Academic literature on the topic 'Press and politics Argentina'

Review of Adam Joseph Shellhorse, Anti-Literature: The Politics and Limits of Representation in Modern Brazil and Argentina, Pittsburg: University of Pittsburg Press, 2017. 258 pp. ISBN 978-0-8229-6447-6.
 DOI: https://doi.org/10.14195/2182-8830_7-1_18

One of the most vexing questions posed over time by political scientists is: Why do democratic polities develop in some countries, but not in others? In his seminal work Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy (1986), still read today by most students of comparative politics, Barrington Moore strove to answer that question by examining the historical process in which commercial agriculture emerged in Britain, France, Germany, Russia, and China. In his book, Fernando López-Alves takes the framework that Moore provided and applies it to three countries in Latin America whose trajectories in the nineteenth century led to different polities and experiences with democracy—Argentina, Colombia, and Uruguay (he also makes brief reference to Paraguay and Venezuela as so-called control cases). While conceding the need for “further testing” (p. 220), he arrives at conclusions that differ significantly from Moore's, even though he does not attempt to dismiss that earlier work.

The basis for this paper is the recovered factories movement, which began in Argentina in 2001, and which has grown over the past decade to include media companies, transcending digital inequalities and turning them into opportunities for journalists and media outlets. Just like elsewhere, the situation for journalists in Argentina is precarious, with technological barriers increasing digital inequalities and a lack of respect for workers’ rights, particularly when political processes such as changes in government lead to new economic plans and market instability. This situation of great uncertainty for the press has given rise to a movement on the increase in recent years, known as “recuperated or recovered media” or “workers’ co-ops”. Between 2016 and 2017, at least six media outlets were recuperated by their workers after being closed down or abandoned by their owners, including La Nueva Mañana, in Córdoba; El Ciudadano of Rosario; La Portada, of Esquel; and the Tiempo Argentino newspaper and online news site Infonews, both based in Buenos Aires. Tiempo Argentino is the only national newspaper supported by its readership, contributing 70% of revenue, which has made it one of the few independent voices of dissent in Argentina at a time of high media concentration and domination. The Tiempo Argentino newspaper was one of the winners of the first Latin American Google News Initiative (GNI), illustrating how this movement has transcended politico-social difficulties and transformed digital inequalities into digital inclusion/opportunities. The GNI is an initiative that fosters innovation aiming to improve the sustainability of journalism in a digital era by developing open source software, so as to improve user experience on the Web and optimize internal management procedures for members. Once the software is finalized, the co-op will develop a prototype to be made available to other self-managed media outlets in order to strengthen their membership model. Hence, this exploratory study seeks to analyze the phenomenon of the recovered media in Argentina, focusing on the experience of Tiempo Argentino as the newspaper and its workers face a new digital challenge. At the end of 2001, Argentina’s political and economic crisis was the main theme in world news coverage. At this period and in response to the economic crisis, workers seized control of many abandoned factories. The rise of these “recuperated/recovered businesses”

Abstract This article explores working-class families’ modes of collective action in Argentina’s first national railroad strike in 1917. While historical literature has largely focused on the role of railroad unions in labor politics, insufficient attention has been paid to community mobilization and family support in this labor protest. This study offers a fresh approach to this massive social conflict by reconstructing female public participation in its events. The study also takes gender as a category for analyzing the cultural meanings of sexual difference, which shaped both the political sociability of working-class families and their language of rights. Drawing on a variety of sources, such as trade-union journals, the left-wing press, major national newspapers, company documents, official records, and memoirs of labor militants, the essay contends that the great railroad strike was in essence a family enterprise. It represented a landmark in the making of the railwayman as the male breadwinner at the same time that it prompted an acknowledgment of working-class women’s rights in the public domain.

Abstract This article identifies how and why Argentine political rumors were created, spread, and legitimized by government officials, military officers and the press in the interwar years. In that period, the practice of what we now call “fake news”—known as pescado podrido (rotten fish) in Argentina for it poisons the one who hears or repeats it—became more common and took on international proportions. In Argentina, a variety of forces drove the increase in disinformation, including political instability, the rising (and later the banning) of the majoritarian Radical Party, elite anxiety about the threat of communism, and a long-lasting nationalist fear about the integrity of borders. Authorities and right-wing politicians were inclined to see any anti-government actions as linked to international communism and, in some cases, imaginary Jewish conspiracies. The article offers two case studies: One refers to the anti-Radical Party rumors, especially those spread in the days immediately before and after the coup d’état in 1930; and the other to a more generalized atmosphere of anti-communist inspired rumors and fake news in the interwar period. This article is based on research in government archives and newspaper collections in Patagonian cities, Buenos Aires, and Washington, D.C. Argentine official sources included records from the Ministry of the Interior, the Gobernación del Neuquén, President Agustín P. Justo’s papers and recently declassified army and navy documents.

As the recent political meltdowns in Venezuela and Argentina made clear, a vast gap persists between elite behavior and mass attitudes in much of Latin America. Scholarly understanding of this gap—and its political implications—would benefit from more fine-grained, yet theoretically informed, studies of nonelites. Nancy Powers's Grassroots Expectations of Democracy and Economy is one such study. Drawing on in-depth interviews with 41 residents of two lower-income neighborhoods in Argentina's federal capital, Powers examines how poor people understand their own interests. She argues that people experience poverty in vastly different ways, and this variation has important implications for political behavior. Thus, to understand how poor people view the relationship between their own material conditions and government policy, one must examine “the conditions themselves and how people live with them” (p. 33). This kind of inductive analysis has important and well-known limitations, particularly for studies—such as this one—based on a small sample size. Yet given how little we continue to know about the relationship between mass attitudes and macrolevel politics in Latin America, such a “bottom up” approach should be welcomed. To the extent that fine-grained inductive research generates insights that 1) are unlikely to emerge out of larger-n studies and 2) challenge or refine dominant theoretical assumptions, it can be extremely fruitful. This is the case with important sections of the book.

