Too little too much: Cristina Kirchner’s use and abuse of speech broadcasts

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MA Erasmus Mundus Master

Journalism, Media and Globalisation

(joint degree)

Too little too much: Cristina Kirchner’s use and abuse of speech broadcasts

by

Lucia Malvarez

Student ID: 11896590

Master’s Thesis

Graduate School of Communication

Master’s programme Communication Science

Supervisor/Examiner: mw. dr. Linda Bos

Date of completion: 31st May 2018

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Too little too much: Cristina Kirchner’s use and abuse of speech broadcasts Abstract

Latin America has been experiencing populist governments for decades, however, most scholars who study the role of media in populism focus on Europe. In the years of Nestor and Cristina Kirchner’s governments (2003-2015), Argentina went through a war between several media groups, known as opposition media, and Kirchner supporters. In the years of Cristina Kirchner’s government, opposition media was discredited publicly and ignored by her and her government officials. As previous research shows, Cristina Kirchner relied mostly on herself to deliver her messages to the people, either by the use of Cadena Nacional or Twitter. When Cristina Kirchner opted to address the people through Cadena Nacional all TV channels and Radio stations would stop their normal transmissions and her speeches would be aired. By doing so, she removed media from her communication strategy as an intermediate. This analysis is divided into two different studies. The first study consists of a qualitative analysis and shows the presence of populist elements in her speeches, such as the sense of nationalism by praising the national industry. The second study consists of a quantitative content analysis and examines the coverage of such broadcasts by opposition newspaper, Clarin, and partisan newspaper, Pagina 12. The results of different tests carried out to analyse the coverage of both media outlets show that Pagina 12 is extremely positive in their coverage of the government, leaving behind the idea of professional and quality

journalism. On the other hand, Clarin shows a more neutral and professional coverage that intends to keep their audience informed. The results show that partisan media did not follow a moral compass when reporting on the government, while opposition media maintained the standards of quality journalism, though they suffered the financial consequences of

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Introduction

Ever since the 1980s, Europe has been experiencing the rise of right wing populism, which has been considered a menace to liberal democracy, an ideology that corrupts

democracy (Mudde, 2004). Populism revolves around the idea of two opposite groups, those who identify with what populism stands for, the people, and the rest, considered the elite. This elite includes politicians as well as anyone, including media, who do not agree with the

ideologies of populism (Mudde, 2004).

In some countries in Latin America, populism represents the strongest political actors. Most Latin American countries have or had populist governments, such as Juan Domingo Peron in Argentina, who can be considered as part of the first wave of populism in Latin America, or classic populism (Mudde & Rovira Kaltwasser, 2012; Jagers & Walgrave, 2007). There are two other waves of populism that affected Latin America: neoliberal populism, in the 90s and radical leftist populism, since the 2000s (Mudde & Rovira Kaltwasser, 2012). Most of the literature on left wing populism Weyland (2010) and Mudde (2004), focus on the political or economic aspect of populism, but not on the relationship between populist

governments and media. On the other hand, though the research is limited and most of the it focuses on Europe, Latin American authors like Waisbord (2010, 2012, 2013,2017), Liotti (2012), Michelstein & Boczkowski (2017) do focus on the effects of populist government on media in Latin America. As Claude-Jean Bertrand (2005) argues, the public is the one media should serve, and the way journalists can do it is by being independent both financially and politically. Therefore it is relevant to analyse the role of media in populism. One possible explanation as to what is media’s role in the global rise of populism is that media content itself can be populist and because of that, journalists are also performing the distinction between good and bad people, the in-group and the out-group (Hameleers, Bos & de Vreese, 2017).

4 This study addresses a scientific gap by researching how media reports the final year of one of Latin America’s recent populist presidencies. The media system in Argentina is a polarized one that is controlled by private interests and used for political ends. This

politicization of media also took over public broadcasting and broadcast regulation and converted journalism into a depending profession instead of the autonomous one it is supposed to be, with very well established conflicts between the government of Cristina Kirchner and some media outlets (Mitchelstein & Boczkowski, 2015). The role of media in a populist governed country is a topic of immense relevance, especially for Latin America because the increasing popularity of left wing governments have induced ‘media wars’. Large media institutions in Latin America concentrate control over key resources and can potentially become strong actors in policymaking and ability for governments to stay in power for as long as they want to (Kitzberger, 2016).

As mentioned before, the role of media is of extreme importance for democracy, especially in the case of populist governments. Some characteristic like charismatic leadership and a style of communication characterized by the absence of intermediaries smooth the path of populism rather than define it (Mudde, 2004; Mudde & Rovira Kaltwasser, 2012). These two particular attributes do seem to apply to Cristina Kirchner and her administration, especially towards the end. During the final year of her second term she interrupted all television and radio transmission 44 times to nationally broadcast her speeches in what is known as Cadena Nacional. According to the National Law 26.522 that regulates audio-visual communications services, this measure is only to be used in cases of danger to society or national security. Since Mauricio Macri commenced his Presidential term in December 2015, the Cadena National has not been used. By appealing to the Cadena Nacional, Kirchner removed journalism as an intermediate between her and the people and addressed them

5 directly and this, along with her social media accounts became the only channel of

communication between her and the “pure people”, not the “corrupt elite”.

