Abstract
Letters to the editor published by two Colombian newspapers during 1999–2008 were examined. Most addressed themes, domestic politics and the citizens’ affairs, were analyzed herein to describe emotions from a qualitative perspective. Findings showed that the internal armed conflict was the main driving force to express the individual’s emotions and judgments. Significant events triggering a wide range of emotions were identified. Two units of meaning emerged: patriotism under siege, to account for people’s love for the nation regardless of their affliction; and fear, the predominant emotion, to explain public distress caused by this intractable conflict. Being aware of the public’s emotional condition questions whether it is worth considering the paradigm of objectivity as an ethical ideal in the journalistic field. It also encourages reporting conflicts through the perspective of peace journalism, emphasizing possible solutions. Since Colombia is currently moving to a post-conflict phase, this could help to heal the social issue.
Media scholars worldwide have discussed the significant role of traditional and newer forums for audience participation in constructing and facilitating communal ties between users of different media (Erickson, 2010; Papacharissi and Oliveira, 2012). Public spaces for debate, political activism, and exchange of ideas build strong ties among the public. With the current focus on new media, the literature often refers to imagined communities (Anderson, 2007; Papacharissi and Oliveira, 2012) built around a global issue or media product. Nonetheless, various authors (Grey and Brown, 1970; Lemert and Larkin, 1979; Nielsen, 2010; Singletary, 1976; Whal-Jorgensen, 2001) also highlighted the importance of the conventional participatory forums, such as the letters section of newspapers, in reinforcing communal ties and providing spaces for addressing local concerns in a rational and articulate manner.
Nielsen (2010) recognized three genres in which audiences share their common identities and social values: storytelling, criticism, and appeal. Furthermore, letters to the editor also provide opportunities to voice individual and emotion-filled claims and calls for action. Editors prefer individual expression and personal stories to more argumentative texts (Whal-Jorgensen, 2001). In other words, this section allows the coexistence of reason-based objectivity and emotionally charged subjectivity. The aforesaid creates a richer scenario for scholars and practitioners to study complex political and social circumstances.
A previous study analyzed letters to the editor published by El Tiempo and El Heraldo, two important Colombian newspapers, and found a diverse mixture of rationally and emotionally oriented texts from 1999 to 2008 (Barrios, 2013). Taking into account these results, this article reports an in-depth examination of the emotional dimension of the aforesaid letters, particularly concerning domestic politics and the citizens’ affairs, the main themes addressed by the readers. The literature on emotion from journalism, philosophy, political science, and sociology was reviewed to enlighten the way letters to the editor serve as a forum to express public emotions, strengthen the relationship between journalists and their audiences, and bring a variety of opinions regarding social life to public debate.
The latter is crucial to understand what the role of journalism should be in times of intractable conflicts such as the ongoing war between the Colombian government and left-wing rebels of Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), taking place since 1964. Government officials and rebels have been negotiating in Havana since 2012. They intend to reach an agreement to end the internal armed conflict. Therefore, it is crucial that the emotions and judgments of the audience be appreciated and taken into consideration in public debate to bring favorable changes to society in the forthcoming post-conflict phase.
Lessons learned about emotions
Letters to the editors are a key institution to understand how emotions are expressed in society. As a multifaceted phenomenon of subjective feeling (see Bar-Tar, 2001), these texts can be traced in different contexts. In the past, as stated by Berezin (2002), the private sphere served as the legitimate social space to express emotions. However, nowadays emotions are expressed beyond a family sphere through mass media. Bar-Tar (2001) affirms that the learning of emotional orientation frequently occurs via political, educational, and cultural mechanisms such as informative media.
The place of emotions in social life is being studied with increasing enthusiasm in the different disciplines within social sciences. In his study on political sociology of emotion, Berezin (2002) adheres to Weber’s argument, in the sense that emotional foundations provide ‘political community’ with inner force and legitimacy (p. 34). Meanwhile, Nussbaum (2013) expressed that emotions are intentional thoughts toward an object, an evaluative assessment from an individual point of view. In her study on political emotions, she states that they may feel as a visceral experience that causes deep restlessness and agitation. In her theory of emotions, Nussbaum (2008) adheres the philosophers with a neo-stoic perspective of emotions, who consider them judgments and thoughts about what matters the most, rather than out-of-control states of mind.
Beliefs about what is important and valuable play a key role in emotions. Therefore, social norms and individual history can shape them. Nussbaum (2008) notes that although the ways of expressing emotions – the emotional repertoires – change according to the cultural context of each society, ‘emotions such as fear, love, anger and sadness are very likely to be ubiquitous’ (p. 169). Other authors (Ekman, 2003; Kemper, 2002; Kövecses, 2000) mention similar series of emotions including joy and happiness, among others.
