Relato K
This article may be unbalanced towards certain viewpoints. (August 2019) |
Part of the Politics series |
Populism |
---|
Politics portal |
Relato K (Spanish: K narrative) is the name given by their critics to the alleged propaganda that promotes Kirchnerism in Argentina.
Media
Television
Cristina Fernández de Kirchner nationalized the broadcasting of football matches of the
Internet
The Kirchner government hired people to write in blogs, social networks such as Facebook and Twitter, internet forums and other web pages of public access.[2] Known as "Blogueros K" or "Cyber K", they were financed by the Chief of the Cabinet of Ministers. Their interventions are usually disruptive, and focused on discrediting the opponents with insults and cyberbullying.[2] An investigation from the TV program Periodismo para todos revealed a network of social bot registered in Twitter, posting messages of advocacy of the Kirchners. According to the investigation, 400 users committed identity fraud, using profile photos of other users. All those accounts had similar URLs, similar contents, similar posts, and published posts in the same time of the day. This network of users produced nearly 6,000 messages by month and 200 by day. This number of messages helped to establish "trending topics", the most popular topics of the day in Twitter. Ministers Nilda Garré and Juan Manuel Abal Medina shared many messages of those fake accounts, to further increase their popularity. The program also interviewed some people whose photos were used for the Twitter accounts, and confirmed that those accounts did not belong to them.[3]
An instruction manual, named "Técnicas de resistencia activa: Micromilitancia" (Spanish: Techniques of active resistance: micromilitancy) was leaked in 2016.[4] It instructed people to disrupt Facebook pages and the forums of the most important Argentine newspapers, such as Clarín, La Nación, La Voz, and Infobae.[4] It encourages the use of loaded questions to reveal the points of view of other people, and to reply by posting articles with information that harms the credibility of the government of Mauricio Macri, even if completely unrelated to the main article.[4]
Demonstrations
Since his time as governor of Santa Cruz, Néstor Kirchner employed
Neologisms
During her governments, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner frequently used words in both grammatical genders, instead of using the standard male form. A common case is to replace the word "todos" (Spanish: "everybody") with the phrase "todos y todas", to address both male and female voters. This style grew beyond Kirchnerism and was adopted in other countries. However, during her vice president tenure, she started to refer male and female not by the character that may be "a" or "o", but the
A group of intellectuals that supported the Kirchners' presidencies,
Cadenas
Cristina Fernández de Kirchner made a frequent use of the Cadena nacional to broadcast messages. It is a system where the regular programming of all TV and radio networks is interrupted and replaced by a message delivered by the presidency. Although it was initially conceived as an emergency population warning, it was used to make political announcements and opening of buildings and organizations. Some cadenas even featured comedy and part of a Hip hop music concert.[8] Many cadenas featured casual conversations of Cristina with alleged common workers and regular citizens. This intended to generate an image of a president close to the people. Later press investigations revealed that these people were low-rank government officials, and the format was eventually dropped.[9]
Fernández de Kirchner argued that the cadenas were legal, as she used them to announce government actions that the mainstream media may be concealing. The usage was denounced in the Federal Authority for Audiovisual Communication Services as an abuse of power. Director Martín Sabbatella ruled that the cadenas were legal, repeating the arguments advanced by Fernández de Kirchner.[10]
Themes
The main overarching theme of the "Relato K" is a purported conflict between the people and the factions that oppose the
Kirchnerism polarizes all people and organizations under this scheme,[
Most information, people and events that would contradict the main premises of the Relato K are simply ignored, instead of explained.[15]
History of Argentina
Presidency of Fernando de la Rúa
The Relato K does not have a coherent perspective of the
Presidency of Mauricio Macri
Mauricio Macri became president in 2015, and succeeded Cristina Kirchner in office. His presidency is compared with the 1955 Revolución Libertadora military coup, which deposed Juan Perón.[19] Although many judicial cases against Kirchner gained renewed speed when she left office, none of the judges were appointed during the presidency of Macri. The Libertadora enforced the Peronist proscription with tortures and executions, absent in modern Argentina.[19]
