Citizens get informed, on a daily basis, from social networks in general and from the media in particular. Accordingly, the media are increasingly expressing their concern about phenomena related to disinformation. This article presents an analysis of the social networks of 159 Chilean media that, over 5 years, referred to fake news or disinformation on 10,699 occasions. Based on data science strategies, the Queltehue platform was programmed to systematically track the information posted by 159 media on their social networks (Instagram, Facebook and Twitter). The universe of data obtained (13 million news items) was filtered with a specific query to reach 10,699 relevant posts, which underwent textual computer analysis (LDA) complemented with manual strategies of multimodal discourse analysis (MDA). Among the findings, it is revealed that the recurrent themes over the years have mostly referred to fake news and politics and fake news related to health issues. This is widely explained on the grounds of a political period in Chile which involved at least five electoral processes, in addition to the global COVID-19 pandemic. Regarding the multimodal analysis, it is observed that when the dissemination of fake news involves well-known figures such as politicians or government authorities, an image or a video in which such figure appears is used. In these cases, two phenomena occur: (a) these figures have the opportunity to rectify their false or misinforming statements or (b) in most cases, their statements are reiterated and end up reinforcing the controversy. In view of these results, it seems necessary to ask whether this is all that can be done and whether this is enough that communication can do to guarantee healthy and democratic societies.

Este artículo explica cómo la construcción de paisajes semióticos alrededor de cuatro plazas del país revela prácticas de desterritorialización y reterritorialización en el contexto de la revuelta social iniciada el 18 de octubre de 2019 en Santiago, Chile. Considerando aportes de la Sociolingüística y los Estudios Críticos del Discurso, analizamos un corpus etnográfico de 625 fotografías para identificar, describir y ejemplificar algunos procesos de señalización de la protesta desarrollados en dichas plazas. Los paisajes semióticos analizados configuran narrativas multimodales y transmediales que alteran los marcos dominantes para comprender la crisis política, asignando nuevos roles y fines colectivos a los(as) manifestantes.

Introducción: El artículo presenta resultados preliminares de estudio piloto enmarcado en una investigación sobre estrategias discursivas en la construcción de textos de convocatoria a jornadas de protesta, propagadas en redes sociales, en el transcurso de la movilización social en Chile (2019-2020). Desde una dimensión sociocognitiva, se abordan los recursos ideológicos y metafóricos desplegados discursivamente a través de Instagram, una plataforma emergente en el campo de la comunicación política. Metodología: Con un diseño cualitativo de alcance descriptivo, se analiza un corpus de textos multimodales, seleccionados desde una cuenta de base ciudadana, de carácter contra informativa, que durante el estallido social (entre el 18 de octubre de 2019 y 18 de marzo de 2020), contaba con mayor número de seguidores. Resultados: Se identifican categorías que definen en el discurso ideológico del movimiento, así como las formas de entender los procesos y actores políticos partícipes del movimiento a partir del uso de ciertas metáforas conceptuales. Discusión y conclusiones: Los resultados, junto con caracterizar una dimensión cognitiva del género convocatoria de protesta, permite una aproximación a la configuración de unos discursos resistentes que trascienden la mera convocatoria, para articular otros marcos de interpretación colectiva vinculados a los procesos de cambio social. Las categorías discursivas analizadas relevan la persistencia de una lucha callejera y solidaria, que posiciona al movimiento como un actor clave en el debate político, cuyos valores y principios tensionan y disputan la supremacía de la estructura valórica política hegemónica.

The performance Un violador en tu camino [A rapist in your way] created by the Chilean feminist collective Las Tesis received global media attention during the 2019/2020 Chilean protests against inequality and human rights violations. Drawing on insights from Feminist Critical Discourse Studies, Corporeal Sociolinguistics and Multimodal Critical Discourse Studies, we analyse three video recordings of Las Tesis’ performances in three capital cities in Latin America: Santiago, Buenos Aires, and Mexico City. We study how sounds, lyrics, body movements, and accessories work together to defy institutional, material, and symbolic violence against women. We also analyse how intertextual strategies in the Santiago/Chilean performance and their recontextualization in Buenos Aires and Mexico City were employed to resist structural patriarchal norms. The analysis reveals that through an adaptation of the song lyrics and the performances, the following social actors are explicitly identified as the instigators of violence against women: the police and the President (Chile), judges opposed to the legalization of abortion (Argentina) and the Catholic Church (Mexico). This study advances understanding of feminist emancipatory and resistance discourses in Latin America.

This article analyses the multimodal representations of public space in Chilean broadcast news reports on the figure of the hooded rioter and its alleged connections with the student movement. We seek to identify how space is constructed as a (de)legitimation strategy in relation to the actors involved and the actions taking place across four different news broadcast pieces in the light of Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis and Systemic Functional Linguistics. Results show that the multimodal representations of space are crucial to identify and functionalize hooded rioters as belonging to the student movement. Actions are dependent on the spaces in which actors operate, restricting the occupation of certain spaces to specific actors. Thus, transgressive protest actions are to be contained to educational spaces and represented as naturalized vandalism, ignoring the students’/demonstrators’ motivations to recuperate/vindicate the public space.