Abstract

Discourses that are spread throughout the media are essential for the construction of public opinion, as they inform about relevant facts and opinions of social life. In this sense, the free circulation of opinion is essential for democracy. This study aimed at characterizing the opinion flow around a topic of public interest in several media genres with a view at understanding its contribution to the public debate. Opinion flow is understood as the set of viewpoints around the same topic that circulate in public space. A sensitive topic for chilean public opinion is the questioning of the pension system; it is a complex topic involving numerous actors, and therefore offers a good opportunity for studying the role of the press in public debate. For that purpose, the four national morning newspapers that distribute printed versions in Chile were selected: El Mercurio, La Tercera, Las Últimas Noticias y La Cuarta. A corpus of 244 texts of different genres published along a period of 30 days was collected, covering two events of protests against the pension system that set the social and media agenda. The results show us a complete description of the flow of opinion of the newspapers regarding this issue, revealing the voices that were represented in the debate and the issues that were problematized by gender. Likewise, the systematic bias of the newspapers in their contribution to the public debate on this topic can be seen.