Charlotte knew there had to be more to the story when she read comparisons of Donald Trump to Latin American authoritarian regimes, so she spent her summer investigating the validity of these claims

Harris, Charlotte

English

University of New Hampshire

University of New Hampshire
University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository
Inquiry Journal 2018 Inquiry Journal
Spring 4-1-2018
Down the Rabbit Hole: Searching for Native
Scholarship to Better Understand Populism
Charlotte Harris
University of New Hampshire, Durham
Follow this and additional works at: https://scholars.unh.edu/inquiry_2018
This Commentary is brought to you for free and open access by the Inquiry Journal at University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository. It has been
accepted for inclusion in Inquiry Journal 2018 by an authorized administrator of University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository. For more
information, please contact nicole.hentz@unh.edu.
Recommended Citation
Harris, Charlotte, "Down the Rabbit Hole: Searching for Native Scholarship to Better Understand Populism" (2018). Inquiry Journal.
5.
https://scholars.unh.edu/inquiry_2018/5
 
 
www.unh.edu/inquiryjournal                                                                                                      SPRING 2018
Commentary 
Down the Rabbit Hole: Searching for Native Scholarship to 
Better Understand Populism 
—Charlotte Harris 
There’s gotta be more to the story. 
It’s a simple thought that has set many a researcher or investigative journalist on a trail toward the 
truth. It was a thought that occurred to me early in 2017 when, after reading several popular press 
pieces that compared the populism of newly-elected President Donald Trump with that of former 
Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, I had the nagging sense that such a comparison belied a much 
more complex relationship. My knowledge of media studies imparted by my communication major, 
and my cultural inquiry skills honed as a Spanish major and through study abroad in Spain, made me 
wary of accepting these think pieces as fact.  
Applying analytical concepts I learned in a media and politics 
course I was taking at the time, I was unconvinced by the 
presumption offered by certain articles that Donald Trump 
was, somehow, “America’s Hugo Chávez.” To be sure, some 
similarities were clear: both employed forms of populist 
rhetoric that positioned a sector of the population against a 
corrupt elite, exhibited a brash and coarse sense of humor, 
and had a propensity for fiery tirades against journalists. 
Although I did find this trend toward political incivility 
concerning, I wondered if these behavioral similarities were 
enough to extrapolate a comparison between two presidents 
from countries with such disparate political contexts. The 
comparisons merited a more thorough investigation, one that 
considered the historical and sociocultural context of these 
countries’ political situations.  
Planning a Deeper Investigation 
I knew a Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) through the Hamel Center for 
Undergraduate Research would provide me the perfect venue to explore the validity of comparisons 
INQUIRY journal 
The author working at Dimond 
Library. Photo by Jeremy 
Gasowski, UNH Communications 
and Public Affairs. 
between Trump and Chávez on a much deeper level than I could during the school year. I enlisted the 
help of my faculty mentor, Mike Soha, lecturer in the Department of Communication at UNH, and 
designed a research project that I believed would give me a well-rounded basis on which to explore 
the validity of these comparisons. I would study the historical and sociocultural context of Venezuela, 
where Hugo Chávez had been president from 1999 to 2013, in order to understand why he might be a 
point of comparison for Donald Trump. I supplemented my investigation by looking at another Latin 
American populist, Rafael Correa, president of Ecuador from 2007 to 2017. I wanted to go beyond the 
anecdotal, opinion-based musings of the popular press pieces that had initially caught my attention, 
and instead develop an informed understanding of Venezuela's and Ecuador’s social and political 
contexts from which to judge a comparison with President Trump. 
I spent the summer working my way through various texts in an effort to familiarize myself with 
Venezuela and Ecuador. Although I worked on my project while sitting in a variety of coffee shops 
around seacoast New Hampshire, my research led my mind on a wandering journey through Ecuador 
