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JOURNALISM, CRISIS AND HEGEMONY. Country Risk and Social Discourses during
Carlos A. Scolari
Universitat de Vic (Spain)
Abstract
This work is located at the crossway of two territories: communication in a time of crisis and
social discourse theory. In this context we describe how the economic discourses worked
during the Argentine crisis of 2001. Taking the concept of “Country risk" as a starting
constructing the discursive process. The work is concluded with a series of reflections on
the position of the economic discourse in the current society and gives evidence of some
POSTFORDIST INTRODUCTION
communication has become fundamentally important, as these markets are formed and "live"
within global information networks. However, the postfordist economy has an ideology that
grants money its own life: apparently capital is now generated by itself and doesn’t have
anything to do with human work or the production process. In this sense the media has been a
fundamental mechanism in the creation and growth of the financial bubble of the "new
economy". All of these transformations are also reflected in the position that the economic
discourse holds within the media and in the discursive practices of the entire society (Marazzi,
2002, 2003).
The deviated modernisations (García Canclini, 1990) that have occurred in Latin America
force us to look closely at how local economies work within the context of the globalisation
processes. In a territory where capitalist economy has been installed in an unbalanced way the
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reflections on advanced postfordist societies should be taken with caution. One thing is
evident: globalisation has accelerated the appearance of the so called "emerging markets" and
In the case of the Argentine Republic this process generated a growth model founded on
the arrival of financial capital searching for the best interest rates. If at the start of the 90s the
Argentine economy grew due to favourable interest rates and from the investment of
speculative capital revenue, which generated employment and reactivated an economy that
came from 20 years of decadence, when this capital was taken away the economy entered a
process of recession characterised by political degradation and destruction of the social fabric.
devaluations and crisis, had become used to seeing their daily life filtered through exchange
tables and interest percentages, in the 90s the economic rationality was consolidated at the
level of social discourses. In this context the discourses of and about the economy took on new
valences that helped to form a new discursive territory. Some researchers have identified a
move from the economy towards philosophy: in the 90s the economic discourse ended up
occupying a fundamental position in Argentine society, eclipsing other discourses such as the
Courtes, 1979) within the discursive universe. The economists imposed their agenda and their
concepts, carrying out a therapeutic role based on a certain fact: they decided what should be
talked about, they drew the limits of action and marked out the area of the possible. The
economy, beyond its legitimate "scientific pretensions" within a knowledge discipline worked
"as a moral guarantee of the degree of responsibility of a political discourse" (Abraham, 2000,
p. 260).
From the origin of writing in Mesopotamia – where the first practises of cuneiform writing
had a commercial objective – to the latest dreams of the "new economy" - in which the
structural function of the discourses and the interpretative practices are evident - the paths
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where communication and the economy cross seem to be infinite. According to Marazzi "the
pervasiveness or absolutisation of the economy in the flexible postfordist society reflects the
pervasiveness of the language in the new way of producing and selling merchandise. It is
2002, p. 41). It is an unquestionable fact that most economic practices are indistinguishable
According to the speech act theory (Austin, 1999; Sbisà, 1995) a performative
enunciation is characterised not by describing a state but by producing an act. Language from
this perspective appears not so much as an instrument of communication but as a devise for
linguistic institutions. It is language that creates these acts by talking about them: matrimony
narrations that the African women walk kilometres to reach the market.
