Date of Defense

6-26-2020

Date of Graduation

4-2020

Department

Political Science

First Advisor

Kristina Wirtz

Second Advisor

Sue Ellen Christian

Third Advisor

Pablo Pastrana-Perez

Abstract

On January 23, 2019, the streets of Venezuela became flooded with protests in response to the head of Venezuela’s National Assembly, Juan Guaidó, announcing his claim to the Venezuelan presidency. The protests were largely in support of his announcement, though some supported Nicolás Maduro, the president of Venezuela since 2013. This day marked the beginning of the Venezuelan presidential crisis, which left Venezuela, and the world, debating the legitimacy of each leader. This investigation focuses on how Spanish-language news sources from three different countries reported on the protests surrounding the Venezuelan presidential crisis on January 23, 2019, and how the reporting offers insight into the historical, economic, and political realities of each nation and its relationship with Venezuela.

To conduct this examination, three articles from three different countries (Colombia, Cuba, and Spain) were analyzed. Agenda-setting is the main analytical approach used throughout the investigation in order to demonstrate how each news source has the potential to influence public opinion and perception, and also how each article’s content is a reflection of the nation in which it was written. Various aspects of each article were analyzed, including the headlines, images, and text.

This investigation concludes that through the content found in each of the three articles, each country’s news source presents a different perspective on the Venezuelan presidential crisis, and sets an implicit agenda based on the historical, economic, and political reality of the nation in which it was written.

Comments

Angela Perez-Villa, fourth advisor

Access Setting

Honors Thesis-Open Access

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