and Venezuela as I unlocked the trends and phenomena that brought the populists Chávez and 
Correa to power. I came to understand the implications of their controversial style of leadership. I 
knew that developing this knowledge would help me evaluate the validity of comparisons between 
Trump and these leaders. What I did not realize, however, was that the type of sources I consulted 
would turn out to be as valuable as the research findings themselves. 
Going Beyond the Op-ed 
When it came to examining popular press pieces from a critical perspective, I wondered who was 
drawing these comparisons. Was it outsiders, who saw Latin America as a politically fragile region in 
which democracy was still in its tender infancy? Or was it concerned Venezuelans wanting to raise a 
red flag to Americans about what a Chávez-style presidency could portend? 
It turned out that both Latin Americans and non-Latin Americans had contributed to the op-ed pieces 
I had found in The New York Times, The Guardian, and the Washington Post. Rory Carroll, an Irish 
journalist who spent six years in Venezuela as a Latin American correspondent for The Guardian, 
acknowledged the “profound” ideological differences between Chávez and Trump, but also warned of 
the U.S. “unraveling to tragicomedy,” if Trump’s presidency played out the same as that of Chávez. 
Alberto Barrera Tyszka, a Venezuelan TV screenwriter, focused on Chávez’s and Trump’s similarities 
regarding their expert manipulation of the media, but failed to explain how this parallel equates to 
identical political outcomes. Carlos de la Torre, an Ecuadorian sociologist who has conducted 
extensive research of Andean politics, offered a more logical sequence of argumentation: Trump 
exhibits some of the same qualities as Chávez, including contempt for the news media, attacks on 
civil society, and disrespect of certain constitutional arrangements, and thus would perhaps exhibit 
tendencies of authoritarianism once in office, as Chávez did. 
Still, my scholarly instinct told me that there was more to the story. Does the fact that Chávez once 
hosted a beauty pageant and Trump rose to pop culture prominence as the host of a reality television 
show really have any bearing on the potential outcomes of their presidencies? I wasn’t convinced. I 
knew the comparison merited more investigation. These popular press pieces were op-eds, written in 
a way that took some historical facts into consideration, but were mostly based on opinion. Some 
cases, such as the prediction in a Washington Post op-ed written by Venezuelan Andrés Miguel 
Rondón, seemed nothing more than fear mongering. Rondón wrote forebodingly of “neighbors 
[being] deported and friends of different creeds and sexual orientations living in fear and anxiety, 
[and] your country’s economic inequality deepening along the way.” And although I recognized the 
importance of a native Venezuelan perspective, I was wary of taking even their opinions to be 
unquestionable fact. 
So, I kept digging. 
Consulting a Native Scholarly Perspective 
I wanted to approach these op-eds about 
Venezuela the same way I would 
approach one written about my native 
country: appreciating their viewpoint, 
while also factoring in an inherent 
understanding of historical and cultural 
context. I followed a winding path of 
journal articles, academic books, and 
other scholarly publications. As I read, I 
sought out the sources cited, and read 
those pieces too. A book by prominent 
Hugo Chávez scholar Elena Block, an 
Australian, led me to the work of Andrés 
Cañizález, a Venezuelan political 
communication and press freedom 
researcher. Perfect!, I thought, eager to 
hear things from a native but scholarly 
perspective.  
Unlike the opinion-based arguments I found in popular press pieces which offered little more than 
broad generalizations based on anecdotal experience, Cañizález applied a quantitative approach. He 
analyzed Chávez’s media policy and legislation to draw conclusions about Chávez’s adept and 
powerful use of television (157-77). Venezuelan scholar Adriana Bolívar also used a scholarly 
approach to demonstrate how Chávez’s weekly television broadcast Aló Presidente sustained a strong 
connection between the president and his constituents for the duration of his 14 year presidency (85-
108). Equipped with this knowledge, I was more inclined to accept the comparison of Chávez and 
Trump in terms of their shared mastery in using the media to generate and maintain electoral 
support. 
