The role of the international press as an external contributing agent to the consolidation of democratic regime change within emerging democracies is a growing research area within the field of media history and political communication. Within the context of these press/power dynamics, this article analyses the intense coverage made by the influential transatlantic weekly magazines, Time, Newsweek and The Economist of the attempted military coup in Spain in February 1981. It argues that all three publications made editorial decisions and employed narrative strategies –based on contempt for the foiled military uprising, acritical elevation of the young King and the consensual projection of democratic consolidation in the country- in an indirect but strategic contribution to the defence of the institutional stability of a country emerging from 40 years of dictatorship and whose destiny was crucial to wider Cold War geopolitical considerations in the southern Mediterranean at the time.

国际媒体作为巩固新兴民主国家民主政权变革的外部推动者的作用是媒体历史和政治传播领域中一个日益增长的研究领域。在这些新闻/权力动态的背景下，本文分析了具有影响力的跨大西洋周刊《时代》、《新闻周刊》和《经济学人》对 1981 年 2 月西班牙未遂军事政变的密集报道。文章认为，这三份出版物都做出了编辑决定并采用了叙事策略——基于对失败的军事起义的蔑视，