The first goal of this thesis is to look into the content of the Cadena Nacional speeches to understand how and what elements of populist communication strategies Cristina Kirchner used when addressing the people without the intervention of media. This leads to the question “To what extent did Cristina Kirchner’s communication strategies contain different elements of populism communication strategies?”. It is also important to have a better understanding how media, both partisan and opposition, covered those speeches, since a conflictive

relationship developed between the government and those media outlets considered to oppose her government (Boczkowski & Mitchelstein, 2017). This confrontation between government and opposition media leads to the intent to answer the question “How did newspapers from partisan and opposition media cover Kirchner’s Cadena Nacional speeches?”. To answer the questions mentioned before, two studies were carried out. In a first stage a qualitative analysis looked into the speeches and looked for populist elements in the content. A second stage looked in a quantitative manner the way one partisan and one opposition newspaper reported on said speeches. The two studies together not only attempt to indicate the presence of populist communication strategies, but also how media, that is supposed to be independent and accountable (Bertrand, 2005) reacts to populist leaders depending on which side of the “media war”(Kitzberger, 2016) they are on.

Defining Populism

The concept of populism has been throughout the years, a hard one to define. Several authors have come up with their own definition such as Mudde, Jagers & Walgrave, Weyland, Waisbord, among others. Though at times it represents a challenge, populism can be defined as an ideology, which indicates a separation of society into two groups, an elite, considered to

6 be corrupted and, the people, who are pure (Mudde, 2004; Mudde & Rovira Kaltwasser, 2012). Populism is constructed around the idea of a divided society that consists of two groups, an innocent one, the people, and an outside group that opposes the blameless, and are usually targeted as the ones to blame for people’s crisis (Mudde, 2004; Hameleers et al., 2017). This outside group is, in populism, commonly called the “elite”, also referred to as “them” whereas the inside group, the people, as “us”. This naming the groups is related to the attribution of guilt, which is a common attitude of populist actors, even more than any other type of politicians (Hameleers et al., 2017). Populism can also be defined as a political strategy that has a leader, who leaves behind all traditional communication channels, giving the impression of an almost personal style, and appeals to the mass, the people, that follows. This mass has been ignored and now experiences a feeling of inclusion (Weyland, 2010). “The people” is, in populism, the key concept around which other concepts, such as “the elite,” or the idea that there are only friends or foes, are constructed around. The idea of compromising in populism corrupts its purity, hence, those who oppose populism are considered evil (Mudde, 2004, Jagers & Walgrave, 2007). Three elements are commonly found in historical populist governments: the idea of identification with the people, the feeling of anti-elitism, and the idea that people are part of a large homogeneous group (this last element is typical of populism) (Jagers & Walgrave, 2007).

Populist communication

Populism can also be defined as a political communication style that has political actors who can be politicians or political parties, movement leaders, or even journalists, referring to the people (Jagers & Walgrave, 2007). Populism is about generating a feeling of closeness with the people, usually by using day to day simple vocabulary or dressing in an informal way but mostly through the content of the discourse by populist actors. In the populist discourse, vocabulary like ‘people’, ‘public’, ‘citizens’, ‘voters’, ‘taxpayers’ is

7 commonly present, provoking the idea that the leader cares for the people and that the defence of the people’s interests are important to them. Therefore, populism appeals to the people rhetorically (Jagers & Walgrave, 2007). As a communication style it is a frame that generates the idea of identification and through that makes people believe that populist actors are speaking on their behalf (Jagers & Walgrave, 2007).There are three dimensions related to populism and its discourse: the feelings of marginalization related to the political power, also known as anti-elitism, a lack of trust towards experts and experts opinion, and national affiliation. All three dimensions together should prompt a feeling of affiliation and belonging in those who are considered to be “the people” (Oliver & Rahn, 2016). The sense of direct communication between the plebs and the populus, helps erase the idea of politics being one sided, and paths the way to a performance by politicians, giving the illusion that the people have room for feedback and that there is a real relationship between the politicians and the ordinary citizens (Moffit & Tormey, 2014). Populist parties not only depend on a leader with simple solutions for complex problems, but also a detachment to intellectualism. The use of simple language and emotions help manipulate supporters to mobilise, in addition, a crisis is necessary in the populist discourse to generate conflict between the people and the

Establishment (Gerodimos, 2015). This along with the idea of direct communication leads to RQ1: “To what extent did Cristina Kirchner’s communication strategies contain different elements of populism communication strategies?”.

Journalism is a business, and because of that, there is no such thing as free press. However, populism accepts the idea of populist journalism, which basically identifies with populism and rejects the concept of professional journalism (Waisbord, 2012). European right wing populism leaders attempt to gain media attention by acting extraordinarily, defying media who cannot ignore what is considered newsworthy by using abrasive language, or presenting public protests or emotional issues ( Hameleers et al., 2017). Loyal journalism has

8 a tendency of defending the government (Mellado, Moreira, Lagos and Hernandez, 2012). However, an indicator of quality journalism is diversity in sources (Napoli, 1999; Lacy & Rosenstiel, 2015), which if the goal is to be loyal to the government, could be absent in the reporting. Populism and its media policies enhance the image of the leader. Populist presidents have criticized media outlets for representing anti-popular interests and accused them of trying to destabilise their governments. With this as an excuse there have been some measurements taken by governments to “punish” those media companies, like, for example, expropriating media companies (Waisbord, 2013). Because of the type of punishment chosen by populist governments, it is of interest to answer the following question: “How did

newspapers from partisan and opposition media cover Kirchner’s Cadena Nacional

speeches?”. The question will be answered by proving or rejecting hypotheses. First of all, based on the idea of loyal journalism, it is believed that partisan media have a tendency of mentioning Cristina Kirchner in a more positive way than opposition media, leading to H1 “Partisan media report more positive on Kirchner’s speeches than opposition media”. Second, based on the division of friends and foe in society that both Mudde (2004) and Jagers & Walgrave (2007) suggest it is expected that partisan media will acknowledge the division in society between those who agree with the government and those who don’t, which leads to H2 “Partisan media are more likely to use populist communication elements than opposition media.”

