Post-truth and citizen security in post-crisis Chile (2019-2025). When thenews is scarier than crime
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.21142/DES-1803-2026-e0070Keywords:
Public security, crime, mass media, public opinion, crisisAbstract
This article examines how post-truth reshapes the public debate on security in Chile from the 2019 political crisis through 2025. 2019 and 2025. The aim is to estimate the association between alarmist headlines and perceived insecurity while accounting for victimization, institutional trust, and political junctures. We analyze a corpus of headlines from Chilean digital outlets, construct a lexicon-based alarmism index, and link it to citizen security surveys, police records, and trust measures. We conduct time-based analysis alongside an examination of key events. Results indicate that headlines with catastrophic tones grow by about nine percent per year, that victimization declines during the pandemic and then partially rebounds, and that perceived insecurity remains high with peaks around elections and security laws. The relationship between victimization and perception is weak or even inverse. We conclude that insecurity operates as a gear of post-truth and places pressure on evidence-based deliberation.
Downloads
References
Alenda, S., Martínez, C. A., Medel, R. M., Suárez-Cao, J. y Basaure, M. (2026). Crisis políticas en América Latina: Instituciones, territorios y nuevas dinámicas sociales. Iberoamericana, 26(91), 255-285. https://doi.org/10.18441/ibam.26.2026.91.255-285
Altheide, D. L. (1997). The news media, the problem frame, and the production of fear. Sociological Quarterly, 38(4), 647-668. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1533-8525.1997.tb00758.x
Arias, E. D. y Goldstein, D. M. (2010). Violent pluralism: Understanding the new democracies of Latin America. En E. D. Arias y D. M. Goldstein (eds.), Violent democracies in Latin America (pp. 1-34). Duke University Press.
Ayala-Colqui, J., Arcila, S. y Filinich, R. (2023). Tecnopolíticas contemporáneas: inteligencia artificial, algoritmos y biotecnología. [Editorial]. Desde el Sur, 15(2), e0016. https://doi.org/10.21142/DES-1502-2023-0016
Baumgartner, F. R. y Jones, B. D. (1993). Agendas and instability in American politics. University of Chicago Press.
Bonner, M. D. (2019). Tough on crime. The rise of punitive populism in Latin America. University of Pittsburgh Press.
Borrego-Ramírez, N., Ruiz-Cansino, M. L. y Borrego-Gómez, D. D. (2023). La posverdad en América Latina y el Caribe: Una perspectiva netnográfica de la agnogénesis. CienciaUAT, 18(1), 158-184. https://dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/articulo?codigo=9144494
Bottoms, A. E. (1995). The philosophy and politics of punishment and sentencing. En C. Clarkson y R. Morgan (eds.), The politics of sentencing reform (pp. 17-49). Oxford University Press.
Box-Steffensmeier, J. M., Freeman, J. R., Hitt, M. P. y Pevehouse, J. C. W. (2014). Time series analysis for the social sciences. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139025287
Brousselle, A. (2024). Post-truth and pathways for evaluators. Evaluation, 30(4), 533-549. https://doi.org/10.1177/13563890241265859
Buzan, B., Wæver, O. y de Wilde, J. (1998). Security. A new framework for analysis. Lynne Rienner.
Castillo, A. (2024). Chile’s television crime news coverage: Manufacturing fear and igniting xenophobia. Ethical Space: The International Journal of Communication Ethics, 21(1). https://doi.org/10.21428/0af3f4c0.5eb8bee0
Centro para la Prevención de Homicidios y Delitos Violentos. (2024). Informe nacional de víctimas de homicidios consumados en Chile. 2023. Subsecretaría de Prevención del Delito. https://prevenciondehomicidios.cl/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Informe_Anual_de-Homicidios_2023.pdf
Chadwick, A. (2017). The hybrid media system. Politics and power. (2.ª ed.). Oxford University Press.
Cohen, S. (1972). Folk devils and moral panics. The creation of the Mods and Rockers. MacGibbon y Kee.
Corporación Latinobarómetro. (2021). Base de datos Latinobarómetro 2020.
Corporación Latinobarómetro. (2023). Informe 2023: https://www.fundacioncarolina.es/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Latinobarometro_Informe_2023.pdf
Corporación Latinobarómetro. (2024). Base de datos Latinobarómetro 2023.
Dammert, L. (2012). Fear and Crime in Latin America. Redefining State-Society Relations. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203116289
Dammert, L. y Malone, M. F. T. (2003). Fear of crime or fear of life? Public insecurities in Chile. Bulletin of Latin American Research, 22(1), 79-101. https://doi.org/10.1111/1470-9856.00065
Downs, A. (1972). Up and down with ecology: The «issue-attention cycle». Public Interest, 28, 38-50. https://nationalaffairs.com/public_interest/detail/up-and-down-with-ecologythe-issue-attention-cycle
Dryzek, J. S. (2010). Foundations and frontiers of deliberative governance. Oxford University Press.
Entman, R. M. (1993). Framing: Toward clarification of a fractured paradigm. Journal of Communication, 43(4), 51-58. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.1993.tb01304.x
Espinoza Guanilo, A. H. (2024). Periodismo en tiempos de posverdad y desinformación. Analizando el trabajo de los periodistas para plataformas digitales de El Comercio y RPP. Desde el Sur, 16(2), e0032. https://doi.org/10.21142/DES-1602-2024-0032
Ferraro, K. F. (1995). Fear of crime. Interpreting victimization risk. SUNY Press.
Flood, A. (15 de noviembre de 2016). «Post-truth» named word of the year by Oxford Dictionaries. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/nov/15/post-truth-named-word-of-the-year-by-oxford-dictionaries
Frühling, H. (2012). La eficacia de las políticas públicas de seguridad ciudadana en América Latina y el Caribe. Como medirla y como mejorarla. Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo.
