La pobreza como tema político y mediático en Venezuela

Abstract

This paper studies how poverty has become a main political issue in Venezuela since February 1989. Studies on media coverage of February 1989 riots (known as “El Caracazo”) help to understand the journalistic points of view related to them. They are also useful to explain how poverty has become a content of media agenda. In this document two specific cases of media representation of poverty are studied: 1) journalistic TV program Altera, which showed the features of Venezuelan poverty both before and after February 1989; 2) and the representation of poverty elaborated by two TV news shows: La Noticia, produced by public service TV station Venezolana de Televisión, and El observador, produced by private channel Radio Caracas Televisión (RCTV). The conclusion is that poverty in Venezuelan media network is less a situation demanding to be resolved than a symbolic pretext triggering off a political confrontation.

Keywords

• poverty
• politics
• Caracazo
• media