Bringing Down the Scaremongers: Venezuelan Diaspora as a Dog Whistle in Colombia's 2022 Presidential Election

Abstract

This article examines how the Venezuelan diaspora has been portrayed in the media during the Colombian presidential election of 2022 and how it has influenced voters' preferences there. It examines presidential debates and conversations on X (formerly Twitter), as well as traditional legacy media and digital natives' media material. The authors used a population-based sample of 17,372 articles on the 2022 elections to analyse data from a stratified sample. Our findings point to a potential socio-political turning point away from the social imaginary that had been equating Venezuelan realities with leftist ideologies in Colombia and other parts of Latin America.