Chávez’s "Aló Presidente" and its Impact on Venezuela’s Journalistic Practice

As Venezuela’s leader, Hugo Chávez utilized the media intensively and innovatively to boost his radical political project. The broadcast talk-show Aló Presidente became the most important component of his communication strategy, followed by his use of blanket broadcast messages. Chávez’s flagship program subverted liberal tenets, and has to this day served as a template in Latin America for populist communication. This study examined the ways Venezuelan journalists and media professionals have understood Chávez’s hyper-mediatic leadership –with special emphasis on Aló Presidente– and the impact the program and the official blanket messages had on their practice. A wide array of journalists, media practitioners, and commentators were interviewed about their views regarding Chávez’s media strategies and Aló Presidente, and tensions arising between different ideals of normative journalistic practice. Opinions among local journalists about the above-mentioned issues, this study found, are divided within a highly-polarized frame. And normative media ideals of liberal trends were challenged by pro-Chávez journalists, while an important faction of media professionals maintained that such practices are non-democratic

Revisiting Latin American Media Democratisation Theories and the Populist Factor

This paper deals with the following question: How can Latin American media and communication theories help explain the mediatisation of populism and democracy? The article has a twofold goal: a) it contributes to the study of media, populism and democracy in the context of Latin America; b) it wants to raise awareness outside of Latin America about the richness of Latin American media and communication theory for the analysis of the mediation of populism and democracy. The article introduces and engages with a variety of theories from Latin America that deal with globalisation, dependency, cultural imperialism, hybridity, and mediation and reviews their potentials for explaining the mediatisation of populism and democracy. Theories or models of globalisation, dependency and cultural imperialism, and hybridity and mediation are reviewed analytically, as are some of their core critiques as drawn from various strands of thought, with emphasis on incorporating elements of populism theory. As interest grows in both academia and the media towards the ways populism is shaping the social and political spheres in the West, partly encouraged by the recent surge of populist leaders in Europe and the United States, past and current experiences and evaluation of Latin American populism can be constructive in understanding the phenomenon and its implications for communication, media and culture. This study finds that, following the political shifts in the twenty-first century, Latin American populism represents a paradigm that is articulated to an important degree through communicative specificities and which can add analytical rigor to competing media and communication theories in the region

Journalism practice, media and democracy in Venezuela (2000-2010)

Since first winning elections in 1998, Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez became one of the most vocal leaders in the international arena to oppose the U.S. and western neo-liberal policies. His administration arguably represents the most radical socio-political shift in the western hemisphere during the twenty-first century. Its political model has led to a political polarisation previously unknown in Venezuela and Latin America. In such a highly-polarised environment and ongoing clashes between pro-Chávez forces and the opposition, the news media have played a central role as active political entities. Venezuelan journalists have become agents of specific ideological advocacy and political militancy. Such a scenario in the media collides with most normative liberal notions of balanced, accurate, transparent, and ethical journalistic practice, as well as with certain ideals of the media’s democratic role. Based on a series of in-depth, semi-structured interviews with Venezuelan journalists, media-related professionals and commentators – designed to represent adequately both sides of the ideological divide – this thesis critically explores how journalistic practices have been carried out in Venezuela under the Chávez administration. As its central and original contribution to knowledge it analyses how news media professionals in Venezuela evaluate the ways they have reflected an acute political and social confrontation in news outlets, and their varying roles as agents that shape a highly-polarised social sphere. Very importantly, it offers answers to the question of politicisation among journalists, and the ways they understand the boundaries of professional and normative practice. The research draws conclusions in relation to the ways reporters, editors, scholars and commentators perceive journalistic practice as a means to promote democratic values, and whether or not Venezuelan news media have enhanced democratic debate during the 2000s

Hierarchical core-periphery structure in networks

We study core-periphery structure in networks using inference methods based on a flexible network model that allows for traditional onion-like cores within cores, but also for hierarchical tree-like structures and more general non-nested types of structure. We propose an efficient Monte Carlo scheme for fitting the model to observed networks and report results for a selection of real-world data sets. Among other things, we observe an empirical distinction between networks showing traditional core-periphery structure with a dense core weakly connected to a sparse periphery, and an alternative structure in which the core is strongly connected both within itself and to the periphery. Networks vary in whether they are better represented by one type of structure or the other. We also observe structures that are a hybrid between core-periphery structure and community structure, in which networks have a set of non-overlapping cores that correspond roughly to communities, surrounded by a single undifferentiated periphery. Computer code implementing our methods is available.Comment: code available: https://github.com/apolanco115/hc

Simulating the Response of a Composite Honeycomb Energy Absorber

This paper describes the experimental and analytical evaluation of an externally deployable composite honeycomb structure that is designed to attenuate impact energy during helicopter crashes. The concept, designated the Deployable Energy Absorber (DEA), utilizes an expandable Kevlar (Registered Trademark) honeycomb to dissipate kinetic energy through crushing. The DEA incorporates a unique flexible hinge design that allows the honeycomb to be packaged and stowed until needed for deployment. Experimental evaluation of the DEA included dynamic crush tests of multi-cell components and vertical drop tests of a composite fuselage section, retrofitted with DEA blocks, onto multi-terrain. Finite element models of the test articles were developed and simulations were performed using the transient dynamic code, LSDYNA (Registered Trademark). In each simulation, the DEA was represented using shell elements assigned two different material properties: Mat 24, an isotropic piecewise linear plasticity model, and Mat 58, a continuum damage mechanics model used to represent laminated composite fabrics. DEA model development and test-analysis comparisons are presented