In this article, we explore the relationship between social media use and participation in protests in Chile. In October 2019, Chile faced the most massive protests since the country’s return to democracy. Due to its magnitude, the media and analysts refer to this process as the “social outburst.” Although these protests engaged broad sectors of the population, most of the protesters were young people. Using a probabilistic and face-to-face survey applied to young people aged 18-29 years, we find that the only social media platform associated with participation in protests was Facebook. Our analysis also shows the importance of the specific activities that people engage in social media. Taking part in political activities on social media is strongly associated with attending protests but using social media platforms to get information or share common interests with other users is not. Furthermore, we examine whether social media has an indirect impact on participation through interpersonal conversation. The results show that Instagram—one of the most popular social media platforms among young Chileans—spurs interpersonal conversation, which in turn increases the likelihood of participating in protests. Our findings suggest that social media still plays a role in shaping people’s political behavior despite changes in the social media environment and in social media consumption patterns.

Between 2009 and 2019, Chile experienced the rise and fall of a powerful and influential environmental movement. This movement spurred massive protests against large-scale energy and mining projects, successfully blocking many of them. Although these demonstrations brought together people of all ages and backgrounds, youth were particularly active in advocating for the environment. As digital natives, young people may experiment with new ways of engaging in participatory actions, especially through social network sites, instant messaging and other social applications. We use data from the annual Youth, Participation, and Media Use surveys fielded between 2009 and 2019 to study the individual-level relationship between social media and environmental activism among young Chileans. As expected, we find that social media use is positively associated with participation in environmental issues. Nevertheless, this relationship is dynamic, gradually weakening over time. Thus, our results suggest that social media effects on environmental activism are contingent upon the specific stage of the protest cycle. We close with a discussion of the relevance of our findings as well as their limitations.

How mass media frame information about migrants is vital to further their well-being and social inclusion in the host society. However, it can also encourage forms of discrimination and xenophobia. In Chile, migration is a theme of great relevance due to a substantial increase in the flow of migrants over the last ten years, as well as the acts of extreme violence toward this group. Thus, this research analyzes how mass media coverage of migrants influences Chileans’ perception of migrants. Adopting an experimental design, we implemented a large-scale, representative online survey with citizens over 18 years of age (N = 2227) and an experiment with combined access to positive and negative news about migrants in different news outlets. The regression analysis showed differences between citizens regarding the type of daily relationships they are willing to maintain with the migrant population. Furthermore, exposure to news about migration was the primary variable that explains why people consider this phenomenon one of the main problems affecting the country, confirming the agenda-setting theory. The experiment also indicated a causal relationship between the exposure to negative content and negative judgment about this group and their presence in the country.

Previous research has largely explored the differences and similarities between print and digital media in terms of news cycles and specific content characteristics. However, fewer studies have addressed the extent to which the media platform accounts for differences in the performance of key journalistic roles. Based on a content analysis of 1519 stories from Chilean print and online news outlets, this study found that, while media affordances did have an influence on the way journalists performed their work, thematic beat and media audience orientation were more crucial to explaining differences in the presence of different roles across print and digital media. The findings support a position that is midway between the generalist and particularistic approaches regarding the influence of the media platform on role performance, thereby underscoring the multilayered nature of journalistic practice.

Chile and Colombia are two South American countries with political and economic similarities that, during 2019, faced strong social outbursts, which translated into massive street protests and the weakening of their governments. Using data collected in the period immediately prior to the start of this social unrest, this study seeks to establish the role played by strong-tied social media—which are generally homogeneous, formed by close people, and with a high potential for influencing their members—in three phenomena associated with political conflict: (a) perceived political polarization, (b) affective polarization, and (c) non-conventional political participation. To estimate this influence, information collected through surveys in Chile in 2017 and Colombia in 2018 was used within the framework of the Comparative National Elections project. In both countries, probabilistic samples were employed to do face-to-face interviews with samples of over 1,100 people. In both countries, the results show that the use of social media with strong ties, specifically WhatsApp, tends to be related to two of the studied phenomena: perceived political polarization and non-conventional participation. An interaction is also observed between WhatsApp use and political ideology that amplifies the degree of perceived political polarization, affective polarization, and participation in one or both of the countries studied. We conclude by arguing that this dual phenomenon of polarization and participation can be problematic for democracy, since polarized groups (or groups that have the perception that there is ideological polarization in the political elite) tend to consider the position of the rest of the citizens to be illegitimate, thus undermining collective problem-solving.

Tradicionalmente se ha cuestionado el periodismo deportivo, acusándolo de falta de rigor, escasa capacidad crítica con las fuentes y de ignorar los conflictos sociales. Este artículo busca establecer si existen diferencias en las características de la cobertura noticiosa que realizan las secciones de deportes y la que efectúan otras secciones de los medios, evaluando aspectos como cantidad de fuentes, diversidad de puntos de vista y entrega de información verificable. Además, se indaga si existen diferencias en la presencia de los roles profesionales (intervencionista, vigilante, leal, servicio, infoentretenimiento y cívico) en las noticias de la secciones de deportes y las generadas por otras áreas. Utilizando como metodología de investigación un análisis de contenido de noticias realizado en Chile (n = 2,118), durante 2015 en prensa escrita, online, televisión y radio, este estudio comparó las características de la cobertura dada a las noticias de la sección de deportes con las notas publicadas en otros frentes informativos. Los resultados tienden a confirmar las miradas más críticas sobre el periodismo deportivo y muestran que, en comparación con las noticias de política, el número de fuentes que se consulta, la diversidad de puntos de vista que se muestran y la cantidad de información verificable que recibe la audiencia son menores. Respecto de la presencia de los roles profesionales, se observa que, en comparación con otras secciones, las noticias deportivas incluyen con mayor frecuencia roles relacionados con la entrega de opiniones de los periodistas que expresan una mirada positiva de las fuentes.