Media Systems and Communication Policies in Latin America

M. Guerrero, M. Márquez-Ramírez, M. Guerrero, M. Márquez-Ramírez

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN:
  9781137409041
• eBook ISBN:
  9781137409058
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: American Government
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Media Systems and Communication Policies in Latin America proposes, tests and analyses the liberal captured model. It explores to what extent to which globalisation, marketization, commercialism, regional bodies and the nation State redefine the media's role in Latin American societies.

1

Latin America Media and the Limitations of the Media ‘Globalization’ Paradigm

Silvio Waisbord

Latin America and media globalization

The study of media globalization has often tripped over muddled definitions. As an analytical concept, media globalization has proven to be frustratingly flexible and porous. Although it is one of the fundamental ideas of the current age, it remains too ambiguous (Caselli, 2012). The mini-industry of research produced in the past decades has not settled these matters. More than a clear set of questions and theories, media globalization is an appealing buzzword to be praised or criticized that is the inevitable backdrop for all media-related processes in contemporary societies; the über-trend that defines our times. Globalization is used to refer to different developments such as the interconnectivity among media platforms, the planetary expansion of media corporations, the international spread of commercialism and consumerism, the communication infrastructure that nurtures and facilitates cosmopolitanism and global solidarity, the cross-border traffic of content, and so on. Applied to media policy making, globalization refers to ‘a shift from the nation state to the global’ (Mansell and Raboy, 2011: 4; also see Iosifidis, 2011).

Before media globalization became a central matter of analysis in media studies in the West, it was already a key issue in Latin American communication scholarship. No matter how globalization is understood – either as a process by which media policies, economies, institutions, and actors are increasingly connected across borders, or as another name for ‘neoliberalism’ – it has been a constant scholarly preoccupation in the region. Understanding media systems, policies, and content within the context of globalization has been a singular characteristic in the way communication studies in the region approached the media. In fact, the genealogy of the field is grounded in the conviction that virtually any question about the media needs to consider the context of international flows of media capital, production, content, and reception (Fox and Waisbord, 2002).

This past is why Latin American scholars justifiably reacted with a shrug when globalization became a central preoccupation for media scholarship elsewhere. No doubt, the privatization policies in the United States and Europe, the formation of regional blocs, the end of the Cold War in the 1980s, and the consolidation of a global digital network has profoundly refashioned and deepened media globalization. Yet as a phenomenon that challenges information sovereignty and state autonomy, globalization was already at the center of the research agenda in Latin America.

This focus was the result of the theoretical premises that characterized the field and the empirical realities of media systems from Mexico to Uruguay. The notion that globalization is central to the analysis of the media is found in the critique of media dependency and imperialism that laid out the foundations of communication studies in the 1960s and 1970s. They shaped the conceptual frameworks and research agenda of media studies. Indeed, some scholars of the region trailblazed the tradition of media dependency and imperialism writings that reflected both the political and academic realities of the time (McAnany, 2012).

The focus on globalization was also the result of the historical evolution of the region’s media. The development of Latin American media cannot be analyzed without addressing the multiple dimensions of globalization – the flows of capital and content, the linkages between internal and external actors, the connection between media industries and political and social forces, and the relations between national and global political actors. These processes confirmed that fin-de-siècle globalization was, in fact, the prolongation of historical processes rather than a completely new development. Indeed, the evolution of the media was inseparable from earlier globalizing dynamics – colonialism, U.S. influence in the region, and the influence of European models of journalism.

Globalization was a defining characteristic of the Latin American media before market policies transformed the media landscape in the West and elsewhere during the 1980s and 1990s. The media in the region has historically been open to international flows. Media systems have historically developed according to the basic tenets of market-led globalization: privatization, commercialization, and deregulation (Fox and Waisbord, 2002). Consequently, they were never autonomous media systems sheltered from global trends, but instead, they have been historically located at the crossroads of international flows of capital, migration, technology, and ideas.

Latin America’s newspaper industry developed in close contact with trends in US and European newsrooms. Journalistic practice also evolved in close contact with the trends and debates on both sides of the North Atlantic. Likewise, the development of the radio, music, and film industries were inseparable from global developments, particularly the influence of the United States. One cannot understand the historical evolution and central features of any media industry without foregrounding how they were connected to global developments. Before Immanuel Wallerstein’s (1976) notion of a ‘world system’ became an influential concept to comprehend historical development, Latin American researchers had already insisted that the media in the region can only be properly analyzed within the historical development of global power dynamics.

This form of analysis shows that if globalization is narrowly understood as another name for ‘Americanization,’ then Latin America has long been Americanized. It was the first, prime market for the expansion of US capital, technology, and content. Foundational texts in the ‘media imperialism’ tradition viewed Latin America as the perfect illustration of a Hollywood-dominated global media order (Beltran, 1976). The region’s media history during the ‘American century’ is incomprehensible aside from the extensive presence of US interests. It came as no surprise, then, that the work of emblematic scholars of the critical political economy tradition such as Herb Schiller (1969) and Noam Chomsky found a receptive audience in the region. Their views dovetailed with positions that dominated communication and media scholarship and infused the revolutionary euphoria of the time.