Why are media important for Democracy

In the case of a democratic country, the relationship between politics, media and journalism can be explained as a social contract where both need each other. In the case of media and journalism, they need democracy, because it is the only form of government that can guarantee respect for freedom of speech, expression and information as well as

9 media and journalism provide, fulfilling the role of watchdog and guaranteeing public

discussion. In order to accomplish this social contract, citizens need to be given the information necessary to become free and self-governing. The government, by providing information, and the media, by acting like a watchdog, look after the interests in democracy, with the intention of preventing abuse of power both in politics and other areas of society. They need each other to fulfil their roles in society (Strömbäck, 2006). This concept of democracy and journalism symbiosis is of extreme relevance to discuss in the case of a populist government. Populist actors state that they are committed to democratizing

journalism and media companies by preventing concentrated ownership, however, when those owners are “friends” of populist leaders and are generous in their reporting, their business is supported by populism (Waisbord, 2012). This concept contradicts the idea of media acting like a watchdog looking after the interests of democracy that Strömbäck (2006) talks about. Most populist leaders behave like they know how to better deal with journalism. A large number of populist leaders have notorious personalities and possess agendas that attract media coverage. The media have increased their importance in the political process around the world, which has in return, generated an adaptation of political public performances through language, for example, by adjusting it to their audience, also known as mediatization of politics (Mazzoleni, 2008). Journalism should contribute to democracy (Waisbord, 2012). According to Mazzoleni (2008) sometimes, populist leaders have opted for a more negative relationship with media so that they could show they support those “citizens” who feel they are not represented by most traditional media or those media outlets that are supposed to represent the interests of the Establishment. Media and populism need each other, populism needs media to cover their sensational stories to help increase the effectiveness of their message and media need populism to provide those stories that will be consumed by a large audience (Mazzoleni, 2008). In Latin America, politicians act like media is a big influence on

10 policy making and can even guarantee a government the possibility to stay in power. Though that power is by reputation, as long as politicians believe in it, they will act consequently (Kitzberger, 2016).

The case of Argentina

In the case of Latin America, populist leaders, who can be traced to Juan Domingo Peron in the 1940s and 1950s, create the idea of being part of the people and give the impression that they are, in a way, a servant for the people defending them against the Establishment (Jagers & Walgrave, 2007, Liotti, 2012, Mudde & Rovira Kaltwasser, 2012). Populism in this part of the world has a conflictive relationship with media. The second government of Cristina Kirchner was a period in which deep polarization stood out, mainly illustrated by journalism due to the existence of partisan and opposition, each with their own agenda. From 2008 onwards, there was a war between large media outlets and the Kirchners, who considered them too powerful and influential on public opinion (Liotti, 2012; Kitzberger, 2016; Mauersberger, 2012). However, the confrontation between government and certain media groups originated earlier, in the first few years of the millennium, when the neoliberal reforms of the 1980s and 1990s in Latin America were left behind (Boczkowski &

Mitchelstein, 2017). Kirchner’s administration focused on reducing the power of media by selecting different strategies, like discredit, corner them in terms of information and business, and creation of media to promote propagandistic messages. By pleading to fight for freedom of speech and the rights of people to be able to listen to multiple voices, the government fought against large media corporations, though not resorting to censorship (Liotti, 2012). The government of Cristina Kirchner had two complementary actions to fight opposition media, attack their public relations and economy on regular basis, and the use of public

advertisements to benefit her allies who owned progovernment media outlets with smaller audiences than opposition media. These strategies affected financially the two largest

11 newspapers in Argentina, Clarin and La Nacion, that happened to be opposition media

(Boczkowski & Mitchelstein, 2017; Waisbord, 2010), though their readership is still the largest in the country and their existence was never in danger despite their struggle with the government. Clarin is the most read newspaper in Argentina, selling 31% of newspapers, followed by La Nacion, with 14% (Mauersberger, 2012).

The deep polarization in media during the second presidential term of Cristina

Kirchner affected the quality of journalism negatively, since media opinions were subjected to a binary logic which decreased the quality of political analysis and hurt the legitimation of journalism for public opinion for both partisan and opposition media. Journalists, however, have not been oblivious to this fight and most of them have publicly stated their support to either opposition media or the government. As a result of this fight, the term “militant journalism” was born in Argentina, which applied to every journalist that would take sides without critical reflection. This war between media and government has led to physical and verbal aggression between the two sides (Liotti, 2012, Waisbord, 2012). Although during the media wars the government categorized Clarin and La Nacion as opposition media, Clarin was the one mostly affected by the actions taken by the government, who attacked the media groups financially by not providing public advertising fairly (Boczkowski & Mitchelstein, 2017). During the Kirchner administrations, entrepreneurs close to the government increased their businesses, reinforcing the government’s communicative strength by concentrating media and removing power from citizen participation. A popular tool adopted by populist governments, like Kirchner’s, was resorting to press conferences, in which, journalism’s role consisted in reporting, since questions from journalists were avoided. Most of the time, the government chose to deliver their speeches on radio and television by forcing the

transmission. Only media outlets friendly with the government were granted the opportunity to meet with them (Waisbord, 2010). Another way Clarin was affected was financially, the

12 government not only did not assign enough state advertising, but also attempted to keep private advertisers from doing so (Liotti, 2012). In order to be able to provide a more positive portrayal of Kirchner and her government partisan media avoided mentioning certain

information and sometimes even exaggerated other information, which could lead to a complete biased type of journalism and could be interpreted as H3a:“Partisan media tends more to lack elements of quality journalism than opposition media” and H3b:“Due to their own bias both partisan and opposition media would lack elements of quality journalism in their coverage of the government.”

