This article aims to reflect on the development of graphic communication and its relationship with the changes that Chilean society experienced in the 1970s. We focus our analysis on two types of visual communication media of great impact and prominence during that decade: the public space poster for the period between 1970 and 1973, and the print media advertisement in the press for 1975-1980. The qualitative study of the visuals revealed certain keys that show the tensions that the Chilean society experienced during that period and the role that communication played in the promotion of two economic development and modernization models for the country. In this regard, both visual elements can be understood as a product of a particular time that conditions them and as of stories that validate them and give them meaning.