From the secret Argentina to youth emergence. Cultural analysis and politics in the Peronist magazine Línea (1980-1982)

Abstract

This article critically studies the cultural approach of the Peronist political magazine Linea during the last Argentinian dictatorship (1976-1983). The period covered is 1980-1982, in which the magazine appears to support the reorganization of the “campo nacional,” integrated by the Partido Justicialista and other related political parties, to oppose right and left “extremisms” and, in particular, to the dictatorship, in favor of the rule of law. But also, Línea promoted the inclusion of analysis, interviews, and essays dealing with cultural contents, especially popular culture and media, to contribute to defining a “national culture” seen as opposing and threatened by the economic liberalization imposed by the military regime. It is argued that this intellectual strategy to get cultural voices close to the political discourse of the magazine led to the coexistence of a traditional-cultural approach with other perspectives, more influenced by contemporary debates on cultural canon, popular culture, social influence of media, and the assessment of its cultural potential in authoritarian contexts. Also, Línea included in its pages urban cultural middle-class youth expressions, like rock music and self-produced “subte” magazines, based on their original significance; but, also, these practices and products were considered as indicative of social activation in the context of recovered political mobilization from the early eighties, as a result of the progressive regime crisis.