IN THIS Communication in Latin American Contextscscc.scu.edu/trends/v29/CRT_v29_n2_June2010.pdf19th century we find evidence of Latin American stud-ies on certain phenomena of communication

Centre for the Study of Communication and Culture

Volume 29 (2010) No. 2

Communication in Latin American Contexts

A QUARTERLY REVIEW OF COMMUNICATION RESEARCH

ISSN: 0144-4646

IN THISISSUE

Table of Contents

Editor’s Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

A Brief History of the Latin American

Academy of Communication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4Octavio Islas and Amaia Arribas

1. Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42. Formation of the Latin American

Community for communication study . . . . . . . . 53. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13

Research on Colombian Cinema . . . . . . . . . . . . .15Jerónimo León Rivera Betancur

1. A Look Back: A Brief Accountof Audiovisual Production in Colombia . . . . . . .15

2. The Study of Colombian Cinema . . . . . . . . . . . .163. Research Interests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .184. Academic Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .205. Professional Associations of Researchers . . . . . .226. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .22

Regulatory Implications of the Adoption

of Digital Television in Chile . . . . . . . . . . . . . .25Sergio Godoy Etcheverry

1. The Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .25A. The importance of television . . . . . . . . . . . . .25B. Digitization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .26C. The television business model . . . . . . . . . . . .26

2. Evaluation Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .27A. The Curran and Seaton Model . . . . . . . . . . . .27B. The model of public service television . . . . .28C. Parameters of quality television . . . . . . . . . . .29

3. Evaluation of the Pending Broadcast Legislation 31A. Context of the proposal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .31B. The amendment of Law No. 18,838 . . . . . . . .31C. Major criticisms of the proposal . . . . . . . . . . .32

4. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .33

Communication Education in Mexico:

Overall Trends . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .35María Antonieta Rebeil Corella, Jorge Hidalo Toledo,and Luis Alberto Luna Rayes

A. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .35B. Communication programs in schools

and universities in Mexico . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .35C. The universe of communication

programs in Mexico . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .36D. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .38

Book Reviews . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .40

2 — VOLUME 29 (2010) NO. 2 COMMUNICATION RESEARCH TRENDS

Communication Research TrendsVolume 29 (2010) Number 2http://cscc.scu.edu

Published four times a year by the Centre for the Study ofCommunication and Culture (CSCC), sponsored by theCalifornia Province of the Society of Jesus. Copyright 2009. ISSN 0144-4646

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The set of four articles in this review reminds usthat the field of “communication research” is a new-comer to university tradition. The first study programunder the name “communication” in a university set-ting is said to have been that inaugurated by WilburSchramm at the University of Illinois in September,1948 (Rogers, 1994). Since that time there has been anexponential growth of such programs in almost everycountry around the globe. Latin America is no excep-tion. In these four articles we find the authors provid-ing some sense of the growth and depth of research incommunication in this region. As in the U.S., study ofcommunication in Latin America has advanced as thepractice and use of technologies have transformed soci-eties over the last 50 or 60 years. Today, communica-tion has become a central activity and concern for theworld and has helped usher in the phenomenon of glob-alization itself.

As Octavio Isalas and Amaia Arribas argue in thefirst article, Latin America followed the trend for estab-lishing communication as a field of theory and researchin universities in 1959 with the establishing of univer-sity programs of communication in Mexico, Venezuela,and Argentina. Following a paradigm from the out-standing Brazilian researcher, Marques de Melo, theauthors suggest that in the first period of a decade ormore Latin American was influenced by models fromthe U.S., but that by the 1970s they had defined heirown approach that reflected the reality of their societiesbetter. The point that they make is that from early on intheir development, communication programs began tocollaborate with other Latin American universities andthat that collaboration resulted in not only nationalassociations of researchers but in 1978 and 1981 in thefounding of two international regional based associa-tions, ALAIC and FELAFACS. These have greatlystrengthened the growing national programs andencouraged an interchange that makes the sharing ofresearch across borders more common and beneficialfor the region.

Jerónimo León Rivera Betancur from Colombiaand Sergio Godoy from Chile illustrate both nationaland common concerns for their colleagues in othercountries. Rivera has provided one of the first seriousefforts to draw together the history of film in hiscountry, arguing that this effort is important in anycountry wishing to understand the place of this medi-um in telling the story of its society. His efforts are abeginning, and a useful beginning, of what shouldgrow into deeper study. It is also a study that can beshared across borders. Godoy, on the other hand,looks ahead in Chile at the introduction of digital tel-evision for its open broadcasting system, a task thatfaces a number of countries in the region. His analy-sis of the consequences for society and for regulationin Chile will stand as a model for others. He arguesthat the proposed legislation for the five year transi-tion to digital is not comprehensive enough and willdemand a process of both research and debate overwhat consequences digital television could have forChile, and by analogy for other countries who are fac-ing a similar transition.

Maria Antonieta Rebeil Coralla and colleaguesfrom Anahuac University in Mexico present a shortreport on a national survey completed in 2009. Theimport of the report again has implication for otherLatin American countries and, indeed, for other coun-tries around he world: rapid growth in communicationprograms but without proper oversight for quality con-trol. Of the more than 1,000 communication studiesprograms they found, less than 10% had been approvedby educational authorities, suggesting that quality morethan quantity should be the criterion. A suggestion thatall of us might be thinking about.

—Emile McAnanyEditor

ReferenceRogers, E. (1994). A history of communication study:A biographical approach. New York: The Free Press.

COMMUNICATION RESEARCH TRENDS VOLUME 29 (2010) NO. 2 — 3

Communication in Latin American Contexts

This essay in no way attempts to completely ana-lyze the main objects of study or even the uniquenessor relevance of the theoretical and methodologicalimagination that we have designated as the “LatinAmerican academy of communication.” Instead thisessay responds to a far more modest concern—todescribe specific episodes of relevance to our troubledhistoriography of the Latin American academy of com-munication, understanding that it definitely can not beunderstood as an essence but as a story.

Beyond the description of certain events, it isessential to understand that the history of LatinAmerican programs of communication results from theactions and commitments of some groups which, overthe years, have become the powers inside the LatinAmerican programs of communication and from theunquestionable “charisma” of certain leaders. It couldnot be otherwise. The Latin American programs ofcommunication simply reflect and to some extentreproduce the historical inevitability of Latin America.In the deep history of our troubled region, nationalchiefs and leaders have taken on key roles andappealed to constitutional goals. This situation has hin-dered the healthy development of our institutions.Something similar has happened within the LatinAmerican academy of communication. In the vastmajority of associations, councils, and federations,which should specifically promote the study andresearch of communication, the democratic and institu-tional life still presents a major unresolved subject. Inthese days, however, the hegemony which a remark-able historical generation of scholars and researchers ofcommunication has sustained over three decades hasgradually vanished. These main leaders are JesúsMartín-Barbero (for the Latin American Federation ofFaculties of Social Communication: FELAFACS), andJosé Marques de Melo (for the Latin AmericanAssociation of Communication Researchers: ALAIC).

As residents of the periphery, our narrative andinterpretation differ from the vaunted heroic assump-tion about who recounts and describes the script andnames the protagonists of the story. Our positiontowards Latin American programs of communicationsis also critical, and the critique, as rightly pointed outby the Mexican Octavio Paz—the smartest of the 20thcentury—“consist[s] as much or more as in the knowl-edge to free us. Criticism displays a possibility of free-dom and it is an invitation to action” (Paz, 1970, p. 12).The maturity of Latin American communication pro-grams depends on the strength of their institutions, notthe charisma of their leaders or the intricate interests ofsome of the powers that actually have managed to sub-ordinate the interests of the academy to their particularinterests. Perhaps future generations of scholars andresearchers of communication are able to act withgreater generosity, noting the actual benefit of the LatinAmerican programs of communication, apart from theinterest groups.

1. Background: The Latin American

academy of communication before

CIESPAL

José Marques de Melo (2007), a leading Braziliancommunication researcher argues that since the late19th century we find evidence of Latin American stud-ies on certain phenomena of communication. MaríaCristina Gobbi (2006), a researcher at the MethodistUniversity of Sao Paulo, Brazil, where Marques deMelo works, said that in the 1930s the economic andpolitical problems arising from the First World War,compounded by such phenomena as the developmentof the industrialization process, fascism, nationalsocialism, and abrupt urbanization, among otherthings, significantly extended the objects of study ofthe social sciences. Such an excited context, of course,favored the development of journalism, advertising,and propaganda, encouraging further implementationof the first studies on U.S. public opinion, which soon


A Brief History of the Latin American Academy of

Communication1

Octavio Islas and Amaia ArribasTecnologico de Monterrey Autonomous University of BarcelonaCampus Estado de Mexico Spain

1To Edgar Jaramillo. With sincere gratitude and appre-ciation.

after began to be applied in Latin America. (In 1930George Gallup published a summary of his doctoralthesis on public opinion in Journalism Quarterly; inthe 1940s the Brazilian Institute of Public Opinion andStatistics—IBOPE—began.) The 1930s also saw thefirst offerings of degrees in journalism in some LatinAmerican universities. In 1934, the UniversidadNacional de La Plata (UNLP) and the Graduate Schoolof Journalism in Buenos Aires—connected with theInstitute for Writing [Instituto Grafotécnico]—inArgentina, offered their first bachelor’s degrees in jour-nalism in the region. Later, journalism schools wereopened in Brazil (1935), Cuba (1942), and Mexico(1949)—in Mexico’s Federal District, at the School ofJournalism Carlos Septien Garcia.

According to Marques de Melo (2007), in the1950s the development of radio, the beginnings of tel-evision, and the diversification of advertising stimulat-ed some research regarding the impact of those mediain certain countries in the region. These include

the research that the Brazilians SalvyanoCavalcante de Paiva and Alex Vianny undertookon the cinema and the work that Saint-Clair Lopesmade on broadcasting in Brazil, and the publica-tion in Argentina by Mouchet and Rafaelli aboutthe artistic rights of collective media. But therewere continuing studies on the analytical traditionof propaganda, such as by the Brazilian GenivalRabelo and the Chilean Alfonso Silva Délano, inthe same way that Mexico’s Salvador Borrego,the Bolivian Gustavo Adolfo Otero, theVenezuelan Julio Febres Cordero, and BraziliansLuis Beltrán or José Leao would advance on theinterpretation of peculiar phenomena in the trans-mission of news and the communication of thepress. (2007, p. 342)

Gobbi, Marques de Melo’s student, considers thesestudies irrelevant:

The available literature on communication inLatin America in the late 1950s was practicallynegligible. It was often translated work or resultsof local research. The work was based mainly onAmerican functionalism, the investigation ofcommunication based on the Chicago Schooland on information science of the Paris School.(2006, p. 62)

In the late 1950s two events of particular rele-vance in the gestation of the “Latin American commu-nity of communication” (as Marques de Melo put it)occurred. First, in 1957 the United Nations

Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization(UNESCO) undertook the study, “Current research onmedia” [“Recherches actuelles sur les moyens d’infor-mation”], which generated great interest in the study ofmedia in the region. Second, on October 9, 1959, againurged on by UNESCO, the Central University ofEcuador and the Ecuadorian government kicked off theactivities of the International Center for Studies inCommunication for Latin America (CIESPAL) locatedin Quito, Ecuador. (Also on the initiative of UNESCO,a center similar to CIESPAL began operations inStrasbourg, France in 1959.)

2. The formation of the Latin American

community for communication studyMarques de Melo (2004) argues that the Latin

American community of communication “can beviewed through three periods labeled in accordancewith the language of the Cold War: a) the battle forhegemony; b) the battle for survival; c) the battle forreconstruction” (p. 13). In our brief historical review,the starting point is the chronology proposed byMarques de Melo. However, we will make reference tocertain events that we believe will be particularly rele-vant in understanding the development of the LatinAmerican community of communication scholars.

A. The battle for hegemony: The early yearsThe first period reported by Marques de Melo

began with the creation of CIESPAL and continueduntil the founding of the Latin American Association ofCommunication Researchers (ALAIC) in November,1978 at the Central University of Venezuela in Caracas.Marques de Melo (2007) recognizes the important roleCIESPAL played in the teaching of communicationresearch in Latin America: “before the InternationalCenter for Studies in Communication for LatinAmerica (CIESPAL), communication research in LatinAmerican countries consisted of episodic activities,occasionally” (p. 311). CIESPAL, says Marques deMelo, deserves the credit for forming the first genera-tion of effective communication researchers interestedin analyzing communicative phenomena in the region:

The germinating seeds were planted in the fertilesoil of CIESPAL in Quito, which aspired to thecondition of a dominant core. Consolidated duringthe ’70s, the international center that initiallyworked on the campus of the Central University ofEcuador stimulated the professional organization


of former international students in their courses,creating a flow of diffusion of ideas throughChasqui magazine (first phase). (2004, p.13)

In the mid 1970s, CIESPAL began to project itself as ahotbed of the thought of Latin American communica-tion, just as the leading researcher, Ecuadorian journal-ist Edgar Jaramillo points out, who until March 2009served as president of CIESPAL:

In the mid-70s, CIESPAL began to manifestitself as a seedbed of its own communicationthinking—“with a significant counterpoint toboth the sociology of American mass communi-cations and to European critical sociology, to thepoint that it replaced on its own initiative theterm Communication for that of Journalism”—and its goals expanded to include not only jour-nalists but also all the media and all areas wherecommunication is done. (Jaramillo, 2004, ¶6)

An act of unquestionable importance that Marques deMelo failed to mention in his chronology took place inMexico City in 1960. That year the UniversidadIberoamericana (UIA), which belongs to the Society ofJesus, began offering a degree in information science.(It is difficult establish with full assurance that theUniversidad Iberoamericana began offering the firstBachelor of Science in Communication in LatinAmerica, as the University of Zulia, located inVenezuela, is said to have offered the BA inCommunication Sciences since 1959.) In this regardPrieto (2008) says:

The course was established at the UniversidadIberoamericana by a Jesuit of Sayula, JoséSánchez Villaseñor. The original name followedthe intention of the founder, although he wasforced to change it because for the officials ofthe Secretariat of Public Education the title“communication science” referred to engineer-ing issues. This circumstance caused the degreeto be named as “Science and Technology ofInformation.” (p. 9)

Most schools and universities that immediatelybegan to impart a degree in the science of communica-tion over the years adopted a model imposed by theUniversidad Iberoamericana, to which researchers suchas Felipe López Veneroni have agreed to designate as a“multipurpose model” because it intended to transcendthe relative autonomy of independent professions asso-ciated with the “science of communication,” such asadvertising, public relations, journalism, photography,

etc., subordinating them to the perspective of a sciencedegree in communication. According to José SánchezVillaseñor, cited by Prieto, the curriculum of the“Bachelor of Science in Communication,” responded tothe purpose of “forming a true professional, capable ofcombining an organic core of humanistic knowledge anda harmonious set of techniques that allow the judiciousand effective public exercise of this knowledge, in whichthey are intertwined, hierarchically, in science and tech-nology, practice and theory” (Prieto, 2008, p. 9).

