From Salazar’s invisibility to Caetano’s presence

on the media, television and dictatorship in Portugal

Abstract

The very different personal characteristics of Salazar and Marcello Caetano have somehow dictated different models and procedures in their approach to the political and propagandistic management of the media, particularly how they adapted Portuguese public television to the specific political objectives of their consulates. But once this difference is established, a fundamental tendency is identified, a communicational model of the Salazar-Caetanist regime, common to both of them throughout the dictatorship, which was generally guided by a regular under-exposure, censorship and persecution of dissonant voices and an overall strategy based on managing the deviation of social and political attention in favor of the non-right to the representation of a people, and of a non-recognition of civil virtue.