Las portadas de "ABC" de la Primera Guerra Mundial como fuente documental y fotoperiodística

Abstract

First World War left a before and after in the History of Journalism both written and graphic. Newspapers became an essential object for millions of families whose sons left to war. People of the belligerent nations became interested in the official reports about the front lines that hardly ever announced the death casualties. Therefore the press became an essential means of manipulation of society to ensure their support for a never ending conflict. European media companies had to face strong investments in correspondents and had to hire services from news agencies to obtain information beyond official channels. Historians, especially anglosaxon, have recognized the effort of many newspapers that informed about the War. Their columns, photographies and graphics have been saved and analized as a primary documentary source to narrate WWI’s current events. The Spanish Press however, wasn’t recognized for its efforts to inform about the War, although there was a newspaper called ABC that had set up their own column network, hired different news service agencies to obtain photographies and tried to publish their own perspective of the War, despite lacking economic resources. Moreover, ABC drew daily maps of the conflict and end up publishing more than one thousand covers about WWI from the beginning to the end of the conflict. The purpose of this work research is one, to demonstrate how the covers of The ABC newspaper were a valuable primary source of WWI and secondly, to give recognition for contributing to the reinforcement of photojournalism..