According to the prominent Mexican researcherClaudia Benassini, the 1960s serves as a kind of hingebetween the analogue and the digital, between moder-nity and postmodernity, and between global and local.During this time only a small number of countries inthe region had civilians at the head of government. Toprevent the replication of the Cuban example, the U.S.government decided to support military dictatorships inthe region. Faced with this adverse scenario, one caneasily understand the behavior of the emerging LatinAmerican community of communication research,which decided to adopt the “Dependency Theory” asthe basis of Latin American thought on communica-tion, showing also a particular interest in scientificmaterialism or Marxism.

In the 1970s, various academics and communica-tion researchers in Latin America theorized the “scienceof communication” from the perspective of scientificmaterialism. A group of academics and communicationresearchers affirmed the thesis of the French MarxistLouis Althusser (1981)—on the role of the ideologicalstate apparatus in advanced capitalist formation—asauthentic dogmas of faith. According to such radicalinterpretations, the media serve the bourgeoisie toensure the effective expanded reproduction of the dom-inant ideology, contributing as well to ensure theexpanded reproduction of qualifying a diversified work-force. In the most advanced capitalist formations, themedia have collectively achieved the status of a hege-monic ideological apparatus, displacing family back-ground and efforts in school to ensure the expandedreproduction of the dominant ideology and the expand-ed reproduction of the workforce (Esteinou, 1979)

In Chile, the Socialist government of SalvadorAllende (1970-1973) encouraged the development of astream of intellectuals, a “Latin Europe” inspired byAlthusser, whose leader, according to Marques deMelo (2007), was Armand Mattelart. Members of thisgroup included Héctor Schmucler, Hugo Assmann,Michèle Mattelart, Mabel Piccini, and Ariel Dorfman.


The most emblematic book of that trend, Para leer alPato Donald. Comunicación de masa y colonialismo[How to Read Donald Duck: Imperialist Ideology inthe Disney Comic], by Ariel Dorfman and ArmandMattelart (1971), largely summarized the argumentsmade by Althusser’s followers against the UnitedStates and “mass culture.” “To be expelled from theClub Disneyland” come these lines:

Those responsible for the book will be definedas obscene and immoral (while the Walt DisneyWorld is pure), as complicated and confused insophistication and refinement (while Walt is sin-cere, open, fair), members of an embarrassedelite (while Disney is the most popular of all), aspolitical agitators (while Disney World is inno-cent and it harmoniously gathers together allaround that have nothing to do with partisaninterests), as calculating and bitter (whereasWalt D. is spontaneous and emotional, andmakes you laugh). (Dorfman and Mattelart.1972, p. 15)

Besides the Althusserian Marxism and the Frankfurttradition—which is recognized as the direct heir of thetradition of political economy of communicationspread throughout the region—the Christian-Marxistanalysis of Paulo Freire (Brazil) sought to lay thegroundwork of an effectively and original LatinAmerican Marxist thought, attentive to the realities andcontradictions of the region.

In the 1970s, a number of communication aca-demics and researchers incurred criticism for objec-tionable excesses. Raúl Fuentes Navarro (1992), aprominent Mexican scholar, talks about it, referring tosome passages from the thesis of Daniel CarlosGutierrez Rohan:

Within the scientific practice of communicationstudy, research is accepted when it works for thegeneral system, adapting to the rational objec-tives already set when they fulfill the role ofreproducing society and concealing in the rela-tions of production within the capitalist system.. . . Only in cases where scientific practice pro-duces theoretical constructs that can be used bymarketing, election campaigns, the changing ofattitudes (just to mention three examples) iswhen they are given a scientific validity. . . . So,when communication study no longer concealsthe conflicts and contradictions produced in cap-italism and addresses them as they really are(examining their causes, from their origins totheir results and effects), communication study

will exceed the ideological implications that ithas. (p. 92)

In these revolutionary days, the study of public rela-tions, organizational communication, advertising, mar-keting, information technology research, and manyother subjects that today can be considered as perfect-ly indispensable in any curriculum for all undergradu-ates in communication sciences, were then systemati-cally disqualified by several academics and researchersof communication in Latin America because they wereconsidered lower-ranking subjects in theoretical reflec-tion and contemporary critical communications.

In some universities it even got to a point of label-ing public relations and organizational communicationas “functional concerns,” a situation that automaticallytransformed them to irrelevant subjects in the trainingprocess of truly “critical” communications specialists.In such revolutionary days “theorization” prevailed—aterm proposed by Daniel Prieto Castillo to designateintellectual work, fundamentally ideological. In thisrespect, the prominent Mexican scholar EnriqueSánchez Ruiz (1994) says:

Certain dogmas and certain absolute truths weretaken which prevented a particular investigation.In the ’60s and ’70s, many Latin Americanresearchers forgot to treat with rigor their theo-ries, methodologies, and research techniques.Therefore they elaborated a very polished dis-course, sometimes with factual backing, but itwas still a discourse. (p. 35)

According to Marques de Melo, the first stage in thedevelopment of Latin American academic communica-tion—the battle for hegemony—ended with the found-ing of the ALAIC. Marques de Melo (2004) states thatonly since 1972 can we locate the first initiatives tocreate an organization capable of integrating the major-ity of communication researchers in Latin America. InNovember, 1978, during a meeting at the premises ofthe Institute of Communications Research (ININCO)in Caracas, Venezuela (part of the Central University ofVenezuela), the Latin American Association ofCommunication Researchers (ALAIC) was created.Marques de Melo (2004) states that the foundation ofthe ALAIC

was aided by four national academic associa-tions in operation: ABEPEC (Brazil), AVIC(Venezuela), AVIC (Colombia), and CONEICC(Mexico). It also added two professional associ-ations: FELAP (based in Venezuela) and ILET


(Mexico). UNESCO also participated in thefoundation. The researcher Mario Kaplun joinedpersonally. . . . In total, 10 men of the foundingassembly participated (Alberto Ancizar,Venezuela; Eleazar Diaz Rangel, Venezuela;Enrique Oteiza, Venezuela; Fernando ReyesMatta, Chile; Josep Rota, Mexico; Luis AnibalGomez, Venezuela; Luis Gonzaga Motta, Brazil;Mario Kaplún, Uruguay; Oswaldo Capriles,Venezuela; Rafael Roncagliolo, Peru) and twowomen (Patricia Anzola, Colombia andElizabeth Safar, Venezuela). (p. 15)

In his valuable chronology, Marques de Meloomits a fact that we consider of particular relevance. In1976 Universidad Iberoamericana began offering thefirst graduate program in communication sciences inLatin America. Again other universities, first in Mexicoand then throughout Latin America, opened theirrespective graduate programs in communication, repli-cating the curriculum of the Masters in Communicationfrom the Universidad Iberoamericana.

B. “The battle for survival”:The adolescence stage

In the second stage of the chronology proposedby Marques de Melo—“the battle for survival” (whatwe term “the difficult adolescent stage of the LatinAmerican communication research and study—whichcovers the period from 1979 to 1988, the main charac-ter is the Latin American Association of Communi-cation Researchers (ALAIC). During this period, fivescholars chaired the ALAIC: Luis Aníbal Gómez(Venezuela), Jesús Martín-Barbero (Spain-Colombia),Oswaldo Capriles and Alejandro Alfonzo (bothVenezuela), and Patricia Anzola (Colombia).According to Marques de Melo (2004) this period man-ifested great instability for the ALAIC:

The obstacles faced by the vanguard of ALAICto implement the decisions taken in Caracaswere difficult to overcome. . . . The Directors ofALAIC held three meetings, Lima, Quito, andMexico in conjunction with international meet-ings sponsored by various organizations towhich some of its members were invited. . . . TheALAIC functioned less as a professional bodyand more as a service-providing agency, specify-ing professional opportunities for its partners.(pp. 15-16)

Martín-Barbero, the most outstanding disciple ofManuel Martin Serrano (the founder of the first depart-

ment of communication theory in Spanish universitiesand the holder of the chair of communication in theDepartment of Sociology in the School of InformationScience of Complutense University in Madrid and thefather of the theory of social mediation) served first asvice president of the ALAIC. However, when AnibalGomez resigned the presidency, Martín-Barbero tookoffice. Frankly, the communication academics andresearcher members in ALAIC seemed unaware of orindifferent to the change. Therefore, under the chair-manship of Martín-Barbero and within the frameworkof the Second ALAIC General Assembly (July-August1980), the group decided to amend the statutes to finda role for national associations “The statutes werealtered to emphasize the national associations ofresearchers, with the exception for some personalmemberships” (Marques de Melo, 2004, p. 16). In1982, with Patricia Anzola (Colombia) the president ofthe ALAIC and Elizabeth Fox the vice president of theassociation, ALAIC received funding from theInternational Development Research Center, an organ-ization supported by the Canadian parliament, in orderto publish six volumes and to set up a new account forthe ALAIC finances which had recorded losses.

In his valuable chronology, Marques de Melofails to mention that in 1980 UNESCO published thereport of the International Commission chaired by SeanMacBride, Many Voices, One World [Un solo mundo,voces múltiples]. The report—now considered almostreverently by many academics and communicationresearchers in Latin America—responded to the needof diagnosing the main problems of information andcommunication in order to outline the need for a newinformation order. With respect to the relevance of thereport, Raúl Fuentes Navarro (2005) says, “In placingthat famous text in the framework for moving towardsa more new and just world order in information andcommunication, the McBride Commission explained tothe world the necessity of democratizing communica-tion, recognizing the important role of participation asa right of all people in determining the organization andfate of social life” (p. 12).

Another important event in the development ofthe Latin American communication academy missedby Marques de Melo occurred with the creation of theLatin American Federation of Faculties of SocialCommunication (FELAFACS) in October, 1981. Thistook place in Melgar del Castillo, Colombia, thanks tothe initiative of a group of academics and researchersin communication, most of whose colleges were affili-


ated with the Society of Jesus, such as theIberoamericana University, the University of Lima, andthe Javeriana [la Universidad Iberoamericana, laUniversidad de Lima, la Universidad Javeriana],among others. On the foundation of FELAFACS,Teresa Quiroz (2006), its current president, noted:

The first meeting of scholars from six LatinAmerican countries at the University of Lima in1979 led to the idea of founding a federation thatgrouped the faculties and schools of communi-cation in Latin America, without any distinctionfor their leadership or character (public, private,secular, or religious). An organizing committee,also at the University of Lima with the assis-tance of two countries, called a second meeting.That took place in October, 1981, in the city ofMelgar in Colombia, and there FELAFACS wasfounded and Joaquin Sanchez, S.J., of thePontifical Javeriana University became its firstpresident, with Walter Neira as its ExecutiveSecretary, who has served until today. (¶ 1)

On the foundation of the FELAFACS, the federation’swebsite records the following information:

In March, 1979, in Lima, the deans and profes-sors from 27 Schools of Social Communication,mainly from the Andean countries (Bolivia,Colombia, Chile, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela)and some universities in Argentina, Brazil, andMexico met. It was thus possible to make theFirst Latin American Meeting of Faculties of

Social Communication, where a group ofprominent scholars exchanged experiences forthe first time and looked for ways of dialogueand common action. However, the mechanismsthat could facilitate what was already felt neces-sary—integration and horizontal cooperation—were not yet clear. (FELAFACS, n.d., ¶ 1)

To avoid the financial deficit, which since itsfoundation had weighed on ALAIC, FELAFACSobtained from its beginning the generous support of theKonrad Adenauer Foundation of Germany, an organi-zation interested in promoting the development ofChristian Democracy in the region. Through theProgram of Media and Democracy of the KonradAdenauer Foundation, with a base in Buenos Aires,Argentina, Frank Priess (the Foundation representa-tive) decided to provide financial support forFELAFACS, which during its early years affiliatedwith more than 150 colleges or schools of communica-tion in 16 countries. Shortly after, “Entities in five

countries in Latin America in addition to the 21 coun-tries represented in our federation, in addition to Spain,the United States, and Canada become affiliated”(Quiroz, 2006, ¶ 2).

During the 1980s, which some scholars have des-ignated as “the lost decade for Latin America,” whilethe ALAIC literally faced a battle for survival,FELAFACS grew to over 300 affiliated schools andcolleges of communication. In 1987 UNESCO recog-nized FELAFACS as an international organization,with headquarters in Lima, Peru; the Peruvian govern-ment recognized it as an “International TechnicalCooperation Agency.” In 2010 FELAFACS will moveits headquarters to Cali, Colombia. FELAFACS hasmade significant contributions to the study of commu-nication in the region, with the publication of Diálogosde la Comunicación, an on-line journal, CuadernosDiálogos.

