Abstract
Latin American governments restrict the media for political, historical, and cultural reasons. As these governments trend toward socialism, their influence on media increases. This paper examines methods of media control and investigates whether the increased control leads to bias and inaccuracy of information, both of which jeopardize the functioning of a democratic political system. Four newspapers in Argentina were used as a case study; articles from 2004 to 2013 were evaluated for bias and accuracy. The expected outcome was that newspapers sympathetic toward her administration would become more favorably biased toward her while critical newspapers would become more unfavorably biased. In both cases, the accuracy of reported inflation rates would decrease. The results, however, show three newspapers became more neutral, increasingly printing articles that were not government related or that omitted references to the president. The analysis of the accuracy of the inflation rate was inconclusive due to data limitations.
Recommended Citation
Yeager, R. L. (2014). Government Control of and Influence on the Press in Latin America: The Case of Argentina during the Presidency of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (2007-2014). Inquiry: The University of Arkansas Undergraduate Research Journal, 17(1). Retrieved from https://scholarworks.uark.edu/inquiry/vol17/iss1/5