The economic problems that were ignored by the Relato during the presidency of the Kirchners, such as the high inflation, unemployment, poverty and crime rates, are fully blamed on Macri, and treated as if they came into existence during his term in office.[20]
Economy
The economy of Argentina during the Kirchner government saw an increased prosperity, which also took place in most of Latin America during the period. It was caused by the economic growth of China, which increased the international prices of primary goods. One of those goods is soybean. Still, the "Relato K" maintains that the economic prosperity is the result of a process of industrialisation.[21] The period is named "Década ganada" (Spanish: "Earned decade"), a term used as a dichotomy of the name "Década perdida" (Spanish: "Lost decade") used to describe the 1980s economic crises in Latin America. Both terms are contested by historians, as the periods had both positive and negative aspects.[22][23]
The usual way to describe the period as the "Década ganada" is to compare the economic figures with the
The press
Despite the presence of a network of supportive media, Cristina Kirchner rarely makes reference to it, and when she talks about "the press" or "the media" in general, she makes reference to the press that is not part of such network. She claims that the media concealed the good news about her government and gave great significance to bad news, to decrease the morale of the people. As a result, she made an extensive use of the cadena nacional (initially conceived as an emergency population warning) to announce the news that she considered that did not had a significant news coverage.
The union leader
Democracy
As other contemporary
Corruption scandals
Many corruption scandals took place during the presidency of Cristina Kirchner, and other were revealed after it. The usual approach to those scandals was to completely ignore them, and make no mention about corruption whatsoever. This approach was abandoned after the decline of Kirchnerite media, as independent reporters would usually ask them about the scandals. The answers are always generic, and never address any specific details of the scandals.[28]
One of those new approaches is to point to other scandals involving Mauricio Macri, and propose that the corruption scandals involving the Kirchners would not be an actual problem, because all Argentine politicians from all parties would be involved in similar practices. In this line, Ottavis proposed that the Kirchnerite officials are corrupt because they are human beings, subject to temptations.[28][29] Another approach is to put the blame on the businesspeople that pay bribes, instead of those officials that receive them. This approach was used during the Skanska case, the José López scandal and the Kirchner involvement in the Operation Car Wash.[28] A third approach relies on anti-imperialism and proposes that the scandals would be defamation campaigns seeking to topple them.[21] The impeachment of Dilma Rousseff is cited as well, proposing it to be a region-wide attack over the leaders of the Pink tide, despite the lack of evidence of it.[28] A fourth approach proposed that Claudio Bonadio investigated and indicted Cristina Kirchner out of hatred, orders from Macri, or even both. This approach was slowly abandoned when several more judges and prosecutors continued with those investigations.[28]
The people
The Kirchners make frequent
Kirchnerite interpretation
Cristina Kirchner downplayed the impact of state propaganda, suggesting that private media may be more powerful than it. She based her reasoning in the amount of money involved in the media market, which is bigger than the state budget destined to promote propaganda.[31]
The philosopher
References
- ^ Lanata, p. 81-83
- ^ a b Mendelevich, pp. 52–54
- ^ Carnota, pp. 183–185
- ^ a b c "Así es el desopilante manual kirchnerista de consejos para la "micromilitancia"" [This is the weird Kirchnerite manual of advises for the "micromilitancy"] (in Spanish). La Nación. January 12, 2016. Retrieved September 1, 2016.
- ^ Mendelevich, pp. 95–96
- ^ Adrián Sack (March 5, 2012). "La Real Academia Española, contra el "todos y todas"" [The Real Academia Española, against the "todos y todas"] (in Spanish). La Nación. Retrieved February 4, 2016.
- ^ Mendelevich, pp. 117–118
- ^ Carnota, p. 18
- ^ Lanata, p. 78
- ^ Carnota, p. 31
- ^ a b c Alejandro Katz (July 18, 2012). "El progresismo reaccionario" [The conservative progresism]. La Nación (in Spanish). Retrieved October 29, 2014.