In addition to the aforementioned, some matters should be considered when connecting public emotions to the journalistic domain. As it is well known, texts are the result of the dynamics between the public and the editors, while information is a joint construction between journalists and their news sources. As in most newspapers worldwide, the letters to the editor section in the newspapers studied is in the op-ed section. However, the distance between the emotions in the letters and those in the news is shorter than anyone may think.
After all, when speaking of emotions in the Colombian environment, the dividing lines between the roles of the sender and the receiver of the news are blurred. First, both journalists and readers have experienced the same emotions as members of this common culture (Zandberg and Neiger, 2005). They have directly or indirectly been victims of persistent domestic problems, such as institutional corruption, criminality, and physical and structural violence. Second, since many official institutions fail to perform their roles in society, Colombian journalists have traditionally helped the audience claim their fundamental rights (Arroyave and Barrios, 2012). They mediate to solve problems in their communities, report on social injustice, uncover corruption, demand accountability from public officials, and help the most vulnerable population.
The lack of effective delivery of healthcare, for instance, often draws solidarity from journalists throughout the country. There is an evil practice, known as El Paseo de la Muerte (The Walk of Death); ambulances drive severely ill patients from hospital to hospital because public and private health institutions refuse to admit them because they do not meet some minor requirements. Patients often die in the ambulance due to the lack of medical care they are entitled to. Most journalists endorse citizens by sharing a wide range of emotions, such as anger and sadness, in their stories. It is difficult to remain distant in situations like the aforementioned.
Therefore, Colombian journalists often choose, as Rorty (1991) states, to tell the story of their contribution to their community. In other words, they seem to prefer touching human stories to those showing facts and distance (Arroyave and Barrios, 2012). During recent developments, researchers (Pantti and Van Zoonen, 2006; Pantti and Whal-Jorgensen, 2007; Peters, 2011; Stenvall, 2008; Whal-Jorgensen, 2013) have documented the pervasiveness of emotions on journalistic texts, as it will be described later.
However, both Colombian and foreign journalists do not disregard routine procedures in news coverage, such as presenting both sides of a story, providing sufficient evidence of what it stated and using quotes to introduce the opinions of individuals (Tuchmann, 1972). In short, there is also a strategic ritual of objectivity. This narrative seeks, as it is widely known, to minimize journalists’ emotions, thus prioritizing objectivity: ‘it guides journalists to separate facts from values and to report only the facts’ (Schudson, 2001: 150). This way of communicating reality was considered professional, closer to scientific knowledge, and protected journalists from criticism.
As Whal-Jorgensen (2013) has stated, there is a strategic ritual of emotionality, which operates simultaneously with the strategic ritual of objectivity. However, unlike the latter – proudly displayed as an achievement in newsrooms – the presence of emotions in narrative journalism constitutes a tacit knowledge despite its centrality. On a daily basis, journalists communicate emotions and opinions from sources involved in the stories and facts from the individual’s experience; document details of human interest; and often include anecdotal leads, dialogues, interior monologues, and several narrators on the text. Some of these techniques derive from New Journalism, with its vision of reality through an objective/subjective lens.
Stenvall (2008) found emotions in AP and Reuters news items, although their institutional mission exhibits a strong commitment with accuracy, factuality, and balance, basic tenets of the paradigm of objectivity, essential to Anglo-Saxon journalism. Emotions are also found in the news coverage of disasters along with a strong tendency of journalists to privilege the victims’ voices and to offer advice and comfort, a practice considered far-off the paradigm of objectivity (Pantti and Whal-Jorgensen, 2007).
However, as mentioned by Peters (2011), the conceptualization of emotion in journalism involves the experience of participation, including that of journalists, which has become an increasing trend on news reporting. This makes it appropriate to consider the 21st-century journalism a multidimensional scenario, where emotions are communicated on a daily basis. The rational/emotional dichotomies are difficult to sustain, since the information industry is seeking alternative narratives and approaches to capture the readers’ interest from the beginning of the story.
The widespread recognition of emotions within the journalistic field seems to encourage the exploration of emotions contained in the letters to the editor. Journalists might learn from them about matters that have a great impact on the public which might help improve what Peters (2011) calls the experience of involvement, understood as ‘the moment of contact between the audience and the news text’ (p. 306). It would be worth prizing the audience’s participation in the production process.
