Tratamiento informativo sobre el exilio masivo de venezolanos hacia Colombia (2016-2018)estudio de news framing en los medios digitales colombianos de referencia

Abstract

Colombia and Venezuela are two neighboring countries, which share an extensive and dynamic land border of more than 2000 kilometers. The two countries have been historically twinned, especially since the 1970s, when tens of miles of Colombians migrated to Venezuela, for economic reasons. This movement continued in the following decades, for humanitarian reasons, due to the extensive Colombian armed conflict. Colombia has a long tradition as a country of emigrants and it is estimated that close to 5 million people, about 10% of its inhabitants, have left the country to carry out their migration projects, mainly in the United States, Spain and Venezuela. Since 2015, Colombia has become an immigration host country, for the first time in its republican history. The migration of Venezuelans has been intensifying since 2016, due to the political and economic crisis of the country. Migrant prefer to go to other countries in the region, mainly to Colombia. Millions of Venezuelans have been forced to migrate because of the humanitarian crisis. This event has never occurred in their country before since Venezuela was a receiving country of people from different countries. Therefore, this is a unique situation for the two countries. Colombia was seen as a dangerous country for a long time. The image of the country suffered in the worst period of the war against trafficking drugs and because of national armed conflict. In this time Colombian cities were sieged and their rural territories were outside of the governmental control. Many authorities recommended their citizens not to visit Colombia. This situation improved for the success against guerrillas and because the country signed the peace negotiation with the main guerrillas in 2016. International tourism has been increased and Colombia has hosted a large community of Venezuelan immigrants. As in many parts of the world, speeches have emerged that use foreigners as a scapegoat to justify social problems such as unemployment, informal employment, prostitution, and urban insecurity. These speeches are part of a perverse strategy of some political groups that have sold themselves as the only solution to prevent the country from becoming another Venezuela, a country that was also guarantor and facilitator of the peace dialogues with the FARC guerilla. These speeches follow the logic of hate speech, which justifies discrimination and violence. The purpose of this doctoral thesis is to analyze how the information coverage of this migratory phenomenon has been, by the Colombian press, specifically, of the two national newspapers with the longest tradition: El Tiempo and El Espectador, during the period between 2016 and 2019. An observation exercise was done in the digital versions of these two media. The collected contents were systematized in NVivo and analyzed with an instrument that was previously validated with a panel of experts in two phases. These results were contrasted through consultation with experts and the documentary analysis of reference guides and manuals, prepared by international entities.