You are invited to attend this week’s talk organized by the Department of Translation and Interpretation.
Speaker : Esmaeil Kalantari, Bilkent University
Title : Interpretations of Plurinationalism in Five Chilean News Outlets before the 2022
Constitutional Referendum: A Second-Level Agenda-Setting Perspective
Date : 30 March 2026
Time : 12.30-13.20
Venue : FF-B 05
Abstract: In 2019, Chile witnessed nationwide demonstrations calling for social and political reforms. Following this, most political parties reached an agreement to begin a process of drafting a new constitution. Although the process initially had broad public support, the proposed constitution was rejected by around 62% of voters in a referendum on September 4, 2022. The definition of Chile as a ‘plurinational state’ in the proposed draft was one of the reasons most frequently mentioned by those who voted for the Rejection (Titelman, 2022). In this context, this study examines how five Chilean news outlets (La Tercera, El Mercurio, El Líbero, El Mostrador, BioBioChile) interpreted plurinationalism in the period preceding the referendum and the potential relationship between media interpretations and public opinion. This research is grounded in agenda-setting theory (McCombs et al., 2014). It combines content analysis of the news outlets with secondary audience data to assess, respectively, patterns of positive and negative media interpretations and levels of news media exposure. The analysis shows that, when the five news outlets are considered as a whole, negative interpretations of plurinationalism dominate the media agenda. Additionally, evidence of an increase in news exposure suggests a potential for agenda setting effects on public opinion before the 2022 constitutional referendum.
Bio: Esmaeil Kalantari holds a Ph.D. in Translation Studies from Université de Montréal. His research lies at the intersection of translation, media, and political communication, with a focus on translation in news and social media, its role in global news circulation, public opinion formation, and the spread of political mis- and disinformation. His individual and collaborative work has appeared in leading journals in translation studies, media studies, and political science, including Meta: Translators’ Journal, Across Languages and Cultures, The Translator, Journalism, Canadian Political Science Review, and Bulletin d’histoire politique. He has also co-authored chapters in edited volumes such as The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Media. Previously, Dr. Kalantari served as a lecturer and research assistant at Université de Montréal and Université TÉLUQ.