They will sell potatoes there but they will also receive ideas, news and,
A sale and purchase contract is in fact the authentication of a promise: from this moment
a subject gives up the property of a good to another subject. A fixed term deposit and buying
bonds of an emerging country also belong to the same dimension as performative acts: In
both cases the financial entity commits themselves, if there are no exceptional circumstances,
The efficiency of the performative act, like any other speech act, is conditioned to a large
degree by the power of the one who utters it: the value of the phrase "I now declare you man
and wife” depends on who says it, it is not the same coming from a priest as from a used cars
salesman. The same thing happens with economic discourses: if the head of the United States
Federal Reserve promises that "next month interest rates will rise”, these words have a
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newspaper. There are privileged enunciators that impose the media agenda with their
declarations (or, as we will see, with their silences). The media is the sounding board of these
To bring into focus some concepts that accompany this analysis we will enlist the theory
that is said or written in a given state of society; everything that is printed or talked about and
represented today through electronic media. Everything that narrates or argues …" (Angenot, 1998,
p. 6). From this perspective the analyst will try to reconstruct a certain state of the social
discourse or, as Angenot explains, "examine a general discursive topology". That is, carry out
a kind of semiotic tomography of the discursive corpus of a society in a given moment of its
history. To reconstruct a discursive universe does not only mean recuperating enunciations:
we have to go further than "everything that is said" to analyse the way of saying – or "how it
is said" -, the modalities of the daily use of the language, the enunciatees (Greimas & Courtes,
1979) constructed by the discourse and rhetoric devices used by the enunciators. In this work,
This work is framed within a social discourse theory and has the following objectives: 1)
to describe the construction of the concept of "Country Risk" within the discourse of the digital
hegemonic politics. As a conclusion we will make a series of reflections on how the economic
The body of research encompasses, in the first part, all the articles and infographics
published by www.clarin.com between 1998-2002 dealing with CR (around 250 articles). In the
second part of the study we concentrate on the year 2001 and the first months of 2002. The
www.clarin.com site is one of the most visited sites of Argentina and Hispano-America (Table
1). The on-line version of the main Argentine newspaper includes, as well as the articles
published in the first morning edition, periodic up-dates that transform it into an exceptional
information channel that allows the reader to follow the evolution of the news (and therefore
What is “Country Risk”? The United States government is considered to be the most
solvent payer in the world. The interest rate on their bonds constitutes the "risk free rate" and
is used as a reference for other debtors. The "risk" of lending money to another country is
measured by the surtax that is paid with respect to the United States' rate. If the Argentine
bonds pay a surtax of 9.50% with respect to those of the United States, we can say that the
Country Risk (CR) of this country is 950 points. The value of the CR is announced daily by
investment consultants such as Standard & Poor’s, Moody’s or Fitch and banks such as Chase-
JP Morgan.
Now this economic variable has been defined we can move on to analysing its discursive
constitution.
During 1998 the CR held an irrelevant place in Clarín’s agenda: it was a financial variable
for experts, far from the worries of the millions of citizens. Only a few articles mentioned it and
its media presence was reduced to comments made by specialists. Throughout 1999 the CR,
December of this year Fernando De la Rúa became president of the Republic. The government
of Carlos Menem, which had lasted 10 years and had been characterised by a history of
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corruption, degradation of the political system and economic recession, seemed to have stayed
definitively behind.
During 2000 this situation stayed the same: according to the www.clarin.com search
engine the CR was quoted in only 34 articles. The Argentine CR fluctuated within normal limits
and was only news when it went "higher than that of Mexico or Brazil" (19.08.00). In
December the government negotiated a "financial bailout" of 20,000 million dollars with the
IMF. With the announcement of the bailout www.clarin.com warned that "the country risk,
which measures the market confidence in local bonds, closed on Friday at 8.13% above similar
United States bonds…" ("Riesgo País", 18.12.00). Slowly the new concept is entering into the
According to the www.clarin.com search engine, during 2001 the CR appeared in the
titles of 193 articles. Next we will analyse how this discursive actor entered on the scene.
January 2001: In the middle of the month the IMF approved the "bailout". The CR went down
and from outside the country “looks good”: the strategist Therry Wizman explains that "...in
the long term the country risk can drop, and in the immediate future, make some capital
return to the country...”. However, the analyst also expressed "concern" for the obstacles that
the judicial system could make for the reformations that the Argentine government proposed
The gaze of the other becomes fundamental in an economy founded on trust: with the
slightest hint of the smallest political tremor or social expression that generates distrust the
finance capital will take flight and leave for calmer markets. If the construction of reciprocal
trust between two parties is a strongly visual question ("look me in the eyes, don't lie to
me...”), the gaze of the foreign investors is reflected in the actions and gestures of the local
actors (stockbrokers, government, etc.): they know that from outside “they are being
watched”. In this first phase of its discursive construction the CR is not so much a sign for the
internal front but an index for the foreign investors. This fact generates an "external" gaze that
ends up constructing the subjectivity of the Argentine financial and economic actors.
