Exemplars as Argumentative Strategy in Broadcast News: Analyzing the Case of Chile

ABSTRACT

On television news, exemplification is almost inevitable, as newscast cannot represent reality but through a particular object that is caught on camera: the only way to signify something abstract on television is precisely through a concrete particularity. The present study analyzes the main stories in a sample of national broadcast news in Chile, where broadcast news remains the most important source of information. Based on a content analysis, results show that particular case reports are widespread in Chilean television news, especially in hard news stories about the economy and crime. They also further evidence on the homogenization of television coverage between commercially run private and public broadcasters. Findings are linked to past research in the Latin American theoretical tradition that underscores the relevance of vivid and emotional representation on television.     

Public narratives under intensified market conditions: Chile as a critical case

This paper aims to extend existing theorisations around the notion of public narratives by analysing their regulatory effects under intensified market conditions. My analysis suggests that public narratives constitute a liminal space, one that it is not exclusively real or imaginary, factual or normative, but that simultaneously affects and is affected by vernacular practices and wider discursive structures. However, this paper argues that, under extreme conditions, these public narratives become a rigidifying space with homogenising/normalising effects. To do this I look at a set of ‘obligatory scenes’ captured in tales of success and struggle of teachers, parents and students in popular newspapers and fringe media in Chile. These accounts share a common ground: national assessment as a framework of intelligibility for the practices of parents, teachers and students. The central claim of this paper is that under intensified market conditions the scenes captured in these publicly available stories become ‘obligatory’ storylines, and their protagonists idealised policy subjects.     

An interrogation of the role of critical thinking in English language pedagogy in Chile

The present study aims to critically interrogate the role of Critical Thinking (CT) in English language education in Chile through the analysis of teacher educators’ and postgraduate students’ perceptions and understandings of CT in relation to their academic trajectories through university. Five postgraduate students and five teacher educators from three different Masters of Teaching English as a Foreign Language (MTEFL) programs agreed to take part in the research. Informed by a qualitative paradigm, semi-structured interviews were conducted aimed mainly at (1) unpacking teacher educators’ and postgraduate students’ understandings of CT; (2) investigating postgraduates’ views of the place of critical thinking in their English teacher education training; (3) examining the ways in which teacher educators deal with CT in their pedagogies; and (4) identifying students’ preparedness to approach reading and writing critically, as viewed by both groups of participants. Analysis of responses revealed, on the one hand, students’ recognition of CT skills as necessary to succeed in academic life and, on the other, great concerns for the limited importance accorded to teaching these skills in teacher education courses. Teacher educators’ responses generally showed an increasing interest in trying to incorporate the teaching of CT skills in their pedagogies, but admitted to an overall lack of consistency in the implementation process. The paper concludes with critical questions about the perceived pedagogical mismatches between teacher educators’ and postgraduate students’ perceptions of the role of CT in their academic journeys, and about the role of Chilean teacher education programs in addressing these issues.     

Making Poor Choices? Demand Rationalities and School Choice in a Chilean Local Education Market

Although the literature on school choice rationalities is extensive, different authors interpret the processes of school choice for poor families in different ways. Positions vary between those that consider that poor families have the same capacity to choose as middle class families and those that value structural factors as constraints for choice. The objective of this article is to identify different school choice rationalities of low income families in the context of a highly marketized education system such as Chile. Beyond the restrictions of a different nature that poor families face, this social group mostly expresses high levels of reflexivity and complex sets of preferences when it comes to choosing schools for their children. This article tries to overcome the dualistic division that prevails in school choice literature between choice as an outcome of utility maximization for all, and choice as a denial for deprived groups.     

Toward a society where everyone is always studying: access at an elite Chilean research university

After the 1973 coup, Chile swung from a centralized state to a dictatorial decentralized one where education turned from a public to a private good. Since the 1990 restoration of democracy, market-based trends have endured, involving the fomentation of a knowledge society, one where everyone is always studying. The present study, drawn from an action research project to develop English for academic purposes at a top-ranked Chilean university, considers how paradigmatically functionalist research can lead to critical openings for research at an elite Global South university marshalled into public service to promote innovation. As the university in the study fosters innovation to propel Chile from a raw materials to a knowledge-based economy, two points aid our entrée into elite site investigation: the university’s internationalization policy and its focus on graduate students’ getting their work in high-impact journals and conferences. Accessibility remains a challenge for garnering substantive qualitative data at an elite Chilean university, though we suggest that a policy movement toward a knowledge society yields possibilities for researchers able to carry out methodologies with both functionalist and critical aims.     

