Dr Maria Urbina ERAS

Dr Maria Urbana’s research interests focus on news media and Latin American politics. Before moving into the academic world, she worked as a journalist for Chilean and Latin American news media, covering political and economic affairs in Europe and Central America. She was awarded the Prize for Economic Journalism for the Best Article in Economic News Magazines by the CAF-Development Bank of Latin America and Instituto de la Empresa in 2013.  

Maria did her PhD at the University of Nottingham where she researched the Socialist party’s political culture. Her doctoral work examined the concept of political cultures to develop an institutional explanation of their formation, particularly the way in which they frame political practices. Recently, Maria's focus has been on comparative research that analyses the political discourse of National Renewal of Margaret Thatcher and Augusto Pinochet. Part of this work is due to be published in the Journal of Political Ideologies (2019).

Reporting Migration in the Global South: Nationalism and Race in Chilean Social Media

Chile has seen a surge in nationalism and racism due to a wave of migration from other Latin American countries. Surveys (CEP 2017; INDH 2018) show that Chileans saw themselves as more white and developed than their neighbours (47%). Latin American national identities were forged through a racialised distribution of labour. (Quijano 2000). In Chile, this racial ideology has become expressed through a narrative of national exceptionalism where the country is seen as an exception within the region due to its institutional stability (Mullins 2006; Loveman 2001), and its ethnic composition (Gazmuri 1981). This project aims to analyse the role played by news social media in reinforcing these views as a social institution that represents dominant narratives as both channel and political actor (Hudson and Martin 2010). It engages with the narratives of race, migration and national exceptionalism disseminated via Twitter and Facebook in two news channels (TVN and CNN Chile) two news radios (Cooperativa and BioBio-Radio) and two online news outlets (El Mostrador and The Clinic).

Thereby, this study critically researches the use of social media for reinforcing those narratives and the way in which the network society contribute to creating and re-creating hegemonic discourses about race, migration and nation.