7
February 2001: After a radiant January, the collapse of the Turkish market, the higher
inflation in the USA and the collapse of NASDAQ causes a new increase in the Argentine CR.
("Bajaron todos los mercados y subió el riesgo país", 17.02.01 – "Se acentuó la caída mundial
Therry Wizman makes new forecasts: "I don’t believe Argentina will have a surtax of 6.54%
for the country risk again (above similar bonds of the USA), which it had at the end of
January. Today the risk is at 7.32% and in the following months there will be noise about the
23.02.01).
March 2001: Things don't improve and the uneasiness grows. The Minister of Economy
Machinea resigns from office, which promotes a recovery of the government bonds. The arrival
of the new minister López Murphy makes "the country risk, which measures the trust of the
investors, fall to 726 points...” ("Fuerte respaldo…", 06.03.01). As we can see, www.clarin.com
continues using a didactic register with its readers: it is necessary to explain what the CR
means in each article. But the situation is not as calm as it seems. On the 8th the rumour
circulates that López Murphy is going to resign: the CR goes up 29 points in one day ("Una
versión de renuncia…", 09.03.01). Everything goes back to normal as soon as López Murphy
On 15 March, after a fall in Wall Street, the CR goes up 19 points; the next day it goes
up another 41 points and the rumour spreads again about the minister López Murphy resigning
from office. The ex-minister Domingo Cavallo (the inventor of "convertibilidad", a system that
anchored the value of the Argentine peso to the dollar) is profiled as his probable successor.
The stockbrokers suppose that his return will calm the forces of the market. On the 19th the
CR closes at 898 points. Finally the president De la Rúa decides to open the doors to the
Little by little the CR has become part of the media discourse. On 24 March the economic
and also the politicians who are starting to understand – under pressure
— about its implications. But the most striking aspect is that the country
consulting the price of the dollar and the rates of the fixed term
average interest rate that comes from calculating the prices and the
As the CR becomes a part of the social discourse it has to be explained. On one hand the
author presents us with a narrative program (Greimas & Courtes, 1979) that turns the CR into
an active subject that opens the way and looks to becoming part of the Argentine social
discourse. Later on Bazán describes with examples how the CR works and what it represents
for the Argentine economy. In other words, it could be said that the enunciatee for the CR
concept is constructed in this phrase: the "average" citizen, readers of Clarín who have only
basic financial knowledge, which has allowed them to survive in a hostile economy, but who do
In this phase the informative discourse can be confused with the didactic discourse.
Although these two types of discourse often coincide -both aim to “make something known”,
they have the capacity to transmit ("ability to say") and it is legitimate for them to do so
("right to say")- normally the journalists leave it to the specialists to explain scientific
processes and concepts (Charadeau, 2003). The specialised journalist (in this case the expert
in economy) takes an intermediate position between these two discourses and assumes the
task of “making it known” to their readers what country risk is about. According to
Charaudeau:
explication, like you can find in scientific work, but rather a clarifying
Finally, Bazán describes one of the main enunciators of the CR (in this case the bank
Chase-JP Morgan). In the following pages we will look at the various repositionings that this
voice has generated: from blind obedience to questioning the origin of the enunciation.
April 2001: The ups and downs continue all month. On the 25th www.clarin.com announces
that "after rising 388 points in three days, the country risk fell 89 basic points yesterday"
("Alivio en los mercados", 25.04.01). In the following days this tendency to fall continues
May 2001: During the first week of May some doubts about the exchange conditions of the
Argentine debt begin to put pressure on the CR again, which is at 1092 points. Once the
question is clarified it falls to 975 again. The following week new doubts take the CR to 1050
points. These ups and downs with the tendency to rise continue throughout the rest of the
month.