Rafael Correa, like Chávez, was a leader at once popular and 
controversial. His presidency was characterized by an adept 
manipulation of the media. Photo by Agencia de Noticias 
ANDES, 2017. 
Most of Cañizález and Bolívar’s work were only available in Spanish, so I was glad I had my Spanish 
comprehension skills. My fluency came in handy as I worked through a 55-page document full of 
technical language providing statistical analysis of the media situation in Ecuador during the 
presidency of Rafael Correa, who enacted controversial laws that some criticized for undermining 
press freedom (Gehrke et al.). I took extensive notes throughout my research process, alternating 
between Spanish and English, sometimes without even realizing whether my brain was 
simultaneously translating the Spanish or simply internalizing and understanding it.  
Down the Rabbit Hole 
At one point, I confessed to my faculty mentor, Mike Soha, that it was hard to cut myself off from 
continuing "down the rabbit hole" of articles and references that kept coming up. He responded, 
“The ‘rabbit hole’ is often the best place to be.”  
When I came up for air, I noticed a trend from just a 
quick glance at my bibliography: most of the authors 
were Latin American. When I began this research project, 
I hadn’t intended to consult primarily Latin American 
sources, but I found their perspective more authentic 
when compared with the work of outsiders. Whether 
they were native Venezuelans or Ecuadorians, or from 
neighboring countries, like Colombia, or were raised in 
countries that maintained close relations, like Cuba, 
these authors all had something to offer me that I could 
not get elsewhere: a native, culturally relative 
perspective that was also based in academic research. I 
quickly realized that this was invaluable. 
When I positioned myself from the perspective of a Latin 
American applying a scholarly procedure, I saw that 
things weren’t so simple. Both Hugo Chávez and Rafael 
Correa rose to power by sidestepping liberal democratic 
norms and consolidating power in the executive branch. 
But both still made important headway in addressing the 
concerns of their largely working class electoral base. 
Hugo Chávez, for example, nationalized Venezuela’s 
lucrative oil industry and funneled the revenues into 
social programs that reduced poverty. Similarly, the 
election of Rafael Correa, who is of mestizo (mixed) 
ethnicity himself, signaled the empowerment of 
Ecuador’s historically excluded indigenous population.  
Hugo Chávez often gave important speeches 
in front of Venezuelan independence hero 
Simón Bolívar. This helped to establish 
Chávez as a modern-day Bolívar, breaking 
Venezuela free from the grips of imperialist 
powers. Photo by Karel Fuentes, 2010. 
Of course, there is value in looking to other countries and contexts to understand domestic political 
and social trends. But broad generalizations based solely on anecdotal experience, as I saw in the op-
ed pieces that originally ignited my curiosity, may ultimately be more detrimental than they are 
useful. Although it is informative to compare the political phenomena we experience with similar 
occurrences in another country, we should be cautious not to conflate the political outcomes of 
historically and culturally unique countries with the potential results in our own. 
Final Thoughts 
Before I began my research project, I expected to develop a relatively straightforward assessment of 
the validity of the comparison between Donald Trump and Hugo Chávez. But I came to see that the 
value of my research didn’t lie only in the ultimate conclusion of the process; instead, its value was 
embedded throughout the project, in the understanding I developed along the way. That’s a lesson 
that I’ll carry with me as I continue investigating the relationship between the media and politics 
throughout my future studies and career. The voices that truly helped me understand the contextual 
basis for evaluating the comparison were both native to the cultures they studied and academic in 
their evaluative approach. This perspective equipped me to draw my own conclusions, which were 
based in academic research and historical, political, and sociocultural understanding. 
For an ever-curious researcher like me, the process of digging deeper, seeking out different sources 
and voices, and developing a more holistically informed understanding were the most satisfying and 
rewarding parts of the project. You could say that the most enjoyable part of my research was all that 
time I spent down the rabbit hole. 
  