C. “The battle of reconstruction”The period designated by Marques de Melo as

“the battle of reconstruction” begins with the foundingof the ALAIC in Brazil in 1989 and continues untiltoday. During this period, the Latin American academyof communication became a kind of disputed franchise.

ALAIC

In 1988, as part of the Biennial Conference of theInternational Association for Mass CommunicationResearch (IAMCR) held in Barcelona, Spain, leadingLatin American researchers Rafael Roncagliolo, LuisPeirano, Jesús Martín-Barbero, Anamaria Fadul,Fatima Fernandez, and Joaquin Sanchez took the ini-tiative to convene an open meeting to discuss the futureof the ALAIC, ending a recognition of the need for arevamping. The group assigned that responsibility toBrazil, through INTERCOM (the entity representingthe academic community devoted to the study of com-munication in Brazil), which designated José Marquesde Melo as the ideal person to do so. The involvementof communication researchers, mainly from Brazilianand Mexican associations, played a key role in the res-urrection of the ALAIC, as Marques de Melo (1992)recognizes:

The proposal was well received by participantsin the 11th Brazilian Congress of Communic-ation Researchers (meeting in the city of Vicosa,MG, in September, 1988), mainly thanks toProfessor Margarida Kunsch, president ofIntercom, which basically ensured the private


support of the committee in charge of restructur-ing ALAIC. . . . In December, 1988 representa-tives of leading Brazilian and Mexican institu-tions operating in the area of communication(INTERCOM; ABECOM, UCBC, AMIC,CONEICC) and the regional body OCIC/ALmet in the town of Embu Guacu, to sign a docu-ment convening the Assembly of ReconstitutingALAIC. Margarida Kunsch (INTERCOM),Enrique Sánchez (AMIC), Antonio Carlos deJesús (ABECOM), Luis Núñez (CONEICC),Francisco de Assis Fernández (UCBC), and JoséTavares Barros (OCIC-AL) signed this docu-ment. (1992, p. 97)

The Board of Reconstruction of ALAIC met in 1989 inFlorianopolis, Brazil, at the Annual Congress of INTER-COM. José Marques de Melo assumed the presidency ofALAIC from 1989 to 1992. Between 1979 and 2009, 11scholars and researchers have served as presidents of theALAIC: Luis Aníbal Gómez (Venezuela), 1979-1980;Jesús Martín-Barbero (Colombia), 1981-1982; OswaldoCapriles and Alejandro Alfonzo (Venezuela), 1982-1984, Patricia Anzola (Colombia), 1984-1989; JoséMarques de Melo (Brazil), 1989-1992; Enrique SanchezRuiz (México), 1992-1995, Luis Peirano (Perú), 1995-1998; Margarida Krohling Kunsch (Brazil), 1998- 2005;Erick Torrico (Bolivia), 2005-2008, and Cesar Bolano(Brazil), 2009-2012.

Since 1992, ALAIC has organized nine academicconferences and five workshops:

Through 22 thematic groups, ALAIC promotescommunication research in Latin America: Communi-cation, Technology and Development; Communicationand City; Communication and Media Policy; PoliticalEconomy of Communications; Reception Studies;Journalism Studies; Ethics and Communication Law;Popular Communication; Communication and Educ-ation; Communication and Health; Speech and Com-munication; Organizational Communication and PublicRelations; Advertising Communication; History ofCommunication; Media and Citizens Community; SoapOperas and Drama; Theory and Methodologies ofCommunication Research; Internet and the Infor-mation Society; Intercultural Communication; Com-munication and Socio-Cultural Studies; Media, Child-ren and Adolescents; and Communication for SocialChange. The large number of research groups in ALAICshow marked differences in the degree of commitmentand participation. In recent ALAIC Congresses, organ-izers have found it necessary to invite alternate coordi-nators due to absence of the group leaders. In mostcases, many note the lack of resources to meet the costsof attending the congress. Presently, the organizationhas discounted the possibility of conducting a virtualcongress. Additionally, despite the large number of pro-fessional fields that the new digital media have opened,ALAIC has rejected the possibility of opening newresearch groups over the last six years.

Since July 2004, ALAIC has published an inter-national scientific journal, Revista Latinoamericana deCiencias da Comunicación. So far eight issues haveappeared. In the editorial of the first issue, MargaridaKrohling Kunsch (2004), the editor of the journal, setout the objectives of the publication:

With a monthly periodical and internationalscope, this publication aims primarily to pro-mote the diffusion, democratization, andstrengthening of the Latin American Commun-ication School of Thought. We also propose toextend the dialogue with the worldwide academ-ic community and to contribute to the integraldevelopment of society on the continent. (p. 8)

The 30th anniversary of ALAIC took place during thegroup’s ninth congress, attended by over 1,000 partici-pants in Monterrey, Mexico. To mark the anniversary,Maria Cristina Gobbi, a leading Brazilian researcher,published the book A batalla pela hegemonia comuni-cacional na América Latina. 30 anos da ALAIC (2008),which offers a detailed account of the relevant contri-


1992 I Congress Sao Paulo, Brazil

1994 II Congress Guadalajara, México

1996 III Congress Caracas, Venezuela

1998 IV Congress Recife, Brazil

2000 V Congress Santiago de Chile, Chile

2002 VI Congress Sta. Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia

2004 VII Congress La Plata, Argentina

2006 VIII Congress Sao Leopoldo, Brazil

2008 IX Congress Monterrey, Mexico

1999 Seminar I Cochabamba, Bolivia

2001 Seminar II La Plata, Argentina

2003 Seminar III Sao Paulo, Brazil

2005 Seminar IV La Paz, Bolivia

2007 Seminar V Caracas, Venezuela

bution of ALAIC to the development of LatinAmerican communication study.

Some academics and researchers involved in theALAIC have assumed the role of “contenders” in animaginary “war” for hegemony of communication inLatin America. Gobbi’s book (2008) deals with the“soldiers” of Latin American communication study,willing to fight against “others.” Some questionsimmediately arise for us: “Who can claim interest inthe communicational hegemony in Latin America andwhy?” and “Against whom do they compete for infor-mation hegemony in Latin America?”

The identity of Latin American communicationresearch inevitably defines boundaries, separating,dividing, and segregating those considered “out” withrespect to some insiders—a particularly delicate situa-tion when you realize that the “importation of knowl-edge” is considered a contrary practice to the spirit ofacademic work in the region. Such a sectarian visiondenies the universality of knowledge. But this affirma-tion in no way questions the affirmation of the singu-larity of Latin America communication research. Whatis questionable is the political project that makes theteaching and research of communication in the regiona tight explanatory system in which the chief authorstaught are the leaders of the same Latin American acad-emy of communication.

The caudillo—a tragic figure in the imaginationof Latin American political development—is by nomeans exhausted in the sphere of politics. Within ourinstitutions, including those involved in academics andresearch, one may find the presence of certain chiefsand leaders, as well as clientelistic practices whichallow them to maintain their influence and, worse, tovalidate and extend this phenomenon of dominance.

Despite efforts made by ALAIC to promote thedevelopment of a Latin American community of com-munication teaching and research, the number of com-munication scholars and researchers that regularly par-ticipate effectively in its activities is very low. SeveralLatin American researchers have objected to the incip-ient internal democracy of ALAIC. Even in the recentelections conducted at the Fifth Seminar of ALAIC inCaracas, Venezuela (2009)—which should haveoccurred in 2008 at the Ninth Congress—only 150members voted (the majority via the Internet) and for asingle ticket. Unfortunately, ALAIC postponed a cru-cial self-criticism. Now, the potential for generationalchange is minimal. Caudillism prevented the transitionto an indispensable stage of institutional maturity. It is

essential to move from a “battle for reconstruction”towards building a genuinely democratic and institu-tional life.

FELAFACS

The sustained growth achieved by FELAFACSduring the 1980s largely resulted from the work doneby some of its founding members, those performingteaching, administrative, and research duties in schoolsand faculties of communication in some of the leadinguniversities of the Society of Jesus in Latin America,like the Universidad Iberoamericana, the InstitutoTecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Occidente(ITESO), both in Mexico, the Universidad Javeriana(Colombia), and the University of Lima. (Peru).

Over the years, the founders of FELAFACS, whoalso participated in the founding of some national associ-ations, also influenced these, just as had previouslyoccurred with at least three of the nine national associa-tions of communication in schools and universities affil-iated with FELAFACS: the National Council forTeaching and Research in Communication Sciences(CONEICC) in Mexico, the Colombian Association ofFaculties of Social Communication (AFACOM), and thePeruvian Association of Schools of Social Communica-tion (APFACOM). (The remaining national associationsaffiliated with FELAFACS are the Argentine Associationof Schools of Social Communication (AFAC), theBrazilian Association of Schools of SocialCommunication (ABECOM), the Dominican Associ-ation of Departments and Schools of Social Commun-ication (Adecom), the Panamanian Association of HigherEducation in Social Communication (ASPECOM), thePuerto Rican Association of Academic Programs forSocial Communication (APPACS), and the VenezuelanCouncil for Teaching and Research.) The influence ofthose associated with the Jesuit schools helped to pro-mote a Jesuit priest—Joaquín Sánchez from Colombia—as president of FELAFACS from 1990 to 1993.

In 1992, the seventh meeting of FELAFACS hadthe theme of “Communication, Identity, and LatinAmerican Integration.” In the days prior to the meet-ing, CONEICC also met, with both meetings organizedby Luis Núñez Gornés, the director of the UniversidadIberoamericana (Mexico), who, based on his planningwork and with the strong support of the “founders” ofFELAFACS, easily won the presidency of the federa-tion, assuming its duties in 1994. During his term(1994-2003) Núñez faced two crisis that rockedFELAFACS: first, the distancing of outstanding


Brazilian researchers, such as José Marques de Melo,Margarida Krohling, and Mary Inmacolata; and sec-ond, the reduction of funding by the Konrad AdenauerFoundation. The withdrawal of the Brazilians occurredduring the planning of the October, 2000 meeting inSao Paulo. Currently only one Brazilian university—the Methodist University of Sao Paolo, Brazil—remains affiliated with FELAFACS. The results fromthat difficult meeting influenced the directors of theKonrad Adenauer Foundation, who decided to gradual-ly reduce the grant awarded to FELAFACS. Dr. KarlaSpon became program director of the Media andDemocracy in Latin America program replacing FrankPriess, who took a senior post in the office of theFoundation in Mexico. FELAFACS represented onlyone of Spon’s priorities, who allocated considerableresources to the Program for Media and Democracy inLatin America, a network of expert consultants inAmerican propaganda.

In adverse conditions Teresa Quiroz, Peru’s mostoutstanding researcher who works at the University ofLima, became the president of FELAFACS. Quirozimplemented a plan to meet the demands of new times.FELAFACS, not exactly accustomed to austerity withthe generous contributions of the Konrad AdenauerFoundation, had to adjust. It moved the journalDiálogos de la Comunicación to the Internet and relo-cated the facilities of FELAFACS to the University ofLima. FELAFACS has organized 13 Latin Americanmeetings, most recently in October, 2009 at theUniversity of Havana in Cuba, where Alvaro Rojas,dean of the Faculty of Social Communication at theUniversidad Autonoma de Occidente, Colombia,became chairman of FELAFACS for 2010- 2013.

Other Agencies

In the mid 1980s, José Manuel de Pablos, a wellknown Spanish professor in the Faculty of InformationSciences at the Universidad de La Laguna, located inTenerife and the editor of Revista Latina deComunicación Social (http://www.ull.es/publica-ciones/latina) coordinated a group of faculty fromSpain who taught the first doctoral programs in com-munication for students from Latin America, mainlyfrom Mexico, Colombia, and Argentina. In 1996 on theinitiative of a group of Latin American doctoral stu-dents at the University of La Laguna and from the rec-ommendation of the first Jornadas Canarias-Américatwo projects emerged: the Revista Latina deComunicación Social and the second Jornadas

Canarias-América (in Cartagena de Indias). In 1997the First Biennial meeting Iberoamericana deComunicación occurred in Cartagena de Indias,Colombia, with the theme, The public media on thethreshold of the 21st century. Subsequent biennialmeetings took place at the University of La Laguna,Spain (1999); Universidad de Las Americas, Mexico(2001); El Salvador (2003); Tecnológico de Monterrey,Mexico (2005); University of Rosario, Argentina(2007); and Universidad Autonoma de Chihuahua,Mexico (2009).

On the initiative of some graduates of the doctor-al program at the University of La Laguna, as part ofthe fifth Biennial (2005), the Iberoamericana AcademicNetwork of Communication was created which willoffer doctoral programs in communication with someof the major Latin American universities.

ASICOM

Carlos Fernandez Colado, Mexico’s leading com-munications expert and former rector of the Universityof Celaya (Mexico), is president and chief sponsor ofthe Iberoamericana Communication Association[Asociación Iberoamericana de Comunicación] (ASI-COM). The Association collaborates in the Masters inCommunication and New Technologies with theUniversity of Oviedo in Spain and has recently con-cluded an agreement with the university and theMexican newspaper El Universal to offer a Masters inCyberjournalism (http://www.asicom.info/index.html).

CIAC

In 2009, at the Ninth Latin American Congress ofCommunication (IBERCOM), Latin American repre-sentatives of various agencies dedicated to communi-cation research and teaching founded the Iberoameri-can Confederation of Associations of CommunicationScience [Confederación Iberoamericana de Asocia-ciones Científicas de Comunicación], CIAC. Variousassociations participated at the founding assembly ofthis new entity: the Iberoamericana CommunicationAssociation [Asociación Iberoamericana de Comuni-cación] (ASSIBERCOM), ALAIC, FELAFACS, andthe Lusófona Federation of Communication Sciences[Federación Lusófona de Ciencias de laComunicación] (LUSOCOM). In addition, representa-tives of other communication associations participated,including the Argentina Federation of Communication(FADECCOS), the Bolivian Association ofCommunication Researchers (ABOIC), the BrazilianFederation of Scientific and Academic Associations of


Communication (SOCICOM), the Spanish Associationof Communication Researchers (AE-IC), the MexicanAssociation of Communication Researchers (AMIC),and the Portuguese Association of CommunicationSciences (SOPCOM).

