(For) Citizens or Spectators? Chilean Political Journalism and its Professional Models for Approaching the Audience

Abstract

This paper analyzes the way in which Chilean political journalism approaches its audience through different reporting styles, as well as its evolution over the past few decades. The digitalization of the media industry, including traditional press, has led to major changes in its professional organization, as well as in the way journalism addresses the different audiences through the information product. Based on a longitudinal study of the political coverage of the Chilean press, which covers the first two decades of democratic reinstatement in the country (1990-2010), we delve into the type of audience at which journalistic performance is aimed, differentiating between the two audience models: the citizen as an active political subject and the infotainment viewer. The results obtained show two important trends: the complementarity of both models to integrate the political debate to new audiences with diverse interests and an important presence of both models but changeable over time, both in the elite and popular press.