The Colombian Peace Process and the Press: Discourse Analysis of News Outlets about the Negotiations between the FARC and the Government in La Habana (Cuba)

• In Event: Media, Politics, and Democracy in Latin America

Abstract

The peace process between the FARC and the government that is taken place in La Habana (2012 – today) has been the closest attempt to end the Colombian armed conflict. These negotiations have had a continuous coverage by Colombian Mass media, which mostly based their reports in press releases of the parts and interviews with the negotiators. These news outlets have an important impact in the way the public perceive the process, and the public opinion, at the same time, affect the fate of the negotiations.

By implementing methods of Discourse Analysis, this paper focus on how relevant events of the process have been reported by two most influential Colombian newspapers (El Tiempo and El Espectador) and a weekly magazine (Semana). The main interest is to describe the common syntactic structure of the headlines, the semantic characteristics of verbs and adjectives, and modalization (the shift from direct speech to various forms of indirect speech).

The final objective is to show that the linguistic strategies used by the these news organizations correspond more to the editorial position rather than to a informative intention, by contrasting the news reports with the press releases or interviews on which these are based. It is conclude that the subjective approach of the Colombia mass media can have a pivotal impact in the public opinion and therefore have and impact the outcome of these negotiations.

Author

• Félix M Burgos Trujillo, New York University