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Can Movement Tactics Influence Media Coverage?: Health-Care Struggle in the Salvadoran News

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 September 2022

Lisa Kowalchuk
Lisa Kowalchuk*
Affiliation:
University of Guelph
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Abstract

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This article analyzes Salvadoran newspaper coverage of a social movement struggle that emerged in 2002 to prevent the privatization of the health-care system. Movement groups pursued their policy goals through both extrainstitutional protest and formal legislative channels. Through an analysis of news content, this article examines whether these different components of the movement's claims-making repertoire influenced the portrayal of the movement's goals, actors, and actions by one of the major Salvadoran news dailies. The analysis reveals that, compared to protest events, legislative processes that the movement set in motion generated coverage that was more sympathetic to the movement and that presented greater interrogation of government and elite plans for health-care reform.

Resumo

Resumo

Este artículo analisa el reportaje por la prensa salvadoreña sobre un movimiento social que surgió en 2002 para prevenir la privatización del sistema de salud. Los protagonistas de esta lucha canalizaron sus demandas tanto a través de manifestaciones y otras formas de protesta pacífica como por el sistema institucional en la forma de propuestas legislativas. Basado en un análisis del contenido de las noticias, el propósito de este artículo es determinar si estas distintas métodos de lucha de parte del movimiento influyeron la manera en la cual uno de los principales periódicos representó a los actores, sus metas y sus acciones. El análisis muestra que en comparación con la cobertura de las actividades de protesta, las noticias sobre los procesos legislativos fueron más favorable hacia el movimiento, y que fueron más crítica de la propuesta de reforma hecha por el gobierno.

Type
Research Article
Information
Latin American Research Review , Volume 44 , Issue 2 , 2009 , pp. 109 - 135
Copyright
Copyright © 2009 by the Latin American Studies Association

Footnotes

*

The research for this article was funded by a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. I am also thankful to the anonymous LARR reviewers and to Richard Kuhn, for their very helpful comments. Unless otherwise indicated, all translations are my own.

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