Censorship and Cultural Control

This chapter studies censorship and cultural control. After the coup, Pinochet quickly worked to reshape Chile’s media landscape. This included press restrictions and the closing of opposition newspapers, but it also involved placing stringent restrictions on popular media like books, music, and movies. These restrictions took aim not only at political content but content perceived as immoral. Drawing on past research, Jane Esberg provides evidence that such restrictions were in part an attempt to appeal to the regime’s conservative supporters, by offering moral censorship as a form of policy reward. Data from 8000 films reviewed for distribution show that sexual and violent content was more likely to be targeted by the regime’s censors, which Jane links to the preferences of conservative Catholic groups. She situates these findings in broader literature on censorship and control over culture under Pinochet’s dictatorship.