Bad News from Venezuela: Twenty years of fake news and misreporting

Western coverage of Venezuela is shaped by the cultural milieu of its journalists, who work with English-speaking elites and have little contact with the poor majority, reproducing ideas largely attuned to a Western, neoliberal understanding of the country. Bad News from Venezuela examines the factors contributing to reportage in Venezuela and why they exist, furthering the discussion of contemporary media in the West and its impact on global affairs.

Format: Hardback
Length: 158 pages
Publication date: 10 April 2018
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd

Since the election of President Hugo Chavez in 1998, Venezuela has become an important news item. Western coverage is shaped by the cultural milieu of its journalists, with news written from New York or London by non-specialists or by those staying inside wealthy guarded enclaves in an intensely segregated Caracas. Journalists mainly work with English-speaking elites and have little contact with the poor majority. Therefore, they reproduce ideas largely attuned to a Western, neoliberal understanding of Venezuela.

Through extensive analysis of media coverage from Chavez’s election to the present day, as well as detailed interviews with journalists and academics covering the country, Bad News from Venezuela highlights the factors contributing to reportage in Venezuela and why those factors exist in the first place. From this examination of a single Latin American country, the book furthers the discussion of contemporary media in the West, and how, with the rise of ‘fake news’, their operations have a significant impact on the wider representation of global affairs.

Bad News from Venezuela is comprehensive and enlightening for undergraduate students and research academics in media and Latin American studies.

Weight: 308g
Dimension: 435 x 223 x 15 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781138489233