I would like to thank the Hamel Center for Undergraduate Research for their dedication to supporting 
undergraduate research through grants like the Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF), 
which was integral in making my project possible.I am particularly appreciative of the generosity of 
Mr. Dana Hamel and Dr. Adrian Kerrison for contributing to the SURF and to the Grand Challenges for 
the Liberal Arts Initiative for supporting the crucial role of the liberal arts in addressing today's 
issues. I am grateful to the amazing professors I have encountered while pursuing both my 
communication and Spanish majors, especially my faculty mentor, Mike Soha, for bringing his 
guidance and wealth of knowledge to the project. 
  
  
Works Cited 
Agencia de Noticias ANDES. 2017. “Sufragio Señor Presidente Rafael Correa.”ANDES/Micaela Ayala V. 
Wikimedia Commons. 
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SUFRAGIO_SE%C3%91OR_PRESIDENTE_RAFAEL_CORREA_(
33408289790).jpg 
Block, Elena. Political Communication and Leadership: Mimetisation, Hugo Chávez and the 
Construction of Power and Identity. Routledge, 2016. 
Bolívar, Adriana. “Nuevos géneros discursivos en la política: el caso de Aló Presidente [New discursive 
genres in politics: the case of Aló Presidente].” Análisis crítico del discurso: Perspectivas 
Latinoamericanas [Critical discourse analysis: Latin American Perspectives]. Edited by Leda Berardi, 
FRASIS editores, 2003, pp. 85-108. 
Cañizález, Andrés. “The State in Pursuit of Hegemony over the Media: The Chávez Model.” Media 
Systems and Communication Policies in Latin America, Palgrave Macmillan, 2014, pp. 157-177. 
Carrera Tyszka, Alberto. "[Opinion] What Hugo Chávez Tells Us About Donald Trump." The New York 
Times, 20 Sept. 2016. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/21/opinion/what-hugo-chavez-tells-us-
about-donald-trump.html. Accessed 25 Feb. 2017. 
Carroll, Rory. "Insult, Provoke, Repeat: How Donald Trump Became America's Hugo Chávez." The 
Guardian, 22 June 2016. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jun/22/donald-trump-hugo-
chavez-political-similarities. Accessed 25 Feb. 2017. 
De La Torre, Carlos. "[Opinion] Will Democracy Survive Trump's Populism? Latin America May Tell 
Us." The New York Times, 15 Dec. 2016. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/15/opinion/will-
democracy-survive-trumps-populism-latin-america-may-tell-us.html  
Fuentes, Karel. 2010. “Hugo Chávez—Simón Bolívar.” Wikimedia Commons. 
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hugo_Ch%C3%A1vez_-_Sim%C3%B3n_Bol%C3%ADvar.jpg  
Gehrke, Mirjam, et al. “Panorama De Los Medios En Ecuador [Panorama of the Media in 
Ecuador].” Edition DW Akademie, 2016, http://www.dw.com/downloads/30336831/panorama-de-
los-medios-en-ecuador-pdf.pdf  
Rondón, Andrés Miguel. “In Venezuela, We Couldn't Stop Chávez. Don't Make the Same Mistakes We 
Did [PostEverything].” The Washington Post, 27 Jan. 2017. 
https://posteverything.washpost.com/wp/2017/01/27/in-venezuela-we-couldnt-stop-chavez-dont-
make-the-same-mistakes-we-did/?tid=ss_tw&utm_term=.1153de68cdae. Accessed 29 March 2018. 
  
Author and Mentor Bios 
Charlotte Harris is a communication and Spanish major from Newcastle, Maine. She is an 
accomplished student in the University Honors Program and will graduate with an Honors in Major 
distinction. Her research, conducted with the help of a Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship 
(SURF) from the Hamel Center, will assist in the completion of her honors thesis. Charlotte was drawn 
to her research topic because it integrates her interests in media studies and Latin America. She was 
also eager to investigate these topics through a political lens in a deeper context than the classroom 
setting would allow. In her research, Charlotte came to appreciate the importance of critical analysis 
in gaining understanding. The rewarding experience of independent research motivated her to share 
her work in Inquiry. After graduating in May 2018, Charlotte hopes to work in the field of media 
policy research and advocacy. She also plans eventually to attend graduate school for 
communication. 
Michael Soha is a lecturer of communication at the University of New Hampshire (UNH), where he 
has been teaching for five years. He specializes in media and politics, specifically the study of social 
media, news, and political coverage. Charlotte Harris has taken several classes with him, and they 
discovered that they both share interests in Latin America and comparative news media coverage. 
They have worked together for about a year on Charlotte’s Summer Undergraduate Research 
Fellowship (SURF) project and on her honors thesis. Although Charlotte is his first Inquiry author 
mentee, he has a wealth of experience in mentorship, having worked with many students on thesis 
projects, Undergraduate Research Conference presentations, independent studies, and the like. He 
enjoys mentoring students who are independent and determined, such as Charlotte, and helping 
them delve deeply into the research process. He praises Inquiry for its ability to reach general 
audiences while challenging authors to write succinctly about their overall research processes. 
 