Methodology

This research looks into the communication strategies of Cristina Kirchner and intends to find out whether or not it includes elements of populist communication strategies as well as how both partisan and opposition media cover those speeches. For this thesis, two different stages of content analysis will be carried out with two different samples. The first stage of the analysis focuses on the speeches and the second part focuses on the coverage of said speeches by one partisan media outlet and one opposition media outlet.

Study 1

Data collection and sample

During her last year as President of Argentina, the resource of Cadena Nacional was used 44 times, with some speeches lasting over 3 hours. Considering that 2015 was a

presidential campaign year, not only the content of what was said during these public

transmissions but also how it was portrayed by media becomes relevant to this research. The first stage of analysis consists in studying the way Cristina Kirchner addresses her audiences while using the resource of “Cadena Nacional”. The totality of the speeches are available to the public through the government’s Youtube channel “Casa Rosada- Republica Argentina”.

13 Out of the 44 videos that belong to 2015, 18 videos were selected. While the selection was not carried out with specific criteria in mind, there were some guidelines. First, it was intended that all videos belonged to different moments of 2015 (from January 1 to December 9, the last day of Cristina Kirchner’s presidency) and that they were representative of the different stages of the electoral year. A second important aspect that was intended for the sample was variety in the type of speech, by this, the intention was to gather videos that were showing different occasions, like policy announcements, public holidays or inaugurations. Finally, the last detail for the sample was the location, it was intended to gather speeches that took place in different locations, such as government house, stadiums and other.

Measures

To measure populism in Kirchner’s speeches, it was important to define which elements belong to populism. First the focus was on finding vocabulary that suggests

separation in society between the elites and the people, such as us and them (Mudde & Rovira Kaltwasser, 2012; Hameleers et al., 2017). The three dimensions explained by Oliver & Rahn (2016), anti-elitism, nationalism and mistrust of expertise were considered key elements to search for in her speech. Finally, the last element to analyse was the “war” with media, since media depend on political and economic ties and journalism is a business (Waisbord, 2012), so the question was, does she mention media?, and if so, how does she refer to it? (see appendix A for the complete codebook).

Procedure

For this study 1, the analysis was a qualitative one. The point in this part was not to find out how many times a certain word or phrasing was used, but how and in which context. Once the results show if there are indeed elements of populism communication in Kirchner’s speeches, the analysis will explain how those elements were used.

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Study 2

Data collection and sample

The second stage of the study examines the content of the coverage newspapers did on the same speeches that were analysed. For this sample, two media outlets were selected, one representing partisan media and the second one representing opposition media. In the case of partisan media, the newspaper Pagina 12 was selected, this newspaper is a traditionally left-wing newspaper and the third largest in Argentina. Clarin was selected as the opposition media to analyse because of its public stance against the government, the fact that they have been publicly targeted financially by the government and also because they are the largest newspaper in Argentina. Clarin is known as the leader of opposition media, against Kirchner and recipient of financial backlash due to their open stance against the government (Liotti, 2012). Initially, it was intended to gather the articles by typing the words “Cadena Nacional 2015” in the search bar, however, the results for that search were very little and a different approached had to be taken. A second search took place through the online archive for each newspaper on the day when each speech took place and the day after. Every article related to the speeches was set aside and then analysed. A total of 140 articles were gathered.

Measures

To study the evaluation of the speeches by both partisan and opposition media (H1) whether Cristina Kirchner was mentioned (M =.99, SD =.08), was measured as well as the evaluation of her portrayal (M =1.00, SD =0.85 ), evaluation of the topic covered (M =.73, SD=.90), the tone towards the government (M =1.02, SD =.87 ), government policies (M = 1.16, SD=.81), government politicians (M =1.02, SD =.84) and opposition politicians (M =.39, SD=.54) on a scale from 0 (negative) to 2 (positive). To study the use of populist framing by partisan media (H2), the focus was in coding the presence (1) and absence (0) of mentions of different types

15 of elites as (M = .23, SD =.42) well as blame attribution to elites (M = .27, SD= .44). The group “elites” consist of media, multinational companies and actors who represent anything that is not part of the people and might be indicated as responsible for socio-economic issues by the people (Hameleers et al., 2017). Finally, a search for elements of quality journalism studies how biased partisan and opposition media are in their coverage (H3). The elements to measure quality journalism are completeness(M = .59, SD=.49), accuracy (M =.72, SD =.44), whether it helps citizens be informed (M =.62, SD=.48), neutrality (M = .60, SD = .49) as well as use of sources (M = .16, SD = .37): expert sources (M =1.00, SD = .30) , non-expert sources (M = .02, SD = .14), government official sources (M =.07, SD = .25), regular people sources(M = .00, SD = .08). On the other hand, lack of quality journalism was measured by the lack of sources (M = .36, SD = .48), lack of precision (M = .31, SD = .46), presence of idolization (M = .22, SD = .42) and exaggeration (M = .21, SD = .41). Because 2015 was an election year, Cristina Kirchner was publicly accused of using the Cadena Nacional as a tool for informal campaigning. The use of sources and the intention of helping citizens being informed as well as exaggeration and idolization are considered indicators of quality journalism. For more information about the measures, please refer to Appendix A.

Procedure/ analysis

The analysis was performed on SPSS with ONE WAY ANOVA tests in order to find the mean in which the elements of populist communications strategies were used and how significant the difference was from one media outlet to the other.

For the intercoder reliability, Krippendorff’s Alpha was used to test the reliability of both coder, the author of this thesis and a second coder. In order to assess the reliability of the coding a second coder coded 20 articles. The Alpha test runs from 0.0 to 1.0, being 0.8 or higher good reliability level, but accepting as good indicator of reliability from 0.6 onwards.

16 The average results of the Kalpha test show that there is a strong intercoder reliability, for example the variable Portrayal of Cristina Kirchner showed a result of .9403 and Tone towards the government had a level of reliability of .8907. (see appendix B for the intercoder reliability results of all variables).