A half-century of struggles
As previously stated, the profound contradictions in Colombian society have made journalism to be combative, resourceful, and committed to its audience. Many journalists go beyond normal news coverage in their daily work. Besides, the country’s political situation has threatened freedom of speech many times. For instance, El Espectador, a national outlet, suffered due to violence caused by the drug cartels. In 1989, Pablo Escobar murdered its Director Guillermo Cano in Bogotá as well as two of its managers in Medellín and detonated a truck loaded with explosive material outside the newspaper’s headquarters, injuring almost 100 people. In a more recent assault, on 12 August 2010, a car bomb exploded a few meters away from Caracol Radio premises.
Besides, the newspaper El Tiempo, included in this study, was closed from August 1955 to May 1957 during the military dictatorship of General Rojas Pinilla. This paper was founded in 1911 as a liberal affiliation newspaper and regarded as a public opinion leader throughout the country. Later, in 1990, during the government’s struggle against the drug cartels, Pablo Escobar kidnapped the paper’s editor in chief, Francisco Santos.
Moreover, El Heraldo, founded in 1933, is mainly read in the Caribbean region of Colombia, a territory exhibiting less expressions of violence arising from the internal armed conflict. It has been the home school of well-known journalists and writers such as Nobel Prize Gabriel García Márquez. It circulates within a region with very distinctive cultural traits portrayed by the author in his literary master pieces. Emotions are more easily permitted here; Fals Borda (1980) describes this as ‘the Costeño’s (coast dweller) unceremonious, happy, straightforward, noisy nature’ (p. 154B). As to the emotional characteristics of the people from the Andean region where El Tiempo is edited, Urrego (1997) asserts that the culture of Bogotá citizens or ‘cachacos’ has been described as more quiet, pompous, and traditional.
Guerrilla groups, common delinquency, and corrupt individuals are a constant threat for journalists from all corners of the country, who frequently appeal to anonymity to protect their lives. The different kinds of violence have led journalists to work together to maintain their audience informed by publishing special reports about controversial topics or carrying out news coverage simultaneously. However, the most disastrous consequence of this scenario is the self-censorship that silently shapes work in newsrooms in the country.
In sum, the past 55 years have seemed, at times, a long dark night in which 220,000 Colombians, 80 percent civilians, have died by the hands of paramilitary and guerrilla groups, such as the FARC (Grupo Memoria Histórica, 2013). Media has tried to sooth the painful tracks of the internal armed conflict by allowing the families of those kidnapped by guerrillas to send messages to their loved ones in captivity through their programs. These messages are strongly connected with emotions, as described later when discussing the letters to the editor. Loyd-Smith and Darlington (2010) argue that ‘thoughts and images of places are really feelings about them’ (p. 113). Therefore, places and memories associated with key events of recent social life in Colombia are teeming with emotions.
Based on the intertwinement between the literature and the foregoing Colombian reality, this article seeks to answer the following research questions: What public emotions arose from these letters? How did the public express them? What events of sharp significance triggered them?
Methodology
This article is based on a previous study which analyzed 5425 letters to the editor published by the newspapers El Tiempo and El Heraldo during 1999–2008. Taking into consideration circulation criteria, 90 percent of the data processed were taken from El Tiempo and the remaining 10 percent from El Heraldo. The results showed that letters referred to 26 subthemes further grouped into four main themes: the citizen’s affairs, domestic politics, production of newspapers, and foreign policy (Barrios, 2013).
Table 1 shows the performance of the themes addressed in letters. Domestic politics and the citizen’s affairs were the preferred choices in El Tiempo. These themes have an average share of 43.0 and 31.1 percent, respectively. Altogether, they represent 74.1 percent of the total. Meanwhile, letters written to the editor of El Heraldo were also focused on domestic politics (28.1%) and the citizen’s affairs (67.6%). However, the latter represents by itself more than half of the interest of the public during the timeframe of the study. These themes together averaged 95.7 percent of the total (see Table 1).
Percentage of topics covered in the letters 1999–2008.
Source: Barrios (2013).
Due to the centrality of domestic politics and the citizen’s affairs in letters, a new analysis from the qualitative approach was performed herein to describe emotions. The citizen’s affairs labeled those texts with references to ethics and morals, rewarding experiences, claims of rights and felt needs, appeals to solving urban problems, and complaints about structural violence-related situations, among others.| Meanwhile, letters categorized as domestic politics referred mainly to the armed conflict, actions by the military forces, the functions of the three branches of government, and the actions of the constitutional control bodies.