Copyright 2018, Charlotte Harris 
 


Down the Rabbit Hole: Searching for Native Scholarship to Better Understand Populism

UNH Scholars' Repository

University of New HampshireUniversity of New Hampshire Scholars' RepositoryInquiry Journal 2018 Inquiry JournalSpring 4-1-2018Down the Rabbit Hole: Searching for NativeScholarship to Better Understand PopulismCharlotte HarrisUniversity of New Hampshire, DurhamFollow this and additional works at: https://scholars.unh.edu/inquiry_2018This Commentary is brought to you for free and open access by the Inquiry Journal at University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository. It has beenaccepted for inclusion in Inquiry Journal 2018 by an authorized administrator of University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository. For moreinformation, please contact nicole.hentz@unh.edu.Recommended CitationHarris, Charlotte, "Down the Rabbit Hole: Searching for Native Scholarship to Better Understand Populism" (2018). Inquiry Journal.5.https://scholars.unh.edu/inquiry_2018/5  www.unh.edu/inquiryjournal                                                                                                      SPRING 2018Commentary Down the Rabbit Hole: Searching for Native Scholarship to Better Understand Populism —Charlotte Harris There’s gotta be more to the story. It’s a simple thought that has set many a researcher or investigative journalist on a trail toward the truth. It was a thought that occurred to me early in 2017 when, after reading several popular press pieces that compared the populism of newly-elected President Donald Trump with that of former Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, I had the nagging sense that such a comparison belied a much more complex relationship. My knowledge of media studies imparted by my communication major, and my cultural inquiry skills honed as a Spanish major and through study abroad in Spain, made me wary of accepting these think pieces as fact.  Applying analytical concepts I learned in a media and politics course I was taking at the time, I was unconvinced by the presumption offered by certain articles that Donald Trump was, somehow, “America’s Hugo Chávez.” To be sure, some similarities were clear: both employed forms of populist rhetoric that positioned a sector of the population against a corrupt elite, exhibited a brash and coarse sense of humor, and had a propensity for fiery tirades against journalists. Although I did find this trend toward political incivility concerning, I wondered if these behavioral similarities were enough to extrapolate a comparison between two presidents from countries with such disparate political contexts. The comparisons merited a more thorough investigation, one that considered the historical and sociocultural context of these countries’ political situations.  Planning a Deeper Investigation I knew a Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) through the Hamel Center for Undergraduate Research would provide me the perfect venue to explore the validity of comparisons INQUIRY journal The author working at Dimond Library. Photo by Jeremy Gasowski, UNH Communications and Public Affairs. between Trump and Chávez on a much deeper level than I could during the school year. I enlisted the help of my faculty mentor, Mike Soha, lecturer in the Department of Communication at UNH, and designed a research project that I believed would give me a well-rounded basis on which to explore the validity of these comparisons. I would study the historical and sociocultural context of Venezuela, where Hugo Chávez had been president from 1999 to 2013, in order to understand why he might be a point of comparison for Donald Trump. I supplemented my investigation by looking at another Latin American populist, Rafael Correa, president of Ecuador from 2007 to 2017. I wanted to go beyond the anecdotal, opinion-based musings of the popular press pieces that had initially caught my attention, and instead develop an informed understanding of Venezuela's and Ecuador’s social and political contexts from which to judge a comparison with President Trump. I spent the summer working my way through various texts in an effort to familiarize myself with Venezuela and Ecuador. Although I worked on my project while sitting in a variety of coffee shops around seacoast New Hampshire, my research led my mind on a wandering journey through Ecuador and Venezuela as I unlocked the trends and phenomena that brought the populists Chávez and Correa to power. I came to understand the implications of their controversial style of leadership. I knew that developing this knowledge would help me evaluate the validity of comparisons between Trump and these leaders. What I did