Results

Study 1

In order to answer the first Research Question, 18 videos were analysed, in order to find elements of populist communication in Cristina Kirchner’s speeches. As stated before, by law, these type of speeches are only to take place in case of threat to national security. Out of the 18 speeches, only one could be justified, not entirely, but significantly. The reason is that it relates to the death of a district attorney investigating the two terrorist attacks against the Jewish community in Argentina in the 90s. The average length of the speeches is of one hour and they cover more than one topic per speech. Only one video, that took place on the 19th of May, covered just one topic and its length was of 15 minutes. Some of the speeches were organised under the excuse of celebrating a national holiday, others varied, either

inaugurating buildings or simply providing government announcements.

It was previously mentioned that anti-elitism, mistrust of expertise and national affiliation are three dimensions often used in populist communication (Oliver & Rahn, 2016). In the case of the 18 videos analysed where Christina Kirchner addresses her audience, all three dimensions are present on different levels and frequencies. Initially, taking into consideration that the speeches took place in the last year of her presidency, a moment when she would no longer be able to be elected for a third term, but her party was looking to stay in power, it was expected that anti-elitism would be the strongest dimension present. However, it was national

17 appear in most of the speeches through finances and the “industrial improvements” in

Argentina. For example, in her speech of June 15 she says “we were inaugurating in Rio Grande an atrazine production line, I remember the name because it sounds a lot like “atraso” (backwardness), but it has nothing to do with backwardness, the complete opposite.” In other few cases, it is mentioned in Human Rights aspect, Cristina Kirchner calls Human rights in Argentina “a model to be copied in the rest of the world”.

In the case of anti-elitism, the dimension goes hand in hand with opposition media, which is highly criticized when mentioned in her speeches. Elites and opposition media are tightly associated and sometimes even grouped as one. Very few times she mentions the people who belong to the “elites” by name, she usually hints at them by referring to their history or a specific event, however, she singled out entrepreneur Paolo Roca because his company, Techint, pays taxes in Luxembourg and not Argentina. By not mentioning names she guaranteed herself innocent of pointing out at anyone in particular. Another way in which she addressed the “elites” is by selecting a certain vocabulary that indicates group separation, the popularly known “us (the people, mostly Kirchner followers) vs. them (everyone who disagrees with the government)”. In her July 9th _{speech, she says “we have shown all}

Argentine people, those who love us and those who don’t, that it was possible to do the things we said were necessary”. The third dimension, mistrust of expertise, is not mentioned in most of her speeches, but when it is, the experts she refers to in a negative way are tightly related to the “elites”. Such is the case of the June 3rd speech when she criticizes the journalists that choose the winners to the most prestigious award in Argentine media by saying “we all know how some awards are granted. Someday, we will implement the new media law in Argentina and those who really deserve it will be awarded”.

Another aspect that was analysed in the speeches was Kirchner’s interaction with her mass followers and the way she addresses her audience. This interaction only happened in the

18 speeches that took place outside the government house. In the case of the speeches inside the government, the tone in which she delivered her message was a more serious one, and

because the militant groups and other regular citizens would not be present in the room where it took place, there was no direct interaction. In the speeches that took place outside the

government house, Kirchner would portray this funny, ‘one of the people’ character; as Jagers & Walgrave (2007) suggest, she generates the idea of closeness by “identifying” with the people as one of them. Usually, as Bos, van der Brug & de Vreese (2011) explain, most people get to “know” politicians though what they consume from media, not with this type of direct communication. She would talk to the audience in a manner that could easily be

associated with a motherly figure, guiding her children. She would kindly talk to them, ask them, for example to “move the militant groups flags so they would not block anyone’s view”. It is also interesting to note that whenever positive chanting would start, she would keep silent, smile, and let them sing, even sometimes, show herself moved by the chanting. Also interesting to mention is the tone in her speech, notoriously more informal, she would use slang and even make jokes with her audience.

Study 2

It was expected that partisan media would not distance itself from Kirchner by providing a positive coverage of the government and a negative one of the opposition (H1). On the other hand, it was expected that opposition would have a neutral towards negative coverage. In the case of Clarin, considering they are opposition media, their tone towards the government and evaluation of the topic that initiated the article, has a tendency of being negative but not completely. In the case of tone towards opposition politicians, Clarin has clearly a neutral tone when mentioning them. Pagina 12, however, shows a significant positive tone towards the government, government policies and government politicians, as well as providing mostly a positive mention of Cristina Kirchner and evaluation of the topic

19 covered. The results show there is significant difference in the tone of their reporting by both media outlets, in the case of opposition media always with a tendency towards neutral, but when it refers to the government neutral towards negative. Clarin is also, significantly more supportive of opposition politicians than Pagina 12, whose tone towards opposition

politicians, though neutral has a significant tendency towards negative. In the case of H1, it can be said that partisan media distance itself less from Kirchner than opposition media.

< Table 1 about here >

In the case of populism, one of the ways to represent the society division of “us vs. them” frame (H2) is through grouping those who oppose populism into what they call “elite” and those who agree as the “people”. In the coverage, the division of elite and people is represented in two ways, by making elites responsible for any societal/political or economic problem mentioned in the articles or by mentioning them in the articles. Pagina 12 has a significantly higher tendency of making elites responsible for problems than Clarin, who has a very low presence of this variable in their articles. Clarin also has a low presence of mention of “elites” in their articles. In Pagina 12, those mentions are significantly higher. Pagina 12 mentions elites in 41% of their articles where Clarin only does it in 0,06%. H2 therefore finds support in the data: in the case of partisan media, there is significantly more mentions of us vs. them than in opposition media.

