Hugo Chávez y los medios de comunicación: la guerra «hiperreal» venezolana

Abstract

This paper describes the political and economic climate in Venezuela during the 20th and 21st centuries in order to explain the rise of its media. A specific look is given to de historical period between the dictatorships of Juan Vicente Gómez (1908-1936) and Marcos Pérez Jiménez (1952-1958) and the democratic political system that was founded on the 23 of January in 1958. Those events that led up to Hugo Chavez’s talking of power are explained as well, namely the looting by the middle and lower classes that occurred on the 27th and 28th of February in 1989 and the failed military coup of February 4, 1992 lead by Chávez against the government of Carlos Andrés Pérez. The paper also discusses the current position of the media in the private sector towards the democratically elected president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez, it is show how the press an television manipulate the public creating a war based on a virtual reality or hyper reality by using «the news» as propaganda and an instrument of attack against Chávez.