The role of the media during Pinochet´s military government:

An assessment of ‘The Media in the Transition to Democracy in

Chile’ by Eugenio Tironi et al., and ‘Media Dependency and
Political Perceptions in an Authoritarian Political System’ by Pablo
Halpern

by Cristobal Florenzano
Phd Candidate, Faculty of Social and Political Sciences
University of Cambridge

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1. Introduction:

Although the role that the media play in contemporary

democracies has been the object of intense scrutiny within
several social science disciplines in recent years (Gunther &
Mughan, 2000), not much attention has been paid to the study of
the role that the national media played in the restoration of
democracy in countries under authoritarian rule. Both of the
articles that I will assess in this paper deal with the relationship
between the media and political power in the particular case of
Chile , a country which regained democracy in 1990, after 17
years of authoritarian government. Even though these articles
approach the problem from very different angles, ask themselves
very different questions, and use very different research tools to
answer them, both of them are concerned with the impact that
the Chilean media had on political perceptions of citizenship
during the last years of the military government led by General
Pinochet[1] .

The reason why I have chosen to assess not just one of them but
both at the same time is very specific. I think that the
juxtaposition of their contrasting approaches allows us to see
their respective strengths and shortcomings in a much clearer
way. While one of them develops an original, and suggestive,
interpretation of the political impact of the media during the
period, but is very weak in supporting the argument with solid
empirical evidence, the other does exactly the opposite, paying
close attention to the empirical verification of the hypothesis
constructed, but failing to draw relevant conclusions and
interpret the social context of the research in an adequate and
illuminating way.

First I’ll discuss the structure and the main arguments of the
first article and then I’ll comment on what I consider to be its
main methodological problems. Then I will do the same with the
second article. Finally, I will end with a short conclusion which
identifies a common problem in both works and argues in favor
of an improved approach which would combine their respective
strengths and avoid their respective weaknesses.

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2. “The Modernization of Communications…” by Eugenio
Tironi and Guillermo Sunkel.

The central aim of Tironi and Sunkel´s article is to

evaluate the type and degree of responsibility that the Chilean
media had in the process of restoring democracy after 17 years
of authoritarian government. The central hypothesis that the
authors present and try to prove empirically in the article is that
the deregulation reforms approved[2] by the military regime
exposed TV stations, for the first time, to the reality of open
market competition, and forced them to develop an independent
stance towards events, which was ever more distant from the
official propaganda, and which ended by eroding the regime’s
legitimacy and contributing to its defeat in the 1988 plebiscite.

The article is divided into three parts. In the first part,

the authors reconstruct the path of media deregulation followed
by the military government, which cancelled all existing
restrictions on commercial advertising on TV, and allowed the
private sector to enter the medium. In the second part, the
authors develop their hypothesis and argue that deregulatory
reforms forced broadcasters to operate according to the logic
imposed by a new competitive open market environment and to
take a progressive distance[3] from the incongruities of a regime
that had radically liberalized the economy, but which maintained
harsh restrictions in the realm of politics.

In the third part, the authors try to prove their hypothesis

empirically discussing the development of two emblematic media
events which occurred on the eve of the crucial 1988 plebiscite
that drove Pinochet from power. The first one is the visit of Pope
John Paul II, in April 1987, which stimulated massive public
interest and received exhaustive media coverage. Particularly
important in terms of its impact was the coverage provided by
Channel 13, owned by the Catholic Church’s University, which
received the largest share of the audience. According to the
authors, Channel 13 would have tried to “take advantage of the
papal visit to create an apertura[4] towards moderate
pluralism…”(Tironi et al, 2000:180) inviting, for the first time
since democratic breakdown had occurred in 1973, opposition
leaders to share the screen with government officials, to
comment on the events of the day on TV panels. As a result of
these broadcasts, the argument concludes, the political
atmosphere of the country changed, causing “Chileans to see
themselves as a community capable of eschewing violence, living

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in peace, and replacing the previous skepticism with hope for the
future” (Tironi et al, 2000: 181).