< Table 2 about here >

Both media outlets have a tendency of using sources for the articles covering Cristina Kirchner’s speeches in a low frequency. It was expected that Clarin would use more expert sources, and Pagina 12 would resort mostly to government officials as sources, along with

20 non-expert and regular people. However, Pagina 12 shows no presence of non-expert and regular people as sources for their articles.

< Table 3 about here >

In the case of Clarin, there is a stronger presence of completeness, accuracy,

neutrality as well as a narrative that suggests the text was written in a way that helps citizens be informed. In these same variables, except for accuracy, Pagina 12 has significantly lower levels. Pagina 12 does however, have a significantly stronger presence of other variables that oppose quality journalism, such as idolization, exaggeration, lack of precision and lack of sources. In the case of idolization and exaggeration, these variables are completely absent in Clarin, though lack of precision and sources are (in a low level), present. In the case of H3a and H3b, Clarin shows significantly higher levels of quality journalism than Pagina 12.

< Table 4 about here >

Discussion

Study 1

As mentioned in the Results section, the first elements that where searched for in Cristina Kirchner’s speeches were the three dimensions presented by Oliver & Rahn (2016), nationalism, anti-elitism and mistrust of expertise. Originally, it was expected that anti-elitism would dominate most of the speeches, however, it was the national sentiment the most present in her speeches. This dimension was heavily used previously in 2011 during her very

successful presidential campaign, when she won the elections with 54% of the votes. Considering that opposition accused her of using her speeches to campaign for her party’s candidate in the 2015 elections, it makes sense that the national sentiment was heavily present in them. Although in the analysis the focus was on the elements present in the speeches, the manner in which Kirchner addresses her audiences, which differed depending on the type of

21 audience present, is also interesting for the purposes of this study. When the speech took place inside the government house, which was, in most cases, government announcements, her tone was more serious. Although she never seemed too serious, every now and then she would make a joke to lighten up the mood, yet she would not interact with the audience. The only interaction was with other government officials, and to verify some data. On the other hand, the speeches that took place outside the government house, like in social clubs, had militant groups as present audience. Her interaction with this audience is not interesting to study because of what was said, but how it was said. In these type of speeches, she portrayed herself as one of the people, who can smile, joke and even “love” her people. Showing, as explained by Jagers & Walgrave (2007) that rhetoric is important in populism.

Another interesting fact about her speeches is that only one of them is restricted to covering just one topic. The speech that took place May 19, 2015 is the only speech that has a strict coherence between the topic, the location and the direct message. In this case, the occasion for the speech was the inauguration of a Memory Center related to the military government during 1976 and 1983. Cristina Kirchner was in her youth a member of one of the guerrilla groups in the 1970s, as well as her late husband, Nestor Kirchner. This specific speech appealed to her emotional side, so the content was more emotional, though still political. She not only mentioned babies born in clandestine centers, but also told the story of her husband when he first recuperated the center that was now being inaugurated. By telling the story of her husband, she portrayed herself as a grieving widow who had lost her partner in life and in politics. She was easy to relate to, she was one of the people. Although the speech tended to appeal more of an emotional side in the audience, she did not lose the chance to blame the media for not making public what was happening in the clandestine centers. Here it is noticed, as explained by Hameleers et al. (2017) how the government by presenting

22 an emotional issue about a past newsworthy fact defied media and generate a new interest in the topic.

A final detail to take into consideration when analysing Cristina Kirchner speeches in search for populist communication elements is the lack of media outlets present in the

speeches. This elimination of media as a conductor of news from the politicians to the people agrees with the need of direct communication between the “plebs and the populus”, as

explained by Moffit & Tormey (2014). By doing so, populist governments, Kirchner’s in particular, control the message, without intermediaries to modify or interpret, in the name of people. Here, it is a direct message from Kirchner to the people. However, though Kirchner does manage to erase media from the first equation, there is a second stage of media’s involvement that she cannot manipulate. Media will report on the speeches by Kirchner, and sometimes that lack of presence of media in the audience could play a negative role for the government. How media reacted to the message depending on their political association will be further discussed in the second section of the Discussion.

Study 2

When reporting the speeches by Cristina Kirchner during 2012, both media outlets chosen for the analysis opted for very different (and true to their stance towards the

government) ways to do it. The reporting style could be due to a clear statement of support or “fight” with the government, or it could be caused, as Lacy & Rosenstiel (2015) suggest, by the fact that people have the power to decide what they want to consume as news and because they have, in a way, become producers of their own news and not everyone is interested in different points of view. In the case of Pagina 12, it is quite evident that the coverage is done by partisan media. There is clear lack of information and sources as well as exaggeration and idolization around Kirchner’s image in their articles. On the other hand, Clarin maintains a

23 more impartial way of reporting, although it is possible to notice elements of opposition reporting, especially in the articles where the author is known. One detailed that was noticed during coding, though not measured, was that Clarin’s signed articles include a deeper analysis of the topic covered and have a tendency of having a negative opinion of the government. When Pagina 12’s articles are signed by their author, there is still lack of precision and sources in them. The reason for it could be that, in order to keep the reporting positive, less is more, the less people know, the happier they will be with the government. If this is the case, then journalism would not be fulfilling the role of watchdog in democracy and for society that Strömbäck (2006) suggests should. Pagina 12 has a more significant tendency to report about Cristina Kirchner, the government, government policies and government politicians in a positive way when Clarin mostly does it in a negative way, but also, provides some neutral coverage. In the case of opposition, there is more of a difference in their stance, Clarin has a mostly neutral coverage and Pagina 12 has a neutral coverage tending towards negative. It would seem that Pagina 12’s reporting strategy when it comes to opposition politicians is to not attack. Which was expected considering that according to Hameleers et al. (2017) journalists are active actors who can blame the outside group, the elites; in this case, opposition politicians. It would appear that Pagina 12 focuses more on positive reporting related to the government than to discrediting opposition, while Clarin does discredit the government.

