Research and Communication in Spain's Historical Nationalities: Languages and Objects of Study in Doctoral Dissertations from Catalonia, Galicia and the Basque Country (2018-2024)

Objectives: This article uses the R&D database "Research in Communication at Spanish Universities: Innovation, Continuity, and International Projection in the MapCom Program from 2019 to 2027 (MapCom 3)" to identify languages and objects of study used in doctoral dissertations. The paper also seeks to examine the intersection of these variables with factors related to scope and territoriality in Communication Doctoral Programs of Catalonia, Galicia, and the Basque Country. The research aims to determine how many PhD dissertations reflect the linguistic and thematic characteristics of categories related to the notion of Historical Nationalities. Methodology: The methodology will be exploratory and aims to extract results that reveal whether university Research in Communication, in the three aforementioned Autonomous Communities, shows signs of nationalist and linguistic identity. A quantitative content analysis design was used on a total corpus of 322 doctoral theses in Communication defended at universities in Catalonia, the Basque Country, and Galicia during 2019–2024. The temporal limitation stems from the ongoing project and, therefore, the sample data recorded up to the specified timeframe. Results: The three territories converge on the structural logic that subordinates the local language and identity themes to the local scope of the research topics, and on the dominance of Spanish as the language of extra-regional production. Originality: This is a novel approach to Meta-research in Communication in Spain, which joins other studies carried out in this field and, on this occasion, incorporates identity and linguistic practices as its main contribution.