This article explores the cases of two satirical publications—The Clinic (Chile, 1998–) and Barcelona (Argentina, 2003–). Through critical humor, visual subversions, and parody, these independent magazines challenged mainstream journalism and official political discourse, offering alternative interpretations about the ruling class and society after traumatic periods—Pinochet’s military dictatorship in Chile and the 2001 economic crisis in Argentina. Through interviews with the editors and content analysis, this article examines how these satirical publications responded to their respective national contexts by questioning the functioning of power on several levels of society, and how they evolved after they became popular, negotiating their space within the national mediascape. This study also suggests the notion of hybrid alternative media to describe these publications, which became part of a liberating process of collective healing. Initially perceived in opposition to mainstream media in contexts when the press’s credibility had decreased, they filled gaps in their society’s political communication.

Brozo, the Shady Clown, is considered one of the most popular TV "journalists" in Mexico. This article analyzes the carnivalesque role of Brozo as an influential and critical voice in Mexican media: he is the court jester who, through vulgar and harsh humor, is able to say "truths" with impunity, in a country with widespread violence against journalists and a tradition of institutionalized corruption in the profession. At the same time, this article examines Brozo as an influential political actor from his TV show El Mañanero in Televisa, one the most powerful media conglomerates of the world, with historic adhesions to the Mexican political elites. Finally, the case of Brozo is interpreted in relation to the emergent trend towards global infotainment. RESUMOBrozo, el Payaso Tenebroso, é considerado um dos "jornalistas" televisivos mais populares do México. Este artigo analisa o papel carnavalesco de Brozo como influente voz crítica na mídia mexicana: ele é o bobo da corte que, através de um humor ácido e vulgar, pode dizer verdades impunemente em um país com um dos mais altos índices de violência contra jornalistas e uma tradição de corrupção institucionalizada no ofício. Ao mesmo tempo, este artigo examina a Brozo como influente comunicador político no contexto midiático mexicano, a partir de sua tribuna na Televisa, um dos conglomerados de mídia mais poderosos do mundo, com uma questionável tradição de adesão ao poder. Finalmente, Brozo é relacionado com a emergente tendência ao infoentretenimento global na mídia televisiva.

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In the post-truth era, postmodern satiric media have emerged as prominent critical voices playing an unprecedented role at the heart of public debate, filling the gaps left not only by traditional media but also by weak social institutions and discredited political elites. Satiric TV in the Americas analyzes some of the most representative and influential satiric TV shows on the continent (focusing on cases in Argentina, Peru, Ecuador, Mexico, Chile, and the United States) in order to understand their critical role in challenging the status quo, traditional journalism, and the prevalent local media culture. It illuminates the phenomenon of satire as resistance and negotiation in public discourse, the role of entertainment media as a site where sociopolitical tensions are played out, and the changing notions of journalism in today’s democratic societies. Introducing the notion of “critical metatainment”—a postmodern, carnivalesque result of and a transgressive, self-referential reaction to the process of tabloidization and the cult of celebrity in the media spectacle era—Satiric TV in the Americas is the first book to map, contextualize, and analyze relevant cases to understand the relation between political information, social and cultural dissent, critical humor, and entertainment in the region. Evaluating contemporary satiric media as distinctively postmodern, multilayered, and complex discursive objects that emerge from the collapse of modernity and its arbitrary dichotomies, Satiric TV in the Americas also shows that, as satiric formats travel to a particular national context, they are appropriated in different ways and adapted to local circumstances, thus having distinctive implications.