Book review: The contradictions of media power (original) (raw)

Global Media and Communication, 2015

Abstract

Araya, whose contribution could spark a whole research project, points to the European style of journalism that dominates in Chile and asks if it fails to incorporate ‘a cultural and situated perspective of newsworthiness’ and participative processes of communication (p.261). The challenge to current and future media reforms is, therefore, to promote the emergence of new subjects, communities and emancipated communicative practices, instead of replicating the logic of mainstream media. This is not far from the concerns of Matos and Benítez. Matos focuses on public service broadcasting and seeks to retrieve its mission to serve the public interest, instead of falling into the trap of using it ‘to reach out voters’ (p.214). Benítez emphasizes the need to link media policies with cultural policies in order to build democratic and multicultural media systems. The problem from this perspective is the local cultural industries’ tight connections with global companies and interests. In closing, Media Systems and Communication Policies in Latin America provides a wealth of information on Latin American media systems and ongoing discussions on media reforms. In addition, this book also connects the discussion of reforms with broader questions about journalistic practice, cultural policy and the relationship between national media policies and the public interest. Curiously, the issues discussed in this era of the Internet are not that far from those discussed by Latin American media theorists since the 1960s and 1970s when military regimes and later neoliberalism drowned Latin American hopes for emancipation. This only underlines how long and winding the road to media and communication emancipation in Latin America is.

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