Journalistic knowledge production during a social crisis: How journalists claimed professional authority during the Chilean social uprising

Abstract

In this paper we problematize protest coverage as an epistemological challenge for journalists, based on the case of the 2019 social uprising in Chile, in which the authority of professional journalists as narrators of events was questioned by audiences. The study aims at identifying the main dimensions of news production that become altered in an extended social crisis, as well as the main repertoires of practice and justifications deployed from the journalistic field to face them. The paper is based on the analysis of episodic narrative interviews ( n = 32), with journalists who participated in the coverage of the uprising in different capacities, in TV, radio, print and digital only media outlets. In our findings, we identify disruptions of epistemic consequence for news production during the coverage of the protests and riots, such as safety issues, and the relationship of journalists with space, time and the evidence recognized as appropriate for journalistic content, an issue that became particularly problematic around episodes of violence. We then identify four epistemic modes (approaches to knowledge-production) activated during the protests: detached narrator, conflict deflector, conflict mediator and involved narrator. These modes reveal differentiated responses to protest coverage inside professional journalism, which are in turn based on complementary claims of legitimacy for journalistic practice.

Predictors of perceptions of human rights violations during the Chilean social outburst of 2019

“…This boost helped alternative, online outlets to counter mainstream narratives, causing public opinion “to question traditional media and its coverage of the riots, social unrest, and police repression and human rights abuses” ( Luna et al, 2022 , p. 2). In some traditional outlets, the scope of disruption and repression caused journalists to question more detached approaches to the production of news content, leading some to adopt an “epistemic mode where journalists validate the decision to take a position in the conflict, which in the uprising was a commitment to stories of police abuse and human rights violations” ( Orchard and Fergnani, 2022 , p. 12).…”