By Octavio Getino
observatories in the field of culture and communication, there are thousands of them in the world, each with their particular approaches and modes of financing, operation and working methods. Without going any further, the very Organization of American States drew up a draft Inter-American Observatory of Cultural Policies and more than once national cultural leaders in Latin American countries agreed on the possibility of creating a Latin American Cultural Centre.
From these concerns, and with the approval of the governments of the region, ministers and officials of Latin American culture, have been launched, with varying degrees of commitment and clarity, cultural information systems.
This occurs for a couple of years in Argentina, just as exists in the Ministry of Culture of the National Cultural Information System of Argentina (SINC) (www.cultura.gov.ar / sync) and a Laboratory of Cultural Industries. The city government-from four years ago, there is a Cultural Industries Observatory, which we had to design and coordinate between 2004 and 2007 (www.buenosaires.gov.ar / observatory). A similar concern expressed by the Cultural Institute of the Province of Buenos Aires and other provinces, and there are universities and colleges have their own observatories, including the University of Cordoba School of Economic Sciences of Buenos Aires. There are also social organizations, such as UTPBA, \u200b\u200brepresenting journalists in the city of Buenos Aires.
They have different levels of development and evolution. Many are linked to universities, like University of San Paulo in Brazil, the Javeriana in Colombia, the Republic of Uruguay or the Project Media Monitoring in Ecuador. Other initiatives have arisen from media professionals or organizations such as the two Dereitos News Agency gives (ANDI / Brazil), dedicated to address the issue of the rights of children and young people in the media or citizen revision of Social Communication of Peru, and international initiatives as the Global Media Monitoring of Venezuela, associated with the International Media Centre (Media Watch Global).
is estimated that globally between 1000 and 1500, the number of observatories dedicated to culture and the media. As King notes Germain, Javeriana University and a member of the National Science Colombia: "focalizations Observatories have specific themes or lines of action. While some insist on rights of children and young people, others emphasize the role of media in the representation of internal conflicts, while a preliminary deal with the relationship between information and choice, others are concerned about human rights, privacy or the configuration of the otherness. There are observatories that seek to influence the creation of laws much more modern and democratic media news and information, while others try to keep under review the information provided by the media at a particularly turbulent political history, social and communicative country. All these issues are nevertheless common dimensions: recognition the importance of communication for democracy, the need to strengthen the public's right to information, the insistence on the demands from the public are made to the means for citizens to become increasingly autonomous, the urge to participate in building public agendas as well as the democratization of communications. "
The importance of this work worldwide, but local application-which is always observed a reduction of a context defined as a field of study, was shown in subsequent meetings, some regional, convened by bodies intergovernmental and other broader, as was done in San Sebastian, Spain, in November 2007, International Conference calls with the Observatories of Culture.
In France, Germany and Spain there are agencies created by the State that are independent of management (always contingent) of government, they observe the functioning of the media (state or private management) with the preservation of diversity and plurality of those making that observation. Perhaps the European monitoring most closely resembles the American is French Media Observatory, also created from the World Social Forum officially emerged on January 2003 in Paris. Global Connect to Media Watch is to "protect society against abuses and manipulations "and" defend the information as a public good and claim the right of citizens to be informed. " Another observation that makes a remarkable work is the EITO (European Monitoring Centre for Television and Children) located in Barcelona.
A survey conducted by Luis Albornoz, Carlos III University of Madrid and Michael Herschmann, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro in 2007 identified a total of approximately 55 observatories of cultural, political, cultural and media space Latin American (now it would be possible to identify about 150 observatories in the region). About half of them belonged to Spain that year, a dozen in Brazil, and four in each of the countries of Argentina, Colombia and Uruguay. It also knew the experience of other systems and media watchdogs in Peru, El Salvador, Venezuela and other countries in the region. Some of them financed by international foundations such as Ford, in Brazil, and other by powerful private enterprises, such as Brazil's Banco Itau (Itau Cultural Centre), a project which initially participate as a consultant and tended to cover a huge gap in information on the Brazilian cultural space. Others rely on agencies government, as above mentioned, and are therefore subject to political contingencies and unpredictable and repeated changes of staff. There are also mixed.
The criteria governing the clearance of these observatories, is to highlight and systematize quantitative and qualitative information on cultural resources and social media in each country or locality, either with mapping, survey and production data statistics or surveys bounded to certain topics, so they are processed and put into service in the community. The starting point is the unquestioned assertion that there is no policy-making process de decisiones, de carácter público o privado, que puedan ser confiables y sustentables sin tomar en cuenta una masa de información fidedigna y actualizada.
Un elemento predominante en muchas de estas experiencias, es la concentración en los estudios meramente cuantitativos –estadísticas, incidencia económica, cuentas satélites de cultura, etc.- aunque, a veces también esto se complementa con cierta orientación hacia el análisis de la dimensión cualitativa. Es decir, los contenidos simbólicos que son el soporte motriz y la esencia misma de las industrias culturales y los medios de comunicación, y sobre cómo ellos inciden no ya en la economía, la balanza comercial o el empleo, but in the formation of citizenship.
This topic was the subject of an international workshop in mid-2007 in Bogota, when the city's cultural authorities summoned experts from the Andean countries to exchange experiences in the design of cultural indicators to measure, not only the supply and demand for cultural activities or services or media-popular shows, television programs, music shows, events, tourist, sports, etc. .- but, in particular, the social impact that these policies, strategies and actions have in reducing violence, war on drugs, social inclusion, training citizen, the values \u200b\u200bof solidarity, etc. For those who were invited to participate in this meeting, this approach had an importance and a much more complex than the simple-but-necessary quantitative data collection (to which most of the companies also resist, because if the information is power, is to democratize the same with the power itself, a goal that does not match the sectoral interests of big business and media communication).
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