Researchers from the Department publish a study on digital authoritarianism and press freedom in Latin America
A study led by researchers at the Department warns that digital authoritarian practices are undermining press freedom and weakening journalism’s capacity to hold power to account in Latin America.
A study led by researchers at the Department warns that digital authoritarian practices are undermining press freedom and weakening journalism’s capacity to hold power to account in Latin America. The article, titled “Accountability Sabotage and Journalism: Digital Authoritarian Practices and Chilling Effect in Latin America,” was published in the international journal Digital Journalism on 3 March 2026.
The study, authored by Luiz Peres-Neto, Santiago Giraldo Luque, (both from the Department of Journalism) and Juan Pablo Soriano Gatica (Department of Public Law), all members of the UAB faculty, examines Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, and El Salvador in order to understand how governments, political elites, and other actors use digital tools to erode journalistic autonomy. The research combines a hermeneutic analysis of 36 reports produced by human rights organisations, NGOs, and journalists’ associations with 11 in-depth interviews with media professionals.
The findings show that repression no longer operates only through conventional forms such as direct censorship or physical violence, but also through more sophisticated digital strategies: disinformation campaigns, online harassment, surveillance, bot-driven attacks, and reputational damage targeting journalists and media outlets. According to the authors, these practices generate a chilling effect that encourages self-censorship, weakens journalism’s watchdog role, and harms democratic quality.
The article makes an important contribution to international debates on democratic backsliding, polarization, and human rights by framing these dynamics as forms of accountability sabotage. In doing so, the study shows that democratic erosion is driven not only by visible institutional change, but also by digital and discursive practices that gradually undermine the conditions under which journalism can operate freely.
This publication strengthens UAB’s international profile in the fields of journalism studies, digital communication, and democracy research. The article appears in Digital Journalism, a leading journal published by Taylor & Francis and indexed in Journal Citation Reports, Scopus, and the Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI); the journal is also placed in the top quartile (Q1) according to its 2024 CiteScore.
The study highlights the urgency of protecting independent journalism from emerging forms of digital coercion and of reinforcing democratic safeguards in contexts marked by polarization and institutional fragility.