Click the star to add/remove an item to/from your individual schedule.
You need to be logged in to avail of this functionality.
Log in
- Convenors:
-
Renata Faria Brandão
(The University of Sheffield)
Sara Garcia Santamaria (The University of Sheffield)
Jose Antonio Brambila-Ramirez (The University of Sheffield)
- Location:
- Malet 539
- Start time:
- 4 April, 2014 at
Time zone: Europe/London
- Session slots:
- 2
Short Abstract:
This panel aims to discuss the role of the media in 21st century Latin America against the backdrop of political and popular demands for broader democratization. Examples will be drawn from a variety of perspectives, such as media discourse, media systems and journalistic practices.
Long Abstract:
Habermas believes that the public sphere is a social dimension that mediates between state and society, enabling citizens to take over the reins of public opinion. In this public sphere, the media appear as a core element, connecting the citizen's ideas in a shared space of public debate, managing information and communication flows, and putting them to work in the public interest.
In a context of mediatized politics and politicized media, Latin American young democracies have been debating the central role of the media in strengthening the public sphere. These debates has acquired both political and technological dimensions. First, the recent wave of left-wing governments in the region are attempting to refound Latin America's rusty media systems, putting them at the service of popular interest. Second, the democratizing role of new media and citizen journalism are opening a window between the polarized media oligopoly held by markets and governments. As a result, the voice of the people has gained terrain in the public sphere, watching over public interest.
However, striking obstacles remain, such as media over-regulation, governmental influence over content and ownership, tightly knit relations with big corporations or unequal internet access, to mention just a few.
In this panel, we aim to debate the new political and public pressures that are pushing Latin American media, at least discursively, closer to achieve their democratic duty of serving the public interest. Examples will be drawn from a variety of perspectives, such as media discourse, media systems or journalistic practices.
Accepted papers:
Session 1Jose Antonio Brambila-Ramirez (The University of Sheffield) Julio Juárez-Gámiz
Paper short abstract:
This research aims to analyse the content and structure of the televised political ads produced by the parties during the Federal elections of 2012 in Mexico. The findings are evaluated in sight of the structural and content changes that would have been associated to the electoral reform of 2007.
Paper long abstract:
At election time the political advertisement in the mass media represents an important source of information for the citizenship. In the Mexican case, an important part of the electorate, 57%, follows closely the electoral campaign and 42 % says to pay attention to the advertising that the parties transmit through radio and television. More than a half (60%) assures to remember that publicity. Therefore, it is not surprising that the electoral legislation intervenes directly in the way the political parties access to the radio and television through a predominantly advertising format.
It is worth to underline that those advertising materials are funded by the Mexican state, both in their production and dissemination, for the purpose of promoting a democratic culture and of raising the debate of a functional and competitive democracy.
This article analyses the content and the structure of the televised advertising that the parties produce and disseminate through the official times. The main objective of this study is to evaluate the informative offer of one of the main communication tools in the current model of political communication.
The information shown in this article is based in an analysis of the spots (308 messages) seven parties produced during the federal election of 2012. To each of the spots was applied a protocol of 47 variables (of content and structure) (The protocol is based on Juárez 2007, 2009 and 2010).
Robbie Macrory (University College London)
Paper short abstract:
This paper investigates recent media reform in Argentina, focusing on new legislation that may enhance freedom of expression by tackling concentrated ownership and improving diversity. It also addresses contradictions between the law’s normative advances and the challenges of its implementation.
Paper long abstract:
Following the emergence of the 'new left' in Latin America, many governments have become increasingly active in the area of media policy. This has led to intense debates on the relationship between media regulation, freedom of expression and democratic consolidation. Such activity also represents a clear reversal of policy after limited state involvement in this sphere since the transition to democratic government in the 1980s. Taking the 2009 Argentine media law as a case study, this paper argues that regulatory reform is essential for strengthening the democratic role of the media in Latin America by tackling patterns of concentrated media ownership, supporting the non-profit and community media sector, and reinvigorating public service broadcasting. This type of structural reform of the media landscape, which enhances access to the diverse range of information sources needed for a healthy political debate, potentially demonstrates the positive role that states can play in improving freedom of expression in consolidating democracies. Despite these normative advances, which have been supported by regional institutions such as Office of the Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression at the Organisation of American States, this paper will also highlight the disjuncture between the ambitions of Argentina's media law and the contradictions in its implementation, and is supported by a recent period of extended fieldwork.
