Claudia Lagos

Comparing journalism cultures in Latin America: The case of Chile, Brazil and Mexico

Based on interviews with 300 journalists in Chile, Brazil and Mexico, this article describes similarities and differences in their professional cultures. Two competing conceptual explanations are tested: the dominance of political structures, levels of press freedom and the size and concentration of media ownership vs the predominance of political cultures and political parallelism. Although the study provides some evidence in favour of the second scenario – overall in terms of the institutional roles supported by the journalists – neither of the two explanations can fully account for the differences between the countries. Meanwhile, the epistemological and ethical views of the journalists seem to be trapped in contesting terrains of ambiguity, where organizational, media routines and individual factors override country differences.

La opacidad de la política en la prensa chilena: un análisis de suplementos semanales

En este articulo, se presentan los principales resultados de un estudio cualitativo de reportajes y entrevistas para comprender las caracteristicas de la cobertura periodistica del campo politico de diarios nacionales y regionales chilenos. Considerando el proceso de mediatizacion de la politica, se concluye que estas piezas periodisticas estan dirigidas a personas que ya forman parte del mundo politico, asi se perfila una especie de “manual del politico” que ensena, advierte y forma a los mismos. Ademas, las fotografias se constituyen en las anclas configuradoras del sentido al proporcionar informacion complementaria, pero tambien en clave de lectura, enfatizando el foco de la nota al simplificarla a nivel metaforico o metonimico. En definitiva, la politica es tratada en la prensa chilena como un asunto de especialistas y tiene un caracter excluyente

Chile: Female Journalists Without Access to Power

In March 2006, socialist politician Michelle Bachelet became not only the first woman to assume the presidency of Chile, but also the first female president in South America. Bachelet appointed a cabinet with an equal number of men and women. Although there were several other changes to her cabinet as well, hers was significant for being the only government since the country’s return to democracy that established equal representation of female and male ministers (Fernandez and Rubilar 2011). Bachelet’s rise to power was a milestone in the fight for equal rights among men and women in Chile, a movement which began toward the end of the 19th century and continued throughout the 20th, with Chile’s first wave of feminism and women’s demands for access to education and the right to vote (Kirkwood 1986). Despite this longstanding movement and the gender milestone represented by her presidency, Bachelet did not fundamentally change the participation of women in positions of political power.