The second case that is analyzed is the 1998 TV campaign that

the military government had to agree with the opposition in
order to ensure the fairness and legitimacy of the plebiscite.
According to the authors, the campaign turned out to be crucial
because it tilted the balance towards the No option in what was,
until then, a very close electoral race. Invoking the evidence of
several campaign surveys (Hirmas 1989, Mendez et al. 1989), the
authors show how the No campaign was overwhelmingly better
perceived by audiences than the one that was organized by
government officials. While the Yes TV broadcasts[5] chose an
aggressive and terrorizing strategy, which insisted that a No
victory would drown the country in a maelstrom of chaos and
anarchy, the No campaign presented itself as embodying a much
more positive outlook.

The effects of both these media events combined (the broadcasts

originated by the papal visit in Channel 13 and the plebiscite
campaign) positioned the opposition forces “as having the ability
to initiate a substantial change in Chile while reestablishing
social cohesion” (Tironi et al, 184). The subsequent victory of the
No alternative, the authors conclude, can be to an important
extent explained as a result of the influence that the media
exerted over the political field during the years that preceded
democratic restoration in Chile .

2.1 Critical assessment of “The Modernization of

Communications…”

Tironi and Sunkel´s article is, in my opinion, a good

example of a piece of research which develops a very acute and
plausible hypothesis about a social phenomenon, but which
manifestly fails in empirically testing it, and which therefore ends
up by drawing illegitimate conclusions with no evident support
from social reality.

I think it is possible to criticize the article on three

different grounds. By far the most serious problem comes from
the severe dissociation that exists between the explanatory
hypothesis proposed and the character of the cases by which the
hypothesis is supposedly tested. The hypothesis put forward by
the authors consists of the idea that it was the influence of open
market dynamics on the editorial lines of Chile ’s main TV

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stations that aborted Pinochet´s project of staying in power for
another eight years. The sample cases by which the hypothesis
is supposed to be tested should thus be cases in which the
influence of the free market over editorial decisions is clearly
observable. But that is, precisely, what is not the case with the
two events that are used as samples.

The first of them, the moderate glasnost that was provoked by

the Pope´s visit in 1987, may indeed be an important element in
the history of Chile ’s democratic reconstruction. It is very
difficult to see, however, in what way the exhaustive coverage of
the papal visit, organized by a Church owned TV station, can be
considered to be an example of editorial liberalization induced
by the influence of the market. It may, instead, be seen as an
example of exactly the opposite: of how strong and active the
loyalties between a particular TV station and an institution that
has very little to do with the market[6], i.e. the Church, still were
back in 1987.

A very similar thing happens with the other case that is

scrutinized. The anachronistic and somber outlook that was
publicized by the Yes option campaign most probably affected
the final outcome of the 1988 plebiscite, but it is difficult to see
what sort of relationship the campaign broadcasts maintained
with the commercialization of TV contents that had occurred
during the previous years. The relationship between the
hypothesized claim and the empirical evidence is not explicitly
explained and is left by the authors in disconcerting obscurity.

A second problematic aspect of the articles comes from

the fact that, even though it not explicitly stated by the authors,
there is an implicit assumption that changes in the political
economy of the industry will translate immediately into linear
and equivalent transformations in the realm of audience opinions
and perceptions. There is abundant media research available
(Livingstone, 1997) which undermines the validity of such an
assumption. The process of the reception of the media contents
is diverse and complex and it cannot be assumed that the
deregulation of broadcasting sources of finance will
automatically produce a liberalization of political opinions[7] in
the audience.

A third problem with the article is related to the

distribution of its structure, to the relative emphasis it assigns to
the different parts of the research. While great importance is

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given to the contextual description of the deregulation process in
Chile, to prove that the market transformed the editorial criteria
inside TV broadcasting, very little attention is devoted to proving
what the political impact of those changes were, inside each of
the cases that are used as evidence. Persuasion, therefore, is
supposed to come from the theoretical consistency of the
argument, from the plausibility of the hypothesis proposed, and
not from the force of the evidence provided by the cases. The
hypothesis proposed is not tested against the cases, but is
supposed to be accepted uncritically, and for its own sake, and
then merely illustrated by the cases discussed.

3. “Media Dependency and Political Perceptions in an

Authoritarian Political System” by Pablo Halpern.

