27/9/2017 AS/SA No 25, SEPT. 2010 : Ana SILVA, " A Decade of Political Photography & Political Communication in Argentina (1999-2010)" http://french.chass.utoronto.ca/as-sa/ASSA-No25/Article4en.html 1/10 Opacity in transparency: A decade of photography and Political communication in Argentina (1999-2010) Ana SILVA Universidad Nacional del Centro de la Provincia de Buenos Aires asilva@arte.unicen.edu.ar Abstract The purpose of this work has been the analysis of the relationship between different types of graphical political discourse and the political scenario over the last ten years in Argentina, while attempting to make a contribution to the study of political discourse in context. The sample of pictures analyzed include several photographs used in campaign advertising (the electoral struggle for the presidency in 1999 and 2007, and that for legislative seats in 2005) and in the political news sections of two of the largest newspapers in Argentina, Clarín and La Nación (1999-2001, 2005 and 2007). Introduction When used together, the words communication and politics have multiple meanings, all of them related to different ideas of what communication and politics are, and what they imply when used together. As Sergio Caletti (2001) argues, the usual approach to the field in mass communication research gives an idea of politics as apparatus and communication as technology. Such an approach supports the more instrumental notion of communication, conceived as strategy, and leads to two extreme positions (but based on the same premises) about their incidence in the political field. On the one hand, some researchers emphasize the ‘spectacularization’ of politics, which thus loses its rationality. On the other hand, there are some authors who believe in the potential of realizing the Internet permanent assembly utopia.