| Brief description |
This is a resubmission of #6221.
This article historicizes the hyperbolical, larger-than-life media presence of late Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez. In Latin America, there is a tradition of populists using print media, broadcasting and now Internet to legitimate ideology. I argue that although Chávez’s media presidency fits in this tradition of the media caudillo, on the other hand it is unique to Latin America insofar as Venezuela in the first part of the twenty-first century occupies a singular position in the region. First, as the sole petro state in the continent, Venezuela has practiced what cultural studies scholar Lisa Blackmore calls “spectacular modernity,” petroleum’s ability to produce an ideology of progress that often takes the form of image and spectacle, such as the media presidency. Second, I argue, Chavista media has had access to social media, mainly Twitter, a form of top-down media politics of which his predecessors could only dream. |