Introduction During President Hugo Chávez's era (1999-2013), the 'Chavismo' movement and its front man employed antagonistic discourse that divided the population between supporters and opposers of the government, and appealed to the people (e.g. Brading 2013; Salojärvi 2016). Moreover, to emphasize this populist discourse, Chávez had a media-based government, where policy and decision-making were performed live on TV (Cañizález 2012: 62). In this sense, Chávez used the media not only to declare his politics and to mobilize supporters, but also to broaden his charismatic and populist appeal (cf. Mazzoleni 2008), of which visual representations formed an important part. The context of Venezuela under Chávez emerges as an ideal case study for the purpose of focusing on populist characteristics found in media texts. In this respect, Chávez shares some characteristics with other Latin American populist leaders. Both Chávez and Argentina's Juan Perón were charismatic, had a penchant for confronting American imperialism, had a military background, and came from middle-class families (Arenas 2006: 40-41). Chávez also inspired a group of Latin American radical populists, such as Rafael Correa in Ecuador and Evo Morales in Bolivia (de la Torre 2017). Hence, by focusing

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