Issue ? 51. August 2015

'The Left Turn' and Media Wars in Latin America

Ph.D., professor, Moscow City Teachers’ Training University; professor, Lomonosov Moscow State University; director, Centre for Social and Political Studies and Consulting, Moscow, Russian Federation.
E-mail: icspsc@mail.ru
SPIN-код РИНЦ: 4582-3350

Latin America witnessed a wave of presidents and governments of progressive orientation, a wave which is well-known as “the left turn”. The triumph of Hugo Chavez at presidential elections in Venezuela in 1998 became the first remarkable victory of the left. Today in the majority of Latin American countries the governments are formed by representatives of the left and left-centrist forces. By 2015, they governed more than two-thirds of the continent’s inhabitants, a state of affairs never before witnessed in the history of the region. Those governments aspire to overcome social and economic backwardness, improve the living standards of various strata of society, make progress in human rights and freedoms, carry out an independent foreign policy. New political forces, entering a zone of interests of local oligarchic clans and traditional influence of the North American companies, inevitably found themselves in the epicentre of psychological warfare. The leftist presidents with their high degree of personal charisma and the role in the decision-making process naturally become targets of informational warfare. In the context of “the left turn” some essential aspects of psychological warfare on the continent are examined: the alignment of forces on the informational frontline, the role of media holdings in the political processes, methods and forms of psychological warfare etc.

Keywords

Media wars, psychological warfare, mass media, communication management, strategic communication, Latin America, the USA.