not realize, however, was that the type of sources I consulted would turn out to be as valuable as the research findings themselves. Going Beyond the Op-ed When it came to examining popular press pieces from a critical perspective, I wondered who was drawing these comparisons. Was it outsiders, who saw Latin America as a politically fragile region in which democracy was still in its tender infancy? Or was it concerned Venezuelans wanting to raise a red flag to Americans about what a Chávez-style presidency could portend? It turned out that both Latin Americans and non-Latin Americans had contributed to the op-ed pieces I had found in The New York Times, The Guardian, and the Washington Post. Rory Carroll, an Irish journalist who spent six years in Venezuela as a Latin American correspondent for The Guardian, acknowledged the “profound” ideological differences between Chávez and Trump, but also warned of the U.S. “unraveling to tragicomedy,” if Trump’s presidency played out the same as that of Chávez. Alberto Barrera Tyszka, a Venezuelan TV screenwriter, focused on Chávez’s and Trump’s similarities regarding their expert manipulation of the media, but failed to explain how this parallel equates to identical political outcomes. Carlos de la Torre, an Ecuadorian sociologist who has conducted extensive research of Andean politics, offered a more logical sequence of argumentation: Trump exhibits some of the same qualities as Chávez, including contempt for the news media, attacks on civil society, and disrespect of certain constitutional arrangements, and thus would perhaps exhibit tendencies of authoritarianism once in office, as Chávez did. Still, my scholarly instinct told me that there was more to the story. Does the fact that Chávez once hosted a beauty pageant and Trump rose to pop culture prominence as the host of a reality television show really have any bearing on the potential outcomes of their presidencies? I wasn’t convinced. I knew the comparison merited more investigation. These popular press pieces were op-eds, written in a way that took some historical facts into consideration, but were mostly based on opinion. Some cases, such as the prediction in a Washington Post op-ed written by Venezuelan Andrés Miguel Rondón, seemed nothing more than fear mongering. Rondón wrote forebodingly of “neighbors [being] deported and friends of different creeds and sexual orientations living in fear and anxiety, [and] your country’s economic inequality deepening along the way.” And although I recognized the importance of a native Venezuelan perspective, I was wary of taking even their opinions to be unquestionable fact. So, I kept digging. Consulting a Native Scholarly Perspective I wanted to approach these op-eds about Venezuela the same way I would approach one written about my native country: appreciating their viewpoint, while also factoring in an inherent understanding of historical and cultural context. I followed a winding path of journal articles, academic books, and other scholarly publications. As I read, I sought out the sources cited, and read those pieces too. A book by prominent Hugo Chávez scholar Elena Block, an Australian, led me to the work of Andrés Cañizález, a Venezuelan political communication and press freedom researcher. Perfect!, I thought, eager to hear things from a native but scholarly perspective.  Unlike the opinion-based arguments I found in popular press pieces which offered little more than broad generalizations based on anecdotal experience, Cañizález applied a quantitative approach. He analyzed Chávez’s media policy and legislation to draw conclusions about Chávez’s adept and powerful use of television (157-77). Venezuelan scholar Adriana Bolívar also used a scholarly approach to demonstrate how Chávez’s weekly television broadcast Aló Presidente sustained a strong connection between the president and his constituents for the duration of his 14 year presidency (85-108). Equipped with this knowledge, I was more inclined to accept the comparison of Chávez and Trump in terms of their shared mastery in using the media to generate and maintain electoral support. Rafael Correa, like Chávez, was a leader at once popular and controversial. His presidency was characterized by an adept manipulation of the media. Photo by Agencia de Noticias ANDES, 2017. Most of Cañizález and Bolívar’s work were only available in Spanish, so I was glad I had my Spanish comprehension skills. My fluency came in handy as I worked through a 55-page document full of technical language providing statistical analysis of the media situation in Ecuador during the presidency of Rafael Correa, who enacted controversial laws that some criticized for undermining press freedom (Gehrke et al.). I took extensive notes throughout my research process, alternating between Spanish and English, sometimes without even realizing whether my brain was simultaneously translating the Spanish or simply internalizing and understanding it.  