%0 Journal Article
%T Chavista ¡®thugs¡¯ vs. opposition ¡®civil society¡¯: western media on Venezuela
%A Alan MacLeod
%J Race & Class
%@ 1741-3125
%D 2019
%R 10.1177/0306396818823639
%X Since the election of Hugo Chavez in 1998, Venezuela has undergone a period of intense racial and class conflict, as a multiethnic subaltern coalition has begun to assert itself politically against a previously hegemonic and inordinately dominant white elite. Scholars have highlighted the local media¡¯s racial and class snobbery when covering social movements and civil society, attempting to split the country into two groups: ¡®underclass mobs¡¯ and ¡®respectable¡¯ civil society. This article, which analyses media coverage at crucial points of conflict ¨C 1998/9, 2002, 2013 and 2014 ¨C finds that western media have overwhelmingly matched the local media, portraying only the largely dark-skinned working-class chavista groups as vicious ¡®mobs¡¯, ¡®hordes¡¯ and ¡®thugs¡¯, while representing the white, upper-class opposition as ¡®civil society¡¯
%K chavista project
%K civil society
%K class conflict
%K Hugo Chavez
%K media critique
%K racism
%K thugs
%K Venezuela
%K western media
%U https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0306396818823639