PATHOLOGIES AND DYSFUNCTIONS OF DEMOCRACY IN THE MEDIA CONTEXT

Chasqui. Revista de Literatura Latinoamericana, 2018

This essay analyzes the way Bernardo Carvalho's novel, Reprodução, intervenes in an essential contemporary debate: What are the political possibilities of today's globalized mass media? Can we still imagine an alliance between progressive political projects based on equality, diversity, and tolerance on the one hand, and global communications, on the other? These questions gain special relevance in the context of recent historical developments. Several political developments around the world-Great Britain's exit from the European Union, the impeachment of Dilma Rousseff in Brazil, Colombia's refusal to uphold the peace dialogues with the FARC guerrillas, and the election of Donald Trump-suggest that the relationship between a postmodern politics (based, among other theoretical foundations, on a recognition of all forms of otherness) and mass media has entered a period of crisis. These events were widely understood as a global refusal by the general population to endorse key postmodern discourses like multiculturalism, political correctness, gender and racial equality, free immigration, gay rights, etc. They were also linked to a particularly weaponized use of the media against these ideas: Instead of portraying a diversity of points of view in historical context, news sources with ties to specific political interests (like Breitbart and Fox News in the U.S., The Sun in Great Britain, Globo in Brazil, and RCN in Colombia, not to mention a variety of "independent" internet media outlets and personalities) broadcast partisan and willfully decontextualized messages that, in the end, had a significant influence on the public's views. Such outlets have always existed, but they seem to have gained new levels of visibility and impact today.

2019

Journal of Immigrant & Refugee Studies, 2021

This paper investigates migrant representation patterns according to media political orientation, analyzing the coverage of key-events by liberal/conservative online newspapers of France, Greece, Italy, UK. From our textual and visual analysis, it is possible to recognize slight specificities between liberals and conservatives, but not indicative of a deep change of narratives. In both, we registered a prevalence of the "acceptance frame", an infrequent use of negative tones in texts and aesthetic topic in images, among the "topics of suffering" by Boltanski. Moreover, a domesticity approach limiting the possibility of new narratives of Europe and the rest of the world emerges.

2018

Communication of the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), where she is Vicedean of Infraestructures and she lectures in Online Media, Newswriting and Online Communication Research. Director of Gureiker, a consolidated research group recognized by Basque University System (IT 1112(IT /2021)). She is an active member of several funded research projects focused on political communication, online journalism and innovation in journalism education (UPV/EHU, Spanish MINECO, European Regional Development Fund-FEDER, etc.). She was a visiting researcher at the CCPR of the University of Glasgow in 2012 year. She is author and co-author of books (Genres in Journalistic Newswriting, Shaping the News Online, etc.) and articles in journals such as Media, Culture & Society, Communication & Society, EPI, Journalism or Journalism Studies. 2 Irati Agirreazkuenaga-Onaindia, international PhD in Media and Minority Languages (2013, University of the Basque Country). She performed part of her thesis at the Centre for Cultural Policy Research in the University of Glasgow (2011) and she afterwards stayed as a postdoctoral visiting fellow at the same centre (2014). She has developed her research on public media and participation during a postdoctoral stay in the Department of Media and Communications at the London School of Economics (2015). She has published articles on communication strategies for immigrants' radios and the role of the media in empowering minority identities among others (Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies; Media, Culture & Society) and co-authored books on audience participation and media convergence (Active Audiences and Journalism; Convergence strategies at EiTB); she has published a book on the first relevant Basque-language radios during Francoism (Pamiela, 2016). 3 Koldobika Meso-Ayerdi, PhD in Journalism (UPV/EHU) and Senior Lecturer. Head of Department of Journalism II at the University of the Basque Country (Spain). Member of Gureiker research group (UPV/EHU) and main researcher of national and international research projects (Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness-MINECO and the European Regional Development Fund-FEDER). Visiting researcher at the University Federal of Bahia (Brazil) and coordinator of a research network Brazil-Spain in cooperation with professor

Humanities and Social Sciences Communications , 2024

In the context of media studies, the theme of populism in its relation to digital media has gained a great prominence in the last decade. The emergence of new populist political actors that use direct communication to appeal to the people without intermediaries, as well as the consolidation of digital social networks, involve interfaces between media and political processes that we intend to observe, having as object the scenario of the Portuguese Legislative Elections of 2022. Indeed, in this article we address how the populist communication of André Ventura, leader of the Portuguese radical right party, Chega, is constructed during the election campaign period. To analyze the discursive mechanisms of populism in the digital realm, we conducted a study of the corpus derived from André Ventura's posts on the social media platform X, previously known as Twitter, during the month of January 2022, coinciding with the electoral campaign period. We sought to describe the discursive strategies present in the construction of the representation of "people", considering the polarization "us versus them", and examine the meanings of the world mobilized by populist communication in opposition to out-groups identified as "enemies" of the pure or authentic people. The results of our content analysis, focusing on the 143 tweets constituting Ventura's narrative during the election period, indicate parallels with the discursive tactics of radical right populism. These include a narrative emphasizing conflict between "us and them," a spotlight on the dysfunctions within the democratic system, the glorification of integrity in the face of political corruption, nativist discourse, and a prevailing tendency towards negative communication.

Internationa Conference Media Change in Social Theory , St. Hugh’s College, Oxford, Formato CD ISBN: 4364- 6B-D-28447) ., 2006

2019

it aims to uncover what is familiar and distinctive about manifestations of populism around the globe.

THE ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK OF POLITICAL COMMUNICATION IN IBERO- AMERICA, 2024

The Routledge Handbook of Political Communication in Ibero- America addresses the relationship between communication, politics, and digital technologies in Latin American and the Iberian Peninsula, a geographical space linked by social, cultural, and linguistic aspects. In recent years, digital media have been central in the dialogue established by political parties, institutions, the media, and citizens. In this hybrid space emerged certain phenomena that are of interest, particularly in the Ibero- American landscape, including disinformation and fake news, protests on social media, the organization of social movements, the relationship between the press and the state, political participation, populism, the role played by emotions and memes, the impact of AI and platformization on politics, nd topics of debate in the public sphere. This Handbook is structured into nine parts, beginning with a historical contextualization and then exploring central aspects of the discipline. It then goes on to study trends at the regional level, increasing knowledge about how political communication and digital technologies are changing multiple aspects of Ibero- American societies, where political communication plays a fundamental role – especially in electoral processes, with its consequent effects on democracy. This Handbook will be of interest to academics, students, and professionals in the fields of political science, communication, journalism, advertising, marketing, and sociology, as well as public opinion consulting. It will be of particular interest to undergraduate and postgraduate students from Latin America, Portugal, and Spain.