Sara Garcia Santamaria (The University of Sheffield)
Paper short abstract:
Fidel Castro's step down from power is the starting point of this paper, which will look at change in Cuba through the lens of the foreign press. This paper will argue that a series of assumptions and constraints have limited foreign correspondents' ability to explain the new era to their readers.
Paper long abstract:
Fidel Castro's temporary handoff of power to his brother Raul in summer 2006 has closed an extraordinary chapter in modern history. However, it has created passionate debates about the future of a post-Fidel Cuba, showing once again the different conception of change by Cuban officials and foreign governments. Raul Castro's leadership has opened the island to once unthinkable economic and social changes. However, whereas the western world is eager to see significant changes in Cuba, the reforms seem to follow a deliberately slow pace. In 2014, it remains uncertain whether Raul Castro will lead the historic opening of Cuba towards liberal democracy or, conversely, will remain the loyal guarantor of Fidel's heritage.
Fidel Castro's temporary transfer of power to his brother Raul in July 2006 is the starting point of this paper, which will examine change in Cuba through the lens of Spanish and US quality newspapers. It will do so from a qualitative approach, combining discourse analysis of media texts and interviews with foreign correspondents.
The analysis suggests that the foreign coverage of a post-Fidel Cuba has been framed from two assumptions: (1) the personification of the Revolution in Fidel Castro and (2) the inevitable transition of Cuba to liberal democracy. This paper will explore whether these assumptions, as well as the many constraints faced by foreign correspondents, have produced an oversimplified account of the 'inevitable end of Cuba' at the expenses of Cuban citizen's interest.
Ella McPherson (University of Cambridge)
Paper short abstract:
This paper identifies why and how human rights NGOs access the public sphere in Mexico. It identifies opportunities and obstacles the mainstream media pose for this access, as well as corresponding strategies NGOs adopt for collaborating with or circumnavigating the media.
Paper long abstract:
This paper draws on my media ethnography of human rights reporting practices at Mexican newspapers and human rights NGOs to identify why and how these NGOs access the public sphere. In doing so, it sheds light on the understudied strategies that civil society actors and journalistic sources adopt to reach publics, whether by collaborating with the mainstream media or by circumnavigating them. Human rights NGOs consider access to the public sphere a vital aspect of their labour for generating public pressure to mitigate violations. Their traditional reliance on the mass media is limited by the fact that sceptical media are reluctant to source human rights NGOs. This is because NGOs are facing an endemic credibility crisis rooted in discrediting discourses, alleging corruption, propagated by the targets of NGO investigations. Human rights NGOs have devised strategies to overcome this situation. They are building up their credibility through personal relationships with reporters or via association with credible institutions or individuals. They are also harnessing ICTs to engage in parajournalistic (Schudson 2003) activities, which either can facilitate collaboration with the mainstream media or can allow NGOs to circumnavigate them altogether in their quest for mediated publics.
Ricardo Klein
Paper short abstract:
The objective is to analyze the street art scene of Montevideo, taking as keystones the role played by social networks in the processes of creativity of these artists.
Paper long abstract:
This exposition comes from the research currently being carried out in the framework of the PhD in Management of Culture and Heritage (University of Barcelona). This project is centered on the processes of creativity and the dynamics of valuation of urban artists in Montevideo and Barcelona. The objective is to analyze the street art scene of Montevideo, taking as keystones the role played by social networks in the processes of creativity of these artists.
New technologies have been the most important communication tools for the reproduction of street art today (time of postgraffiti) in cities around the world.
Internet has had an important role in spreading massively street art, especially considering how fleeting some of this works may be when displayed in the public space (parks, monuments, buildings, walls, etc.). One of its main roles is the ability to transcend the city where the work the boundaries of the local are difusse.
Immediacy allows the Internet to grant street art the possibility of being located in a closely interconnected and homogeneous international scene. The massivness of Internet as a space for communication has made possible to get to know artists and artworks from all the corners of the world in a very short time.
Special focus will be given to the scene of the street art in Montevideo, as an emergent Latin-American city of this creative expression. In 2013 the city of Montevideo was designated as the Latin-American Capital of Culture by the Union of Capital Cities of Iberoamérica.