Mediatized violence. Between legitimization and resignification of violent police practices during the COVID-19 pandemic in Argentina

Abstract

The objective of this article is to analyze the role of the security forces in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic towards vulnerable sectors of society and the use of images in the Argentine media. To understand this process, a set of cases covered by digital media and alternative portals of the city of Buenos Aires in 2020 are analyzed. We question the meaning of the violence of the images during the pandemic, their legitimizations and redefinitions in the public sphere. Some results allow us to affirm that, during the first part of the pandemic, the media disseminated images of harassment and lethal violence carried out by police personnel through the use of citizen sources (videos taken by witnesses of the events) and security cameras as a way of denunciation, moral and political, of police practices. When the isolation measures decreased, the analyzed media expanded the use of police sources and media images of violence tended to decline, as did the nature of denunciation.