The second article to be examined also addresses the

relationship between the political context and the media during
the last years of military government in Chile . The aim of the
research is to assess whether, and to what degree, the political
opinions of individuals are conditioned by the contents of an
ideologically monopolized press. More specifically, it seeks to
assess whether the political opinions of leftist individuals, during
the period, were conditioned by their exposure to a media
environment which at the time was overwhelmingly aligned with
the opinions of the right wing government.

The theoretical framework of the research is provided by

the Ball-Rokeach and De Fleur model of mass media effects (Ball-
Rokeach and De Fleur, 1976, 1979). The model proposes that
“the impact of media messages on audience perceptions will be a
function of the degree of dependence on mass media sources for
information” (Halpern, 1994:40). This dependence is determined,
amongst a complex set of variables which include level of
education and interest in political issues, by the number of
alternative media sources that are available.

An authoritarian context, where non official versions of

social reality are, if not directly censored, at least harassed by the
government, provides, therefore, an excellent testing ground for
the theory. If the mass dependency model theory is right, a
highly restricted and ideologically monopolized media
environment, like the one that existed in Chile during the 1980’s,
should affect the political opinions of the individuals who are
dependent on it, even of those who, because of their political

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identity, are not spontaneously inclined to agree with the
ideological bias of the predominant political outlook. The
research hypothesis proposed by the author was that “the greater
the dependency on pro- government mass media sources for
political information, the more rightist their opinions on political
issues and the more rightist their perceptions of the climate of
opinion” (Halpern, 1994 : 43).

3.1 Research Design of “Media Dependency….”

The author conducted a self-administered survey[8] in Santiago ,

Chile , during November 1989. The survey inquired about the
respondents’ patterns of media dependency, as an independent
variable, and about their views on political issues and their
perceptions of the climate of opinion, as dependent variables.

The survey was conducted after developing a Likert scale which

sought to assess the degree to which respondents’ views on
political issues were rightist or leftist[9]. Another scale was
developed to measure the perception that each respondent had
about the climate of opinion after observing the environment
through the media.

The survey inquired about the potential dependency of three

types of media in the respondents: pro–government media, legal
oppositional media and clandestine media. Three types of
information were accounted for in the analysis of each type of
dependency: media use, exclusive media use and interest in
politics. A media–use scale was developed which assigned the
maximum score to the respondent who looked for political
information from a maximum number of sources of a specific
type of media[10], with maximum frequency.

The information gathered was analyzed as a set of variables

integrated in a path analysis[11]. Three were main the results
established by the path analysis operation, according to the
author. First, the hypothesized causal link between pro
government media use and rightism in political opinions was
confirmed. Second, a direct causal link between illegal media use
and less rightism in political opinions was confirmed. Third, no
relevant causal connection was found between legal oppositional
media use and less rightism in political opinions.

The author draws two relevant conclusions from the statistical

analysis of the data collected in the survey. The first one is that,

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however damaged the credibility of a press that was aligned with
an authoritarian government might have been, the political
opinions of dissenters from the regime appear nonetheless to be
affected by the views promoted by pro-government media. On a
more general basis, the evidence seems to support the argument
proposed by the general theory of media dependency which
affirms that “as long as individuals are dependent on dominant
media for information their perceptions of political reality will
reflect it” (Halpern, 1994 : 48).

The second relevant conclusion that the author draws from the
results of the path model constructed is that, in the case of Chile
, legal oppositional media “did not provide the left with
information that could support their vision of the world”
(Halpern, 1994:50). Despite what superficial appearances may
show, the author argues, legal oppositional media constructed
their discourse within the communicative parameters imposed by
officialdom and was in no position to provide alternative versions
of political reality.

3.2 Critical assessment of “Media Dependency and…”

It seems to me that the research design of “Media

Dependency…” is problematic on three different grounds. The
first and most serious of them is the appropriateness of the time
period chosen to conduct a survey about media dependency
patterns in an authoritarian context. The problem comes from
the fact that at the time that the survey was conducted, in
November 1989, the whole machinery of censorship and
harassment that the military government had inflicted on the
media during the previous years had already been almost
completely dismantled. The government had lost the plebiscite
the previous year and was no longer the fearsome and
omnipresent threat that it had been during the time of its long
mandate.

A basic assumption, then, about the context in which the

survey was going to be conducted is, from my point of view,
mistaken. Chile , in November 1989, was no longer a good case
for studying the applicability of the media dependency theory
within authoritarian contexts, because, at the time, there were
plenty of “functional alternatives”[12] available for left wing
individuals to get informed.