Down the Rabbit Hole At one point, I confessed to my faculty mentor, Mike Soha, that it was hard to cut myself off from continuing "down the rabbit hole" of articles and references that kept coming up. He responded, “The ‘rabbit hole’ is often the best place to be.”  When I came up for air, I noticed a trend from just a quick glance at my bibliography: most of the authors were Latin American. When I began this research project, I hadn’t intended to consult primarily Latin American sources, but I found their perspective more authentic when compared with the work of outsiders. Whether they were native Venezuelans or Ecuadorians, or from neighboring countries, like Colombia, or were raised in countries that maintained close relations, like Cuba, these authors all had something to offer me that I could not get elsewhere: a native, culturally relative perspective that was also based in academic research. I quickly realized that this was invaluable. When I positioned myself from the perspective of a Latin American applying a scholarly procedure, I saw that things weren’t so simple. Both Hugo Chávez and Rafael Correa rose to power by sidestepping liberal democratic norms and consolidating power in the executive branch. But both still made important headway in addressing the concerns of their largely working class electoral base. Hugo Chávez, for example, nationalized Venezuela’s lucrative oil industry and funneled the revenues into social programs that reduced poverty. Similarly, the election of Rafael Correa, who is of mestizo (mixed) ethnicity himself, signaled the empowerment of Ecuador’s historically excluded indigenous population.  Hugo Chávez often gave important speeches in front of Venezuelan independence hero Simón Bolívar. This helped to establish Chávez as a modern-day Bolívar, breaking Venezuela free from the grips of imperialist powers. Photo by Karel Fuentes, 2010. Of course, there is value in looking to other countries and contexts to understand domestic political and social trends. But broad generalizations based solely on anecdotal experience, as I saw in the op-ed pieces that originally ignited my curiosity, may ultimately be more detrimental than they are useful. Although it is informative to compare the political phenomena we experience with similar occurrences in another country, we should be cautious not to conflate the political outcomes of historically and culturally unique countries with the potential results in our own. Final Thoughts Before I began my research project, I expected to develop a relatively straightforward assessment of the validity of the comparison between Donald Trump and Hugo Chávez. But I came to see that the value of my research didn’t lie only in the ultimate conclusion of the process; instead, its value was embedded throughout the project, in the understanding I developed along the way. That’s a lesson that I’ll carry with me as I continue investigating the relationship between the media and politics throughout my future studies and career. The voices that truly helped me understand the contextual basis for evaluating the comparison were both native to the cultures they studied and academic in their evaluative approach. This perspective equipped me to draw my own conclusions, which were based in academic research and historical, political, and sociocultural understanding. For an ever-curious researcher like me, the process of digging deeper, seeking out different sources and voices, and developing a more holistically informed understanding were the most satisfying and rewarding parts of the project. You could say that the most enjoyable part of my research was all that time I spent down the rabbit hole.   I would like to thank the Hamel Center for Undergraduate Research for their dedication to supporting undergraduate research through grants like the Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF), which was integral in making my project possible.I am particularly appreciative of the generosity of Mr. Dana Hamel and Dr. Adrian Kerrison for contributing to the SURF and to the Grand Challenges for the Liberal Arts Initiative for supporting the crucial role of the liberal arts in addressing today's issues. I am grateful to the amazing professors I have encountered while pursuing both my communication and Spanish majors, especially my faculty mentor, Mike Soha, for bringing his guidance and wealth of knowledge to the project.     Works Cited Agencia de Noticias ANDES. 