Superpower ideology : what a century of Venezuela in The New York Times can tell us about ourselves

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2007-05

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This thesis explores the role of news discourse in the reproduction of dominant international structures of power by focusing on the case study of Venezuela in The New York Times editorials over the course of the twentieth century. As a leading source of international news in the U.S., the Times occupies an influential position in disseminating and reproducing understandings of the world and our relationships in it. In this analysis, I look at how The New York Times defines, stages and delimits the roles of Venezuela and the U.S. in the international community, and how these constructions of knowledge work discursively to maintain international structures of power. Drawing from a neo-Gramscian concept of hegemony and a postcolonial theoretical perspective of the ideology of modernization, I employ a broad historical approach to the role of the Times in this international relationship, finding that the rationality of the editorials often resembles colonialist discourse.

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