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 A second problematic aspect of the research is related to
the first one, but is different. It deals with the validity of the
conclusion drawn by the author after the path analysis showed
no significant correlation between the use of legal oppositional
media and less rightism in political opinions. The author explains
what he calls the apparent inconsistency of the results of his
research by arguing that only the clandestine press provided a
real alternative to the dominant descriptions and that the legal
oppositional press was just an “echo of authority”.

Leaving aside the problem of the real magnitude of the illegal

oppositional media during this period[13], there is a much better
contextual explanation for the degree of rightism shown by left-
wing individuals. At the time of the survey, Chile was immersed
in an electoral campaign (a rather important fact that the author,
strangely, doesn’t mention) and the opposition forces were
making extreme efforts to convince the voters of their future
moderation as a government. The legal oppositional media were
not openly confronting the dictator because they were under his
ideological spell. They were not confronting him for a very simple
reason: the dictator had already been defeated. Instead, they
were actively trying to convince frightened voters, that is center
and center–right voters, that if the opposition took hold of power
the country would not go back to socialist entropy (Tironi, 1990).
It seems to me that this is a much more plausible explanation for
the absence of leftism in the consumers of legal oppositional
media than the one provided by the author.

The third, and final, problematic aspect is the attribute of

causality assigned by the author (Halpern, 1994:p.48) to the
results of the path analysis in his conclusion. It is problematic
because path analysis does not prove causality, as it deals with
correlation, not causation of variables (Walsh, 1990; Bryman &
Cramer, 1990). Path models are indeed constructed
hypothesizing sequences of causation. It is assumed that some
variables are causally related, and a hypothesized causal scheme
is tested using the path analysis technique. But, even if the
propositions are supported, it does not prove that the causal
assumptions are correct, because different models could have
been constructed consistently with the same given dataset. Path
analysis merely illuminates which of two or more alternative
models, derived from theory, is most consistent with the pattern
of correlations found in the data. No conclusive causality should
therefore be invoked, as the author does, but merely evidence of
correlation within a hypothetical model of causation.

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 4. Conclusion:

The two articles examined represent very different

approaches to the study of the impact of the media in
authoritarian societies. Even though both articles provide some
insight into the phenomenon studied, the overall results are, in
my opinion, equally problematic because of significant flaws at
the stages of finding pertinent cases with which their respective
hypothesis could be adequately tested. The first article chooses
two examples which have no observable connection with the
hypothesis proposed and can therefore neither confirm nor
refute its validity. The second article pays much more attention
to the empirical testing of the research hypothesis, but chooses a
sample which, at the time, was no longer representative of the
conditions which the whole research aims to illuminate: i.e.
media dependency in authoritarian contexts.

Beyond the problems of verification which, although for very

different reasons, both works share, it is important to comment
on what I consider to be the underlying cause of their respective
failures. Both works fail to combine in a well-balanced manner
general interpretative frameworks and empirical research in an
adequate way. The first article places so much emphasis on the
theoretical description of the social context within which the
claimed market – media – politics relationship supposedly
occurred, that it forgets to design a research device which can
adequately prove that the hypothesized linkage actually occurred
in the claimed manner. The second article, on the contrary, gives
so much relative attention to the construction of a quantitative
research tool that would be able to prove empirically the
existence of media dependency patterns in authoritarian
contexts, that it forgets to ask itself a previous, and more basic,
question about the actual adequacy of the social context
researched with the theoretical conditions that qualify it as a
relevant research subject.

Both articles, in synthesis, place an excessive, unbalanced,

emphasis on just one of the dimensions which a sound and
relevant piece of research should have (Ragin, 1994). It is
therefore possible to think of a piece of research that would
manage to combine an original interpretative hypothesis, like the
one that the first article elaborates, with the careful construction
of a research model on which the research hypothesis can be

10
adequately tested, like the one the that second article at least
tries to build. That research would be in a much better position
to illuminate convincingly an issue which these articles have left,
to a very large extent, submerged in obscurity.

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Bibliography

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Communications: The Media in the Transition to Democracy on
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and the Media. Cambridge : Cambridge University Press.

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