Abstract. -This article is based on the texts about the concept of "public opinion" within the project "Iberconceptos". It proposes a comparative reflection of this concept in nine countries of the Iberian Atlantic world between 1750 and 1850. We attempt to describe the conceptual constructions in which the term appears as well as its semantic modulations, its rhetorical uses and values. In sum, we will explain to which historical situations the multifarious and changeable functions of public opinion within the Hispanic-Portuguese world along almost a century were related. In that sense, multiple social actors participated in the diffusion of the term at both sides of the Atlantic, developing a collective elaboration filled with multiple appropriations, uses, and reflections. In that way, it will be shown how in different periods different meanings overlap, supersede, and coexist according to the changeable historical contexts of every territory within the Hispanic-Portuguese space.
IntroduccIónEste ensayo se propone realizar una reflexión comparativa de la evolución semántica del concepto de "opinión pública" en Iberoamérica desde sus primeras apariciones hasta mediados del siglo XIX. Este texto ha sido elaborado a partir de los estudios sobre el concepto realizados en el marco del proyecto internacional "Iberconceptos" por los siguientes autores: Noemí Goldman y Alejandra Pasino (Argentina-Río de la Plata), Lucía María Bastos P. Neves (Brasil), Gonzalo Piwonka Figueroa (Chile), Isidro Vanegas (Colombia-Nueva Granada), Javier Fernández Sebastián (España), Eugenia Roldán Vera Jahrbuch für Geschichte Lateinamerikas 45
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