Rumores y estrategias de guerra

La historia del submarino Superb

Abstract

During the course of the Falklands/Malvinar war (1982) between Argentina and Great Britain, a persistent rumour about the dispatch –by the British forces– of a high-calibre nuclear submarine –capable of destroying the Argentine fleet–, circulated in the Argentine press. The rumour, which lasted for more than twenty days in the national newspapers, had an effect that resulted in the naval hierarchy’s withdrawal of the Argentine ships from the war zone, thus confirming its clearly strategic nature. How does a rumour get constructed and what are the textual and discursive mediations that allow its transformation into a verisimilar ‘news item’? This paper describes the circulation mechanisms of the story of the British submarine Superb and the construction of a media possible world. In doing so, it allows conclusions about the strategic use of rumours in times of war, to be drawn.