Representaciones Mediáticas de la Naturaleza Colombiana en National Geographic Magazine 1903-1952

Una mirada desde las teorías críticas y el giro decolonial

Abstract

The purpose of the paper was to analyze media representations, production context, and social practices that legitimized the discourses published in National Geographic Magazine on Colombian Nature from 1903 to 1952. The theories that guided our research are included in Stuart Hall's Theory of Representations, Critical Theories, and the decolonial turn. Our methodological design used Fairclough's three-dimensional model as a unit of analysis with 9 reports on Colombia. Our research found the following media representations: sublime spectacle, land of economic opportunities, desirable place to collect scientific “data”, land of adventure and consumption, land of the future, a laboratory, adventure. The social practices that created and institutionalized this particular discourse on Nature were positivism, Pan-Americanism, and manifest destiny in the rise of mass journalism, the development of photoengraving technology, and the rise and institutionalization of new academic disciplines oriented by positivism.