Bad News from Venezuela: Twenty Years of Fake News and Misreporting PDF
Preview Bad News from Venezuela: Twenty Years of Fake News and Misreporting
Bad News from Venezuela Since the election of President Hugo Chavez in 1998, Venezuela has become an important news item. Western coverage is shaped by the cultural milieu of its journalists, with news written from New York or London by non-specialists or by those staying inside wealthy guarded enclaves in an intensely segregated Caracas. Journalists mainly work with English-speaking elites and have little contact with the poor majority. Therefore, they reproduce ideas largely attuned to a Western, neoliberal understanding of Venezuela. Through extensive analysis of media coverage from Chavez’s election to the present day, as well as detailed interviews with journalists and academics covering the country, Bad News from Venezuela highlights the factors contributing to reportage in Venezuela and why those factors exist in the first place. From this examination of a single Latin American country, the book furthers the discussion of contemporary media in the West, and how, with the rise of ‘fake news’, their operations have a significant impact on the wider representation of global affairs. Bad News from Venezuela is comprehensive and enlightening for undergraduate students and research academics in media and Latin American studies. Alan MacLeod is a member of the Glasgow Media Group and completed his thesis in sociology in 2017. He specialized in media theory and analysis. Routledge Focus on Communication and Society Series Editor: James Curran Routledge Focus on Communication and Society offers both estab- lished and early-career academics the flexibility to publish cutting- edge analysis on topical issues, research on new media or in-depth case studies within the broad field of media, communication and cultural studies. Its main concerns are whether the media empower or fail to empower popular forces in society; media organisations and public policy; and the political and social consequences of the media. Bad News from Venezuela Alan MacLeod For a complete list of titles in this series, please see: www.routledge.com/ series/SE0130 Bad News from Venezuela Twenty years of fake news and misreporting Alan MacLeod First published 2018 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2018 Alan MacLeod The right of Alan MacLeod to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN: 978-1-138-48923-3 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-351-03826-3 (ebk) Typeset in Sabon by Apex CoVantage, LLC To my parents Contents List of Tables viii Introduction 1 PART I 1 The election of Hugo Chavez, 1998–99: a threat to democracy? 16 2 The 2002 coup 27 3 Hugo Chavez’s death and funeral 42 4 The 2013 elections 58 5 The 2014 guarimbas 80 PART II 6 Who are the journalists? 104 7 Inside the news factory 115 8 Geopolitics and the propaganda model 132 Conclusion 148 Index 156 Tables 1.1 How democratic is your country, 1–10? Venezuela, 1997, 2013. Latinobarómetro 19 1.2 Venezuelan elections: clean or Rigged? 1997 and 2006, Latinobarómetro 20 1.3 Newspapers’ identifications of the Punto Fijo System 22 1.4 Newspaper articles on Venezuelan institutions 23 2.1 NED and USAID grants to Venezuelan organizations, 2000–2006, Golinger (2007: 56). 30 2.2 What happened in Venezuela? 2002 newspaper identifications. 34 2.3 2002 articles mentioning possible US involvement in the coup 36 2.4 2002 articles mentioning media involvement in the coup 38 3.1 Venezuela: poverty and extreme poverty, 1990–2012, ECLAC, 1990–2013 45 3.2 Venezuela: share of income by class, 1990–2012, ECLAC (2013: 89) 46 3.3 Total number of 2013 mentions of heads of state attending Hugo Chavez’s funeral 52 4.1 How democratic is your country? 2013, average score, Latinobarómetro. 62 4.2 Venezuelan TV audience share, 2000–2010, AGB Nielsen, cited in Weisbrot and Ruttenburg (2010: 2–4). 64 4.3 Venezuelan media assessment of Maduro and Capriles, Carter Center (2013: 56) 65 4.4 Venezuelan elections: clean or not clean? 2013 newspaper identifications 68 4.5 Venezuelan media: caged or free? 1998–2014 71 4.6 The Venezuelan state: does it dominate the media landscape or not? 72 Tables ix 4.7 2013 newspapers’ identifications of Henrique Capriles 75 5.1 Do you agree or disagree with the guarimbas? Venezuela, Noticias24 (2014) 85 5.2 2014 guarimbas: Protests or a Coup? 86 5.3 The 2014 guarimbas: a protest or a coup? Identifications in selected media. 88 5.4 Why are there street demonstrations? Explanations offered by sampled newspapers 91 5.5 Mentioning of possible US Government involvement in 2014 protests, UK and US newspapers 92 5.6 Who is responsible for the violence? Identifications in selected newspapers 93 5.7 Respectable or violent protesters? Identifications in selected newspapers 95 5.8 Identifications of the demonstrations: Isolated and unpopular or widespread and serious 96
The list of books you might like