Whereas the orthodoxy of globalization theories, including Marxist theories of media dependency and imperialism, assumed the invincible power of American culture and global capital, some strands of Latin American scholarship remained skeptical about such an argument. The latter argued that the media and other forms of globalization have always underpinned the media cultures in the region. They found those positions simplistic and wrongheaded to understand the long-standing dynamics between indigenous and global forces. Despite commercialism and the inevitable presence of global forces, the media as a whole never became a solid, homogeneous cultural cloth that replicated the U.S. order. Instead, it suggested, media industries managed to reflect, albeit incompletely, the richness of cultural expressions and contributed to the combination of local and global forces that defined the syncretism of the media and cultural landscapes in the region.

The work of Nestor García-Canclini (2005) and Jesus Martín Barbero (1993) represent this tradition that largely reacted against the structural-functionalism and economicism of media dependency. García-Canclini pioneered the notion that ‘hybridization’ is the essential feature of contemporary cultures in late capitalism. Hybrid cultures were the outcomes of the particular ways in which Latin America became modern and interacted with Western modernity. The forces of multiculturalism, colonialism, and conflict shaped media cultures. Martín-Barbero (1993) shone a light on another blindspot of the idea of ‘globalization as homogenization’: the failure to consider the ‘mediations,’ that is, the sense-making processes that incorporate and consume media content in multiple and unexpected ways. His concern was with the process of cultural production that assimilated media forms and meanings. Both authors set the foundations for an ambitious research agenda interested in understanding the various ways in which global and local cultures interact in the media’s reception and production.

It is not exaggerated to state that the works of García-Canclini and Martín-Barbero single-handedly shifted the paradigm of Latin American media and communication scholarship. They steered it away from the view of globalization as simply flows of capital, technology, and content and moved it closer to a historical-culturalist perspective interested in understanding cultural innovation and collective creativity amidst an interconnected world. Their work relocated globalization within the emergent tradition of cultural studies in the region that combined the nuanced study of the political economy of the media with processes of reception/recreation and notions of citizenship and rights. They warned about understanding globalization simply as a deux ex machina process, disconnected from local processes of cultural (re)formation and the media’s production and use.

One significant insight coming out of this argument is that globalization tells only part of the story about the media in Latin America. Media policies and content do not merely reflect global trends. International economics and geo-politics should be considered, but they offer partial snapshots of the configuration and dynamics of media systems. From conditions for broadcasting production to the characteristics of journalistic cultures, several issues fall through the analytical cracks of globalization theories (Fox and Waisbord, 2002). Consequently, the question needs to be inverted – rather than asking what globalization does to media and cultures, what needs to be interrogated is how local media and cultural processes engage with globalization. Rather than asking about the impact of media globalization, it is necessary to studying media systems and cultures within globalization.

In line with this position, my interest in this chapter is to review recent research on Latin American media that disputes key arguments of the media globalization paradigm. My intention is to question the primacy of the global over the local and the national, and demonstrate the need to foreground domestic politics in the study of media policy. Specifically, I review ongoing policy reforms and debates in the region that reflect the centrality of domestic politics and the state.

Is ‘methodological nationalism’ irrelevant?

The adherents of the media globalization paradigm subscribe to Ulrich Beck’s (2005) indictment of ‘methodological nationalism.’ Beck asserts that the latter erroneously assumes that the arbitrary boundaries of nation-states remain analytically significant in a time of global challenges. As unit of analysis, the nation-state narrows the perspective by imposing artificial geo-cultural and political limits and ignoring global processes that affect planetary civilization. The critical, transforming processes and challenges of our age exceed the analytical boundaries and capacity of nation-states. Furthermore, methodological nationalism uncritically assumes the existence of the hyphenated entity known as the nation-state. This assumption leads to focusing on its presumed unity where, if nonexistent, it is exceedingly complex in ways that challenge the notion of a single hyphenated entity. It misdirects our attention by elevating arbitrary political boundaries into real categories and ignoring planetary issues and actors. It incorrectly assumes that the nation-state is the dominant site of power while downplaying the power of global actors and the centrality of planetary processes. The fundamental mistake of methodological nationalism is that it remains moored in a conception that loses sight of the fact that the global has displaced the nation-state as the prime site of academic inquiry.

Beck’s provocation is not only aligned with the conviction about the distinctive nature of global problems that exceed state power. It also endorses academic cosmopolitanism, the notion that scholarly pursuits should engage with the global phenomenon of our times and need to be wary about the parochialism of state-centered studies and the resurgence of nationalism. It feeds on aspirations to nurture a global public sphere where planetary problems can be discussed and acted upon. It rejects the modernist vision of nations and states as both benign actors and all-powerful containers of social, political, and cultural experiences.