This research focused on finding keywords associated with specific emotions and used a combination of techniques, as discussed below, to construct a broad and also in-depth picture of the emotional environment of people writing letters to the Colombian press. Mixed data analysis software QDA Miner was used to process data, in its various functions such as searching for keywords in context and multiple coding recoveries. Following Krippendorff’s (2013) criteria, the computer aid offered by QDA was considered interactive-hermeneutic – interactive, since the categories were not previously fixed and hermeneutic, because the analysis process was guided through the analysts’ growing understanding of the texts.
Paragraphs were chosen as individual units of analysis since letters to the editors of El Tiempo and El Heraldo often included several paragraphs on more than one topic. A total of 4678 paragraphs – 2264 regarding the citizen’s affairs and 2414 referring to domestic’s politics – were used to describe emotions from a total of 5988 paragraphs (see Table 2).
Percentage of topics covered in the paragraphs 1999–2008.
The process to find the emotions within the letters was performed as follows:
Most popular themes – domestic politics and the citizen’s affairs – were organized in a separate database.
Data were reviewed for letters making reference to the Colombian internal armed conflict or other types of social concerns such as civil demonstrations, institutional corruption, and civil rights violation. Keywords included kidnapping, bombing, conflict, demonstrations, miraculous fishing, massacre, corruption, negligence, peace, negotiation, marches, and some others selected from the dictionary of terms of conflict and peace in Colombia (Corporación Medios para la Paz, 1999).
Texts resulting from the coding process were read in full repeatedly, to find the expression of emotions in words such as happy, elated, optimistic, hopeful; angry, hurt, worried, ashamed (Whal-Jorgensen, 2013); laughter, tears, rage (Berezin, 2002); and fear and hope (Bar-Tar, 2001). Letters containing those keywords were grouped according to the type of emotion. Using the keyword in context tool of the software, it was possible to establish events of sharp significance that triggered them.
The next step was to create a word document for each of the two thematic areas and paste articles into the corresponding documents.
Afterward, the word documents were revised. Two senior graduate students, with ample experience in qualitative research and previously acquainted with the particulars of this study, read the texts several times along with the main researcher. Each reviewer grouped quotes from those letters they thought referred to a similar issue to begin forming the categories and establish possible connections between these themes (Van Manen, 1990).
Later on, we gathered and discussed each individual’s set of categories to reach a consensus; categories were agreed upon, merged together, and reorganized providing topical diversity of the data (Van Manen, 1990). Quotes were analyzed to identify emotions associated with domestic politics and the citizen’s affairs.
Indigenous expressions within the letters were identified and associated with the themes and emotions.
Techniques to identify themes in texts from the aforementioned qualitative perspective have been repeatedly weighted by some of the most prominent scholars in the field, as Ryan and Bernard (2003) and Guest et al. (2012). The results of this research showed two distinctive units of meaning: the first, patriotism under siege, communicated the many faces of love for the nation, expressed by the public in their letters to the editor. The second, fear, the predominant emotion, described public distress resulting from this intractable conflict.
Results
Patriotism under siege
The results of the study showed that those who wrote letters to the newspapers herein have become a political community. Weber (1997) states that this category emerges when there are no economic bonds or regulations among its members, direct threats are experienced, and common emotions are shared.
Most of the emotions in the texts conveyed a sense of love for the nation, as well as sadness for the goals to be achieved in order to fulfill basic human needs. The love conveyed was similar to a personal kind of love, that is, patriotism emerged in most of the letters. As Nussbaum (2013) declares, ‘patriotism is a strong emotion taking the nation as its object’ (p. 208). The emotions within the letters were strong since the public considered the nation as their own.
Expressions such as ‘decent Colombians’, ‘good people’, ‘respectable folks’, ‘our country’, and others using the first-person plural found within the letters to the editor were connected to emotions such as fear, anger, love, and sadness, regarded by authors (Nussbaum, 2008; Stenvall, 2008) as universal or basic human emotions. One of the letters mentioned, So many tears, so much bloodshed, so much grief explains what decent Colombians are offered. (El Tiempo, May, 2004)
The expression ‘Colombian soul’ (El Tiempo, December 2009) was found in several letters. The ‘Colombian soul’ took the appearance of an imagined construction inclined to convey positive and negative emotions and public sensitiveness with regard to domestic events. It was present to express emotions regarding the armed conflict with the FARC. At times, the ‘Colombian soul’ laid in fragments, while on other occasions stood vigorous and ready to move on.
