Unfinished Review of Venezuelan Academic Output in Communication, Media, and Politics

Abstract

This text analyzes two main trends in political communication. First, and as theoretical foundation, we review what is commonly referred to as media‑ or communication centrality in politics from the findings of mostly Latin-American authors about the complex relationship between the media and politics, considering the prevailing role played by the mass media in Latin America and Venezuela. A second part of this paper, focused in the production of academic knowledge in Venezuela, reviews books and articles on the phenomenon of political communication within a period established as a time-based frame (2000-2012). This period overlaps the “Bolivarian Revolution” model, or the “process” as it was frequently referred to in its early years, which significantly influenced the Venezuelan academic output in the field of political communication. In these years, Venezuelan publications like considerations, essays, or investigation results in political communication have been aimed at describing the political process that was causing deep transformations in institutions and in political culture per se. This should not be surprising, since “the process” had a clear political practice of highlighting communications in this period.