Media, Freedom and Poverty: A Latin American Perspective

"Mainstream media fail to represent the social, economic and cultural challenges of Latin America. Devoted to entertainment and manipulation of political information, mass media are not promoting dialogue, understanding, peace or any other attitude that helps society cope with the issues of rising poverty and marginalisation. The logic of profit prevents any commitment of mainstream media to society..."

In this article, Alfonso Gumucio-Dagron examines the landscape of the media in Latin America, arguing that the concentration of media control in the hands of a small number of wealthy, powerful owners of media conglomerates is increasingly resulting in a failure to represent the social, economic, and cultural challenges of the region.

Gumucio-Dagron begins by providing a brief historical look at media trends in this region. While the first community radio stations emerged in Colombia and Bolivia in the late 1940s, during the 1960s and 1970s, he claims, the public media was used by governments to propagandise their policies and political views. During the 1980s, Bolivia saw the birth of a network of miners' radio stations, which became "essential to the information and communication landscape." In most countries in the region, independent television emerged in force after 1980, when "hundreds of television channels were created in countries where the size of the audience didn't justify the explosion." This was "a time when the region fought to have its own voice", bolstered in part by the publication of United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)'s Many Voices, One World: The MacBride Report, which denounced the lack of balance in media between the so-called "first" world and media from the "third" world and which spurred such efforts as the (short-lived) Latin American news agency ALASEI.

But much has changed in Latin American media in the past 25 years, according to Gumucio-Dagron. Today, he indicates, the region is largely "back to old times" with regard to independent media voices - or the lack thereof. The Associated Press dominates nearly 70% of all news in circulation and, in short, there is a higher concentration of media houses in fewer hands (some of which hail from countries outside the region). As a result, Latin America is increasingly experiencing what he considers a disconcerting loss of diversity and quality of programming. In television, in particular, "the same soap operas, the same news and the same entertainment are found in country after country. It is almost impossible to find a thread of Latin American identity in Latin American television....We are all looking at the same screen, and it is not our own screen." He laments the fact that local programming on social or development issues has been replaced by urban-centred mainstream media churning out "low level programs and bad taste entertainment that sells well."

Examining this content deficit in more depth, Gumucio-Dagron is concerned that the very few independent voices (which can be "heard" mainly through printed media and community radio) often succumb to pressures and even violent attacks. "Every day, journalists face a difficult choice between personal ethics and corporate agendas." He argues that the first step should involve a dramatic change in thinking within the approximately 600 faculties or departments of "social communication" such that they "stop producing journalists and start producing...professionals with a strategic view of communication...who can work in development programmes and not just as peons of private media conglomerates or image sellers in commercial or political outlets." It is only when such social changes are initiated - which will of course require an enabling environment, Gumucio-Dagron concedes - that the process of creating a new communication paradigm in the region can begin.