In May the CR became a definitive part of the conversations of the Argentine people. It is
each article: the media have already created this competence in their readers. On the 15th
www.clarin.com publishes Vicente Muleiro’s article that confirms that this new discursive phase
has started. The CR has left its initial phase, which mainly involved economic enunciators and
enunciatees, to become a part of the social discourse of the Argentine people. According to
Muleiro
"The concept of country risk has become a part of daily life with the
Asking about its state has become as habitual as asking after the health
Risk going today?' asks the person beside me while he looks, with tired
despair, at the speechless tiles of the urinal wall…" ("Cómo está hoy el
the country risk has the ancestral weight of a force of nature, of the
degrees in the shade... like a dark force, against which we rationally can
In this way the discourse of the economy seeks to be presented as if it were a natural
science of the markets. This position of the economic discourse tends to cancel out any space
for debate: the economy stops being a social science subject to interpretive dynamics and
places itself next to the "hard sciences". Behind the rationality of the numeric values that the
stockbrokers shuffle every day there hides – as Muleiro writes – “dark forces of nature” that it
is necessary to dominate. In the same article the references to "the lava of Etna" and “yellow
As if finishing a discursive phase, Muleiro explains once again what the CR is. However,
"… 76% of the people of Buenos Aires have heard of the "country risk".
And 57% not only consider it an important indicator but also follow its
Therefore, the “country risk”, that until recently was only part of the
of the people of Buenos Aires from all neighbourhoods, social strata and
economic recourses.
82.6% of those that live in the zone north of the capital and 85.5% of
high income earners are familiar with the term. In the south zone
knowledge of the term reaches 59.2% and among low income earners
15.05.01)
On Sunday 20th an article is published that has a certain critical tone regarding the risk
assessment companies. The article starts with a question: who assesses the assessors?
www.clarin.com that in her institution “they are not taking any steps or plan to monitor these
agencies”. However the role of risk assessors like Standard & Poor's, Moody's and Fitch was
questioned by the bank in the latest crises: "the country risk is overestimated in recessions
and underestimated when the economic cycle is inverted. In this way, the banks don't reserve
enough in good times and in the crises they restrict credit." Helmut Reisen from the
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development of Geneva, stated that "in general
the agencies are mistaken in preventing crises, like the Asian crisis, although Moody's lowered
South Korea’s and Thailand’s credit rating before the crisis. After this exploded in the region,
the ratings they gave these countries 'fell to rubbish status which increased their problems'
because everyone cut their credit" ("Críticas a las calificadoras de riesgo", 20.05.01). This
critical analysis of the CR agencies is interesting: for the first time the infallibility and
transparency of the gaze of the credit rating agencies is questioned. In spite of this warning,
the CR continues to be the main economic indicator for the rest of the year.
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At the end of May the minister Cavallo "reconciles" himself with the markets: “I am
currently having a better reception from the markets than the one that I received in the first
two months of my previous administration” he explains to the journalists. In this way Cavallo
completes "the reconciliation process with the stockbrokers, with whom he had a confrontation
last March, after a few days of taking office, when he described them as 'short sighted' and
'ignorant'..." ("El ministro se reconcilia con los mercados…", 22.05.01). Once again the gaze
and to a certain degree plays down, the gaze of the assessors. However, the minister Cavallo
writes against the local stockbrokers and the "short sighted" men: the men of the city "don’t
see" the new measures that come from the Ministry of Economy (in this case the debt
www.clarin.com, 14.05.01
- Daddy. To find out the real country risk shouldn’t we measure the unemployment levels, the road
blocks, the crime rate, the corruption, floods, traffic accidents and all these things?
- Yes, but the risk assessors are only interested in the possibilities a country has of paying.
- And if we make an assessor for the risk assessors?
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www.clarin.com, 12.05.01
- Europe is a different reality.... in Monaco for example they don’t measure the “country risk” but the
“country pleasure”.
Figure 1
The minister Cavallo’s statements again take up another classic topic of the economic
discourse: the market as an organic entity that is alive, something that is subjected to
narrative programs: "the markets don’t support or stop supporting. Rather the markets get
scared or they get less scared... The markets have been exaggeratedly afraid, but as soon as
they receive all the information and see results they will become much calmer" ("El ministro se
reconcilia con los mercados…", 22.05.01). Once again the economy is presented as the natural
science in charge of studying this live being. The CR has jumped from the economic
supplements to articles on politics and society, to end up in the Clarín’s comic strips (see
Figure 1).
June 2001: In spite of Cavallo’s repeated gestures the distrust of the markets and the
July 2001: In the second week the CR goes over 1600 points. The situation is very complex,
the political alliances are about to explode and there is even the hypothesis that the president
De la Rúa will resign. The government, to avoid falling in default (failing to pay the country’s
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debt), prepares to vote for an apparent rescue plan: the "law of zero deficit". The investors,
frightened, detach themselves from Argentine bonds for fear of unseen measures.