José Marques de Melo was named president ofthis new partnership, which began with full support ofthe presidents of the various Latin American organiza-tions such as Erick Torrico (ALAIC). The headquartersof CIAC will be located in Sao Paulo, which will alsohost the “First World Conference of Latin AmericanCommunication Research” and the “First Iberoameri-cana Forum for Graduate Communication Study,”activities planned for the 2010-2011.

Publications

From the mid-1980s, FELAFACS sponsored anetwork of Iberoamericana journals, which bringstogether some of the major Latin American print publi-cations specializing in communication issues, such asOficios Terrestres, Intersecciones/Comunicación,Nexos de la Cultura Bahiense, Temas y Problemas dela Comunicación (Argentina); Punto Cero, Aportes dela Comunicación y la Cultura (Bolivia); Comunicaçãoe Sociedade, Comunicação e Educação, Bibliotecono-mia e Comunicação, Pensamiento ComunicacionalLatino-americano, INTERCOM—Revista Brasileña deComunicação, Comunicación UPB (Brazil); Signo yPensamiento, Ojo de Buey (Colombia); Arandu,Chasqui (Ecuador); Comunicar: Revista de Educaciónen Medios de Comunicación, Analisi, Comunicación ySociedad (Spain), Convergencia, Comunicación ySociedad, Revista Mexicana de Comunicación,Estudios sobre las Culturas Contemporáneas,Tecnología y Comunicación Educativas, Versión,Estudios de Comunicación y Política (México);Diálogos de la Comunicación, Contratexto (Perú);Comunicación: Estudios Venezolanos de Comunica-ción, Revista Predios, Revista de Literatura Hispano-americana, Anuario ININCO (Venezuela); and In-mediaciones de la Comunicación (Uruguay). Most ofthese magazines have disappeared and some, such asDiálogos, are now only published online.

The first web magazine in Iberoamerica dedicatedto communication is Razón y Palabra, which a teamfrom the Tecnologico de Monterrey Campus Estado deMexico has published on the Internet (www.razonypal-abra.org.mx). The second web magazine is Latina, byJosé Manuel de Pablos at the Universidad de La Lagunain Tenerife (http://www.ull.es/publicaciones/latina/).

3. Conclusion: A strange paradox

Several Latin American communication scholarsand researchers have aspired to extend their political-administrative career at the International Association forMass Communication Research (IAMCR). At the orga-nization’s 40th anniversary meeting (in Oaxaca,Mexico), the meeting’s planner, Carmen Gomez Mont, aleading Mexican researcher and then Director of theSchool of Communication at the Universidad Ibero-americana, sought a leading position in the IAMCR.Notwithstanding the planning work and the substantialbudget for the Congress, Gomez Mont failed to secureelection to the managers of the IAMCR, composedmainly of U.S. and European scholars and researchers.The Brazilian researcher César Bolano, current presidentof ALAIC, served as treasurer of the IAMCR in recentyears, but without access to accounts and funds of thatorganization. The most recent conference at the IAMCR(Mexico, 2009), aimed to position certain LatinAmerican leaders—those identified with the “politicaleconomy of communication” study—in the group ofdecision-makers who will determine the future directionof the IAMCR. Regardless of the interests of those par-ticular researchers, one should ask what benefit will thepromotion of those academics and researchers fromLatin America within IAMCR have for the larger LatinAmerican academy of communication.

Today the emerging Latin American academy ofcommunication is undergoing a profound transition tothe digital present. The uncertain outlook has definite-ly caused great confusion in the older generations ofscholars and researchers of communication, who fearthat they have lost the authority to diversify and multi-ply the sources of knowledge. The crisis definitely willnot be solved by creating new associations with thesame people and leaders, replicating the same patterns.The crisis can be solved if and only if the LatinAmerican academy of communication undertakes anindispensable self-criticism. That is, without a doubt,the first step.

References and Additional Reading

Althusser, L. (1981). La filosofía como arma de la revolu-ción. México: Cuadernos Pasado y Presente.

Biscal, M. (2001, julio). La nueva escena y el comunicadorsocial. Diálogos de la comunicación, No. 62. Lima:FELAFACS.

CONEICC. (1986). Diagnóstico de la enseñanza de lacomunicación social en México. México: CONEICC.


Dorfman, A. (1980). Reader´s nuestro que estás en la tierra:Ensayos sobre el imperialismo cultural. México:Editorial Nueva Imagen.

Dorfman, A., & Mattelart, A. (1971). Para leer al PatoDonald. Comunicación de masa y colonialismo.México: Siglo XXI.

Esteinou, J. (1979). El estudio materialista de la comuni-cación de masas. Cuadernos del TICOM, No. 1.México: UAM Xochimilco.

Esteinou, J. (1980a). Aparatos de comunicación de masas,Estado y puntas de hegemonía. Cuadernos delTICOM, No. 6. México: UAM Xochimilco.

Esteinou, J. (1980b). La sobredeterminación social de losaparatos de consenso de masas. Cuadernos delTICOM, No. 4. México: UAM Xochimilco.

Esteinou, J. (1981). El surgimiento de los aparatos de comu-nicación de masas y su incidencia en el proceso deacumulación de capital. Cuadernos del TICOM, No.10. México: UAM Xochimilco.

Esteinou, J. (1983). Los medios de comunicación y la con-strucción de la hegemonía. México: Nueva Imagen.

Esteinou, J. (1984). Las tecnologías de información y la con-fección del Estado ampliado. Cuadernos del TICOM,No. 30. México: UAM Xochimilco.

FELAFACS. (1982). La formación universitaria de comuni-cadores sociales en América Latina. México:FELAFACS-ITESO.

FELAFACS. (n.d.) Historia. Retrieved March 30, 2010 fromhttp://www.felafacs.org/felafacs_historia.php?rg=

Fuentes Navarro, R. (1992). Un campo cargado de futuro: elestudio de la comunicación en América Latina.México: FELAFACS-CONEICC.

Fuentes Navarro, R. (2005). El campo académico de lacomunicación en México como objeto de análisisauto-reflexivo. In J. C. Lozano (Ed.), La comunicaciónen México: Diagnóstico, balances y retos. México:CONEICC/ITESM.

Gargurevich, J. (1999, March). De periodistas a comuni-cadores. Diálogos de la comunicación, No. 54. Lima:FELAFACS.

Gobbi, M. (2006, June). Aportes pioneiros: Um breve res-gate da comunicação na América Latina. RevistaLatinoamericana de Ciencias de la Comunicación,No. 4, 54-75. Brazil.

Gobbi, M. (2008). A batalla pela hegemonia comunicacionalna América Latina. Brasil: Universidade Metodista deSao Paolo-UNESCO.

Jaramillo, E. (2004). CIESPAL. 45 años de influencia pio-nera y fecunda en el mundo de la comunicación.Chasqui, 86. Retrieved October 7, 2009 fromhttp://chasqui.comunica.org/86/jaramillo86.htm

Krohling, M. (2004). Editorial. Revista Latinoamericana deCiencias de la Comunicación, No. 1. Brazil: ALAIC.

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López Veneroni, F. (1989). Cinco puntos para una crítica dela ciencia de la comunicación. Revista Mexicana deComunicación, No. 8. México. 1989.

Marques de Melo, J. (1984). La investigación latinoameri-cana en comunicación. Chasqui, 11. Ecuador: CIES-PAL.

Marques de Melo, J. (2002). La reconstrucción de unasociedad latinoamericana. Diálogos de laComunicación, No. 34. Lima: FELAFACS.

Marques de Melo, J. (2004). Los tiempos heroicos: La for-mación de la comunidad latinoamericana de cienciasde la comunicación. Revista Latinoamericana deCiencias de la Comunicación, No. 1. Brasil: ALAIC.Marques de Melo, J. (2007). Entre el saber y el poder.Pensamiento comunicacional latinoamericano.México: UNESCO.

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cación. In F. Fernández, & M. Yépes (Eds.),Comunicación y teoría social: Hacia una precisión dereferentes epistemológicos. México: UNAM.

Prieto, F. (2008). 48 años de las escuelas de comunicación enel mundo. Códigos. Revista de Ciencias de laComunicación, No. 1, tercera época. México:Universidad de las Américas.

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Sánchez, E. (1988). Investigación y comunicación enAmérica Latina en tiempos neoliberales. Tres comu-nicólogos debaten. Revista Mexicana deComunicación, No. 37. México.

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The editors of COMMUNICATION RESEARCH

TRENDS would like to thank Fernando GutiérrezCortés, Departamento de Comunicación, Tecno-lógico de Monterrey, Campus Estado de México forhis help in soliciting the manuscripts and CristianaAlvarez of Santa Clara University for assistancewith the translation.

1. A Look Back: A Brief Account of

Audiovisual Production in Colombia

An investigation into Colombian cinema bears astrong resemblance to the cinema production of thatcountry. Both are marked by a general unfamiliaritywith what preceded them; both are incipient but moreimportant than the general public estimates; and bothlose their impact when fragmented or not communicat-ed to others.

National cinema has always been subject to theebb and flow of cultural politics of a state that goesfrom little support for the film industry to not support-ing it at all, and back again to providing some help. Thepromotion of the industry has not been enough, eventhough we must recognize that in the last years this sit-uation has improved a little thanks to Law 814 in 2003(the “Cinema Law”), which for the first time regulatesand promotes cinema activity in the country.

The public and Colombian cinema have under-gone a relationship marked by encounters and dis-agreements, mutual convenience and the ongoing com-plaints of audiences facing the combination of cinemareality and violence that appears in Colombian cinema.This has led to the public’s inability to connect with thestories that the national cinema presents.

In the first half of the 20th century, Colombian cin-ema took inspiration from Colombian literature. Thisgave it characteristics similar to that literature: bucolic,local, romantic, with high doses of nostalgia for thecountryside (especially in the transition from rural tourban areas, which began in the fifties with a massivemigration to the cities). These characteristics clearlyappear in works of literature such as María by JorgeIsaacs; in 1922 this became the first movie in Colombiancinema (Máximo Calvo, director). In these early years,other movies that claim the “campesino” style includeAlma Provinciana (Félix Rodríguez, 1925), Allá en eltrapiche (Roberto Saa, 1943), and Flores del valle(Máximo Calvo, 1941). Unfortunately for the history ofColombian cinema, many of the early movies were lostor have deteriorated in family or personal archives, andtoday none of these copies are conserved due to the lack

of state policies on archives and document conservation,policies that took form only in 1986.

Between the first years and the 1940s, Colombiancinema dedicated itself to designing an idealized imageof the country through a nostalgic cinema featuringrural values, traditional customs, and folklore. Between1922 (the year of the first production) and 1940,Colombian cinema released 13 movies featuring thesethemes alone. From the 1950s only five productionsremain, none of them representative of the nationalfilm history; only in 1965 did the first milestone innational film making occur, with the exhibition of themovie El Rio de las tumbas (Julio Luzardo, 1965), apolitical film of good technical quality and storytelling.This movie preceded another big production Pasado elmeridiano (José María Arzuaga, 1967), which accord-ing to many critics, marked a pivotal point for the his-tory of Colombian cinema.

In the 1960s and 1970s the influence of interna-tional movements such as Italian Neo-realism, theFrench New Wave, and the Brazilian Cinema Novobecame evident in Colombian cinema. A committed andactivist film movement, with Marxist political influenceand a greater tendency to documentary, introduced anew group of young filmmakers educated abroad. Theybrought to the big screen “complaint stories,” inspiredby internal conflicts and social inequalities.

The 1980s manifested the need in Colombia tobuild a national film industry, even over the objectionsof a wide range of critics and aesthetic concerns. Somegood movies had to share space with a variety of filmsof the so-called “popular cinema,” which sought to reachthe public with light products, ranging from the purelyentertaining to the grotesque. Its main purpose was tobuild up a Colombian film tradition that a mass audiencewould enjoy, through a simple narrative technique withlow technical costs—a cheap film that would achievegood results. Some Mexican movies of great commer-cial impact in Latin America such as Sor Tequila,Capulina, and La India María compounded this phe-nomenon by highly influencing the Colombian industry.The Mexican industry’s success generated similar storiesin Argentina and Brazil (pornochanchada). The big dif-


Research on Colombian Cinema

Jerónimo León Rivera Betancur

Universidad de La SabanaDirector of the Iberoamerican Network for the Study of Audiovisual Narratives

ference for Colombian cinema against other LatinAmerican output was a very tentative initiative toinclude sexual ingredients in a conservative society.

In the 1990s the number of films produced in ayear decreased considerably. This was in part due to theclosure of FOCINE (the state enterprise dedicated tothe promotion of the film industry in Colombia).However, this low production coincided with the pro-duction of some of the best movies in the history of thecountry such as La estrategia del caracol (SergioCabrera, 1993), La gente de la Universal (FelipeAljure, 1993) and Confesión a Laura (Jaime Osorio,1990). (One should not seek a causal link betweenthese events.) Since the launch of the new law regard-ing cinema, the film industry in Colombia has experi-enced a boom characterized by the production of morethan 10 movies a year, with more public assistance tomovie theaters and an increase of film premieres on tel-evision. This latter increase arises from the support thatprivate TV channels give to Colombian films. RCN, forexample, created a division called RCN Film dedicatedto investing in the executive production of films. Thishas benefitted the film industry in terms of marketingand promotion, though it has not proven as beneficialto film narrative, which has been affected by an aes-thetic of television drama. However, this rate of pro-duction, speaking in terms of the industry, is still fairlypaltry compared with other countries in the region suchas Brazil, Mexico, and Argentina. Ticket sales are com-pletely inadequate since, for example, Colombia’shighest-grossing films in history barely reached a littlemore than a million viewers and since 1996 (the year oflaunch of the industry) only 19 films reached the mini-mum audience of 200,000. A look at 2006, which is themost successful year so far for Colombian films, showsthat the national cinema box office reported 2,807,000viewers out of a total of more than 20 million total cin-ema viewers, or only 13.8% (according to data to 2007from the Fundación Proimágenes en Movimiento,which administers the cinema law). In the same periodwe find more dramatic cases, such as in 1997 and 1999,where the box office for local films did not constitute1% of the total cinema admissions, a situation similarto the consistent figures before 1990, although there isnot much hard data about this issue.

