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This paper analyzes the press control practices used by the provincial political powers of Entre Ríos between 1862 and 1870. This period was characterized by an increasing political dispute and the deepening of public debate. An indication of this process is the increase in the number of newspapers and the diversity of their political positions. Most of the newspapers were Federalists and supporters of Urquiza, but they maintained a space of discursive autonomy and what was published did not always go along the lines of the caudillo's interest. Also, there were Unitary and dissident Federal newspapers which were very critical of the provincial government and the figure of Urquiza. Respect for press freedom as a legitimating principle of the exercise of power prevented the development of legislation restricting that freedom and discouraged the practice of filing law suits for libel against publishers or journalist among provincial officials. Hence, the way in which political power managed to limit opinion was dominated by informal practices of political control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In El Torito de los Muchachos (1830), Luis Pérez deploys voices, not always Gauchos and Federalists, but sometimes Uniterian and literate, who utter fictional truths in the form of a confession. In a historical moment in which the press was a vehicle of influence on public opinion, Pérez aims his publications toward broad swaths of the public to include of illiterate groups through oral readings. This paper analyzes the ways in which these confessions allowed truths to stand up amid a war of words, as they sought to occupy an imagined public space on whose field discursive conflicts were fought. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]