August 2001: Approval of the "law of zero deficit" reduces the CR to 1571 points, but the
next day it shoots up to 1700 and the United States government sends the Under Secretary of
Treasury, John Taylor, to calm the situation. The financial speculators begin to look towards
other more revenue-yielding markets; while the stockbrokers wait for an answer from the IMF
It is interesting to stress that the processes of unlimited semiosis (Eco, 1979) that are verified
or the IMF, etc.) have more than once caused the CR to shoot up. In this case, it is the
"silence" of one of its privileged enunciators which causes an ulterior increase in the CR:
"without having precise information on how the negotiations, in which a good part of the
economic team and the IMF technicians are involved in Washington, are advancing, the
stockbrokers are starting to show a certain amount of distrust about the fruit of the
agreement… And this attitude was expressed by the consequent rise in the country risk to
1503 points" ("El silencio del FMI…", 15.08.01). The economic system demands a constant flow
of communication, without frights, in which there is no place for silences or for the wild
utopian, since the discourse is by definition the world of secrets and misunderstandings, a
place where we are all potential double agents (Fabbri, 1995). However, the silence of a
privileged speaker such as the IMF becomes a factory of rumours. The next day
www.clarin.com confirms: "the market moved to the rhythm of the rumours. If help from the
International Monetary Fund would arrive or not was not discussed but rather how large this
assistance would be. And there was a version for everyone’s taste…" ("Repuntaron las
acciones…", 16.08.01). The war of rumours doesn't stop. On the 22nd www.clarin.com informs
that "the market is still trapped by nervousness and uncertainty, which was translated into a
new, strong increase in the country risk" ("Un rumor equivocado", 22.08.01). Finally the
agreement with the IMF arrives and the CR falls to 1451 points. The Argentine market (this
15
living being that moves to the rhythm of rumours and silences) has a “positive reaction” and
September 2001: If August closed with a decrease in the CR, September could only start up
with an increase. On the 7th the CR rises to 1455 points and the continuous flight of bank
deposits is confirmed. On 11 September all eyes are on New York: the terrorist attack creates
a strange political and financial climate. The national agenda also changes and for the rest of
the month www.clarin.com practically doesn't talk about the CR again, which continues
October 2001: The rumours get worse about the future of the minister Cavallo. It is only a
few days to the legislative elections. At this point the CR has beaten all the records and has
stopped being a meaningful value for foreign analysts: when it went over 1000 points the
country entered another economic dimension in which ranking assessment doesn't make
sense. However, the CR continues to be the main indicator of the Argentine economic
discourse. This persistence can be explained in only one way: the CR has stopped being an
economic indicator and has become exclusively an instrument of political hegemony. Although
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from the moment the CR appeared it was used for political ends – to legitimise fiscal
adjustments, accelerate the approval of laws or cut back on public works – in this last phase
the hegemonic function tends to cancel out the economic function. On 11 October the
Argentine CR went higher than that of Nigeria arriving at first position with 1859 points: "And
the day arrived. Yesterday on the screens of stockbrokers all over the world Argentina
appeared, for the first time, as the economy with the highest country risk in the world...” ("La
Argentina…", 11.10.01).
The day after the elections – in which the "voto bronca" (punishment vote in the form of
blank votes or invalid votes) got the highest result – the agenda leaves politics to return to the
economy. Everyone waits anxiously for a new set of measures from the minister Cavallo... that
don't come. The silence of this privileged speaker causes the CR to climb to 1824 points. The
government responds to the crisis with more silence. The result is that the CR goes over 2000
November 2001: On 1 November the CR, amid the silence of the state enunciators, rises to
nearly 2300 points. The next day, when the economic measures are known, the CR climbs to
2500 points. The financial world is evidently sceptical. Nobody believes in the minister
Cavallo’s new measures. Faced with this decomposition of the financial system the analysts
stop monitoring the unstoppable ascent of the CR to direct their attention towards the bank
deposits.
