Hybridising the Media’s Corporate-Political Discourse through Rhetorical Strategies: An Analysis of "Cómo el poder de las noticias nos da noticias del poder" (Morales, 1971)

Abstract

This article presents a theoretical conceptualisation of the pervasiveness of mechanisms of economic and political power in modern media, as represented in José Ricardo Morales’ play Cómo el poder de las noticias nos da noticias del poder (1971). This article focuses on two interconnected research questions: 1) What are the specific rhetorical strategies hybridising corporate-political discourse in the media that are represented by José Ricardo Morales in his play? 2) How do the rhetorical strategies and discourses represented in the play contribute to a new understanding of the impact of media intervention, both by corporate media and politicians, on audiences/readers today? This article critically analyses and discusses Morales’s unique, oblique critical approach to the media, and the political and discursive challenges made in the play. These orientate contemporary sets of beliefs while re-signifying the material and symbolic configurations of the Western globalised social fabric. The analysis shows that the dramatic piece contains a predictive discourse in presenting the role of journalism, both defying national literary canons and anticipating several issues related to media intervention by corporate media and politicians in the 1970s, especially in the Chilean context.