This article examines the role of the media as a mechanism of social accountability. Adding to the work of Enrique Peruzzotti and Catalina Smulovitz, the article argues that the media act as a mechanism of social accountability by providing a forum for debate for a plurality of actors to establish who should be held accountable, what they should be held accountable for, and how they should be held accountable. An analysis of this role of the media is applied to the newspaper coverage of an incident of police violence against social protest in Argentina. The debate in this case contributes to the reframing of excessive police violence against social protest in Argentina as unacceptable, thus acting as a form of preventive accountability.
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