Chile struggles with legacy of dictatorship
When Kristin Sorensen made her first doctoral research trip to Chile, she packed light. “I used a cardboard box for a table, and bought a couple of pieces of camping furniture for the living room,” she says of the 2002 visit. “I didn’t want to invest in a lot, because I knew I’d be leaving soon.”
Now, seven years and eight return trips later, Sorensen has invested plenty. The Bentley assistant professor of global studies has built a career around her passion to understand Chile’s struggles in the aftermath of dictatorship.
Her latest contribution to the cause is Media, Memory, and Human Rights in Chile (Palgrave MacMillan, 2009). The book updates and expands Sorensen’s doctoral thesis, examining how the country’s media are addressing the still-brutal legacy of General Augusto Pinochet. In ruling the South American nation from 1973 to 1990, he was responsible for the execution and disappearance of some 3,000 Chileans; thousands more were imprisoned, tortured, or exiled.
Many in the country are hungry for discussion and action. “People want to see more resolution of these issues,” says Sorensen, who earned a PhD in Communication and Culture at Indiana University. “They want more information about what happened to the people who were killed and disappeared, and they want the people responsible to be tried and ultimately punished for their crimes.”
Deafening Silence
Few in the media have rushed in to raise the level of discourse about the country’s troubled past. But whereas journalists were routinely censored — or worse — under Pinochet, today’s Chilean media often silences itself.
“In recent years, the mainstream media have generally avoided talking about human rights violations,” says Sorensen, who has received several grants from Bentley to pursue her work.
Her book explores the silence, via five case studies that cover the full spectrum of modern Chilean media. Examples range from a national television network whose editorial policy changed markedly after the network’s purchase by a millionaire conservative mogul (and presidential candidate) to an alternative newspaper that started as a satirical pamphlet and grew to be one of the country’s most popular papers.
Pockets of Hope
Sorensen came away from the research convinced that the Chilean media must play a larger role in bringing human rights violations, censorship, and other sensitive issues into the light – and soon.
“Those who were directly affected by the violent repression are aging and dying,” she writes in her book’s conclusion. “Not only is it important that their voices are heard and they directly experience full truth and justice, but their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren also need it.”
Still, in the once-strange land that has become like a second home, Sorensen does see pockets of hope and inspiration. These include a new generation of journalists.
“Things seem to be changing very rapidly right now,” says the professor, who takes a group of Bentley students to Chile for two weeks of intensive study each January, and goes back whenever she can. “A younger generation of adults is challenging the status quo, raising questions, and bringing more dialogue into the media.”