Hale, C. (1996). Fear of Crime: A Review of the Literature. International Review of Victimology, 4(2), 79-150. https://doi.org/10.1177/026975809600400201
Harder, R. A., Sevenans, J. y Van Aelst, P. (2017). Intermedia agenda setting in the social media age: How traditional players dominate the news agenda in election times. The International Journal of Press/Politics, 22(3), 275-293. https://doi.org/10.1177/1940161217704969
Harsin, J. (2024). Post-truth Politics and Epistemic Populism: About (Dis-)Trusted Presentation and Communication of Facts, Not False Information. En S. Newman y M. Conrad (eds.), Post-Truth Populism. Palgrave Studies in European Political Sociology (pp. 25-64). Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-64178-7_2
Innes, M. (2004). Signal crimes and signal disorders: notes on deviance as communicative action. British Journal of Sociology, 55(3), 335-355. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1468-4446.2004.00023.x
Jewkes, Y. (2015). Media and Crime. (3.ª ed.). SAGE Publications.
Kakutani, M. (2019). The death of truth. Notes on falsehood in the age of Trump. Tim Duggan Books.
Kasperson, R. E., Renn, O., Slovic, P., Brown, H. S., Emel, J., Goble, R., Kasperson, J. X. y Ratick, S. (1988). The Social Amplification of Risk: A Conceptual Framework. Risk Analysis, 8, 177-187. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1539-6924.1988.tb01168.x
Keyes, R. (2004). The post-truth era. Dishonesty and deception in contemporary life. St. Martin’s Press.
Kingdon, J. W. (1995). Agendas, alternatives, and public policies. (2.ª ed.). HarperCollins.
Ley N.° 21.170 (2019). Modifica el tratamiento de las penas de los delitos de robo y receptación de vehículos motorizados o de los bienes que se encuentran en su interior, y otros delitos que indica. Biblioteca del Congreso Nacional de Chile. https://www.bcn.cl/leychile/Navegar?idNorma=1134236
Ley N.° 21.560. (2023). Modifica textos legales que indica para fortalecer y proteger el ejercicio de la función policial y de Gendarmería de Chile. Biblioteca del Congreso Nacional de Chile. https://www.bcn.cl/leychile/Navegar?idNorma=1191005
Ley N.° 21.577. (2023). Fortalece la persecución de los delitos de delincuencia organizada, establece técnicas especiales para su investigación y robustece comiso de ganancias. Biblioteca del Congreso Nacional de Chile.
McCombs, M. E. y Shaw, D. L. (1972). The agenda-setting function of mass media. Public Opinion Quarterly, 36(2), 176-187. https://doi.org/10.1086/267990
Murillo, A. (2020). Desconfianza, regímenes de verdad, conspiraciones y montajes en el contexto de la covid-19 en México. Desde el Sur, 12(2), 547-571. https://doi.org/10.21142/DES-1202-2020-0030
Neuman, W. R., Guggenheim, L., Jang, S. M. y Bae, S. Y. (2014). The dynamics of public attention: Agenda‐setting theory meets big data. Journal of Communication, 64(2), 193-214. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcom.12088
Organización para la Cooperación y el Desarrollo Económicos (OECD). (2024). Drivers of trust in public institutions in Chile. OECD. https://doi.org/10.1787/0eb6341f-en
Oxford Dictionaries. (2016). Word of the Year 2016: Post-truth. Oxford University Press. https://global.oup.com/academic/content/word-of-the-year/?cc=pe&lang=en&
Scherman, A. y Etchegaray, N. (2013). Consumo de noticias y temor al delito en Chile. Estudios sobre el Mensaje Periodístico, 19(1), 563-575. https://doi.org/10.5209/rev_ESMP.2013.v19.n1.42539
Simon, F., Zannettou, S., Welbers, K., Kroon, A. C. y Trilling, D. (2025). Tracing information flows in the hybrid media system: The agenda-setting role of dark platforms surrounding the Ukraine invasion discourse. International Journal of Communication, 19, 1183-1204. https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/23212
Skogan, W. G. (1986). Fear of crime and neighborhood change. Crime and Justice, 8, 203-229. https://doi.org/10.1086/449123
Slovic, P. (2000). The perception of risk. Earthscan.
Subsecretaría de Prevención del Delito. (2024). Encuesta Nacional Urbana de Seguridad Ciudadana 2019-2023. [Conjunto de datos]. Gobierno de Chile.
Tilly, C. y Tarrow, S. (2015). Contentious Politics. (2.ª ed.). Oxford University Press.
Tonry, M. (2004). Thinking about crime. Sense and sensibility in American penal culture. Oxford University Press.
Tversky, A. y Kahneman, D. (1973). Availability: A heuristic for judging frequency and probability. Cognitive Psychology, 5(2), 207-232. https://doi.org/10.1016/0010-0285(73)90033-9
Valenzuela, S., Puente, S. y Flores, P. M. (2017). Comparing disaster news on Twitter and television: An intermedia agenda setting perspective. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 61(4), 615-637. https://doi.org/10.1080/08838151.2017.1344673
Waisbord, S. (2018). Truth is what happens to news. On journalism, fake news, and post-truth. Journalism Studies, 19(13), 1866-1878. https://doi.org/10.1080/1461670X.2018.1492881
Warr, M. (2000). Fear of crime in the United States: Avenues for research and policy. En D. Duffee (ed.), Measurement and analysis of crime and justice. Criminal Justice 2000 (vol. 4, pp. 451-489). National Institute of Justice.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Esta obra está bajo una licencia http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/
