How is Chile’s recent past represented in two semiotic ways? The reconstruction of memory in Historia del siglo XX chileno and Los archivos del cardenal

Abstract

This paper introduces an analysis of the representations of the recent Chilean history from the construction of meaning which allow two semiotic manners: written and audiovisual, accompanied by two distribution channels: book and television. By this means is that I’ve chosen the book 20th Century Chilean History (Correa et al., 2001) and the television series The Cardinal Records (Nicolás Acuña, 2011), in order to provide an answer for the following questions: a) how do the semiotic manners chosen have an effect in the representation of the social reality as a historical discourse in the construction of the collective memory?; b) Does the historical representation provided by these objects (the book and the television series) change according to the condition of reality or fiction that shapes them?; c) is there the same social meaning in reading history instead of watching it? Is in this sense that I propose a discussion which takes ideas and concepts from history, language philosophy, and communication, to create theoretical connections that will support the present analysis and, if possible, provide the chance to new questionings.