The oscillations of the CR mark the week of Monday 12. The on-line newspaper describes
a typical day:
"The financial market began to move again up and down to the rhythm
of the different versions of the debt exchange. In the first part of the
Later, the civil servant refuted this interpretation of his statements and
relaxed the nerves of the stockbrokers a little and attenuated the fall of
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the price of the Argentine debt bonds. Therefore, the country risk finally
The market is agitated, more alive that ever, it "moves up and down" following the
"rhythm" induced by the different versions. It is possible to think that the financial markets are
organisms that feed on semiosis: when there are a lot of interpretations, the market becomes
agitated. On occasions one speaker has to return many times to his discourse to "rectify" or
"clarify" the meaning of his words. The absence of discourses, as we have already observed,
also alters the metabolism of the markets: sometimes it is the silence of a privileged speaker
which creates a hole that is unfailingly filled with the rumours generated by other enunciators.
December 2001: On Tuesday 4th the Argentine CR closes at 3306 points but on Wednesday,
thanks to a change in the credit rating system introduced by the bank JP Morgan, it dawns at
4040 points. The Argentine economy has gone through all the financial red lights and slips
towards the hell of default. The pressure cooker finally explodes and becomes a "cacerolazo".
December 12 www.clarin.com reminds its readers that the CR has reached 4160 points. But
the temperature in the streets is higher: the banks refuse to return money to their clients and
the social fire runs through the streets of Argentina to the rhythm of the beating saucepans.
The week that begins on Monday 17 December has already entered the history books. The
road blocks, demonstrations and mass meetings at the entrances of the banks are only the
warm up to the resignation of the government and the assault on the Congress headquarters.
Buenos Aires burns live on the world’s screens while the presidency is passed between five
politicians during an endless week. During the attack on 11 September the digital newspaper
www.clarin.com reached 994,843 daily visits, but the resignation of president De la Rúa raised
The arrival to presidency of Eduardo Duhalde generates a discursive change: the great
obsession with the markets, the scourge of the savers, the value that best represented the
rhythm of the economy (and the decadence of a society) ... leaves the pages of the newspaper
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together with the government of Fernando De la Rúa. The CR, which in the months following
the December 2001 crisis will reach 6000 points, disappears from Clarín’s discourse.
This disappearance is less suggestive: in general the news enters at the first page and
little by little is diluted in the inside sections of the newspapers. Following this pattern the CR
would have stopped “being news" in the big headlines then died little by little in some
secondary column of the economic supplement. However, the journey in this case is different:
the CR, a fundamental component of the media agenda, disappeared abruptly from Clarín’s
discourse. The question is even stranger when we reveal that other Argentine newspapers
(such as La Nación) continued to talk about the CR in the articles published in the weeks after
the crisis.
However, to say that the CR disappeared is incorrect. Starting from 21 January 2002 the
CR acquired a new status in the www.clarin.com display: the Argentine credit rating is located
in the right column of the on-line newspaper, under the icons that provide the Buenos Aires
19
weather information and forecasts. From now on this space is dedicated to the CR and the
The end of the system of "convertibilidad" reopened a frozen exchange market during
several years. In this context the CR stops being “news” mentioned in headlines and articles to
become a meteorological variable. With a glance at the on-line newspaper the readers can find
out if it is raining in Buenos Aires and what temperature the markets have reached. Clarín’s
group to the government of Eduardo Duhalde. Furthermore, after the social explosion the
hegemony should be rebuilt on a different discursive base, employing new metaphors and
concepts. The revolution of the "cacerolas" ate up the government of Fernando De la Rúa and
its discourse.
The aim of this work was not to analyse the “economic information” (the statistics or
forecasts of the financial markets) nor question its enunciators. As we have seen, on several
occasions the actual economic actors that dance to the rhythm of these figures have
questioned the institutions that assess the CR and rank the different economies. The objective
was to analyse how the economic discourse is imposed on society and how it becomes a
powerful instrument of political hegemony. The CR constitutes an exemplary case: for one year
in the name of the CR, fiscal adjustments were applied, reductions in social expenditure were
justified and special powers given to the Argentine Minister of Economy were legitimised.
