Mass Media and Constituent Processes: The case of El Mercurio in Chile

Abstract

Currently, Chile is in the middle of a constituent process. Together with the movements advocating for a Constituent assembly (AC), which obtained notoriety during the 2014 presidential elections, there was a presidential decision to start a process for drafting a new Constitution with participation of the citizens. In this context, the role of mass media in spreading the information about the constituent process is crucial in facilitating the public debate about a new Constitution. This paper aims to contribute to the discussion about the role of mass media in a constituent process, taking the newspaper El Mercurio as a case study. By using corpus linguistics tools, we examine the discursive-ideological patterns of the ongoing constituent process in the coverage of El Mercurio -historically linked with the elite.