The Nation Arrested: Propaganda and Human Rights at Argentina '78
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Date
2019-09-18
Authors
Machado, Liam
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Publisher
University of Oregon
Abstract
This thesis examines the graphic design and propaganda generated by the 1978 FIFA World Cup in Argentina. The football tournament drew ever more scrutiny to the brutal repression carried out by the Argentina’s last military dictatorship, which ruled the country between 1976 and 1983, and forcibly disappeared or murdered some 30,000 Argentinian citizens Increasingly, the World Cup became couched in terms of a conflict between morality and violence, innocence and conspiracy, with the dictatorship and its supporters in the local press seeking to absolve themselves through the image of a modern and welcoming global event, and a pan-European boycott strongly associating its repressive methods with the Holocaust. The visual materials created for and in response to the World Cup, by the government and by activist groups boycotting the tournament, respectively, reveal a struggle to define the most pertinent image of Argentina: that of a stable, modern, and upright society, or one of a fascist-ruled nation, living in fear.
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Keywords
Argentina '78, Dictatorship, Genocide, Propaganda, Visual Culture, World Cup