Digital state of exception: The narrative of power and repression in the peruvian protests; [État d’exception numérique: Le récit du pouvoir et de la répression dans les manifestations péruviennes]; [Estado de exceção digital: A narrativa do poder e da repressão nos protestos peruanos]

Vigil N. · Lengua y Sociedad (2026) · DOI: 10.15381/lengsoc.v25i1.31426

Resumen

This article examines how, in response to the protests that followed the removal of Pedro Castillo in December 2022, the Boluarte government deployed what is referred to here as a digital state of emergency. Inspired by Agamben’s category of state of exception, the proposal seeks to account for how traditional media and digital platforms discursively constructed the protester as an internal enemy, reducing them to the category of homo sacer, a killable life, stripped of rights and political citizenship. The research applies a qualitative and critical methodology to the analysis of the front page of El Comercio on December 14, 2022, which we consider a milestone in the criminalization of protest. The study addresses linguistic, visual, and contextual dimensions to show how the narrative of violence was constructed as an absolute threat to order and rendered the victims invisible. The findings show that the digital state of emergency not only dramatizes chaos and shifts state responsibilities but also normalizes repression by producing subjectivities: Protesters are presented as “vandals” or “terrorists,” regions as hotbeds of violence, and victims as lives without social mourning. In this way, the state of emergency in Peru does not appear as an explicit authoritarian rupture, but rather as a suspension of rights within the law, where the digital apparatus acts as a media arm that legitimizes the permanent state of emergency. © Los autores. All rights reserved.

Instituciones: Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos