Media and Crime in Argentina

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xv

   PDF

2. The Urban Vindicators

   • Cynthia Fernandez Roich

   Pages 1-5

3. They Deserve to Die

   • Cynthia Fernandez Roich

   Pages 7-34

4. A Country Without Law

   • Cynthia Fernandez Roich

   Pages 35-60

5. Argentinean Media

   • Cynthia Fernandez Roich

   Pages 61-77

6. Final Disposition

   • Cynthia Fernandez Roich

   Pages 79-112

7. Democratic Transition (1983–1995)

   • Cynthia Fernandez Roich

   Pages 113-137

8. Crime on the Agenda

   • Cynthia Fernandez Roich

   Pages 139-157

9. Beyond the Police Reform (1999–2003)

   • Cynthia Fernandez Roich

   Pages 159-181

10. Conclusion

    • Cynthia Fernandez Roich

    Pages 183-196

11. Back Matter

    Pages 197-248

    PDF

This book analyses the punitive crime discourse in the Argentinean press during the 1990s. Fernandez Roich focusses on several features of media discourse during this time, such as: the notion that petty criminals ‘deserve to die' in reference to police brutality and killings, the phenomenon of ‘vindicators’ or how common citizens turned into ‘evil’ modern heroes in the press, and the parallelism between the military discourse under the military regime and the punitive discourse under democracy. In addition, the book also investigates the alleged natural propensity towards breaking the law ingrained within Argentinean culture, the so-called 'viveza criolla' and the well-ingrained idea that to get ahead you have to participate in corrupt practices.
Despite the significant scholarly interest in the United States and Europe in the last Argentinean dictatorship (1976-1983), little attention has been paid to the role of Argentinean newspapers in supporting the military coup d’état. The analysis of this media discourse is critical to understanding the support enjoyed by the armed forces in power: the vast majority of the population was not informed about the disappearances or the concentration camps until well into the 1980s. This project provides an in-depth qualitative content analysis of front pages, chronicles, editorials and photographs of Argentinean newspapers before and after the military intervention that will aid scholars of criminal justice and Latin American political regimes understand the impact of the support given to the military government.

• Criminology
• Critical Discourse
• South America
• Media Studies
• Crime and Society
• Newspapers
• Military coup
• Dictatorship
• Revolution
• Disappearances
• Concentration camps
• Police brutality
• Civil unrest
• Journals
• discourse analysis

“Media and Crime in Argentina is a scholarly and revealing study of the links between the state and the press in Argentina. Tracing the legacy from the media as ideological handmaidens of the military dictatorship in the 1970s and 80s, to contemporary champions of urban vigilantes and apologists for draconian state responses to street crime, Cynthia Fernandez Roich’s research is empirically rich and stunningly relevant today, well beyond Argentina.” (Scott Poynting, Adjunct Professor, School of Social Sciences and Psychology, Western Sydney University, Australia)

“Media and Crime in Argentina is abound with eye-opening examples of citizens ‘fighting back’ against petty criminals and taking justice into our own hands, becoming the new urban vigilantes of Buenos Aires. Cynthia Fernandez Roich makes a compelling case of the Argentine crime scene of the 1990s where income inequality, hyperinflation and a weak justice system played their part to create the current ‘zero tolerance’ discourse in the media.” (Dr Marivic Wyndham, Senior Lecturer, School of International Studies, Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences, University of Technology Sydney (UTS), Australia)

• Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences, The University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand

  Cynthia Fernandez Roich

Cynthia Fernandez Roich is a journalist and criminologist.  She is currently working as a Restorative Justice Facilitator at Restorative Practices Aotearoa, Waitakere Trust, New Zealand.

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