Another interesting detail to comment on is the division in society created by populist governments. Since Kirchnerism identifies as a Peronist Party, they behave like they are entitled to represent the people, so everyone who does not agree with the government become the “elite”. The division in society, this knowledge of the “elites vs the people” is noticeably more present in articles by Pagina 12 than articles by Clarin. The reason for this could be that, by acknowledging the existence of elites, the division in society intensifies, which helps

24 populism’s discourse. Pagina 12 mentions the elites in 41% of their articles while in Clarin articles it is virtually absent. It is common for populist actors to portray elites as distant to the people, not belonging and because of that not being able to represent and defraud the

people(Mudde, 2004; Hameleers et al., 2017).

Limitations

Only two media outlets of comparable size and archive could be analysed. It would have been interesting to see what La Nacion had to say, but considering only one big partisan media had online archives good enough for fair comparison, only one opposition outlet had to be chosen. Another aspect that would be interesting to study is the preference of national sentiment over anti-elitism in speeches by populist politicians and if there is any variation in the use during campaign time. A final aspect that would be interesting to analyse is the use of emotions, both positive and negative in the reporting of the speeches. The time and space limitations made it impossible to research these aspects in the present study. For future

research, however, it would be interesting to show how the results of this study can be applied to other countries with populist governments.

Conclusion

Throughout this thesis two questions were asked in an attempt to find out if Cristina Kirchner’s speeches were populist ones and the way opposition and partisan media covered those speeches. The first question was answered after a qualitative analysis of 18 speeches that were aired through Cadena Nacional. All speeches analysed contained elements of populist communication strategies. The second question was answered by proving all

hypotheses that compared how partisan and opposition media covered the speeches analysed. It is concluded in this thesis that Kirchner’s speeches were of populist nature. As stated before, certain elements like the presence of national sentiment proposed by Oliver &

25 Rhan (2016) and the division in society, the people and the Elite mentioned by Weyland (2010), Mudde (2004) and Hameleers et al. (2017) were found in the content of her speeches. Her main target audience were the people that agreed with her government, in that group, partisan media can be found and because of that, the reaction from partisan media towards her communication strategies was positive and non-critical, unlike opposition media. Partisan media leaves behind the concept of quality journalism to be loyal to the government (Mellado et al., 2012) and benefit financially from siding with the government by receiving more state advertisement than they are legally entitled to (Boczkowski & Mitchelstein, 2017). Along the years very little has been written about populism and media, especially in Latin America, this study focused on filling a gap in the studies of populism by analysing a populist government’s attempt to remove media as an intermediary in the delivery of their message to the audience. However, media is still a powerful player, and Clarin, leading the opposition media with 31% of the country’s readership has been extremely critical of Kirchner’s administration. It is not a coincidence that Kirchner’s candidate to succeed her did not win the 2015 presidential

elections, considering, as Kitzberger (2016) proposes, that media in Latin America can guarantee a government the chance to stay in power.

26

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Appendix A

Code Book for videos

Date of airing: Time of airing: Length:

1) What is Context and location where the speech took place? 2) How many topics were covered in the speech?

3) What is the topic?

4) Was there any relationship between the context where it took place and the topic? 5) Was there a specific occasion that justified the speech?

29 6) Was there audience present? (1) yes, (0) no

If yes, what type of audience was there? 7) Was Cristina Kirchner alone? (1) yes, (0) no

If no, who was with her?

8) Was there interaction with members of “mass of followers” ? (1) yes, (0) no If yes, how was that interaction?

9) Was there presence of vocabulary that implies separation of groups in society (such as “us” and “them”) (1) yes, (0) no

10) How does she address her audience?

11) Was there any mention of (mass) media (1) yes, (0) no

If yes, how are media evaluated? (1) negative, (2) neutral, (3) positive, (9) n/a 12) Was there mention of any of nationalism? (1) yes, (0) no

If yes, how is it addressed?

13) Was there mention of any of anti- elitism? (1) yes, (0) no If yes, how is it addressed?

14) Was there mention of any of mistrust of expertise? (1) yes, (0) no If yes, how is it addressed?

Code book for Articles

Article ID(source/section/ddmmyyyy/ author) Coder ID: LM

Source: Clarin(1), Pagina 12 (2) Date of publication: dd.mm.yyyy

1) Was Cristina Kirchner mentioned in the articles? (0) not mentioned (1) mentioned. 1a) If there is mention to her then the code would be the following (1) neutral (2) negative (3) positive (9) N/A

2) Is the topic covered evaluated? (0) no (1) yes

If yes, is the evaluation: (1) neutral, (2) negative, (3) positive, (9) N/A 3) Is the story a coverage of any societal/political or economic problem? If yes,

a) does the story describe the government as responsible for any problems mentioned? (0) no (1) yes

b) Does the story mention others possible responsible for the problems mentioned? a. media (0) no (1) yes

b. multinational companies (0) no (1) yes c. the elite (0) no (1) yes

30 4) Is there mention of “elites” in the article? (0) no (1) yes

Does the article portray “elites” as deceiving the people? (0) no (1) yes Does the article portray “elites” as distant from the people? (0) no (1) yes Does the article portray “elites” as not belonging to the people? (0) no (1) yes Does the article portray “elites” as not caring for the needs of the people? (0) no (1) yes

Does the article portray “elites” as not speaking on behalf of the people? (0) no (1) yes

Does the article portray “elites” as not knowing the needs of the people? (0) no (1) yes Does the article portray “elites” as explicitly not empowering the people? (0) no (1) yes