- ^ Mendelevich, pp. 210–211
- ^ "Argentina's default case offers clarity on sovereign debt". The Washington Post. July 31, 2014. Retrieved February 6, 2017.
- ^ Liliana de Riz (September 2, 2010). "Los Kirchner construyeron su propia utopía regresiva" [The Kirchner built their own regressive utopia] (in Spanish). Clarín. Retrieved August 11, 2016.
- ^ Carnota, p. 17
- ^ Mendelevich, pp. 29–30
- ^ Mendelevich, pp. 66–68
- ^ "Ernesto Laclau habló sobre el 8N y el 7D" [Ernesto Laclau spoke about the 8N and the 7D] (in Spanish). Perfil. November 7, 2012. Retrieved February 6, 2017.
- ^ a b Pablo Sirvén (August 7, 2016). "Volver al 55, el nuevo falso cuco" [Return to the 55, the new false danger] (in Spanish). La Nación. Retrieved August 11, 2016.
- ^ Jorge Fernández Díaz (June 25, 2017). "Grandes mentiras peronistas de ayer y de hoy" [Great Peronist lies of yesterday and today] (in Spanish). La Nación. Retrieved June 16, 2017.
- ^ a b Claudio Fantini. "Un año negro para el relato K" [A dark year for the Relato K] (in Spanish). El país. Retrieved August 11, 2016.
- ^ Mendelevich, p. 105
- ^ Julio Sevares (December 29, 2013). "La década, ¿ganada o perdida?" [The decade, earned or lost?] (in Spanish). Clarín. Retrieved June 16, 2017.
- ^ Mendelevich, p. 106
- ^ Mendelevich, pp. 85–86
- ^ a b c Kaiser, pp. 54–55
- ^ Mendelevich, p. 83
- ^ a b c d e Pablo Mendelevich (June 27, 2017). "Ya son seis las maneras kirchneristas de explicar la corrupción" [There are six Kirchnerite ways to explain corruption] (in Spanish). La Nación. Retrieved June 16, 2017.
- ^ "Ottavis, crítico del kirchnerismo: "Fuimos corruptos, mentirosos, manipuladores e interesados"" [Ottavis, critical with Kirchnerism: "We were corrupt, liars, manipulative and interested people"] (in Spanish). Perfil. June 23, 2017. Retrieved June 16, 2017.
- ^ Mendelevich, pp. 33–34
- ^ "CFK: 'The power of state propaganda is insignificant compared to private advertising'". Buenos Aires Herald. June 5, 2014. Retrieved November 11, 2016.
- ^ "El último invento de la oposición mediática: "el relato"" [The last invention of the media opposition: "the relato"] (in Spanish). Info News. March 6, 2012. Retrieved November 11, 2016.
- ^ Galasso, p. 366
- ^ Alabarces & Oliván, p. 18
Bibliography
- Carnota, Fernando (2015). Marmota (in Spanish). Argentina: Planeta. ISBN 978-950-49-4790-5.
- Galasso, Norberto (2015). Kirchnerismo (in Spanish). Argentina: Colihue. ISBN 978-987-684-305-8.
- Kaiser, Axel (2016). El engaño populista [The populist lie] (in Spanish). Colombia: Ariel. ISBN 978-987-3804-39-7.
- Lanata, Jorge (2014). 10K (in Spanish). Argentina: Planeta. ISBN 978-950-49-3903-0.
- Mendelevich, Pablo (2013). El Relato Kirchnerista en 200 expresiones [The Kirchnerite speech in 200 words] (in Spanish). Argentina: Ediciones B. ISBN 978-987-627-412-8.
- Oliván, María Julia; Alabarces, Pablo (2010). 678: La creación de otra realidad (in Spanish). Argentina: Paidos. ISBN 978-950-12-0700-2.