Menem, Carlos (1930–)

Carlos Saúl Menem, born in 1930, was the president of Argentina in two consecutive periods from 1989 to 1999. He is renowned for successful image management within the mass media. His showmanship in front of the cameras contributed to political debate becoming a form of entertainment television and began a trivialization of politics. Under Menem's administration, a reform of broadcasting law allowed the institution of multimedia conglomerates. The liberalization of the media market and subsequent concentration in few conglomerates considerably modified the Argentinean media system.

Menem was a Peronist governor of his home province, La Rioja, from 1973 to 1976, when the military coup d'état imprisoned him until 1981. In 1983 he was elected governor of La Rioja for a new term. By running for the ...