The discursive evolution of the CR invites reflection. The economic discourse, if it aspires
to hegemonise the territory of social discourses, should adapt to the rhythms and the
rhetorical devices of the mass media (short, forceful sentences, extended use of metaphors,
etc.). The domain of finance is sown with metaphors: the stocks "rise" and "fall" like the
temperature and the markets "react" like living organisms. The Argentine markets, like air
masses, have "turbulent" days or they are calm, and in the event of a crisis even Brazil can
At the beginning we pointed out how the economic discourse was proposed to Argentine
society as a place in which to found other social discourses (the "economy as philosophy"). But
the economy also tried to make itself the "natural science of the markets". When the financial
area is understood as an ecosystem governed by laws the economist can make hypotheses,
carry out predictions and propose possible remedies. The metaphor of the ecosystem is
complemented with the organic metaphor: as we can observe the market is a live, conscious
organism that sometimes "becomes agitated" and should be "calmed”. The "illnesses" of the
market (like unemployment) can be "diagnosed" and cured with a "remedy". According to
Abraham, during the 90s "the economists were the main characters of the public scene" in
Argentina, "they made the diagnoses, and carried out the therapy as well" (2002, p. 15).
In the case of the CR we can detect a longer lasting phenomenon with respect to the
average duration of information in the media. It is not without meaning that they talk of the
"long march" of the CR: bringing the CR onto the scene and turning it into an instrument of
political hegemony was a process that lasted many months. If between the years 1998 and
2000 it made shy appearances, in 2001 the CR burned stages to an unstoppable rhythm and
at the end of its journey in 2002, instead of dying in the inside pages of the newspaper, it was
Including the CR with the weather information is positioning it at the crossroad between
Although the meteorological discourse can be seen as a subgenre of the informative discourse
(both try to "make something known"), they differ in the temporal dimension. The
meteorological discourse: 1) offers current information about the weather conditions, and 2)
proposes a series of hypotheses about the evolution of these over the next hours and/or days.
As a difference to the traditional informative discourse that works in the dimension of “has
been", the meteorological discourse combines the “is" with "will be”. In this sense the on-line
newspaper is an ideal device for the meteorological discourse, since besides the forecasts, it
can indicate the temperature and the current state of the weather. The CR is placed in this
dimension of “is”: the real time necessary to move in an economy dominated by financial logic.
The contamination between the economic discourse and the climatic discourse is not a
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coincidence. As Abraham states, economy and meteorology share the space of prediction: both
are knowledge that, starting with a probabilistic analysis, define a future scenario.
found in this case? It is clear that the printed newspaper can only offer information from the
day before. Yesterday’s dollar price or CR estimates have no financial value (except for
identifying tendencies): economies based on capital flows and financial activity need
information in real time. In this sense the on-line newspaper creates an implicit user (Scolari,
2004), inviting the reader to visit the newspaper several times a day, offering them the
climatic-financial information that is most useful for surviving in the agitated markets.
Therefore, the on-line newspaper finds its specificity in providing information in real time that
allows the reader to stay in tune with the rhythms of the market. At the discursive level, this
causes a confluence between the meteorological discourse and the informative discourse.
In the last decade of the 20th century the economic discourse has delineated a
relentless destiny for Argentine society. The decrease in state presence was considered a
return to the “natural order” that the economic science took charge of understanding,
explaining and preaching. The long march of the CR is only one example of political
hegemony hiding the social conflict. Naturalisation and cancellation of history are, according to
Roland Barthes (1957), the coordinates of myth: In our case, the myth of Country Risk.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Abraham, T. (2000), La Empresa de Vivir, Sudamericana, Buenos Aires.
Angenot, M. (1998), Intertextualidad, Interdiscursividad, Discurso Social, Universidad Nacional
de Rosario, Rosario.
Barthes, R. (1957), Mythologies, Editions du Seuil, Paris.
Charaudeau, P. (2003), El Discurso de la Información. La construcción del espejo social,
Gedisa, Barcelona.
Eco, U. (1979), Lector in Fabula, Bompiani, Milano.
Fabbri, P. (1995), Tácticas de los Signos, Gedisa, Barcelona.
Greimas, A. & Courtés, J. (1979), Semiótica. Diccionario Razonado de la Teoría del Lenguaje,
Gredos, Madrid.
Grupo Clarín (2004) Clarín.com es el diario de habla hispana más leído en Internet [Online]
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