Latin American parliaments have been regarded as merely reactive institutions (Morgenstern and Nacif, 2002); they need, however, a more thorough analysis. Indeed, they have been playing a central role in the policy-making process originated by the wave of democratization experienced by the region during the 1980s. In addition to the analysis of their representative function, and the degrees of intervention in the legislation process, different perspectives can be developed. In this paper, I examine the progressive professionalization of legislators that has stemmed from changes in the institutional system and in the media. Based on an empirical study, I highlight elements useful for comparative research. Specifically, I focus on the challenged role of Chilean senators in the new democracy, from 1990 to the present. After having participated in the construction of the democratic system that followed the military regime, and having received a considerable amount of media attention, senators faced the decline of their political weight, as well as an increased concurrency of deputies and local mayors . I suggest that changes in constitutional arrangements and in the media industry modified their day-to-day work and stimulated a professionalization of their communication strategies. I conducted a 6-month participant observation of the work in the Senate, as well as more than 20 interviews with senators and ex-senators, and an equivalent number of interviews with staff members and journalists. On this basis, the present paper exposes different strategies followed by the parliamentary elite to access the public sphere. I propose that depending on their position in the political system, and on the hierarchy within their parties, these politicians have chosen different paths (e.g., specializing on a niche or limiting their influence to their circumscriptions). This has resulted in a direct impact on the quality of the public debate.
