GENERIC FRAMES ON THE FRONT COVERS OF THE CHILEAN PRESS RELATED TO THE SOCIAL OUTBREAK OF 2019

Introduction: One of the most striking consequences of the social outbreak in Chile in 2019, from the perspective of communication studies, was the change in the perception and assessment of the media by the citizens. In this context, it is interesting to understand how the media represented that political and social phenomenon. Objective: To describe how the Chilean national and metropolitan press (El Mercurio, La Tercera, La Segunda, Las Ultimas Noticias, La Cuarta, HoyxHoy, and Publimetro) reported on the social outbreak of 2019 on their covers from the perspective of their generic news frames. Methodology: A multimodal content analysis was conducted, simultaneously interpreting verbal and iconic messages related to the outbreak. Results: The most relevant frame in the coverage was conflict, followed by frames of human interest and attribution of responsibility. The economic consequences frame was much less important, while the morality frame only had a marginal contribution. Discussion: Given the interpretative nature of this analysis, we also evaluated the presence of two potential new generic frames: neutrality, which had low presence, and orientation, which turned out to be very important in one of the newspapers, and we believe it has potential for the study of the popular press. Conclusion: The orientation frame seems to be highly representative of the popular press, and therefore, it has the potential to become a generic frame applicable to other studies.