Applied to media studies, Beck’s argument underpins the approaches that believe that global mediated processes should be the central unit of analysis. The multiple dimensions of media globalization such as industries, technologies, and use have turned the nation-state into analytically limiting and hopelessly passé. For example, today’s global media policy refers to the planetary ambitions of industrial corporations; the ascendancy of Internet powerhouses such as Google, Twitter, and Facebook; new challenges for copyright and fair use; and unfettered access to digital content. The consolidation of global networks has catalyzed novel forms of transnational media activism. Global networks have also changed the conditions and routines of media work, making interconnectivity central to the way content is produced, distributed, and marketed. None of these issues can be properly understood as long as the nation-state remains the subject of attention. Because it is no longer the main container of mediated processes and experiences, scholarly attention needs to zoom out and take a global perspective.

The point is not whether these developments are relevant that doubtlessly they are or demand a different analytical perspective that they do. Rather, the issue is whether attention to the global should displace the focus on the nation-state, which, admittedly, is a complex and equivocal concept. The fact that certain media developments demand a post-state, post-national approach does not exclude the relevance of states and nations as subjects of study or containers of media experiences. The study of regulation on Internet content, the relations between governments and digital behemoths, and global citizenship anchored in digital platforms certainly requires a different analytical approach. Yet, one can study global media phenomena without discarding or minimizing the nation-states as a unit of analysis. The reason is rather obvious: they remain preeminent sites of action and debate over media matters, as countless non-global studies continue to show.

Eager to call attention to the particular analytical challenges posed by global problems, the critique of methodological nationalism sets up a false choice about the relevant units of analysis. This critique rushes to conclude that important questions irrevocably escape the nation-state, dismissing it as an analytical cadaver of the social sciences and humanities. It tidily separates what belongs to the global from the national and the state as if these dimensions and actors are completely disconnected. It dissolves nations and states because it identifies huge problems that they are incapable of addressing. So, just as Beck believes that global risks such as nuclear arms and environmental challenges demand a trans-state, transnational perspective, media globalists are convinced that global media, networks, activism, citizens, and technologies surpass the conventional analytical boundaries of nations and states.

This position paints itself into a corner by positing the global as the master explanation and the analytical prism to analyze the media. One can scarcely doubt that global dimensions are critical to understanding the media in relation to a host of questions – policy, activism, politics, practice, identity, and social experience. But the twin argument about the global as the dominant unit of analysis and the irrelevance of the nation-state is, if not strategically unwise, completely wrong. It assumes ex ante that everything is connected to seemingly unstoppable, ubiquitous global forces.

What if globalization explains little about the vast world of media policy making? Are media cosmopolitans the only mobilized actors around policy reform? Are national media policies necessarily a reflection of global forces? Is media activism only or mainly transnational? Is media work strongly influenced by global forces and trends?

The debate between methodological nationalism and globalism can be summarized in the following question: What approach best explains the fundamental characteristics and development of contemporary media systems in Latin America? The answer proposed here is as follows: Methodological globalism actually explains little about the central features at the national or regional levels, from patterns of ownership and funding to the relations between media and organized politics. Instead, it is necessary to address domestic politics and the role of the state to capture the defining elements of media ecologies in the region.

To discuss the limitations of the media globalization paradigm, I review three themes in contemporary Latin America scholarship: the role of the state in media policies, media activism/reform, and media work.

The return or the persistence of the state?

The past decade has been a laborato...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Introduction: Media Systems in the Age of (Anti) Neoliberal Politics
• 1  Latin America Media and the Limitations of the Media ‘Globalization’ Paradigm
• 2  The ‘Captured Liberal’ Model of Media Systems in Latin America
• 3  In Search of a Model for the Colombian Media System Today
• 4  Media Systems and Political Action in Peru
• 5  The Complex Relationship between the Media and the Political System in Argentina: From Co-option to Polarization
• 6  Pluralism, Digitalization and the Contemporary Challenges of Media Policy in El Salvador
• 7  Media and Politicians in Guatemala: A Marriage That Will Last Until Money Do Them Part
• 8  The State in Pursuit of Hegemony over the Media: The Chávez Model
• 9  Clashing Powers in Bolivia: The Tensions between Evo Morales’s Government and the Private Media
• 10  State Intervention and Market Structures: The New Overview of the Argentinian Audio-Visual Sector
• 11  Public Service Broadcasting and Media Reform in Brazil in Comparative Perspective
• 12  Globalization and History in Brazil: Communication, Culture, and Development Policies at a Crossroads
• 13  The Publishing Industries in Ibero-America: Challenges and Diversity in the Digital World
• 14  The Global Notion of Journalism: A Hindrance to the Democratization of the Public Space in Chile
• 15  Post-authoritarian Politics in a Neoliberal Era: Revising Media and Journalism Transition in Mexico
• The ‘Capture’ of Media Systems, Policies, and Industries in Latin America: Concluding Remarks
• Index