The Construction of Environmental Discourse in the Argentine Print Press (1970–1980)

Abstract

This research aims to analyze the construction of environmentalist discourse in its origins in the Argentine print press, as a source of empirical information on socio-environmental dynamics in the recent past, during the period from 1960 to 1980. In this sense, the study proposes an approach that makes it possible to establish an interconnection among three disciplines: communication, linguistics, and history.

Environmentalism is considered a heterogeneous social movement in which diverse lines of thought are configured, whose central core is the defense of the natural and human environment, understood within the framework of the relationship between nature and society. In Argentina, environmentalist discourse gained increasing relevance and visibility from the early 1970s onward, expressing itself in different citizen organizations, academic associations concerned with ecological issues, and institutional and regulatory responses of various kinds.

Since the media intervene in reality and partially modify it, insofar as they construct a discourse according to the interests of a given group, constructing identities, social relations, and systems of beliefs and knowledge, the magazine Expreso Imaginario will be used as the main source of analysis. This publication is considered one of the pioneering periodicals in Argentina to devote a section to the development of environmental issues.