Losing focus: goal displacement at an alternative newspaper in El Salvador

Abstract

This study examines whether a Salvadoran alternative newspaper maintained its critical, independent, and alternative position after the country’s first leftist president was elected and the newspaper no longer was in opposition to the government. Via a content analysis and in-depth interviews that drove the content analysis, this study improves our understanding of ‘alternativeness’ in a non-US context. Using a theoretical lens founded on alternative media scholarship and sociology’s displacement theory to examine the newspaper’s radical purpose, the study found that once the left came into power after decades of rightist and authoritarian rule, the newspaper’s alternative mission and goals were displaced, becoming less radical and more propagandistic. Pro-government coverage increased and coverage of social movements, civil society, and other traditionally ‘alternative’ topics decreased. Journalists at the newspaper acknowledged the shift in goals and lessening of radical purpose, but clung to the newspaper’s ‘alternativeness’.