Abstract

The article analyses the communication factors that led up and contributed to General Pinochet’s coup against Salvador Allende’s Popular Unity government in Chile in September 1973. Empirically based on interviews held with Chilean politicians and journalists in autumn 1972 and a content analysis of changes in key newspapers’ political coverage between 1970 and 1973, lessons and warnings for communication roles in present-day liberal democracies are drawn from two features of this case: (1) intense political and media polarisation, and (2) challenges to and confusion over conventional journalistic norms. The possibilities and difficulties of overcoming the resulting problems are canvassed in the article’s conclusion.