When Geopolitics becomes Moral Panic: El Mercurio and the use of international news as propaganda against Salvador Allende’s Chile (1970–1973)

This article analyses how geopolitics was used to create moral panic during Salvador Allende’s government in Chile (1970–1973) and examines the type of recursive devices—such as geopolitical strategic narratives—that were employed by El Mercurio to advance specific discourses that intended to undermine the legitimacy of Allende while mobilising the public agenda towards the political right. Our thesis is that this was done by selective and framed use of international news in ways that somehow created moral panics by bringing geopolitics into the realm of the general public. In so doing, El Mercurio invisibilised important elements and effects of US Foreign Policy while highlighting similar elements and effects of the Soviet Foreign Policy. Our thesis is that in doing so, Allende’s government became associated with the ‘Red Scare’ and subsequently associated with the communist threat. This theme, we argue, remains relevant in times in which there continues to be a prevalent strategic narrative of enemies and foes in international news that continues to be used to create fear and mobilise public opinion towards the right of the political spectrum

A Mouthpiece for Truth: Foreign Aid for Media Development and the Making of Journalism in the Global South

This piece explores the role of Foreign Aid in developing the current framework in which journalism operates in the Global South. It looks at how international development efforts have been crucial in fostering particular models of journalism while arguing that this explains the current international convergence around journalistic values, normative claims and news cultures. In so doing, the piece suggests that raise of professional journalism should not be interpreted necessarily as a historical ‘occurrence’ but rather be also considered as part of a larger enterprise to construct a sense of nationhood. In opening these questions, it invites the reader to understand news values such as objectivity, balance and fairness within national historical efforts seeking hegemonic status in an increasingly globalised world. It suggests that international aid efforts to foster media development are key in explaining the spread of particular models of journalism education and practice

A history of the press in the Portuguese speaking countries

Book Revie

Social media and virality in the 2014 student protests in Venezuela: Rethinking engagement and dialogue in times of imitation

This article examines the relationship between social media, political mobilization, and civic engagement in the context of the 2014 student protests in Venezuela. The study investigates whether these technologies were used by participants as a catalyst to trigger the protests and amplify them across the country or whether they were a galvanizing factor among more general conditions. The analysis uses cultural chaos and virality/contagion as theoretical approaches to discuss these events to provoke discussion about the relationship between protests and social media. However, far from a techno-deterministic assumption that sees social media as somehow having agency in itself, the authors highlight the role of social media as a platform for political engagement through imitation and emotions while rejecting false dichotomies of rationality/irrationality among the crowd

Systematic review of mixed methods in the framework of educational innovation

En el ámbito de la investigación, los métodos mixtos usan combinadamente datos cuantitativos y cualitativos para un acercamiento con la «realidad». En la literatura reciente de los estudios sociales y educativos, se ubica un crecimiento de publicaciones que integran tecnologías digitales y métodos mixtos y, con ello, se presenta la oportunidad de generar un aporte original de posibilidades para investigar la innovación educativa. El objetivo de este artículo fue analizar las características de estos estudios y las tendencias de nuevas contribuciones para la educación. Para lograrlo se realizó una revisión sistemática de literatura (SLR) de 311 artículos publicados, de enero 2010 a enero 2020, en las bases de datos Web of Science (WoS) y Scopus. Se trabajó con nueve preguntas que exploraron tres temas: características, tecnologías y diseños con líneas de innovación educativa. La validación se dio con los criterios de la Universidad de York: inclusión y exclusión, pertinencia y descripción de datos, así como evaluación de pares en el análisis. Los hallazgos dan cuenta de redes de co-términos, identificación de innovaciones educativas y tipos de diseños que están siendo trabajados en líneas de investigación de innovación educativa. Se concluye que el enfoque de métodos mixtos aporta con una combinación interceptada de estrategias y procesos para abordar la complejidad del fenómeno de la educación, con comprensión holística, interdisciplinar y cambio en la forma de hacer investigación en nuestros tiemposIn the field of education research, mixed methods have traditionally referred to the combination of quantitative and qualitative data that brings us closer to ‘reality’. However, recent literature on social and educational studies has increasingly incorporated works that integrate digital technologies and mixed methods. This novelty provides an opportunity to re-examine original contributions in the field, particularly in relation to educational innovation. Therefore, the objective of this article is to analyze the characteristics and the trends of new contributions from researchers in education. To achieve this, we carried out a systematic literature review (SLR) of 311 articles published from January 2010 to January 2020 in the Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus databases. We worked with nine questions that explored three key themes: characteristics, technologies and designs within the realm of educational innovation. The validation for this analysis was achieved using a criterion adopted by scholars at York University, which incorporates: inclusion and exclusion, relevance and description of data, as well as peer review in the analysis. Our findings indicate that networks of co-terms, identification of educational innovations and the types of designs -currently applied in educational innovation- as well as the adoption of a mixed-method approach seem to be much better suited to underpin the required combination of strategies and processes that are interwoven in order to address the complexity of the education phenomenon in our time