Recent years have generated much optimism and,certainly, the film industry in Colombia is growing lit-tle by little; yet we must be realistic in affirming thatwe have only changed the diapers to enter a period ofearly childhood in Colombian film.

2. The Study of Colombian Cinema

It is important to clarify, first of all, that the infor-mation presented below does not constitute a “state ofthe research” done in Colombia and other countries onColombian film, but rather a description of some ofworks published on this issue, intersected, obviously,by government policies of research encouragement andsupport. This provision could serve as input for a studyof these things, which not only identify which and howmany studies have occurred but also report the resultsand the methods used to address the study objectives,as well as the main topics studied. Such a report wouldhelp to avoid the repetition of similar works, whichoften take no account of their direct antecedents.

There has been little research on film inColombia, in fact less than what academics mightthink, though, in recent years, interesting initiatives tocompile what has been achieved in this way haveemerged. It is frustrating to discover almost a com-monplace in research projects that “in Colombia noth-ing has been done in audiovisual research.”(Personally, when I serve in juries in competitions atthe local or national level for assessment of undergrad-uate and master’s theses, I note that the citations usedusually refer to international authors, some LatinAmerican, but only a couple of Colombian authors.The research projects undertaken in Colombia rarelyappear as background for future national research onsimilar topics.) The responsibility for this lack ofknowledge about what has been achieved in researchdoes not rest solely on the researchers, but also on the(increasing) efforts in classifying the material inColombia—the results of investigations which couldfind publication in books and articles.

In recent years, however, there have been somegood and important initiatives to promote audiovisualresearch and raise awareness about what has been done.We should acknowledge the work that entities such asthe Ministry of Culture and the Mayor of Bogotá havedone. Similarly, we have inventories of the the work ofinstitutions like the Muséo Nacional de Colombia andthe Bogotá District Cinematheque, as well as the pres-entation of the 12th Annual Ernesto Restrepo TiradoHistory Lecture, which in 2008 had the theme “ver-sions, subversions, and representations of Colombiancinema: Recent investigations.” Similarly, we find theimportant database of “Colciencias” (DepartamentoAdministrativo Colombiano para el Fomento de laCiencia y la Tecnología) which lets you view the titlesof research in all fields of knowledge in the country. For


this review, we conducted a thorough search of theresearch on Colombian film in areas of communicationsand the arts. The database does have a major drawback:it only mentions the names of the projects, without anypossibility of knowing the contents and results of thesestudies. Magazines like Extrabismos and Kinetoscopiohave also carried out reviews of research into film inColombia. All of them were taken as the basis of theinformation in this text.

One of the major difficulties in a review such asthis arises with the thin line between film criticism andhistory, since many of the most important books on thesubject of national cinema and its history do not rest onresearch but on criticism or film appreciation, whichslightly reduces the scientific impact. In addition toaddressing the major international theoretical issueswhich deal with related subjects of film studies and thevisual image, one could say that the vast majority offilm studies in Colombia are based on two emblematicauthors who have addressed the issue of film history inColombia: Hernando Martinez Salcedo Pardo andHernando Silva. The vast majority of the works probedhave as a reference the works of these importantauthors, whose work was essentially between the1970s and the late 1990s in examining the differentperiods of Colombian cinema and understanding a lit-tle better whether we can speak of a Colombian filmstyle in the strict sense of the word.

In 1978 Hernando Martinez Pardo publishedHistoria del Cine Colombiano, which first compiledthe main Colombian milestones and has become anindispensable book for those who wish to draw differ-ent historiographies of national cinema. That noted,we cannot ignore the major French film critic GeorgesSadoul (1973) who briefly referred to Colombian film.The work of Martinez Pardo is the most important his-torical record of hits in national filmography. It consti-tutes an important analysis of the development andevolution of cinema in Colombia, so much so thatmore than 30 years later a work that updates or sup-plements the tracking and analysis that Martinez didhas not yet appeared.

Meanwhile, in the early 1980s, Hernando SalcedoSilva (1981) offered an interesting collection and analy-sis of the Colombian silent cinema period, tracing itfrom the first signs of cinema in the country (two yearsafter the invention of the cinema), through the first fea-ture films in the 1920s, reaching the late 1940s. Hiswork combines anecdotes about the film activity in thecountry with an interesting approach to a periodization

of cinema in Colombia. In this last category its rankingof the critical periods in Colombia and their relation-ships to newspaper reports, film appreciation, literarycriticism, and scholarship stand out. The film chroniclesof Hernando Valencia Goelkel (1974), one of the mostimportant film critics of the country, provides a bench-mark that appears frequently in later studies. It providesnot only the chronicles but also important documenta-tion about the cinema of the period in which it was writ-ten, taking into account the important career of itsauthor, who began this task in the early 1950s.

The work of these authors is very important, butunfortunately many theoretical investigations on thesubject of Colombian cinema do not go beyond thesereferences, and it is clear that each new project does notknow much about its direct antecedents, which has ledto repeatedly addressing the same issues regardless ofthe findings of similar initiatives. This situation hasgenerated a great ignorance of what is researched atvarious institutions as well as a general feeling thatnothing has been done on film research in Colombia.

Apart from the books mentioned before, we mustconsider other less widely used texts such as Valverde(1978), with its important testimonial collection ofsome of the most important figures of the Colombianfilm, and Laurens (1988), which makes some importantcontributions from the historiography of the period butmainly from criticism. Several compilations of texts ofimportant Colombian critics have appeared, such as thethree volumes of Alvarez (1988, 1992, 1998), whichinclude chapters collecting some of his work publishedin the newspaper El Colombian, on the issue ofColombian cinema. Other important compilation booksare Ramos (1982) and Osorio (2005). Both works col-lect articles already published by their authors; in thesecond case it is very important to acknowledge theauthor’s intention to take an historical approach to theselection of certain articles so that it is not just a com-pilation text. The compilation of major articles byCaicedo (1999), a novelist and film critic of the caleñofilm, deserves a special mention as well. He hasbecome a cult author, who throughout the 1970s direct-ed the magazine Ojo al cine and whose work of filmcriticism was picked up by friends and filmmakers LuisOspina and Sandro Romero. From a thematic point ofview, one can find books such as Sanchez (1987) onfilm violence, which does not constitute an analysis ofthe topic, but provides an important resource forresearch by presenting the transcripts of the originalscripts of four of the most important Colombian films


on the subject. Despite its nascent state, we must rec-ognize that what has appeared contributes much morethan what people have usually estimated. We shouldalso recognize a great evolution between the first aca-demic papers, which are very akin to the critics wheredata alternates with opinions, and the later ongoinginvestigations, with their greater scientific rigor andmore appropriate methodologies for the study ofnational film culture, drawing on disciplines as diverseas history, sociology, literature, linguistics, and com-munication, among others.

According to the Colombian historian and criticOswaldo Osorio, it could be said that “what has beenwritten about the film in the country does not even cor-respond, as it would be logical, to the slow and episod-ic dynamics of film production, but its process has beeneven more sluggish” (2008a, p. 6).

3. Research Interests

Clearly, however, a renewed interest in researchrelated to national cinema has now emerged, fueled bygrowing interest in film production in Colombia and bythe rise of Colombian professionals studying for theirMasters and Doctorates in this field at (mostly foreign)universities. According to Pedro Adrián Zuluaga “If inthe ’60s the practice of cinema in Colombia was hit bythe return of directors formed outside their country,something will happen, or is already happening in thefield of audiovisual studies” (Osorio, 2008a, p. 4).Reviewing the titles of the studies that we have inven-toried in the aforementioned collections, we find alarge interest in the topics of (a) periods of Colombianfilm, (b) the relationship between film and industry inColombia, (c) the work of auteurs, (d) the documen-tary, and (e) film criticism and film societies.

A. Periods of Colombian cinemaPerhaps the most studied period in the history of

Colombian cinema is the pioneer one. Scholars fromdisciplines such as history, communication, and soci-ology have taken this approach, which obviously con-stitutes a crossing of interesting paradigms, seen oftenin interdisciplinary studies. In addition to the texts byLaurens (1988), Valencia (1974), Salcedo (1981), andRamos (1982), we see other initiatives that study par-ticular periods. As noted, the first pioneers of cinemareceive the most attention, without a doubt. This sub-ject interests Edda Pilar Duque (1988, 1992). In thesetexts, Duque explores the beginnings of Colombiancinema with reference to the activities of film direc-

tors, as well as to the efforts of early exhibitors, high-lighting among others the figure of Camilo Correo, thefounder of the oldest cinema chain that still exists inColombia, Procinal.

Along the same line we find some texts that aimto go beyond the storage of important archival materi-al to propose more careful analysis; cultural or educa-tional institutions (national or regional) primarily spon-sor these studies. In this regard we have work byGonzález and Nieto (1987) examining 50 years of“talkies” from the Acevedo archive; by Nieto andRojas (1992) on the Olympia film group and the DiDomenico family, a work funded by the ColombianFilm Heritage Foundation; by Atehortúa (1999) on thelarger cultural impact of early film experience; byLópez (2008) examining the mixed background of theculture of “Manizales,” a work sponsored by the insti-tute for Culture and Tourism of Bogota; and byCadavid (2006) on the visual memory of Colombia infilm, released by the University of Antioquia press.

On the period of the “surcharge law” [basically,the 1970s, named for a 1972 law that affected filmcompany organization and production policies —ed.], a number of books analyze the audiovisualproducts made under the policies of FOCINE: anedited volume by Cinemateca Distrital (1982) specif-ically on the effects of the law and Restrepo (1989)on the short- and medium-length films of the period.On the cinema of the 1980s one finds fewer researchstudies; among them it is interesting to point out theautobiography of Gustavo Nieto Roa, Una vida depelícula (1997). The book provides an inside look ata kind of autobiography often overlooked in thecountry, with a focus on commercial and popular cin-ema, whose main representative is the author of thebook and whose accomplishments are so importantthat we speak of nietorroismo to refer to theColombian comic film directed to the general public.Of the approaches to this issue, perhaps the mostimportant as an input for researchers in the field isthe collection assembled by the FundaciónPatrimonio Fílmico Colombiano (2005), Largo-metrajes colombianos en cine y video 1915-2004, animportant compilation that includes not only refer-ences to documentary and fiction films in the historyof Colombia but also synopses, some data concerningproduction, and brief critical comments on some ofthe films. Here we see a beginning of work from theuniversities by research groups.


B. The relationship between cinema and industryin Colombia

This subject is also outlined in some texts. Somebooks refer to the subject of legislation on cinema.Besides the brochures and information on the law ofcinema, Suárez (1988) specifically discussesColombian legislation on cinema; more economic detailappears in the studies published in Convenio AndrésBello/Ministerio de Cultura/ Proimágenes en Movi-miento (2003). Rey (2003) examines cultural policiesand trends in cinema in Evocar la vida: Contextos yvariaciones en el cine latinoamericano reciente, a piecebased on a conference given at the Museum of Fine Artsin Houston in September, 2003.

Despite the absence of many books on the sub-ject, this topic appears over and over in the calls forresearch conducted on the subject of film and in thesisprograms in communication and economics. Alongthese lines, Acosta (2008, p. 34) found 13 papers relat-ed to this issue in the country. Along with the projectsrelated to the history of Colombian cinema (19 proj-ects) such research addresses the more common inter-ests in Colombia, many of them having a very strongpresence of conflict issues, violence, and cinema. Thisinterest appears more strongly in studies from the U.S.academy where we can find over a dozen papers on thetopic of violence in Colombian and Latin Americancinema. The studies made by American universitiesshow very important details about Colombian filmfrom an outside perspective; these include the work ofSuarez (2005, 2008a, 2008b), Caro (2006, 2008),Kantaris (2007, 2008) and Lopez (2000, 2003).

C. The work of auteursWhen it comes to the work of auteurs, the films of

Victor Gaviria, with their neo-realistic character andquasi-documentary nature, strongly related to contem-porary urban violence in the country, receive a greatdeal of interest. The historical, social, and stylistic rel-evance has captured the attention of researchers; there-fore, we can find interviews and analysis of his films inRuffinelli (2002) which, according to the criticOswaldo Osorio “is the most complete treatment thathas been done on the Antioquian director, addressinghis visual universe, literary themes, and methods fromseveral perspectives: Criticism, analysis, interviews,and testimony of its employees” (Osorio, 2008b). Hiswork has a powerful attraction to researchers from U.S.universities who have discussed the issue ofColombian cinema—for a list, see Suárez (2008b).

This is why we can find studies of his work publishedin Venezuela (Dunno Gottberg, 2003), as well as twointerviews made with Gaviria (2002; Driver &Jennings Tweddell, 2008). In addition there are studiessuch as the doctoral thesis by Jácome (2006) and theanalytical work on the issue of the “disposable humancondition” made by Jáuregui and Suárez (2002) start-ing from the analysis of the characters in threeColombian films, where issues such as the objectifica-tion of the individual and the loss of their human dig-nity in the term “disposable” is explored. Wilson(2007) explores Gaviria’s film, Rodrigo D No Futuroand offers a comparison between the film Umberto Dby the Italian neorealistic director Vittorio De Sica andthe film by Víctor Gaviria.