An angry public made reference to a ‘broken soul’ repeatedly, as the result of constant abuse by outlaw armed forces, but primarily by the very public institutions citizens have trusted. Some other times, as expressed in the following letter published by El Tiempo, we are to blame for the fragmentation of our collective soul due to our apathy and passiveness as regards public matters: We keep singing carols and saying Christmas prayers and wishing each other ‘A Happy New Year’ as if nothing had happened. The Colombian soul has shattered, has vanished, and we, citizens are the main culprits. (El Tiempo, 23 December 2009)
Patriotism was the driving emotion behind peaceful and spontaneous demonstrations by civil society. That is the case of ‘A million voices against FARC’, a successful protest march to demand the release of kidnapped citizens called via Facebook and held in February 2008. Patriotism, full of emotional ties, emerged through the letters since public demonstrations were the subject matter of many letters and triggered a mixture of emotions: anger, grief, hope, and love for the nation: I have just returned from the march. What a relief! It feels as if the felling of forest trees had been prevented; that is, as if lives had been saved. Looking at the face of protest and listening to the cries of repudiation of many thousands of people was astonishing and moving. After this forceful demonstration, how could the FARC dare to ask for political recognition? The country, along with half of the world, rejects them emphatically. The FARC are to release those in captivity, and to stop torturing and committing outrageous crimes. The march made history. (El Tiempo, 7 February 2008) Monday’s march against the FARC was overwhelming. It was the clearest, and most adamant and unanimous expression of society against that group. Now the FARC has to rethink their future. Without popular support, rebels are nothing. Start releasing hostages, without media shows or compensations. (El Tiempo, 7 February 2008)
As mentioned before, the emotion of love for the country adopted many faces in the letters: compassion for their fellow citizens, hope for a better future, and sadness for what remains to be achieved. The following letter refers to the above: I suddenly stopped and let my eyes reveal my love for this land, my land, and for this people, my people. I realized that regardless of what happens or how much I have to suffer, never would I leave my home country. (El Tiempo, 1 May 2005)
People shared a wide spectrum of emotions on sensitive issues regarding social life, which seems to have surpassed their individual endurance capacity. Narratives overflowing emotions emerged from letters regarding the internal armed conflict. Central events during the timeframe of this analysis (1999–2008), such as El Nogal Club bombing, two massacres, and the marches against the FARC in 2008, gave rise to soul-stirring letters to the editor, as will be argued in the next section.
Fear, the predominant emotion
After studying the emotional dimension of the letters regarding domestic politics and the citizen’s affairs, the data indicated that the internal armed conflict was the central thematic focus of this texts and the transversal emotional trigger, understood under this study as the main driving force for the public expressions of emotions. As Nussbaum (2008) states, ‘if emotions are evaluative assessments, we can expect that cultural views on what they valued most directly affect them’ (p. 185).
Upon discussing the Colombian political conflict, positive and negative emotions arose, but fear was the predominant emotion within the letters. Aforementioned, because the public felt that their country was enormously threatened and they had no control over it (Nussbaum, 2008). Disruptive occurrences caused by the guerrillas, such as the car bombing at El Nogal social club in Bogotá in 2003; the kidnapping of presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt in 2002 and the three American contractors Thomas Howes, Keith Stansell, and Marc Gonsalves in 2003; the hundreds of random civilian kidnappings referred to as ‘miraculous fishing’; as well as the mass killings by guerrilla and paramilitary groups, such as massacres in Bojayá in 2002 and Toribio in 2005, triggered a wide range of emotions conveyed in the letters to the editor under study. A letter points specifically to this: Rich and poor Colombians endured all the suffering caused by the insane war unleashed by the guerrillas. As expressed by the President, the silence of the international organizations and advocacy groups when guerrillas kill Colombian civilians, as in the attack on Friday at the Club El Nogal or the church holocaust in Bojayá, hurts us profoundly. (El Tiempo, 10 February 2003)
The more than 50-year conflict with the FARC guerrilla seems to have left a profound scar in the soul of every citizen. As an expert states (see Bar-Tar, 2001: 608), societies bearing intractable conflicts incorporate the prolonged experience of violence into the people’s collective memory and disseminate it through mass media. Therefore, an important number of cathartic expressions of fear along with rage, sorrow, and despair were found during the period studied.
The disturbing episodes of the Colombian armed conflict during 1999 and 2008 were large-scale media events followed live by audiences throughout the country. Bar-Tar (2001) states that ‘fear in a public threat situation is often contagious […] because society members easily intercept its signals through their empathetic mechanisms’ (p. 608). Therefore, the massive coverage of these incidents troubled the audience either emotionally or mentally. Along with rational reflections about these situations, streams of emotions flooded the letters to the editor sections in the newspapers and other media participatory forums. The public witnessing these events live through the media used storytelling, criticism, and appeals (Nielsen, 2010) to convey opinions and emotions.
