Abstract

Music has served as a tool for political communication for an extended period of time, but in Chile, folk music emerged as a common form of spreading political message through song in the Nueva Canción Chilena movement in the 1960s and ‘70s.  This study dives into the scholarship on what creates an authoritarian legacy in post-dictatorial countries and analyzes how music from the Nueva Canción Chilena helps to promote and maintain democratic values and anti-authoritarian sentiment in post-dictatorial Chile.  This study highlights the impact of the music through politically charged lyrics and explores moments in which the songs “Canción de Muerte y Esperanza por Víctor Jara” by Osvaldo Rodríguez and “El Derecho de Vivir en Paz” by Víctor Jara were used to reflect public desire for democracy or policy change under recent administrations.  Through the thematic and lyrical analysis of the songs and tracing their relevance over time in Chile, I conclude that the way in which these songs were framed by the artists promote democratic sentiment by reflecting the goals of the Nueva Canción Chilena movement in opposition to the brutal dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990) and in modern protests such as the Estallido Social de Chile in 2019.  My study draws on scholars from both Political Science and Humanities, answering the question from an interdisciplinary approach that can evaluate unique perspectives that would not be considered in a single-discipline study.  The study lends itself to future research by allowing a similar topic to be studied through different methods such as survey research or interviewing protest participants to further determine and interpret the political musical messages.  Future research could also expand this analysis by incorporating more songs or comparing protest movements from other post-dictatorial countries.

Advisor

Leiby, Michele

Second Advisor

Cope, Brian

Department

Political Science; Spanish

Disciplines

International Relations | Language Interpretation and Translation | Music | Other Languages, Societies, and Cultures | Social Justice

Keywords

Nueva Canción Chilena, political communication, music, framing, democracy, anti-authoritarian, dictatorship

Publication Date

2026

Degree Granted

Bachelor of Arts

Document Type

Senior Independent Study Thesis

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© Copyright 2026 Evan E. Amend