From war to crime rhetoric

Abstract

In October 2019, Chile witnessed an unprecedented social uprising, with millions of citizens rising against social inequalities and injustice. The government employed various strategies to end demonstrations, including the speeches delivered by President Piñera. This study aims to explore the representation of protests and their actors in the presidential discourse and how it evolved over the course of events. Our analysis of themes, discursive actions, and attitudinal appraisals, coupled with a temporal framework, reveals that the initial framing of the uprising as a war shifted to crime rhetoric, possibly in response to negative reactions from the audience. Despite the President adopting a seemingly softer rhetoric later on, our study suggests that violence and division remained prominent themes in his speeches. Examining discourse shifts and fluctuations throughout the timeline of the social upheaval provides a comprehensive understanding of how political discourse is shaped in the midst of an unparalleled social uprising