Press Censorship (Portugal (original) (raw)
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THE PRESS IN THE FIRST PORTUGUESE REPUBLIC: CONSTANTS AND GUIDING PRINCIPLES (1910-1926)
A History of the Press in the Portuguese – Speaking Countries. Porto: Media XXI [ISBN 978-989-729-074-9], 2014
"In June 24, 1926, one of the Lisbon’s historical newspapers, the O Século [The Century] heralded: “The whole of the Portuguese press, except two or three newspapers, enabled the success of the last military movement [May 28], directing the corrupt politicians who dominated Portugal an attack so fierce that the atmosphere produced eventually asphyxiated them. This is the most recent title of glory for the Portuguese press”. This was also true for the establishment of the Portuguese Republic. In fact, the press, particularly Republican press, had a major role in the triumph of the Portuguese Revolution of October 5, 1910, especially for two sets of reasons: on the one hand, for Republican indoctrination, disclosing Republican programs, proposals and protagonists. On the other hand, as a countervailing force: with political criticism, denouncing iniquity or rejecting the status quo, thus creating the atmosphere that eventually suffocated Constitutional Monarchy. This atmosphere was instrumental in forming a public opinion that would be hostile to the regime, predominantly in the first decade of the twentieth century." (...)
This M.A. thesis research topic was approached in a critical political economy perspective through communication policy research and interviews. By researching this topic the student aimed to understand how the concept of freedom of the press applies locally; to research into private and public policies towards the press; to unveil control and pressure practices coming from political and economic powers and check how these influence the journalistic practice and, in the end, the text. The researcher also aimed to get an insight into broader social and political implications of press freedom in the territory. The author concluded that the transition period created a cultural, political and economical frame that, tended to exacerbate the existing tendencies towards press control as well as clashes between press and power. At the time, the researcher had been a journalist for 12 years, eight of them in Macau, as well as a television programmer for one year and a lecturer of Communications in the local University for three years.
This paper examines how the Portuguese revolution of 1974 changed the occupational role perceptions of journalism in the transition to a democratic society. The impact of this revolutionary process is yet scarcely studied in all its implications, being the most obvious the fact that the Portuguese state became the owner of a large media group as a result of the nationalization of most of the newspapers, radio stations and TV. How did these troubling times influenced journalism practices in this period and did these developments set the standard for the future societal role of Portuguese journalism? The Portuguese dictatorship (1926-1974) shaped the media because of the censorship, but also due to the ownership of the press companies. Eventually, the main financial groups bought some newspapers and radio stations which led to a modernization process that was interrupted by the revolution of 1974. A new era then came into being; the end of the censorship introduced freedom of press and new conditions for journalism that should now fulfill its roles in terms of news logics and ethics. Still, 1974 was followed by a radical political struggle (the Hot Summer) that affected all the sectors of Portuguese society, and the media in particular. The importance of controlling the press became crucial and the fight between extreme left partisans and the democratic parties impacted the newspaper business, political coverage and news contents in general. It also influenced the way journalists saw their professional roles and ethics. The revolution created a series of new laws and measures that empowered journalist’s roles. Apart from the press law, a press council and a journalist’s union, there were also newsroom councils. How shifted these new forms of professional representation the balance of power towards editorial orientations? How did the newsrooms transformations impact the news agenda? Giving the revolutionary wave, was the journalistic discourse framed by the parties’ agenda, the political rulers’ agenda, the unions’ agenda and their own corporative points of view? This paper identifies the main transformations that occurred in the Portuguese press during the revolutionary process known as PREC (Revolutionary Process in Course) and relates these to the role perceptions of Portuguese journalists from that generation. The study applies a triangulation of multiple sources. It studies a) the scarce bibliography that focuses on the history of the press in this period, b) a study of the revolutionary legislation that had a major impact on media, c) original documents such as institutional reports that allow us to understand some of the reasons and reactions to the measures put in course, d) the testimonies of some journalists are used to understand how the positions were radicalized in the course of events and how these, eventually, affected the news making processes.
Press Councils in Portugal and France : something new on the Western front
Iamcr 2009 Conference, 2009
In a time when ultra-liberalism, de-regulation and market-driven trends increasingly dominate the media business, but also when their 'clients' increasingly demand to have a more active voice in the public communication process, the issues of media responsibility and media accountability seem to be gaining a renewed interest. The technological environment of our digital era, with the expansion of Internet, of social networks and of opportunities for selfedition, allowed many new actors to enter the media field, or to get much closer to it, claiming for a new relationship between the traditional media 'producers' and the traditional media 'consumers'. These last ones demand more and more to be regarded as citizens, rather than just 'consumers', and therefore as partners in the process of news production and diffusion in the public sphere. But in order to achieve this, media must also be willing to open the doors of their 'fortresses' and accept that transparency and interaction with their publics are an unavoidable prerequisite for the legitimization of their power in a democratic society. This is what media social responsibility is all about, after all. In this context, an important role could be played by the so-called Media Accountability Systems (M*A*S*, as they were named by Claude-Jean Bertrand), and particularly by the Press Councils -mechanisms that bring together representatives of the media industry, of the journalists and of the public, in order to held the media more accountable on a voluntary, self-regulated basis. In the last year, two movements emerged in two Western European countries, both trying to launch a Press Council: France (where such a mechanism never existed, although the country was a pioneer in the struggle for press freedom) and Portugal (where a Press Council was created in 1975, soon after the recovery of democracy, but was extinguished fifteen years later, having been somehow replaced by a State-driven regulatory entity). In spite of their obvious differences, these two cases, besides coinciding in time, show some similarities that deserve our attention and can be regarded as examples of new trends in the media landscape. It is our purpose, in this paper, to look at the French and the Portuguese cases, trying to understand their specific backgrounds and to systematize the arguments of the main protagonists of the two movements going on. We'll do this, in a first moment, through historical and documental research, and, in a second moment, through interviews to some of the leading supporters of this idea in both countries. As for the Portuguese case, we'll also evoke the experience of the former Press Council, trying to shed light on the (mostly political) motives that led to its premature death.
