The punished abnormality: Representations of the death penalty in a Chilean mass newspaper La Tercera de la Hora, 1951-1967

Abstract

This research studies the textual and graphic representations of the death penalty (executions) in Chile during the second half of the twentieth century and reviews the role of the print media in the constructions of meaning and reality regarding the subject. It is argued that one of those media, the newspaper La Tercera de la Hora (1950-), with “crónica roja” themes, transversal language and national circulation, would not only be a supplier of narrative and visual contents about such tragic and violent events, but also an actor of the period insofar as it would be an agent of production and circulation of messages that would contribute to the reaffirmation of the historically and socially constructed frames of reference for that time. Apart from the obvious need to sell copies to stay in the editorial and journalistic market, very typical of the mass press, the construction of news about the executions would have a clear intentionality: to show its public a binary reality (of normal and abnormal beings; victims and victimizers; citizens and criminals) that would ideologically support the ideal of a political and social subject defined by its citizen respect and industriousness, of which those sentenced to the scaffold would be its obvious counterpart.