Ethnic group or nation? the aymara according to the chilean and bolivian press’ opinion.

Abstract

The newspapers have presented themselves as discursive actors that influence society, shaping an opinion and a public space where diverse subjects and collectivities are represented. This research focuses on analyzing the Chilean and Bolivian press’ discursive similarities and differences in the period between 2014- 2015. To achieve this goal, we selected the newspapers "La Estrella de Arica" and "La Estrella de Iquique" from Chile and "La Razón" from Bolivia. A first hypothesis states that there are similarities and differences in the discourses of both sets of newspapers, in the field of representing the Aymara as part of the national community. A second hypothesis holds that discursive differences can be found in the symbolic particularities of the political context of each country. To this effect, the northern Chile press represents the Aymara as part of the regional identity, while the La Paz newspaper symbolizes them, recognizing their status as an indigenous people. In the field of analysis, the study uses both content structural analysis and the text’s theoretical framework linked to the conceptual combination “episteme-discourse-opinion”.