5) Are there sources in the article? (0) no (1) yes If yes,

a) are those sources experts (0) no (1) yes b) are those sources non-experts? (0) no (1) yes

c) are those sources government officials? (0) no (1) yes d) are those sources regular people? (0) no (1) yes

6) What is the tone towards the government? (1) neutral, (2) negative, (3) positive, (9) N/A (i.e., category not mentioned)

7) What is the tone towards government policies? (1) neutral, (2) negative, (3) positive, (9) N/A (i.e., category not mentioned)

8) What is the tone towards government politicians? (1) neutral, (2) negative, (3) positive, (9) N/A (i.e., category not mentioned)

9) What is t0he tone towards opposition politicians? (1) neutral, (2) negative, (3) positive, (9) N/A (i.e., category not mentioned)

10) Does the story employ expressions of anger? Yes (1) or No (0) Such words include but are not limited to: abominable, bad, catastrophe, disappointment, hate, miserable, reject, terrible

11) Does the story employ expressions of fear? Yes (1) or No (0) Such words include but are not limited to: oppressive, terrifying, devastating, destruction, decrease, painful.

12) Does the story contain visual information that might generate negative emotions (e.g. sadness, anger, fear, rage, disgust)? Yes (1), No (0), Not applicable (9)

13) Does the story employ expressions of hope Yes (1) or No (0) Such words include but are not limited to: enthusiasm, keenness, drive, desire, expectations, fortune, faith.

14) Does the story employ expressions of pride Yes (1) or No (0) Such words include but are not limited to: honour, delight, dignity, worth, sufficiency, joy, excellence.

15) Does the story contain visual information that might generate positive emotions (e.g. happiness, joy, pride, hope)? Yes (1), No (0), Not applicable (9)

16) Is there presence of quality journalism (this includes but is not limited to: accuracy)? (1) yes, (0) no.

17) Is there presence of quality journalism (this includes but is not limited to: completeness)? (1) yes, (0) no.

18) Is the story written in a way that it aims at helping citizens be informed? (1) yes, (0) no 19) Is the story written in a neutral and informative way? (1) yes, (0) no

20) Does it include vocabulary that suggest idolization? (0) no (1) yes 21) Does it include vocabulary that suggest exaggeration? (0) no (1) yes

31 22) Does it include vocabulary that suggest lack of precision? (0) no (1) yes

23) Does it include vocabulary that suggest lack of sources? (0) no (1) yes

Appendix B

Krippendorff’s Alpha Test complete list of results:

Variable Krippendorff’s alpha

Mention of Cristina 1.00

Portrayal of Cristina Kirchner .94

Evaluation of the topic .78

Tone towards the government .89

Tone towards Government policies 1.00

Tone towards Government politicians 1.00 Tone towards opposition politicians 1.00 Mentions of different types of elites .71

Blame attribution to Elites .71

Quality journalism: completeness .85

Quality journalism: accuracy .85

Quality journalism: lack of precision .70

Quality journalism: lack of sources .85

Quality journalism: neutrality .85

32

Helps citizens be informed .71

Exaggeration 1.00

Idolization .85

Expert source .76

Non-Expert source 1.00

Government Official source 1.00

Regular People source 1.00

Appendix Tables

Table 1

33

Note. Standard deviations appear in parentheses bellow means.

Table 2

Use of Populist frames Clarin (M, SD) Pagina 12 (M, SD) F Sig. Elites Responsible 0.027 (0.164) 0.552 (0.501) 71.737 .000 Mention of Elites 0.068 (0.254) 0.417 (0.496) 28.008 .000 Note. Standard deviations appear in parentheses bellow means.

Clarin (M, SD) Pagina 12 (M, SD) F Sig. Was Cristina Kirchner mentioned in a positive or negative way 0.305 (0.463) 1.769 (0.424) 368.426 .000 Evaluation 0.100 (0.303) 1.826 (0.387) 384.397 .000 Tone towards Government 0.281 (0.4530) 1.820 (0.386) 458.635 .000 Tone towards Government Policies 0.482 (0.504) 1.842 (0.367) 268.962 .000 Tone towards Government Politicians 0.395 (0.494) 1.848 (0.364) 200.910 .000 Tone towards opposition Politicians 1.071 (0.267) 0.690 (0.257) 139.404 .000

34 Table 3

Use of sources to measure quality journalism Clarin (M, SD) Pagina 12 (M, SD) F Sig. Presence of Sources 0.205 (0.406) 0.119 (0.326) 1.884 .172 Expert Source 0.178 (0.385) 0.014 (0.122) 10.997 .001 Non-Expert Source 0.041 (0.199) .000 (.000) 2.830 .095 Government Official Source 0.041 (0.199) 0.1045 (0.308) 2.118 .148 Regular People Source 0.013 (0.117) .000 (.000) 0.917 .0340

Note. Standard deviations appear in parentheses bellow means.

Table 4

Elements of quality journalism

Clarin (M, SD) Pagina 12 (M, SD) F Sig. Completeness 0.849 (0.360) 0.313 (0.467) 58.269 .000 Accuracy 0.958 (0.199) 0.462 (0.502) 60.774 .000 Helps citizens be informed 0.904 (0.296) 0.328 (0.473) 75.724 .000 Neutral and Informative 0.849 (0.360) 0.298 (0.461) 74.530 .000 Suggest Idolization .000 (.000) 0.477 (0.503) 65.789 .000 Suggest Exaggeration .000 (.000) 0.477 (0.501) 58.344 .000 Suggest Lack of Precision 0.068 (0.254) 0.582 (0.496) 60.685 .000 Suggest Lack of Sources 0.150 (0.360) 0.597 (0.494) 37.720 .000