In this paper, we analyze the uses of Twitter by populist presidents in contemporary Latin America in the context of the debates about whether populism truly represents a revolution in public communication – that is, overturning the traditional hierarchical model in favor of popular and participatory communication. In principle, Twitter makes it possible to promote the kind of interactive communication often praised in populist rhetoric. It offers a flattened communication structure in contrast to the top–down structure of the traditional legacy media. It is suitable for horizontal, unmediated exchanges between politicians and citizens. Our findings, however, suggest that Twitter does not signal profound changes in populist presidential communication. Rather, it represents the continuation of populism’s top–down approach to public communication. Twitter has not been used to promote dialogue among presidents and publics or to shift conventional practices of presidential communication. Instead, Twitter has been used to reach out the public and the media without filters or questions. It has been incorporated into the presidential media apparatus as another platform to shape news agenda and public conversation. Rather than engaging with citizens to exchange views and listen to their ideas, populists have used Twitter to harass critical journalists, social media users and citizens. Just like legacy media, Twitter has been a megaphone for presidential attacks on the press and citizens. It has provided with a ready-made, always available platforms to lash out at critics, conduct personal battles, and get media attention.

This study proposes the interventionist and the detached orientations to watchdog journalism through the conceptual lens of journalistic role performance. Based on a content analysis of 33,640 news stories from sixty-four media outlets in eighteen countries, we measure and compare both orientations across different countries using three performative aspects of monitoring: intensity of scrutiny, voice of the scrutiny, and source of the event. Our findings show that the interventionist approach of watchdog journalism is more likely to be found in democracies with traditionally partisan and opinion-oriented journalistic cultures or experiencing sociopolitical crises. In turn, the detached orientation predominates in democracies with journalistic traditions associated to objectivity. Although both orientations have a lower presence in transitional democracies, the detached watchdog prevails, while in non-democratic countries the watchdog role is almost absent. Our results also reveal that structural contexts of undemocratic political regimes and restricted press freedom are key definers of watchdog role performance overall. However, the type of political regime is actually more important—and in fact the most important predictor— for detached than for interventionist reporting.

This paper analyses the use of Twitter as a presidential communication channel during the first few months of the COVID-19 crisis. The aim is to determine how four recently elected presidents (those of Spain, Argentina, Mexico and Brazil) managed their political communication, and to explore the thesis that they resorted to populist messages during the first months of their terms in office. Using a qualitative methodology and the XL Node tool to capture data, a comparative analysis was performed on the messages posted on their personal Twitter accounts during the first 20 weeks of 2020, classified in six categories: polarization; conspiracy; exaltation and leadership; personalisation and privacy; emotions and feelings; and media publicity. The results indicate that the four presidents share populist traits, but to a different extent. López Obrador and Bolsonaro display a more populist profile, with emotional appeals to the people and to their saving action as regards the implementation of health policies. Conversely, Alberto Fernández and Pedro Sánchez are more akin to the pop politician profile, posting photographs and media messages with a view to receiving press coverage. Both post tweets, based on values and historical events, aimed at their grassroots supporters. The main conclusion is that the pandemic has enhanced the presidential and personalist profiles of the four leaders, although their actions during the COVID-19 crisis were not necessarily in keeping with the populist paradigm. Thus, Sánchez and Bolsonaro implemented a health management communication strategy, while López Obrador and Fernández paid scant attention to health policy. El trabajo analiza el uso de Twitter como canal de comunicación presidencialista en el periodo inicial de la COVID-19. El objetivo es conocer el manejo de cuatro presidentes (España, Argentina, México y Brasil) y analizar la tesis del presidencialismo populista en líderes en su primera mitad de mandato. El método es cualitativo y compara los mensajes de la cuenta personal de Twitter las primeras 20 semanas de 2020. Se analizan en seis categorías: polarización, conspiración, exaltación y liderazgo carismático, personalización y vida privada, emoción y sentimientos, y publicidad en medios. Los cuatro presidentes comparten rasgos populistas, pero en distinto grado o caracterización. López Obrador y Bolsonaro ofrecen un perfil más populista con apelaciones emotivas al pueblo y su acción sanitaria salvífica. En cambio, Alberto Fernández y Pedro Sánchez responden al perfil de política pop, de liderazgo mediatizado para que la prensa amplifique sus logros. Se concluye que la pandemia ha acentuado el perfil presidencialista y personalista, aun cuando no encajen en el paradigma populista. Así, Sánchez y Bolsonaro sí despliegan una estrategia de comunicación de gestión sanitaria, mientras que López Obrador y Fernández apenas prestan atención a la política sanitaria.

Based on a standardized operationalization of the watchdog, civic, interventionist, loyal-facilitator, infotainment, and service roles, this study combines survey ( N = 643) and content analysis data ( N = 19,908) to explain gaps between newspaper journalists’ role conceptions and the performance of their press organizations in nine countries from Latin America, Western Europe, and Asia. Taking an institutional approach by focusing on institutional influences on the conception–performance gap at three levels (individual, organizational, societal), our results show that these gaps are largest for the two roles most connected with the public functions of journalism, the civic, and the watchdog roles. Multilevel analyses offer significant evidence on that, across all six analyzed roles, the size of the gaps differed more clearly between journalists and between media organizations, than among countries. Although influences on an individual level (i.e., perceived autonomy) have some explanatory power, influences on the organizational level and, more specifically, ownership and codified editorial policies are the factors that best explain conception–performance gaps. The implications of these findings are discussed in light of the public skepticism about the performance of journalism and the media.

Labor precarity has historically been a distinctive, troubling aspect of journalism in Latin America, just as labor precarity has become widespread generally in the region, primarily due to the implementation of neoliberal policies such as deregulation and privatization since the 1980s. Precarity is reflected in decimated newsrooms, appallingly low salaries, lack of benefits, reporters who hold multiple jobs and are expected to file numerous stories daily and weekly on range of issues. Exploring these issues across several countries in Latin America, this chapter suggests that weak trade unions, outdated labor laws, and the absence of tax laws that could mitigate the worst effects of the crisis have made journalists more vulnerable. While digital news opened job opportunities in the past two decades, digital labor conditions, including salaries and job expectations, are generally worse than in legacy newsrooms.

Disinformation is not only a phenomenon of modern democratic societies, but also a tool at the service of states. In the current communication ecosystem, politics and society interrelate in the face of a phenomenon characterised by multiple information channels and sources in which emotions now play a central role. In international relations, the expression of a state’s political will through charisma and populism are the chief aspects detected in the analysis of emotions in political science. This has led to the construction of a narrative based on security threats and the friend-enemy distinction, among other things. On the basis of an exhaustive literature review, this study offers an overview of the political and social factors underlying the use of emotions in disinformation as regards four aspects: politics, economy, diplomacy and security. Likewise, it identifies the main defining traits and behaviours of domestic and international audiences. The analysis and verification of the research question contribute to elaborate an international theory of emotionally driven disinformation which has begun to play a leading role in both academia and politics.