On the cinema of violence in Colombia, as wellas touching the work of Gaviria, Kantaris (2008) pub-lished an article on urban cinema and violence inColombia, and Quintero (2007) investigates Gaviria’swork in his doctoral thesis at Wayne State University.Other auteurs who have received academic attentionrelate more to the subject of the documentary, which Iwill mention in the next section.

D. The documentaryThe theme of the documentary is particularly

important for Colombia, since these films are particu-larly important in the 1970s, starting from the interestof the filmmakers to denounce the country’s socialproblems and to make an important contribution tocommunity support. The documentary of the 1970s ischaracterized, as already mentioned, by the politicaltendencies of the left and the almost militant position insupport of the communities affected by social problemsin Colombia.

It is important to note that, unlike film, documen-tary production is not centralized in Colombia. Themost important schools of documentary filmmakers inColombia have emerged in Cali in the 1970s andMedellín in the 1980s Important initiatives have alsoemerged with projects from the Colombian Caribbeancoast, and of course, from Bogotá. The development ofthe documentary in recent years has also been strength-ened by the appearance of film schools like theNational University in Bogotá and the impetus givenby the school of documentary filmmakers from Calithat has grown under the School of SocialCommunication at the Universidad del Valle.

Gender has also received support from regionaland national television, and in this regard we find proj-ects of documentary series such as Yuruparí (promoted


by Audiovisual, the state capital firm in the 1980s),Rostros y rastros of the Universidad del Valle de Caliand Muchachos a lo bien of the Regional Corporationand the Social Foundation in Medellin. These projects,among others, have not only had a major impact on themomentum of the documentary, but also in recordingthe history and stories of the country and its regions.

In the order of ideas, research on documentaryhas also gained great significance and has receivedgreater interest in research projects in the country.Among the works we find books such as Gutiérrez andAguilera’s (2002) study of the Colombian documentaryand more than a dozen graduate theses related to thetopic. It should be noted that from the research groupsregistered in “Colciencias” several projects relate to thetheme of the documentary, although the number isprobably bigger than what has been reported.

E. Film criticism and film societiesCritics and film clubs in Colombia have not been

limited to their everyday work and, given the greatimportance of both movements in the country, havepublished some work on their craft, and the signifi-cance and limitations of what they do in a country likeColombia with its major problems of cultural policyand management. The memories of film critics’ meet-ings in Pereira appear in Ossa (1999); short stories andessays by film clubs promoted by the NationalAssociation of “Cineclubes,” in Colmenares (2003);works on and about journalistic film criticism, inPosada (1996) and Restrepo (1997).

4. Academic Research

To the panorama above we can add projects fund-ed by the universities of the country. These appear mar-ginalized by many of the compilations due to their lowprofile and little impact, resulting in a limited number ofbooks and articles available for search. Colciencias, themain government agency responsible for the promotionof research in Colombia has a database to register pro-duction research groups called GroupLac. GroupLacassembles lists of researchers, projects, products, andresearch groups by areas of knowledge and universities.If the registration of titles of research appears in thedatabase, though, it will only mention that they havebeen made or were made, but without further referencesto these studies we can only assume that the files will beon the shelves of universities with limited access. Tothis situation we must add the fact that ColcienciasColombia lists very little in regards to the promotion of

research from the social sciences or from the arts,because it channels its support primarily towards tech-nological innovation, towards experimentation in thehard sciences, and towards the neuralgic problems ofthe country where they have identified strategic inter-ests. Communication is obviously absent in the big pic-ture and film is only a little less so.

A review of the GroupLac database, withoutdoing an exhaustive check of the existence of the pub-lished results of the studies, shows projects related toColombian film from the faculties of arts, communica-tion, and social sciences. To search for what was inves-tigated in the film area, we conducted a search of theresearch groups that relate to communication, sociolo-gy, history, and visual arts, finding a total of 445research groups. In communication 95 groups appearin Colciencias, of which only 26 are recognized andgrouped by Colciencias in categories A, B, and C,according to their level of expertise and intellectualproduction. Of the 95 groups, only five have somelevel of output related to the subject of the study of filmfrom some perspective, although more than 10 declarefilm in their statements as their object of study.

The research group on Colombian communica-tion, culture, and citizenship of the National Universityof Colombia reports a research line in film history inthe 1970s and two projects related to the theme of film,but curiously none of them in relation to the 1970s. Theproducts are an article published in the journal Signo yPensamiento (Acosta, 1999) and a book published byGoliardos (Mora, 1999).

The Javeriana University of Bogotá has a groupworking on communication, media, and culture; it hasa line of investigation in culture and media narrativeand one which produced studies on narration inColombian film from 1950-2000 (Alba & Ceballos,2002) and two articles by Arias: “Cine y vida cotidianaen la Bogotá de los años veinte” (2007a) and “GlauberRocha: una estética (polítca) del cine” (2007b). Thegroup also presented a paper on nationalistic discoursein recent Colombian cinema at the Twelfth AnnualLecture of History Ernesto Restrepo Tirado in 2008.Similarly, we find listed the doctoral thesis of MaritzaCeballos of the Autonomous University of BarcelonaPuesta en escena de las pasiones en el cine. Tesis dedoctorado; 1998 – 2005,” [Staging the Passions at theMovies, 1998-2005]. Published in TDX (Theses andDissertations Online) in 2006, it forms the basis for twoarticles Ceballos, 2006a, 2006b).

At the University of La Sabana we find listed theMedia Research Center, which declares a line of


research that focuses on mass culture and culturalindustries with a study project called “Narratives of theconflict set up in Colombian cinema” developed bySandra Ruiz Moreno and Jerónimo Rivera Betancurbetween 2007 and 2009. The publications of the groupinclude articles on armed conflict and Colombian cine-ma (Ruiz, Escallón, Niño, Romero, & Rueda, 2007),characters in Colombian films (Rivera, 2007a), the his-tory of Colombian cinema (Rivera, 2007b), and cinemaas entertainment (Rivera, 2008).

In the city of Medellín the research group IMAGOhas developed two projects related to film. In the first,Jerónimo Rivera, Uriel Sánchez, and Jhon Jaime Osoriohave conducted research on the consumption habits andpreferences of the students of the first semester of com-munication in relation to the cinema and the contribu-tion of the former to their skills prior to their collegeentrance. The second project, undertaken by ErnestoCorrea and Jerónimo Rivera. was about the characters,the actions and the scenarios of the Colombian filmbetween 1990 and 2005. Among the projects listedappear papers for the meetings of the Latin AmericanFederation of Faculties of Communication (Felafacs,Bogotá, 2006), the Film Festival “Feria de las Flores deMedellín,” the VII Conference on Research at theUniversity of Medellín, and the 10th anniversary of theFaculty of Communication of the Catholic Universityde San Antonio in Murcia, Spain in 2007. We also findarticles on the film consumption patterns of students(Rivera, Osorio, & Sanchez, 2006a), images and sound(Rivera, Sanchez, & Osorio, 2006), villains inColombian movies from 1990 to 2005 (Lopera, 2007),the fragmented continuity between cinema fact and fic-tion (Correa, 2002), anecdotal cinema (Velez, 2007),and the fictional treatment of local events (López,2005). From the same center comes a book on film nar-rative (Correa, Rivera, Caminos, & Ruiz, 2008). It waspublished under the imprint of the University ofMedellín with the participation of research groups inColombia, Argentina, and Spain and came about as aresult of the VIII Conference on Research at theUniversity of Medellín.

Also at the University of Medellín, theCommunication and Identity group conducted a researchproject related to the topic of cinema: the representationof identities of Medellin in a documentary about the citybetween 1994 and 2005. Derived from this project andother works of the group, C. López (2008) wrote aboutidentity and industry in Colombian film, based on uni-versity practices, while A. López (2008) reports on the

documentary as a text in representing the city, a chapterof the book resulting from the journeys of investigationsof the University of Medellin.

The communication research center at theUniversity of Manizales has presented three film proj-ects: “Tropología del Cine. Metáfora, metonimia, ale-goría y símbolo en el cine de autor” [Film Tropology.Metaphor, metonymy, allegory and symbol in the art-house] (2008) and “Trabajo de analisis poético y retóri-co de tropos al interior del cine de autor contemporá-neo” [The work of poetic analysis and rhetorical tropeswithin the contemporary auteur cinema] and “Mitos yarquetipos en el cine contemporáneo occidental”[Myths and archetypes in contemporary Western cine-ma] (2007). The center has also published features onthe productions written by Carlos Fernando Alvaradofor the newspaper, Pagina, which from their titlescould be criticism or movie reviews rather thanresearch texts.

Out of all the research groups from historydepartments, we found one that relates history to visu-al sources from the National University of Colombia inMedellin. This group presents a tutorial on Italian neo-realism and a project planned to create a basis for con-sultation of audiovisual materials and theoretical liter-ature on image, film, and video to structure a line ofresearch in history and film. However, we do not knowin what state the project is, which was dated for 2006.It is worth noting that, although there are groups withtopics that could be studied by way of film such asidentity and cultural memory, we did not find any proj-ects listed from studies related to film and history.

Finally, I have the feeling there is a large under-count in the area of the arts. Out of 145 groups regis-tered in Colciencias, only 16 groups appear recognizedand updated. Some names of the groups suggest aninterest in cinema and audiovisual research, but onecannot know the details of their academic approaches.At the same time, we must recognize that the formatestablished by Colciencias favors scientific researchand many research groups in the area of film mix aca-demic research with artistic work. This explains whythey probably will not appear in light of the measure-ment rubric applied to them. In this regard, researchersin this area have complained in several academic sce-narios where Colciencias has previously made its pres-ence. However, we must recognize the existence ofsome projects that come from the area of arts. First, theresearch group, “Reflections on the production ofaudiovisual material” at the Manuela Beltran


University of Bogota presents three research projectson audiovisual production which has products relatedto the theme of film. These include the “Painted sce-narios of expressionist cinema” by Ricardo Guerra inthe seminar, “Let there be light: a journey through thehistory of cinematography photography” (2008) and“the use of film and audiovisual as a source for histor-ical research” by Juana Rubio in the AudiovisualFestival of “El Cerro de Guadalupe” (2008). There arealso some degree projects related to the topic of cine-ma. Some groups with names and lines of research thatare very interesting appear yet they do not provide anyinformation on projects. This is the case of the groups“Documentary Colombia” and “Kinos, perpetualmotion”” of the National University. This last one onlymentions the completion of a study in 2006 on filmtechnology. This situation also occurs with the researchgroup “History of the Colombian film” of theUniversity “Nueva Colombia,” which has no informa-tion recorded. The research group “Estudios de la ima-gen de la Universidad Jorge Tadeo Lozano de Bogotá”presents research in Colombia, 2007–2008, which hasno related information that has been published.

We know that beyond the borders of Colombia,some research dedicated to the theme of Colombiancinema exists. Yet there also exists a great ignorance inthe country about it, indicated by the small number ofreferences to this work—only some texts from master’sand doctoral study on literature or Latin Americanstudies from universities in the U.S. and Europe.

5. Professional Associations of

Researchers

If research in the field of audiovisual communi-cation, and particularly in the field of cinema, is emerg-ing, much more has the intention of researchers to val-idate similar studies or share knowledge with col-leagues and peers from other universities. Here, then,we must highlight the efforts (most of them isolated) ofsome groups of researchers who have tried to build ascientific community around the topic of communica-tion research.

First, we must mention Redicom, an associationof communication researchers convened from thePontificia Universidad Javeriana. Its main objective isto strengthen the academic field of communicationthrough research, development, and management;through the production and circulation of knowledge incommunication and culture; and through the ongoing

exchange of research projects and output of differentresearchers and groups, including the exchange andcirculation of publications, the creation of discussionforums on policy issues of communication and culture,the realization of joint research projects, and the pro-motion of events and possible academic programs.

In the Iberoamerican area, the IberoamericanaAudiovisual Narrative Research Network (INAV) has,since 2005, promoted research and academic exchangeamong media professionals of Latin America with acommon interest in the study of visual narratives.Among its main objectives, it looks to increase the pres-ence of the study of audiovisual narratives in the meet-ings of communication faculty and researchers in LatinAmerica, promoting the development of research inLatin American countries and generating commonmethodologies through discussion of research method-ologies in visual narratives. The network has 79 researchmembers from Spain, the USA, Mexico, Puerto Rico,Colombia, Ecuador, Brazil, Argentina, and Chile.

6. Conclusion

Much remains to be done but the road traveledhas already begun. It is clear, however, that the effortshave not been few but have been widely dispersed. Thefirst task should be, in the spirit of this article, the clas-sification and categorization of research made inColombia on the various aspects related to films fromdifferent sectors involved in the issue: state agenciesand academic and independent researchers. Such areview should, of course, set aside the projects imple-mented in other countries (mainly in the United States)for researchers interested in the Colombian and LatinAmerican cinema.

Anyway, we must recognize that this picture isprobably just an illusion because we know the titles ofresearch projects, papers, and books but we do not havemuch information on their content. Similarly, it is verypossible that there are many other projects not includ-ed here since they are only known in the institution thatsponsored them. So, after joining forces, theresearchers in the field should agree on certain lines ofinvestigation that permit them to develop this field ofstudy and exercise pressure for the support and promo-tion of policies to fund research, which from the stateare still very insufficient.

In conclusion, let me emphasize the words ofPedro Adrián Zuluaga, Colombia’s leading film critic“This wave of scholars is the call to produce newknowledge about a cinema like Colombia’s that has


always been there, like a dragon waiting to be awak-ened” (Zuluaga, qtd. in Osorio, 2008a, p. 4).