2017. “Sufragio Señor Presidente Rafael Correa.”ANDES/Micaela Ayala V. Wikimedia Commons. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SUFRAGIO_SE%C3%91OR_PRESIDENTE_RAFAEL_CORREA_(33408289790).jpg Block, Elena. Political Communication and Leadership: Mimetisation, Hugo Chávez and the Construction of Power and Identity. Routledge, 2016. Bolívar, Adriana. “Nuevos géneros discursivos en la política: el caso de Aló Presidente [New discursive genres in politics: the case of Aló Presidente].” Análisis crítico del discurso: Perspectivas Latinoamericanas [Critical discourse analysis: Latin American Perspectives]. Edited by Leda Berardi, FRASIS editores, 2003, pp. 85-108. Cañizález, Andrés. “The State in Pursuit of Hegemony over the Media: The Chávez Model.” Media Systems and Communication Policies in Latin America, Palgrave Macmillan, 2014, pp. 157-177. Carrera Tyszka, Alberto. "[Opinion] What Hugo Chávez Tells Us About Donald Trump." The New York Times, 20 Sept. 2016. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/21/opinion/what-hugo-chavez-tells-us-about-donald-trump.html. Accessed 25 Feb. 2017. Carroll, Rory. "Insult, Provoke, Repeat: How Donald Trump Became America's Hugo Chávez." The Guardian, 22 June 2016. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jun/22/donald-trump-hugo-chavez-political-similarities. Accessed 25 Feb. 2017. De La Torre, Carlos. "[Opinion] Will Democracy Survive Trump's Populism? Latin America May Tell Us." The New York Times, 15 Dec. 2016. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/15/opinion/will-democracy-survive-trumps-populism-latin-america-may-tell-us.html  Fuentes, Karel. 2010. “Hugo Chávez—Simón Bolívar.” Wikimedia Commons. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hugo_Ch%C3%A1vez_-_Sim%C3%B3n_Bol%C3%ADvar.jpg  Gehrke, Mirjam, et al. “Panorama De Los Medios En Ecuador [Panorama of the Media in Ecuador].” Edition DW Akademie, 2016, http://www.dw.com/downloads/30336831/panorama-de-los-medios-en-ecuador-pdf.pdf  Rondón, Andrés Miguel. “In Venezuela, We Couldn't Stop Chávez. Don't Make the Same Mistakes We Did [PostEverything].” The Washington Post, 27 Jan. 2017. https://posteverything.washpost.com/wp/2017/01/27/in-venezuela-we-couldnt-stop-chavez-dont-make-the-same-mistakes-we-did/?tid=ss_tw&utm_term=.1153de68cdae. Accessed 29 March 2018.   Author and Mentor Bios Charlotte Harris is a communication and Spanish major from Newcastle, Maine. She is an accomplished student in the University Honors Program and will graduate with an Honors in Major distinction. Her research, conducted with the help of a Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) from the Hamel Center, will assist in the completion of her honors thesis. Charlotte was drawn to her research topic because it integrates her interests in media studies and Latin America. She was also eager to investigate these topics through a political lens in a deeper context than the classroom setting would allow. In her research, Charlotte came to appreciate the importance of critical analysis in gaining understanding. The rewarding experience of independent research motivated her to share her work in Inquiry. After graduating in May 2018, Charlotte hopes to work in the field of media policy research and advocacy. She also plans eventually to attend graduate school for communication. Michael Soha is a lecturer of communication at the University of New Hampshire (UNH), where he has been teaching for five years. He specializes in media and politics, specifically the study of social media, news, and political coverage. Charlotte Harris has taken several classes with him, and they discovered that they both share interests in Latin America and comparative news media coverage. They have worked together for about a year on Charlotte’s Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) project and on her honors thesis. Although Charlotte is his first Inquiry author mentee, he has a wealth of experience in mentorship, having worked with many students on thesis projects, Undergraduate Research Conference presentations, independent studies, and the like. He enjoys mentoring students who are independent and determined, such as Charlotte, and helping them delve deeply into the research process. He praises Inquiry for its ability to reach general audiences while challenging authors to write succinctly about their overall research processes.  Copyright 2018, Charlotte Harris  

https://scholars.unh.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1011&amp;context=inquiry_2018

Down the Rabbit Hole: Searching for Native Scholarship to Better Understand Populism

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

University of New Hampshire

UNH Scholars' Repository

University of New Hampshire