Citizen’s petitions were present in many texts. As argued by Pantti and Van Zoonen (2006), emotions can trigger public deliberation and action. Letters also referred to the actions that should be taken to achieve peace, the most powerful collective longing in Colombia. A touching one expressed love and sadness at the same time: I appeal to all actors of the armed conflict in our country vehemently. Accept a truce at this very moment. Allow for the possibility of an honest peace process to bring peace to our land. (El Heraldo, 6 September 1999)
Letters discussing the civilian casualties of the armed conflict often expressed anger, sadness, fear, and a sense of overwhelming injustice. Being deprived of fundamental human rights was one of the most common complaints. One of the texts described Colombia as a place of torment and turmoil. It was published after the Bojayá massacre, where civilians were burned inside a church while hiding from the guerrillas’ siege to Bojayá, a small town on the Pacific Coast. The letter expressed deep sorrow: I do not cry for the dead children. What for? They are no longer suffering the hatred within this country which gradually resembles hell. I weep for those who have to die tomorrow, for those who have yet to endure the cold weather in the streets. I prefer to save my tears for those walking slowly toward the inevitable death. Here in hell, good and evil are equal; everyone carries death in his soul, a state of being that starts with the death of the soul and the end of innocence. Here in hell, no one mourns for those who leave, but for those who stay. What was my crime? Being born in this doomed country? (El Tiempo, 8 May 2002)
On the other hand, a common complaint was being unable to make proper use and enjoy the wide range of natural resources in the country because of the fear elicited by a constant sense of the danger ‘out there’. That fear does not exclusively refer to the roads and the mountains, but anywhere outside one’s own private space, home, city, or town limits. Finally, material resources deprecated by constant attacks of subversive groups were also considered as a major loss by civil society, in a war they have no hand in. The following letter illustrated what was mentioned above: No more kidnapping! We are tired of living in this beautiful country -with two oceans and plenty of natural resources, lovely landscapes, and touristic spots- we cannot enjoy because of a permanent fear of being captured during ‘miraculous fishing’ (random kidnappings). We have been deprived of our fundamental right to freedom. Thus, we end up having to hide in our humble homes. (El Heraldo, 20 November 1999)
The sense of a better ‘out there’ beyond Colombian borders resulted in a diaspora, another loss for the country. The human loss was not limited to the death toll of the armed conflict, but it also included many citizens who migrated. Many Colombians thought this was their only option to have a safe and stable life, as demonstrated in the following letter from an ex-pat: Regarding the article ‘I wonder, is it worth leaving?’ I answered, ‘I think so’. Unemployment and, in the best of scenarios, low wages; the insecure environment even to go to the corner store or even inside your home; the high cost of living, the criminal organizations; guerrillas with all their authority, walking around as they please and dictating laws [in some parts of the country]; public employees involved in bribery; citizens who have to give them money under the table to perform the job for which they are paid, traffic chaos; the UPAC [interest rate system], leaving people homeless; the ‘miraculous fishing’ [ransom kidnapping] […]. Unfortunately, Colombia does not make any progress. It hurts to say it, but what has changed for the better? Nothing. Well, that is why I decided to go abroad and I do not regret it. (El Tiempo, 1 May 2000)
Aware of the extensive and difficult path to achieve peace in Colombia and honoring the Christmas spirit, a citizen ended a letter saying, I will settle for a small truce, a truce that beings at my doorstep, extends to my neighbour’s home, and then to the next one. I will accept it without any wrapping paper, and will share it without expecting anything in return. (El Heraldo, 6 September 1999)
Another letter published before stated a similar argument: It [our social situation] is not a question of being rich or poor, black or white, blue or red [conservative or liberal]. The problem is in the hands of every Colombian who has not experienced this violence directly, who still has not grieved over the nation’s fate because they are engrossed in their own affairs; they are not thoughtful, because they do not love Colombia and also because God is not within themselves. (El Heraldo, 7 July 1999)
Another letter conveyed positive feelings of unity and solidarity that emerged from civil society after a tragedy, such as the bombing of El Nogal: Summarizing in a few lines what we went through, felt and suffered as directors, partners and employees of Club El Nogal is not easy. We are alive, but overwhelmed and devastated. We are working around the clock to recover and to continue building a nation. A week after the long and painful tragic night we could say a lot, but today we need to say thank you …. Thank you very much to the millions of anonymous Colombians who expressed their support … through marches, vigils and religious ceremonies. El Nogal is injured, but thanks to you we are all saving it … (El Tiempo, 16 February 2003)