Freedom of the Portuguese press during the transition period in Macau
2021
O objecto deste capítulo é a liberdade de imprensa em Macau durante o período de transição, de 1987- 1999, com foco na imprensa portuguesa. Esta investigação resulta de uma actualização de uma tese de Mestrado para a Universidade de Leicester (2001), nunca publicada. A investigadora foi jornalista em Macau de 1991 a 2000 (imprensa, rádio, televisão, correspondente da revista Visão), bem como docente de Ciências da Comunicação na Universidade de Macau (1996-1999). O tópico foi abordado numa perspectiva crítica de Economia Política dos media, através de investigação de políticas de comunicação e entrevistas com editores, jornalistas e outros actores e agentes no processo de comunicação. Os nossos objectivos foram o entendimento de como o conceito ocidental de liberdade de imprensa se aplica localmente; investigar as políticas privadas e públicas em relação à imprensa; revelar práticas de controlo e pressão provenientes dos poderes políticos e económicos e analisar de que modo estas in...
Censorship and narrative at the crossroads in Spain and Portugal.
Literary works have been submitted to different types of repression all over the world and in different times and contexts; the censoring regimes of Franco in Spain and Salazar (and later Caetano) in Portugal are clear examples of this fact. Both dictators considered that their countries were the moral reserve of the West and they firmly believed that, as such, they should be preserved from external and damaging influences. The policy of cultural protectionism they exercised implied the adaptation of all native and foreign information to the cultural requirements of the dominant regimes and a system of official censorship was installed with the task of looking after the ideological uniformity of each nation. Narrative texts therefore saw how either the scissors of the censors or the prosecution of the police force affected them in the effort by the authorities to "whiten" their content or prevent their publication, a sort of cleaning that was carried out slightly differently in each country, but with a common aim. The path followed by both censoring regimes was in fact quite similar, if possible even more systematic in the keeping of records in the case of Spain. The evolution of the literary polysystem went in both cases from a situation where one could say they were suffering from a kind of invasion of translations, in the 1940s, to a gradual cloning of the patrons and their perpetuation by national writers. An overview of how the book-controlling system affected literature, both written in the country and imported, in both regimes will be carried out here with the aim of improving the current view of two periods that are frequently looked at from different angles but not completely seen as a whole.
Estudos Ibero-Americanos EIA, 2020
This is a study of cultural history that intends to analyse the importance of the international gatherings for the history of the press and journalism. The congresses and their theoretical work provided an important contribution to the exposure and the deepening of those issues that, in the Lisbon Congress, led to the approval of a directive by which each national association should promote journalism within higher education. Centrerd in this event demonstrates how, without losing completely the sense of mission, journalism became a regulated profession and the journalist a professional with rights and duties inherent in that condition. In connection, the beginnings of the press as mega-industry and the position of the journalist as an employee in the cultural and political global context, with all the class associations, the alliances and social cleavages that this growth caused along the 20th century were patent in the debate occurred in Lisbon, substantiating it in a particularly decisive period of the evolution of democratic society. As a symptom of growth and adaptation, the debate during the Congress crisscrossed several important positions regarding the evolution of journalism, both as an idea and a concept, and as a profession. In addition to being a contribution to the research of the history of the press and its main actors in a little-studied chapter the international relations of the press, the relevance of this study lies in the fact of opening for current debates and reflection helping to understand the failures and achievements of contemporaneity.
The Lisbon International Congress of the Press: the dawn of professional journalism
Estudos Ibero-Americanos
This is a study of cultural history that intends to analyse the importance of the international gatherings for the history of the press and journalism. The congresses and their theoretical work provided an important contribution to the exposure and the deepening of those issues that, in the Lisbon Congress, led to the approval of a directive by which each national association should promote journalism within higher education. Centred in this event demonstrates how, without losing completely the sense of mission, journalism became a regulated profession and the journalist a professional with rights and duties inherent in that condition. In connection, the beginnings of the press as mega-industry and the position of the journalist as an employee in the cultural and political global context, with all the class associations, the alliances and social cleavages that this growth caused along the 20th century were patent in the debate occurred in Lisbon, substantiating it in a particularly ...