Las elecciones presidenciales de Estados Unidos desde la perspectiva de la prensa europea

Public relations strategies based on dramatization are key tools to achieving success in electoral campaigns. Press offices play a fundamental role as theatre directors, turning their leaders into great actors. What at first glance would look like a theatrical performance is, more than ever, what happened in the US presidential elections. Newspapers are intensifying the use of visual elements to reinforce the news. This research paper analyses 2,463 articles from eight digital newspapers in four countries to learn about the impact of visuals and dramatization on the European press. It seems paradoxical that the progressive newspapers devoted more articles to Trump than the conservative newspapers. A lack of time on the part of the journalists? What is certain is that the visuals prepared by Trump’s press office and his perfectly designed public appearances, were reproduced by the media. The study shows that the progressive newspapers analysed have contributed to giving Trump greater visibility in Europe

Selling the lottery to earn salvation: journalism practice, risk and humanitarian communication

The news media creates regimes of pity in order to mobilise the public towards humanitarian causes. Such regimes of pity tend to obviate the power relations between those who suffer and the spectators. This chapter proposes a type of news coverage that creates a specific type of political solidarity and which does not reproduce the power relations that have been prevalent until now in most news narratives and humanitarian campaigns. It argues that journalism practice must adopt a view of ‘shared risk’ in which people embrace equally concerns about a common future. The notion of societal risk tends to create the type of collective uncertainty that brings about political action in ways that pity regimes do not

The Angostura Address 200 Years Later: A Critical Reading

After the collapse of the second Venezuelan Republic project and various other military failures elsewhere, Simon Bolivar managed to seize the region of Guayana in 1817, and set in Angostura as his base for guerilla operations against the Spanish. Despite the fact that he did not control the whole of Venezuela, he assembled a Congress in Angostura and delivered there his inaugural speech on February 15th, 1819. This speech, now known as the 'Angostura Address', is a prime document in the Bolivarian canon. Unfortunately, the Bolivar-hero cult rampant in Venezuela and Colombia (and to a lesser extent in Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia), has promoted an extremely uncritical reading of this very important document. In occasion of its 200th Anniversary, this article offers a critical -yet ultimately sympathetic- reading of the 'Angostura Address'. In this speech, Bolivar laid out his Enlightenment vision of freedom, yet he also displayed an authoritarian tendency

Poor numbers, poor news: the ideology of poverty statistics in the media

The way journalists use statistics when reporting poverty reflects not only common approaches but also ideological choices linked to the wider context of journalism as a social practice. In this chapter, the authors analyse how poverty statistics are used and why they are articulated in the media discourses in the way they are. Looking at the history of these statistics in the news media and the current way they are incorporated in the news, the authors argue that in many cases they obscure rather than enlighten the way the public think about poverty

Scientific journalism and the use of emotions in news narratives in the post-truth era: A comparative study of the United Kingdom and India

En este artículo, examinamos el poder del periodismo científico para atraer y vincularse a las audiencias noticiosas. Observamos cómo las expectativas normativas de ser objetivos e imparciales se han convertido en un obstáculo para la comunicación de la ciencia, a pesar de que son absolutamente necesarias para lograr rigurosidad. El problema es que, aun cuando los periodistas reconocen la necesidad de incorporar elementos subjetivos relacionados con lo emotivo y humano, la naturaleza de la fuente científica impide y limita la capacidad del periodismo de hacer la noticia científica relevante en una era en que las emociones en la comunicación pública son cada vez más relevantes. El artículo refleja los resultados de una investigación desarrollada entre los años 2015 y 2018, y se basa en entrevistas semiestructuradas a 52 periodistas en la India y el Reino Unido, así como en la lectura cerrada de una muestra de noticias científicas producidas en el Reino Unido