Some texts conveyed vehement appeals to their countrymen to be sensitive toward suffering while keeping hope: Many claim for Ingrid Betancourt and the kidnapped American contractors. Let’s raise our voices, not just for them but for the thousands of hostages in captivity. Do not forget anyone; do not forget the military members in captivity. Let’s demand, let’s march. The worst thing for them is to know that only their families, almost powerless, are trying to rescue them from oblivion. But the State and their fellow citizen always seem to shrug. (El Tiempo, 15 March 2002) Colombia is mourning for the shocking pictures of Ingrid [Betancourt, former presidential candidate] and some other kidnapped citizens. Despite that we have not lost hope; and hope is not something to be ashamed of. (El Heraldo, 5 February 2007)
The insane acts of violence in Colombia also prompted calls for the authorities to keep a firm hand on the guerrillas to stop their inhumane actions. A large segment of civil society requested the euphemisms used to describe the actions of the groups operating outside the law be ended. The two letters below invited both the international and the domestic community to do so: We take comfort in having a President who calls things by their name. No more rhetoric […] The country needs criminal courts to punish these crimes against humanity. By means of international politics the government should show the true nature of the armed groups in order to avoid misinterpreting our national reality. (El Tiempo, 10 February 2003) Maybe if former President López were a scientist, he would be able to clone Satan, which in his perversely idyllic world is the same as declaring that, in Colombia, FARC terrorists are not terrorists. According to him, the FARC did not mutilate soldiers, did not place car bombs as in El Nogal Club, nor destroyed villages using gas cylinders as bombs. These bombs have been planted in hotels, houses, donkeys, bicycles, corpses, etc … where common Colombian people including children, women and elders have died. (El Tiempo, 28 February 2005)
While readers despised the methods used by guerrilla and paramilitary groups and acknowledged the armed conflict as a dominant national concern, many of the letters revealed various forms of structural violence in the country. Letters conveyed emotions of anger and sorrow resulting from extreme negligence, abandonment, and abuse by public health institutions: At the San Juan de Dios [a municipal hospital] the labs are inert, medical histories are covered with spider webs, and medications are not available in the pharmacy. There is nothing. The doctors are gone. They left, some alive but their souls were dead. But the real culprits of the mayhem, are enjoying the benefits of their misdeeds. This government, the previous government, and those before them, simply shrugged. They let San Juan de Dios and many people in it die. (El Tiempo, 3 August 2002)
Texts also contained well-articulated judgments and emotions of anger, and sadness due to misdeeds of government officials, corrupt politicians, and other parties involved in public decision making. During the 10 years studied (1999–2008), distinct events of sharp significance regarding corruption in public administration led to anger and frustration among the readers. The political crisis due to corrupt government officials, the surveillance, and espionage scandals in Colombia’s intelligence agency DAS – that shook the country throughout President Álvaro Uribe’s administration (2002–2010) – were some of the main topics addressed: First we had the scandal of ‘parapolitica’ [scandal involving Colombian politicians and paramilitary groups] and the arrest of some congressmen from the president’s party. Later on, the arrest of Noguera, former DAS director [Colombian intelligence agency] […] What is happening in Colombia is very serious. The country deserves respect from its leaders. The President cannot keep taking sides and using mass media to judge and criticize others. (El Tiempo, 7 February 2007)
In sum, social problems and the internal armed conflict have given rise to most of the emotions and collective values displayed in letters to the editor with similar intensity in the two newspapers studied. This similarity becomes evident despite the social and cultural differences of these newspapers produced in the Caribbean and Andean regions of the country. However, it can be argued that the misery and destruction resulting from the internal Colombian conflict have led to edifying and robust emotions such as patriotism, from which the seeds of the country’s healing process might emerge. Sharing common problems during these forums might provide a sense of relief from emotions of rage and sadness prompted by institutional negligence experienced by Colombians on a regular basis.
Discussion
This article has sought to explore the emotions in letters to the editor emerging from the internal armed conflict. After studying the readers’ texts, it can be stated that even in the face of the ‘Social Media Revolution’ (Kral, 2011), this section remains a viable forum for constructive public debates, allowing the expression of common customs, history, and pressing needs, in an organized and articulated way. An expert (Bar-Tar, 2001) asserts that emotions work as data to form opinions about concerns and promote effective decision making.
