(2008, 2010, 2012 y 2014). El corpus final incluye 529 artículos firmados por autores adscritos a universidades y centros de investigación españoles, a los que se aplicó una ficha de codificación que, sobre los objetivos atendidos entre trabajo, incluye cinco variables, dos de ellas para dar cuenta de los objetos de estudio y tres sobre los aspectos metodológicos. Los resultados indican que la reciente investigación española sobre comunicación continúa tomando como objeto preferente el estudio del periodismo y la información periodística, y se interesa especialmente por el análisis de los contenidos mediáticos, que supone el 60% de las contribuciones en este periodo. Por lo que hace a los enfoques metodológicos, los investigadores españoles siguen haciendo básicamente estudios empíricos, con predominio claro de la investigación cuantitativa y una apreciable mejora de la calidad metodológica de los trabajos publicados.[EN] The interest in analyzing communication research in Spain has grown in the last decade, but there are still few studies that address the description of the objects of study and the methodological (2008, 2010, 2012 and 2014), and the final corpus include 529 articles signed by authors working in Spanish universities and research centers. Those texts were codified by a coding sheet that includes five variables, four of them to account for the objects of study and three on methodological aspects. The results indicate that the recent Spanish research on communication takes the study of journalism and news as the preferred object, and it is specially interested in the analysis of media content, which accounts for 60% of contributions in this period. With regard to methodological approaches, Spanish researchers still do basically empirical studies, predominantly quantitative research, with a clear improvement in the methodological quality.

Interest in communication research has grown remarkably in Spain in the last decade, but the studies addressing the research objects and methodological approaches of this research production are still limited. This study follows up a previous work that addressed these issues for the 1998-2007 period, and examines the communication research produced in Spain in the last years based on the content analysis of the articles published between 2008 and 2014 by five communication journals with high impact factors in Spain: Anàlisi, Comunicación y Sociedad, Estudios sobre el Mensaje Periodístico, Revista Latina de Comunicación Social and Zer. The sample was selected from alternate years throughout the period under study (2008, 2010, 2012 and 2014). The final body of analysis is composed of 529 articles written by researchers affiliated to Spanish universities and research centres. The analysis of the sample of articles focuses on five variables: two of them related to the objects of study and the remaining three to the methodological aspects. The results indicate that in recent Spanish communication research the preferred object of study is journalism and journalistic content, and particularly media contents, which are the focus of 60% of the works published in this period. With regards to the methodological approaches, Spanish researchers predominantly continue to carry out empirical research studies, based on quantitative approaches, and showing a clear improvement in their methodological quality Revista Latina de Comunicación Social # 071-Pages 1.365 to 1.384