Artificial Intelligence and Gender in the Chilean Press
Epistemic Authority and the Language of Prestige
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.35362/issn.1850-0013-1225Keywords:
artificial intelligence, gender, epistemic authority, expertise, media coverage, ChileAbstract
This article examines the media framings through which the Chilean press constructs leadership, expertise, and epistemic authority around artificial intelligence (AI) from a gender perspective. To do so, we analyzed a corpus of 12,531 news articles published between 2020 and 2025 in four high-circulation Chilean newspapers: El Mercurio, La Tercera, La Cuarta, and Diario Financiero. Methodologically, we combine dictionary-based computational analysis with a close reading of selected articles. The results reveal a marked masculinization of AI coverage: men are mentioned 2.4 times more frequently than women, and the largest gender gaps are concentrated in categories associated with leadership, expertise, and power. The qualitative analysis shows that men are predominantly represented as founders, innovators, and corporate strategists, whereas women are more frequently linked to education, regulation, ethics, and technological inclusion. In addition, female experts are often presented through a constant accreditation of credentials and professional trajectories, while male expertise tends to appear as naturally legitimate and rarely requires explanation. Finally, the findings show that economic coverage intensifies the association between masculinity, technological authority, and corporate power, contributing to the co-production of socio-technical imaginaries in which certain forms of leadership and technological agency are more readily associated with male figures.
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