Propuesta de metodología para duelos mediáticos en periodismo político. Aplicación al tratamiento informativo de El País a la crisis entre Uribe y Chávez por los rehenes de las FARC (2007 – 2008)

Abstract

One of the press means to distinguish or delay a piece of news, whether because of liking or disliking, is to deliberately display it in a better or worse place on the issues’ pages. Neither objectivity nor neutrality are usually present when the piece of news to be edited is somehow against the interests of the publishing company. Subjectivity is at its height. From that remark, the author has created a method to take into account neutrality deviation in the cases of controversy between two characters, a “duel” which becomes a mass media one as it’s on the papers for various weeks, with obvious sympathies favouring one of the contenders and manifest antipathies against the other participant in the controversy, with expressions of mass media preferences. The devised methodology has been applied to the analysis of the message originated between 23rd November 2007 and 10th January 2008, with the controversy between the Presidents of the Republics of Colombia, Álvaro Uribe, and Venezuela, Hugo Chávez, because of the steps given by the latter in favour of the release of hostages of the Colombian FARCs. The units of analyses have been the 43 texts published by El País (Madrid), a newspaper in open belligerence against the Bolivarian government of Caracas and with great investments in Bogotá, whose president decorated the owner of the paper’s publishing company. The rehearsed method is applicable to any treatment which a newspaper may give during weeks to any other “mass media duel”.