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Articles

Vol. 37 No. 1 (2017)

Trends of the editorial viewpoints in reference newspapers in Chile: the art of balancing criticism of the performance of political actors

DOI
https://doi.org/10.4067/S0718-090X2017000100008
Submitted
December 15, 2019
Published
2017-04-30

Abstract

 The study analyzes whether the press, in the context of increasingly concentrat­ed ownership, has shown a corresponding trend toward a uniformity of editorial viewpoints when discussing the actions of the government, political parties, or civil society. Prior findings reveal that editorials tend to assume a position by identifying an actor that is responsible for the topic being discussed. This facilitates a content analysis that uses the editorial positions of major media outlets regarding the ac­ceptance or rejection of a specific actor. The results suggest a tendency towards an increasingly homogeneous view by the five media outlets studied, especially in the two leading newspapers, El Mercurio and La Tercera. Chilean newspapers tend to be very similar when judging those responsible, balancing acceptance and rejection in a way that is generally less critical of the government than it is of civil actors.