“No matter what I say”: unequality, citizenship and democracy in Argentinean mediatized society

Abstract

The main goal of this presentation is to contribute for a reflection about the links among production of media representations, democracy and citizenship. The article places its interest in an observance of the theoretical and political basics of “culturalist” researches on media highlighting the present context related to the tendency to oligopoly media system in Argentina. This paper is the result of a research based in the relation between socio-semiotics (first level) and socio-politics (second level) methods.In order to do that, firstly I present the specificity of media visual regime shaped by its relation with the modes of social relationship legitimation. Secondly, I put forward the results of the research in the frame of an anthropological outlook on media, which I consider effective for disentangling the cultural devices of media representations. Finally, I reflect on the relevance of this perspective in order to rethink, together with Ford and Nick Couldry, crucial questions related to citizenship and democracy in two directions: on one hand, the quality of information available to the citizens for taking decisions, and on the other hand, the connection, not always guaranteed, between media visibility and social recognition. I evaluate that these two questions are strongly involved also in cultural analysis as in right politics.