Abstract

Based on an historical analysis of the last five decades of research, this article analyzes the elements that define the journalism in Latin America. The work is based on the common social structures and the fact that journalism mediates in the construction of reality throughout the region, proposing a model that describes the individual, organizational and social aspects that have influenced the development of the profession. The results indicate that the educational problems linked to both the identity and the autonomy of the profession, the cultural value associated to professional practice, the existence and reach of the Teachers Associations, political and economic peculiarities, and the considerable influence exercised by Europe and the United States, are all aspects that make Latin American journalism different journalism in the rest of the world. Still, despite these similarities, neither a shared conceptualization nor a homologated operationalization of the profession exists in Latin America.