Chilean Television and the Transition to Civilian Rule: How the Medium Became the Message in Post-Pinochet Chile

• In Event: ICA Interactive Paper/Poster Session II
  In Interactive Paper Session: Media Industry Studies Interactive Poster Session

Abstract

This paper focuses on the 1988 Franja de Propaganda Electoral, a month long televised political advertising campaign developed by media professionals to help convince the Chilean people to put aside their fear, and vote their way out of a 15-year military dictatorship. Ultimately, Pinochet’s opposition was victorious in the October 5, 1988 plebiscite, and this victory has since been referred to as the end of Augusto Pinochet’s 17-year rule of Chile. By all accounts this electoral victory was an important moment in the contemporary political history of Chile, and consequently has been the subject of research for many scholars. Yet, this paper is not an historical narrative per se. Instead, I briefly historicize the conditions and motives of the transition to civilian governance and the co-evolution of the Chilean television industry within that context, to situate and track one important aspect of the relationship between political communication, culture, and democratic change engendered by the 1988 plebiscite.

Author

• Harry L Simon Salazar, U of California - San Diego