%;E1), promoted by the European nomination of Málaga Ciudad de Museos: Donde habita el arte in 2016.Thus, the new cluster of cultural facilities created (Ramos Lizana, 2008) has attracted the Airbnb offer (Chamizo-Nieto *