Homogeneity and plurality of the media agenda in Chile. A crosslongitudinal study of the national print press between 1990 and 2015

Abstract

Through a cross-longitudinal news content analysis of 6.567 news articles published in two of the main national newspapers in Chile, this article addresses the evolution of the thematic agenda of both the elite and popular press -La Tercera y Las Últimas Noticias- between 1990 and 2015, specifically, at the level of the homogeneity and plurality in the news topics included in the coverage by the National Desk of the Chilean print press. Overall, the results reveal high levels of homogeneity between the thematic agenda of the popular and the elite press. Nevertheless, the data also show that such homogeneity has diminished across time, possibly explained by their audience orientation and with that, their editorial line. Likewise, the data indicate that in the analyzed period, the popular press increased significantly more that the elite press in the plurality of its thematic agenda