Patrisia Monterola Denuda

Observatory on Media and Culture: threatening or phantom power tools democratic? (Note 1)


By Octavio Getino

A new ghost appears to go, if not everyone, at least the interests of powerful media groups in Latin America. Simultaneous and coordinated large multimedia companies from different countries of the region, precisely those where projects have begun to settle political change, such as Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia and Nicaragua, wield a kind of "cacerolazo" more or less synchronized the ghost of "observatories" that insinuated by some governments to monitor what so far are sectored-exclusive territories and exclusive-of powerful economic and financial groups, local and international.

This topic, like many others, is not difficult to see the manipulation of information by the mainstream media-which includes a network of communications specialists and numerous well-known journalists, leading media to try to oust any attempt to come from the state or society itself, to observe in terms of social status as a sector the media, owners of communication systems-both cultural and educational-more powerful than those that manage their own states to information and democratic citizenship education.

media represent portions of reality. As stated Martín Becerra, National University of Quilmes, "which appears in them and what is omitted (by criteria of newsworthiness always fallible) built himself a part of agenda that installs a few items and set values, to the detriment of others. Media coverage of the field of conflict proved once again that the approach to reality is never fair, that the selection of sources and the testimony there is a tendency, and can erode the position of some actors to promote public image of others. You need to talk about it. It is illogical that in a democracy we can talk about everything except the media. " (The Nation, 12/4/2008)

Every society needs reliable information systems, enabling observatories a better development of individuals, social groups, and public and private companies, and all the actors associated with the transformation, ie the overall improvement of society itself. This explains the existence of National Research Councils, Institutes of Statistics, National Meteorological Services, National Systems of Cultural Consumption, Cultural and Information Systems as part of these and other instruments to learn more and better define the context where our existence, National Observatory, provincial, or local to gather and process information of a different character (cultural policy, economics, women, children, cultural industries, management, discrimination, etc.).. Indeed, in the context of global multi-media expansion, the state not only can but is required to analyze, monitor, and regulate the circulation of content in a scientifically-measurable-that make the health of the population, like pharmaceuticals and foodstuffs. No one would ever leave these tangible products only in the hands of powerful business groups that produce and distribute, with no controls of any kind, under the pretext of guaranteeing a supposed "free enterprise." The most basic common sense cautions that these groups, more that health and healthy eating in a community, care about the amount of profits to be submitted annually to its shareholders or mutual funds on which they depend.

The problem appears when trying to break into the contents intangible, more difficult to assess than the purely material, but which affect the information, education and culture of the population, ie the foundation of public health with much or more power, for better or for worse, that is food or physical health. This field seems to be banned in almost absolute terms to any person or government sector and the pretext is the so called "freedom Press "that as more than once said, only serves those who have the power to exercise, ie big business.
However, press freedom is a social good that is intended is a constitutional guarantee for the whole society, is in order to preserve the collective good, that it protects the various forms of censorship, direct or indirect , which may have on journalists and media.

us agree that censorship is not only the political or ideological character that can come from the state, but large financial corporations are now the de facto power groups that have a capacity higher than that for defining what information must circulate in society or omitted, and how they will be targeted, as appropriate or not their interests, at least in the media that they directly control, such as shareholders, or indirectly, as an advertiser.