The Use of Generic Frames in Elite Press: Between Conflict,Neutrality, and an Empowered Journalist

ABSTRACT

We propose to submit the existence of the five generic frames advanced by Semetko and Valkenburg [2000. “Framing European Politics: A Content Analysis of Press and Television News.” Journal of Communication 50 (2): 93–109. doi:10.1111/j.1460-2466.2000.tb02843.x] to a qualitative validation test. We strive to enrich this theory, given its potential to do comparative research across borders, testing it outside the cultural context where it was created, and thus contributing to perfecting its research methods and application, with the inclusion of local frames, better adapted to the Latin American cultural space. A three-year sample of political coverage was analyzed in two Chilean mainstream newspapers often accused of uniform ideological perspective. Although the five frames are used, a simplified form of the conflict frame practically eclipses the other four in use. Two others were identified (“defense” and “informative”), as well a narrative perspective, almost like a meta-frame, which installs the perception that the journalist knows more than ordinary citizens, their colleagues and other political actors.     

Education with ICT in South Korea and Chile

This article presents a linear-analytical case study on the development of ICT within the educational systems of Chile and South Korea. Through a comprehensive meta-data analysis and bibliographic review, we collected information on both educational systems and their ICT adoption policies. Key differences necessary to understand how both countries have developed their educational systems by integrating ICT were analyzed, including the educational system structure, the organization of state entities responsible for educational ICT, cultural characteristics, the creation of policies regarding ICT in education, and the effectiveness of such policies for the expansion of infrastructure and the ICT curriculum integration. We analyze these key differences in order to understand two cases of ICT integration initiatives on a national level, so that we might better understand the primary factors that influence successful ICT integration, as well as those that may hinder progress in this area.     

MAPPING EDUCATIONAL ROLE DIMENSIONS AMONG CHILEAN JOURNALISM AND MASS COMMUNICATION EDUCATORS

The challenges and uncertainties that journalism education has historically faced have led to reconsiderations of its approaches, definitions, and functions in society over time. Yet, little attention has been paid to assess how Journalism and Mass Communications (JMC) educators see their roles, as well as individual and contextual factors that influence their orientations. Based on a survey of educators and data collected from JMC schools in Chile, JMC educators' roles can be grouped into four distinctive categories: the scholarly-oriented, the didactic-oriented, the practice-oriented, and the journalistic-oriented roles. Overall, the orientation that received the greatest support was the practice-oriented, followed by the didactic and the scholarly-oriented. The findings also reveal that education level, job commitment, gender, current professional journalism experience, organization type, school accreditation and the existence of graduate programs are factors that best predict educators' orientations.     

敕勒川文化在高职院校人文素质教育中的定位

包头地区身处敕勒川文化研究地理范围的核心位置,作为敕勒川文化的直接承载者,深受浓郁的敕勒川文化影响。因而包头地区的高职院校开展敕勒川文化的人文素质教育的有着有着得天独厚的优势。从地域和文化资源的角度入手,结合土文化的继承发扬和文化氛围的形成两个方面论证敕勒川文化在包头地区高职院校人文素质教育中的定位。     

Network dynamics in regional clusters: Evidence from Chile

A wealth of empirical literature shows that one of elements of success for regional clusters is that they facilitate the formation of local inter-organizational networks, which act as conduits of knowledge and innovation. While several studies analyse the benefits and characteristics of regional cluster networks, very little is known about how such networks evolve over time and the extent to which their dynamics can affect development processes. Using longitudinal data on a wine cluster in Chile and Stochastic Actor-Oriented Models (SAOM) to measure network dynamics, this paper examines the microdynamics underpinning the formation of new knowledge ties among wineries. It finds that the coexistence of cohesion effects (reciprocity and transitivity) with the weak knowledge bases of some firms in the cluster contribute to a stable informal hierarchical network structure over time. The empirical results have implications for theories on network dynamics in regional clusters and cluster policies.