Comparison of the policies vis-à-vis the press of the classical populist governments of Argentina and Brazil reveals that the populist elites came into conflict with traditional media elites over exclusionary views that modified the contours of the public sphere. Newspapers committed to liberal principles engaged in intransigent struggle with populism, and this struggle created opportunities for new entrepreneurs to form political alliances with these governments to expand their businesses. The relationship between these “mediatized populisms” and the new media entrepreneurs contributed to the patrimonialism that came to characterize the link between the media and Latin American states in subsequent years. Una comparación de las políticas relativas a la prensa por parte de los gobiernos populistas clásicos de Argentina y Brasil muestra que las élites populistas entraron en conflicto con las élites de los medios tradicionales. Dichas desavenencias fueron causadas por puntos de vista excluyentes que alteraban el contorno de la esfera pública. Los periódicos comprometidos con los principios liberales sostuvieron una lucha intransigente con el populismo, lucha que dio la oportunidad a nuevos empresarios de formar alianzas políticas con dichos gobiernos y expandir así sus negocios. La relación entre estos “populismos mediáticos” y los empresarios de los nuevos medios contribuyó al patrimonialismo que asumiría el vínculo entre dichos medios y los Estados latinoamericanos en años subsiguientes.

ResumenLa prensa sudamericana, en particular la de Buenos Aires, tuvo un amplio y heterogéneo desarrollo en la segunda mitad del siglo XIX, resultado y expresión de diversas orientaciones políticas, caracterizándose por ser una prensa de opinión, doctrinaria, de trinchera y cada vez más informativa en virtud de los acontecimientos que marcaron el desarrollo de las sociedades latinoamericanas. Uno de esos eventos trascendentales a nivel regional fue la Guerra del Pacífico (1879-1883) que enfrentó a Chile contra la alianza de Perú y Bolivia. Este conflicto adquirió una importante dimensión internacional y generó un permanente interés informativo en la prensa argentina. Por consiguiente, el artículo tiene como objetivo caracterizar la actitud discursiva que adoptó parte de la prensa de Buenos Aires al momento de analizar y juzgar la conducta de Chile durante la Guerra del Pacífico. Planteamos la existencia de un “negativo imaginario internacional” que sematerializó en la formulación de un discurso periodístico que asignó a Chile y a los chilenos una conducta bélica “agresiva, expansionista y opuestaa los principios de la civilización”, la cual amenazaría potencialmente losintereses nacionales argentinos en el contexto de las disputas limítrofes entre ambos países.Palabras clave: Guerra del Pacífico; Argentina; Prensa; Opinión Pública“The american Prussia”: Argentinian press and international imaginary in Chile during the War of the Pacific (1879-1881)AbstractThe South American press, particularly in Buenos Aires, had a large and heterogeneous development in the second half of the Nineteenth Century, as a result and expression of different political persuasions, characterized by being a press of opinion, doctrinaire, of trench and increasingly informative under the events that marked the development of Latin American societies. One of those transcendent events at the regional level was the War of the Pacific (1879-1883) where Chile fought against Peru and Bolivia alliance. That conflict acquired an important international dimension and created a permanent information interest in Argentina press. Therefore, the article aims to characterize the discursive attitude adopted by part of the press of Buenos Aires at the time to analyze and judge the Chilean performance during the War of the Pacific. We propose the existence of an “international negative imaginary”, materialized in the formulation of a journalistic discourse that assigned to Chile and Chileans a war conduct that was “aggressive, expansionistand opposed to the principles of civilization”, which potentially threaten the national Argentine interests in the context of border disputes betweenthe two countries.Keywords: Pacific War; Argentina; press; public opinion“A Prussia americana”: imprensa argentina e imaginário internacional do Chile durante a Guerra do Pacífico (1879-1881)ResumoA imprensa sul-americana, particularmente Buenos Aires, teve um amplo e heterogêneo desenvolvimento na segunda meta de do século XIX, resultado e expressão das diversas orientações políticas, com a característica de ser uma imprensa de opinião, doutrinária e de trincheira, cada vez mais informativa em virtude dos acontecimentos que marcaram o desenvolvimento das sociedades latino-americanas. Um desses acontecimentos importantes a nível regional foi a Guerra do Pacífico (1879-1883) que enfrentou a Chile contra a aliança de Peru e Bolívia. Este conflito adquiriu uma dimensão internacional importante e gerou um permanente interesse informativo na imprensa argentina. Portanto, o artigo tem como objetivo caracterizar a atitude discursiva adotada pela imprensa de Buenos Aires ao momento de analisar e julgar aconduta do Chile durante a Guerra do Pacífico. Propomos a existência de um “negativo imaginário internacional” que se materializou na formulação de um discurso jornalístico que atribuiu ao Chile e aos chilenos uma conduta bélica “agressivo, expansionista e oposta aos princípios da civilização”, aqual poderia ameaçar os interesses nacionais argentinos no contexto das disputas fronteiriças entre os dois países.Palavras-chave: Guerra do Pacífico; Argentina; Imprensa; Opinião Pública