The founding of La Opinión took place in 1971, amidst an accelerating heavy government hand within the press as a result of increasing dissidence by groups across Argentine society. In the prior decades, rather than a strict focus upon dissidence, the relationship between media and politics was that of using the former to pursue the ends of the latter. In other words, Colonel Juan Perón, elected president in 1946, was the first of his kind to use the Argentine media in order to sway the public “through direct expropriation, selective advertising, propaganda, nationalization politics, censorship and at times, thuggish intimidation” (Samples, p. 6). Many of these approaches were used in Perón’s well-known expropriation of La Prensa, a newspaper …show more content…
The media had come to expect, through his precedent, an environment in which the majority of press freedoms were left convoluted and increasingly diminished. Perón’s ousting also signaled a marked turn towards the dominance of nationalism within the press. For example, a decree in 1970 put forth that the Ministry of Government was in control of all television and radio stations in Argentina in order to preserve “the national style of life,” while a decree in 1973 forbade foreign-produced news about Argentina to be broadcast within Argentina, implying the importance of maintaining a positive national image (Knudson, p. 97). Accompanying a strong nationalist sentiment, the media, namely the press, began to concern itself with dissidence, as threats from illegal guerilla and paramilitary groups rose dramatically. The established press was warned to ignore or minimize all terrorist activities, although blocked by the government in addressing the groups by name. An extension of addressing dissidents culminated in the enactment of a new antisubversion law that “provided five years in prison for any journalist disseminating information [that] alter[ed] or eliminat[ed] institutional order” (Knudson, p. 98). The poignant political turn marked the beginnings of the descent of the fog of silence as restrictions on the press became