Justice as social representation: Diffusion and differential positioning

BARREIRO, ALICIA VIVIANA; GAUDIO, GABRIELA; MAYOR, JULIETA; SANTELLÁN FERNANDEZ, ROMINA; SARTI, DANIELA ; SARTIL, MARÍA

REVISTA DE PSICOLOGIA SOCIAL

Fundación Infancia y Aprendizaje

Lugar: Madrid; Año: 2014 vol. 29 p. 319 - 345

0213-4748

The aim of this paper is to analyze the relationship between the diffusion process of social representations of justice by the press and their appropriation by readers. Two simultaneous cross-sectional studies were carried out. Study 1 analyzed the meaning and the frequency of the word justice in the most important newspaper in Buenos Aires. The results indicate that the representation of justice has a retributive and institutional meaning. Study 2 investigated university students? social representations of justice (N = 404) through a word association technique. The results showed that the central core of social representation has a retributive and institutional meaning, similar to the representations diffused by the most important newspaper. Nevertheless, significant differences were found with regard to the value attached to justice depending on the newspaper that the participants claimed to read. We can conclude that there is a mutual constitutive circular movement between the social representations of justice diffused by the newspapers and university students? social representations. Moreover, the differences identified in the way justice was evaluated in the peripheral elements might express the existence of different positioning related to a hegemonic social representation.