Although the audience is the subject matter of this research, the findings serve to explore the challenges journalism copes with in societies facing intractable armed conflicts. It would be desirable for journalists to consider disruptive occurrences like Colombian cries as opportunities to strengthen common goals and accentuate possible solutions when constructing news regarding conflicts, an approach toward peace journalism. Thus, journalism can be better shaped up for the post-conflict phase the country is presently moving to. After all, as experts affirm, ‘griefs are of more value than triumphs, for they impose duties and require a common effort’ (see Nussbaum, 2013: 210).
Besides, greater awareness of the public’s emotions in letters to the editors and other media forums could help improve journalists’ contribution – as opinion leaders – to the democratic processes in societies facing persistent conflicts. Nussbaum (2013) asserts that when modifying or moderating fear ‘what leaders say can make a great deal of difference, bringing people together around a common project’ (p. 323). As Pantti and Van Zoonen (2006) affirmed, ‘news media can create and convey a feeling of temporary national consensus in an otherwise fragmented society’ (p. 221). Without doubt, a great deal of compassion is also needed to remove hostile public emotions and promote reconciliation.
The centrality of the Colombian armed conflict within the emotions and evaluations by the public and the exultant patriotism of the letters might lead journalists to consider more the public’s perspective of the conflict during news production. Currently, official sources are the favorite choice of journalists in the country (Rey, 2003) while the people’s opinion is mainly considered when they are victims of violent acts. As Gans (1979) said, news should include multiple perspectives of social life, not only the position of authorized and close to power sources.
Identifying the public’s emotions could help journalists recognize and appreciate the emotions included in their news quotidianly as studies have shown (Pantti and Whal-Jorgensen, 2007; Peters, 2011), understanding them not as wrong practices but as ‘profoundly constitutive of journalistic practices’ (Whal-Jorgensen, 2013: 131). Zandberg and Neiger (2005) who have studied the relationship between journalists and the national community in times of conflict have stated that ‘journalists are torn between two contradicting desires: the professional desire for objectivity and the national desire for solidarity’ (p. 131). By including emotions, the ritual of objectivity, which has been traditionally regarded as the central value of their journalistic exercise, could be balanced.
Emotions have been proudly present in Colombian newsrooms for several generations. Without them, journalists probably would not be able to develop enough empathy with their audiences to make their most pressing needs transcend the deliberative level, achieving some substantive changes for the country. Professional practice in the country supports the coexistence of strategic rituals of objectivity and emotionality in news pieces. As García Márquez ([1981] 1991) once noted, reality is stranger than fiction in Colombia; therefore, journalists often seem to be simple unimaginative notary public.
This study examined letters to the editor in a specific geographical and historical context undergoing conflict for over 15 years; there is no previous research on this matter. It is along the lines of the work on emotions in the journalistic realm by Whal-Jorgensen, (2013), Pantti and Whal-Jorgensen (2007), Peters, (2011), and Stenvall (2008) and of research on emotions in the context of societies with intractable conflicts by Bar-Tar (2001). I think that its main contribution is documenting – through a careful analysis of the letters to the editors in Colombian press – how these texts are a significant source of information on political emotions. It also provides a robust analysis of the emotional patterns lying underneath Colombians’ reactions to hideous situations.
In addition to the above, given the focus of the findings on conflict, this article might contribute to the discussion of roles played by journalism in times of conflict 1 and whether it is worth considering the paradigm of objectivity be an ethical ideal in the journalistic field. By bringing to the public debate varied voices coming from the audience, journalism may ‘create opportunities at large to consider and value non-violent responses to conflict’ as experts in Peace Journalism (Lynch and McGoldrick, 2005) state. Journalist must take into account audience’s emotions, channel, and include them in their texts permanently so that they trigger the accomplishment of urgent needs, described by Nussbaum (2013) as inclusiveness, equality, and the relief of misery.
At the same time, it can be argued that the emotions described above bring readers and journalists together since both of them experience the same emotions on a daily basis. Expression of emotions rooted in collective values seemed to activate public social responsibility, citizen mobilization, and a more active participation in the transformation of the country. The hope for social mobilization based on constructive emotions such as compassion may help to start healing the deep wounds and scars left by the political and structural violence in the soul of every Colombian citizen. The letters to the editor section may serve as a very helpful starting point for this challenging process. Future studies could demonstrate to what extent the emotions of journalists in the news could contribute to the generation of emotions in letters to the editor. Additional studies on emotions and journalism in Colombia could be carried out also using a deductive procedure and the third level of agenda-setting (Guo et al., 2012) or framing (De Vreese, 2005).
Footnotes
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.