References

Acosta, L. (1999). El cine que mira a Bogotá: una panorámi-ca para comenzar. Signo Y Pensamiento, 35

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IntroductionThe present study offers an assessment of the reg-

ulatory implications of the adoption in Chile of digitalterrestrial television (DTTV, i.e., open digital televi-sion), particularly following the November, 2008 sub-mission in Congress of the draft presidential reformlaw to regulate all television (No. 18,838) and after theadoption of the Japanese ISDB standard in September,2009 in line with Brazil, Argentina, and Peru. Thisstudy applies to this vision of the entire television sys-tem, including its public policy, economic, industrial,technological, and social dimensions. In addition I willgive priority to the public’s perspective as to how digi-tization may enable them to access (or not) more andbetter television, at a reasonable cost, with more andbetter content developed locally.

This work has three parts. The first outlines thecontext of television in Chile, in terms of its social rel-evance and the changes in the business and productionmodels due to digitization. The second part presentsthree models of analysis that help manage the regulato-ry discussion: liberalism/restrictions (Curran & Seaton,1997), public service television, and parameters ofquality television for the various social actors and ana-lytic levels. Each of these applies to the present as wellas the historical reality of the legal frameworks ofChilean TV. This section also refers to the British sys-tem of DTTV—Freeview—whose success has much todo with a consistent and updated regulatory frame-work, one of which targets the common good. The thirdpart analyzes and assesses, based on the models anddetailed background in the previous sections, the legalreform project of the government to allow DTTV.

1. The Context

A. The importance of television Along with the radio in 2008, almost 100% of

Chilean households receive broadcast televison (TVA inits Spanish acronym, referring to terrestrial broadcast-ing, not to be confused with satellite distribution), com-

pared with only 90% of Chileans with mobile tele-phones. In contrast, an estimated 48% of people accessthe Internet (one of the highest rates in Latin America)and 30% of households receive pay TV. At the rate of anaverage of about three hours of viewing per capita perday, TVA provides the foundation of the notions of“reality” in the minds of the average Chilean. Thisoccurs not only through news programs, but in the mod-els and stereotypes in the genres of entertainment, aswell as the advertising messages that finance the entirepackage. Because of its massiveness and immediacy(which makes it very effective), TVA has attracted moreadvertising for decades: according to the ChileanAssociation of Advertising Agencies (ACHAP), in2008, it captured half of the advertising pie ($933 mil-lion), one of the highest ratios in history.

TVA is “open” because of the characteristics of itstransmission medium, the electromagnetic spectrum.First, the spectrum as a natural resource is freely avail-able. The sender needs only an antenna to transmit and,before digital technology, could not charge people whohad receivers; they, in turn, are accustomed to receiv-ing television content for free. Thus, broadcasters hadto find finance by third parties: advertisers, govern-ments, or sponsors. Second, the spectrum is finite:there is no room for an unlimited number of broadcast-ers, unlike what happens with other media, like print.Third, when not regulated, the use of the spectrumleads broadcasters to interfere with each other(McQuail, 1998; Wood, 1992).

For all these reasons, the received wisdom holdsthat the electromagnetic spectrum serves as a nationalasset for public use, franchised by specific criteria toindividuals or organizations selected by some mecha-nism, hopefully (but not always) unbiased. Countriesoften require certain compensations to the concession-aire in return for this privilege, which vary from coun-try to country (McQuail, 1998). In Chile, among otherthings, television broadcasters must allow a segment ofelectoral advertising at election time and ban obsceneor violent contents, subject to penalties by the NationalTelevision Council (CNTV).


Regulatory Implications of the Adoption

of Digital Television in Chile

Sergio Godoy Etcheverry, MBA PhD

Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile

B. DigitizationTV receivers in Chile cannot capture both analog

and digital signals, unless they add an adapter to con-vert from one format to another. But digital videoalready exists in the forms of DVDs, pay TV (whichrequires a decoder or set top box), and the Internet.TVA channels require a legal change to transmit withnew digital technology, since the public needs tochange their receivers or get a decoder. And contempo-rary societies assume that universal free access to TVhas become an acquired right, something that appliedto neither the Internet nor cable.

But apart from the change in the reception equip-ment, the digital formats amend the premises on whichthe industry built the conventional TV model.Digitization encodes images, sounds, and text using theprotocols of computers, thus not only allowing one tomix previously separate media (like news, music, TV,or movies) but also telecommunications, because wire-less and cable networks can transmit any kind of bina-ry data. This process of technological convergence liesat the heart of the switch from analog to digital, whichcorrelates today to mergers and acquisitions.

This means, first, that analog TVA no longer pro-vides the only type of television. Digital protocols allowrecourse to a wide range of delivery mechanisms and/or combine them. Thus, there are TV direct-to-homesatellite systems (DirecTV and Sky, for example), cablesystems (VTR, Zap, Telefónica), conventional terrestri-al broadcasting (TVA or open television), and broad-band Internet. In some respects, they complement eachother; in others, they replace network television. To dis-tinguish it from the “other” digitized television, wespeak of digital terrestrial television (DTTV), which isopen digital TV, transmitted using antennas located onplanet Earth (as opposed to transmission by satellitemounted antennas floating in space). The distinctionbetween DTTV and other television matters becausethey involve different viewing experiences for the pub-lic and also various operational and business models,although they often share the same screen at home.

C. The television business model: Deep changeThe business model of the TVA and its regulatory

framework is old. It is actually very similar to AMbroadcasting in the 1930s to the 1950s, with relativelyfew licensees (four nationwide, three in the regional cap-ital, Santiago). In general, channels developed most ofthe content they broadcast, the programming arranged ina grid, the spectrum distributed through a grant relation-

ship based on a general audience, and advertising estab-lished to raise finance. The amount and type of audienceattracted, as measured by a survey (electronic, in thiscase: the people meter) by a separate company,Time/Ibope, serves as the basis for advertising alloca-tion. The need to attract mass audiences encouragesoperators to imitate each other, with the consequent lossof program diversity and sense of few alternatives fromthe audience (Ishikawa, 1996; Godoy, 2000).

TVA filled seven channels (2, 4, 5, 7, 9, 11, and13) in the VHF band, with each license given to a dif-ferent operator since the existing law prevents the con-trol of more than one channel per operator. This varietyof operators (one state, three universities, and three pri-vate, although one university licensee ceded operationsto a business, controlled by the newly elected presi-dent, Sebastián Piñera) ensures reasonable levels ofeditorial quality and diversity, considering the limitedpossibilities of a middle-income small country likeChile (Godoy, 2006, 2000, 1999). The law has pre-vented the concentration of ownership that exists inother countries and media sectors; it also requires sta-tions to compete fiercely with each other for a share inthe advertising pie, with ratings based per minute (thisprevented the development of analog UHF channelsduring the 1990s—there was almost no interest forlicensing analog television in the UHF band availablesince 1990 because of difficulties in financing it: eachlicense requires the operator to compete and sell adver-tising in isolation without being able to merge channeloperations, Godoy, 1999).

Along with this traditional set-up, pay-TV alsooperates in Chile, funded largely by direct charge to theuser (and also marginally by advertising sales). As inmany countries, a single large company dominates payTV (VTR concentrated 71% of subscribers in 2007);the company provides subscribers with dozens of chan-nels, both general and specialized, with different pay-ment options depending on level of service for each ofthem (basic signals, Premium, and pay per view). TheVTR subscription revenues, totaling some $360 mil-lion in 2007 (equivalent to almost 80% of the revenuesof all broadcast channels together) have the addedbonus that subscriptions are more stable than advertis-ing sales.

Like Telefónica, VTR (Chile’s subsidiary ofGlobalcom) gets additional revenue through links toInternet telephony and broadband, and will add mobilephone service during 2010. This triple pack of telepho-ny, Internet, and television is the core business of these


companies, and the relationship of television incomewith respect to telephony and the Internet is about oneto ten. And while pay TV still has a theoretical ceilingof 65% to 70% of Chilean homes that have not yetsigned, broadcast or network television has nowhere togrow: There are no new homes to gain, and a couple ofdecades ago the advertising pie reached the GDP ratioobserved in developed countries (Godoy 2000; Tironi& Sunckel, 1993).

At the same time, despite the trend towards merg-ers and acquisitions, the television value chain isbecoming more complex and fragmented (Godoy2007, 2006; Aris & Bughin, 2005). The typical Chileanbroadcast channel creates and packages content (pro-gramming) and distribution systems but is not involvedin providing hardware (which now includes televisionsets, phones, PCs, notebooks, iPods, and otherdevices). Although there are specific examples of soapoperas and program formats exported or licensed tothird parties (some companies in Mexican, Brazilian,and Venezuelan television), the main Chilean channelsnormally produced programming solely for their ownuse. Only recent years have seen consistent efforts tobreak that trend with new reality shows, soap operas,and drama series. But today telecommunications andthe Internet let you jump from one to another of theselinks: YouTube, for example, does not require a pro-grammer/distributor like TVN, HBO, or Cinemax forthe videos to reach the public. Moreover, these toolsalso enable new dynamics within each step, buildingon the dynamics of Web 2.0 (that is, an Internet withactive users exchanging material, not just as a reposito-ry of documents, BCG, 2008).

In the field of professional television, this envi-ronment allows more flexible models of production,such as “360 degree production,” in which content canbe exploited through different and complementary win-dows, such as cinemas, DVDs, premium signals, gen-eral cable, and network TV. It also draws on the supportof technologies such as cell phones and the Internet toabstracts or lighter versions of the programs, polls, pro-motions, synopses, discussion areas, and the like. At allstages the producer can more actively integrate theaudience through interactive features, which digitiza-tion facilitates and also allows the capture of directpayments from the public (Aris & Bughin, 2005).

Thus, the convergent scenario increases competi-tion but also creates new opportunities. Even thoughtheir business model seems outdated in severalrespects, the TVA operators have the most expertise in

creating content for mass appeal in Chile. And by act oromission, the regulatory framework defined for DTTVaffects that.

2. Evaluation Parameters

This section discusses policy and analytic modelsthat help to frame the legal reforms under discussion.The first model, adapted from Curran and Seaton(1997), characterizes the broadcasting system accord-ing to the degree of liberality or restriction on the twomain areas that comprise regulatory action. The secondmodel follows the principle of public service televi-sion, a concept showing European influence in Chile,which justifies television regulation for the commongood. The third model spells out the parameters ofquality television, according to the different playersand levels, in order to visualize the different legitimateinterests, which it must reconcile to achieve or regulatea television system.

A. The Curran and Seaton Model:The liberal-restrictive axis

The model of Curran and Seaton (1997) providestwo essential regulatory axes that are usually regulatedin all or most media systems: the content and the eco-nomic/corporate interests (that is, the conditions formedia companies’ operations and finances). Both axesrange from a restrictive to a liberal pole, defining fourquadrants according to the scenario combining more orless regulatory restrictions on one or other axis. InChile, the system is mainly regulated by the NationalTelevision Council Law No. 18,838 (which regulatestelevision), the Law on National Television in Chile(TVN) No. 19,132, and the General Telecommunic-ations Law No. 18,168. The regulatory bodies consistof the National Television Council (CNTV), anautonomous and collegial constitutional body dedicat-ed to monitoring content and promoting quality pro-grams, and the Undersecretariat of Telecommunic-ations (SUBTEL), a technical body devoted to manag-ing the broadcast spectrum.

In their critique of the British media system dur-ing the Thatcher period, Curran and Seaton showed astrong contradiction between economic liberalism andeditorial restrictions, a scenario similar to Chile’s afterthe military coup of 1973. The freedom to develop amodern and dynamic British media industry also pro-duced a strong concentration of ownership that impov-erished the diversity of editorial views and ideologicalsystems, whatever the increase in channels and media.


In parallel, the Conservative government restrictedinformation on labor along political lines (Curran &Seaton, 1997).

Following this model, the evolution of the regula-tory framework of Chilean television from its origins tothe present day moves from the restrictive to the liberalquantrants (see Godoy, 2007). Decree Law No. 7039 of1958 was liberal on both dimensions: as with radio, TVwould be a private business without special control ofcontent. But that never happened. Only three universitychannels were authorized, and they were forbidden tosell political advertising. As in radio, the President ofthe Republic granted concessions at his discretion aftera technical report by the then Department of ElectricalServices. Although for different reasons, neither JorgeAlessandri (independent right, 1958-1964) nor EduardoFrei (centrist Democrat, 1964-1970) wanted to allowprivate television: Alessandri hated television, whileFrei tried to monopolize the glory of a modern televi-sion network and focused on creating the public TVN(Hurtado, 2007, 1989).

The subsequent Law No. 17,377 of 1970 imposedrestrictions on both dimensions, under the paternalisticprinciple “to educate, inform, and entertain” firstdeclared in 1923 by the BBC. Like Decree No. 7089 of1958 and Law No. 18,838 of 1989 (still in force), thelaw was passed at the last minute by the outgoing gov-ernment seeking to hinder its successor (in this case,the socialist Salvador Allende). That law also createdthe TVN public network (which de facto began the yearbefore) and the content regulator, the CNTV.

The military coup of 1973 involved heavy restric-tions on content, but the neoliberal economic modelimposed by Augusto Pinochet deregulated economicaspects, specifically businesses such as advertisingsales (an increase that offset losses from reduced statesubsidies to televison, first established in 1970). Fromthis period dates a couple of interesting instruments:the mandatory “cultural strip” (whereby the channelsdecided what to show and the state did not spend onepeso) and the CNTV competitive fund for quality pro-grams. The problem with this novel mechanism wasthat it had very little money: it exceeded one milliondollars only in 2005. (During the 1980s, a British par-liamentary committee, the Peacock Committee, seri-ously considered replacing the BBC by a similar mech-anism, Godoy, 2000).

The military regime promised private televisionin the Constitution of 1980, but took nine years toaccomplish that: the respective law (No. 18,838)

emerged the year after the opposition victory in thepresidential referendum of 1988, when there was nofurther point in the political control of the media. Tothis was added the surprise sale of the frequencies forchannels 4 and 9 (controlled by the state network TVN)to business supporters of the outgoing government(Acuña, Gutiérrez, & Puentes, 2007). However, theentire economic system had been converted to the neo-liberal paradigm during the previous decade, whichinvolved the modernization and privatization of themedia system and its financing through advertising(Tironi & Sunckel, 1993).

