Media and Education in Authoritarian Argentina

This book delves into the construction of an authoritarian value system and mechanisms used to disseminate it among the population during the last military dictatorship in Argentina.Education and Media in Authoritarian Argentina, 1976-1983 examines how the military regime sought to transform Argentine society radically and permanently. Authorities attempted to forge a uniform national consciousness that was based on their own rigid and monolithic idea of el ser nacional (national identity). Patricia Juarez-Dappe looks at the mechanisms used by the armed forces to disseminate and impose their authoritarian project of national reorganization, with an emphasis on propaganda, education, and media. The analysis demonstrates that the armed forces did not act alone but were assisted by sectors of civil society who conformed to their same ideological framework and became indispensable partners in the authoritarian regime’s attempts to transform society. Juarez-Dappe uncovers the strategies employed by the authoritarian government to reach ideological unification, generate effective compliance, and exercise full control over the minds and bodies of the Argentine people. Ultimately, through the Argentine case, this book demonstrates that authoritarian regimes rely on both violent and non-violent strategies to impose their agendas shedding light on how these strategies are complementary, mutually reinforcing, and interdependent.