After the restoration of democracy, the govern-ment amended Law No. 18,838 only in 1992; itremains in force, persisting in controlling contentthrough the control of the CNTV, which is more loose-ly applied to pay TV. This is just one example of theobsolescence of the regulatory framework.

The emphasis on controlling content through thislaw is embodied in Article 1, which defines a “properfunctioning” of television in terms of a vague code todeliver desirable content. Unable to formulate thesedesirable norms, in practice the CNTV sanctions unde-sirable content defined in a separate Regulation (pri-marily pornography, excessive violence, and involvingminors in acts opposed to good morals, Acuña,Gutiérrez, & Puentes, 2007). In contrast, groups didreach consensus on the usefulness of the CNTV com-petitive fund for quality programming (Donoso, 2008;Godoy, 2005, 2007, Sierra, 2006).

This manifests the contradiction of such anarrangement: a more liberal economic system coupledwith a more controlled content, where an elite con-troller (like the BBC in 1923) assumes that it knowsbetter than the public what it can see. Although corpo-rate issues are less regulated than in the past, TVAlicensees face several hindrances in contrast to radiobroadcasters: remarkably, they cannot operate morethan one channel per service area. And it is difficult tolease or transfer the license to third parties. That doesnot happen in radio, where the broadcasters do not suf-fer these restrictions, nor are they supervised by CNTV.

B. The model of public service televisionThe second model, public service television, has

had considerable influence in the Chilean system.Although open to debate, its principles (even thoughnot expressly mentioned) have emerged in variousaspects of regulatory design. This section examines theconcept and its relevance in the Chilean context, and its


role in articulating strong public policy objectives forthe change to digital television.

The notion of public service TV in Chile. Inshort, this concept of European origin (and in force incountries such as Japan, Canada, Australia, Israel,India, and throughout Southeast Asia and the EuropeanUnion) means a system of television oriented to thecommon good, to the quality of life of the population(including entertainment), and to democratic coexis-tence, in contrast to sole control by the market and/oran authoritarian political power. This system offers thewidest variety of programs on national channels freelyavailable to all (Godoy 2007, 2000). While Chileansoften assume that public television comes only fromthe public TVN network (following the old cliché of“educate, inform, and entertain”), in practice there area number of institutions that have public service aims:

• The channels are national in scope, with freeaccess to all the inhabitants of the country; theyoffer a reasonable range of different programtypes (not all but several of which contribute to thedemocratic functioning and improved quality oflife of the public) ;

• There is editorial and corporate diversity amongthe operators (universities, both private andautonomous public);

• All operators must observe certain positive princi-ples of programming, outlined under the term “cor-rect operation” in Article 1 of Law No. 18,838;

• All television operators are subject to the control ofa regulator, the CNTV;

• The CNTV operates a competitive fund for qualityprograms (which reached a record high $7.9 mil-lion in 2009), open to any producer who has anagreement with any broadcaster with an affiliationwith TVA;

• Only televison falls subject to these specialarrangements.Although we might expect the TVA to move to

the liberal/liberal quadrant defined by the axes ofanalysis of Curran & Seaton, the experience of coun-tries like Britain suggests that the concept of publicservice TV typically moves to an increasingly frag-mented, commercialized, and convergent scenario. Aswith public works concessions in Chile (which havemultiplied exponentially the construction of roads, air-ports, and similar works), it is important not to losesight of the overall goals of the common good and tohave the common sense to accomplish them, takingadvantage of market logic, the new citizen media (with

the emerging Web 2.0), and the different actorsinvolved. The scenario also implies flexibility to adaptor exclude institutions that will become obsolete. Forexample, the British system merged all of the broad-casting and telecommunications regulatory bodies,which before operated separately. The result is a con-verged regulator, the Office of Communications(Ofcom), which restated the notion of public servicetelevision around complying with a series of overarch-ing purposes rather than maintaining a set of institu-tions. In this regard, and based on relevant internation-al experiences (see Brown & Picard, 2005; Iosifidis,Steemer, & Wheeler, 2005, Ofcom, 2005), the changeto digital should tend towards two main objectives inChile, formulated from the perspective of the user/citi-zen (Godoy, 2007):

• More and better television for Chileans: in tech-nical terms, this means access to all applicationsof digital technology at a reasonable cost andwithout discrimination: more channels, a sharperimage, mobile reception, interactive applications.Regarding programming contents, this meansensuring a system that guarantees universal freeaccess to the widest possible diversity of content,ideological and editorial opinion, different geo-graphical realities beyond Santiago, and ensuringthe supply of relevant, reliable contributions todemocracy, peaceful coexistence, and a national orlocal identity, as appropriate.

• More and better local content production: theplan recognizes that the digital era requires a lot ofcontent production to fill the different platformsand emerging distribution channels and, as audi-ences prefer the local, the plan should meet thatdemand with national talent. It involves a mode ofproduction of exportable content; content that isadaptable, flexible, and open to co-production withpartners around the world; content that is innova-tive and original; content that appeals to and chal-lenges the public; content that rescues national andlocal identity; and content that generates employ-ment and local expertise in the industry.

C. Parameters of quality televisionEven if one rejects the idea that television should

be governed by principles of public service, the thirdmodel of analysis helps to clarify the interests that mustbe reconciled. This model allows one to compare stan-dards of quality television as social actors and levels ofanalysis; it adapts the work of authors such as McQuail(1998), Ishikawa (1996), and Rosengren, Carlsson, and


Tagerud (1996) to the Chilean reality (in Godoy, 2000).Table 1 shows the model as a matrix that groups societyas four major social actors, each with its own interestsand performance standards applied in three overlappinglevels: the complete television system, that of a specificmedium (from TVA channels to pay TV operators), andindividual efforts (for example, of program critics).

The legislative actor (which may be a politicianor analyst) normally acts on behalf of the public inter-est to define its own ideology, and seeks to legislate inthis sense: on the right, to deregulate the system to letthe market operate at its maximum (see Sierra, 2006,LyD, 2009); on the traditional left, to act in solidaritywith the disadvantaged groups and promote a moreactive role for the state (see Donoso, 2008). The latestproposals from the ideology of social solidarity stressstrengthening the “third sector” of citizen media as acounterweight to the exaggerated roles of the marketand the state in contemporary systems (Saez, 2008a,2008b). McQuail (1998) and Rosengren, Carlsson, andTagerud (1996) synthesized these views with different“theories of the press” (authoritarian, free press, socialresponsibility, communist, social development, partici-patory democracy), while Peña (2007) offers an inter-esting analysis of ideological contradictions present inthe Chilean system. The contradictions noted by Peñaappear in two implicit concepts of democracy (one as a

mere aggregate of individual opinions, the other as acollective and mutually reinforcing social bond) con-tested between an elitist view (reflected in the “properfunctioning” language of the Law No. 18,838) and aview which defines television as a mass mediumfinanced by popular preferences. The contradictionsalso appear among paradoxical opinions of theConstitutional Court, which on the one hand, requirebroadcasters to issue information and electoral infor-mation and, on the other, recognize that the law, amongother things, allows them to refuse to publish news orinformation because of editorial freedom (Peña, 2007).In either case, the system requires a healthy democrat-ic and institutional system, one transparent and with lit-tle corruption.

At the level of the system, the legislature definesthe intended function of television, who should operateit, under what conditions, how to finance it, and how toprotect vulnerable groups such as minors or ethnicminorities. For regulatory discussion that interests uswe will stay at the system level, but keep in mind thatthis “actor model” also encompasses broadcasters and/or content specific to current standards and obligations(implicit or explicit) at the level of the media and theprogramming.

The rationale of the broadcaster corresponds tothat of the owner of the media. Large or small, or non-


Legislators Broadcasters

Business:

Journalists,

Producers

The Public

System

“Public interest,”based on ideologies,embodied in laws

Survival of the business,editorial freedom, effec-tive messages

Professional stan-dards, ethics, techni-cal standards

Uses and gratifica-tions at both intellec-tual and affectivelevels; sense ofbelonging, citizenmedia, representa-tion of everydayproblems

Media

Operations, conditionsof operation, expectedroles of the media.

Freedom to act, stabilityof operations, protectionof broadcast sector

media pluralism,working environ-ment free from pres-sure, employment,working conditions

Access to variousvalue-based content,child protection,reinforcement ofidentity, access tocitizen media.

Programming

Protection of vulnera-ble groups, prohibitionof harmful content

Sense of belonging

Table 1. Matrix of parameters and levels of media preference

Based on McQuail (1998) and Rosengren, Carlsson, & Tagerud (1996)

profit, ad supported or state funded, conservative or lib-eral, its purpose is the survival of the organization andthe maintenance of maximum freedom to do what itpleases and to make the message or content effective(either to make money, maximize social influence,attract audiences, reinforce the brand, or persuade thepublic). In contrast, the rationale of the media profes-

sional depends on ethical and proper technical stan-dards. For example, journalistic ethics requires the pub-lication of an important story even if it means offendingthe sponsors, which is why many prestigious media out-lets “shield” reporters from the business management.In the case of producers or filmmakers, their interest ininnovative and creative programs often collides with thefear of management about new content whose appealhas not been proven and can scare off advertisers.

The public, meanwhile, differs from the otherthree actors. First, several authors recognize people’sright to access a wide variety of programs as a basic cri-terion of performance of a media system (Ishikawa,1996). Exposure to certain content is explained by theuses and gratifications that the public makes of them,whether emotional or intellectual in nature. Often con-tradictory, these very human motivations can differ fromprogram preferences shown in ratings measurements(see CNTV, 2008a). Besides the typical features ofentertainment and information passively consumed, thepublic also appreciates the sense of belonging to a group,and the opportunity to be heard and to complain abouteveryday problems (which is usually very welladdressed by participatory radio programs—seeWinocur, 2002). The possibilities offered by digital tech-nology in terms of increased channel availability, flexi-bility of use (for example, mobile reception, delayed orskipped commercials), and interactive features becomeparticularly appealing, provided they come at a reason-able cost and are easy to use (Brown & Picard, 2005;CNTV 2008b; Godoy, 2005; Goodwin, 2005a, 2005b;Iosifidis, Steemer, & Wheeler, 2005).

In short, an adequate regulatory frameworkshould balance the interests of these stakeholders in thebest possible way to maximize the collective welfare.

3. Evaluation of the Pending Broadcast

Legislation

A. Context of the proposalAfter several postponements, at the end of 2008

the government of Michelle Bachelet (2006-2010) sent

two proposals to Congress: one to amend Law No.18,838 dealing with National Television Council, andthe other to amend Law No. 19,132 regarding TVN.Despite the technological changes involved, the pro-posals did not touch the General TelecommunicationsLaw No. 18,168 or attempt to integrate the various reg-ulatory agencies.

This article deals only with the draft amendmentto Law No. 18,838 of CNTV, because it focuses on thechange to digital. But before going on, we need toinclude three additional facts. First, the proposal wassent to the Chamber of Deputies, a more diverse bodyand thus more difficult to coordinate than the Senate,which means that the process can take years. Second,the CNTV protested at not having been consulted(though its chairman is appointed by the President ofthe Republic) and at ignoring content and other rele-vant subjects as criteria for assigning the new digitalconcessions (CNTV, 2009). Third, until this reformtakes place, there will be no DTTV although theExecutive did decide to adopt the Japanese ISDB tech-nical standard.

B. The amendment of Law No. 18,838 to allowthe introduction of digital terrestrial television

The proposal focuses on four aspects, of whichthe first is the most important: new licenses for DTTV.The others are secondary: public campaigns, someadjustments to the role of the CNTV, and the transitionto digital broadcasting.

On new licenses for DTTV: The first innovationis to define licenses for “intermediate services” in addi-tion to traditional television or “free reception” (Art.15º and 31º). The former allows transmission; the otheris tantamount to a license to create content (that is, theowner of a license to broadcast “free reception” cannotdistribute programming to the public if it has not alsoreceived a grant for intermediate services for itself).This allows licensees to distribute signals generated bythird parties, something that today is not allowed ontelevision or radio. Although not mentioned in the draftlaw, the provision allows SUBTEL to offer new digitallicenses that would add a total of 30 channels in theUHF band (Godoy, 2007).

TVA’s current licensees will automatically gainthe two types of grants to continue digital broadcasts oftheir current contents. In order to prevent concentrationof ownership, these operators are prevented from accu-mulating more than one grant of intermediate services,but additional ones can be obtained for free reception.(The ISDB standard allows the broadcaster to provide


a signal to mobile telephony and two high definitionchannels or eight standard definition channels.)

A second innovation is to establish national,regional, local, and community licenses (Art. 15º), asin Spain and other countries. The last two do notrequire intermediate service licenses, which lowers thecost of maintaining transmission and antenna systems.(The community license has the same coverage as thelocal one—less than 50% of a region—with the differ-ence that private nonprofit organizations, incorporatedin Chile and engaged in civic and social objectives, areeligible). The proposal states that at least 40% oflicenses must be regional, local, and community.

With regard to the conditions to obtain and main-tain the licenses, Art. 31º sets a 20 year renewable term.Articles. 23º and 31º provide only technical criteria togovern these. Whoever offers the best conditions oftransmission and efficiency of spectrum use, deter-mined by SUBTEL (the CNTV simply sends along thebackground of the applicants), gets the award. As incurrent law, there are no requirements concerning theprogramming contents offered. This is unlike whathappens in radio, where two competing projects withsimilar technical merits and equal financing go in asealed envelope to the SUBTEL to settle.

Public campaigns and some changes in the roleof the CNTV: Art. 12º provides free broadcast cam-paigns for the public good or public interest by TVA inorder to “protect the population and promote respectand the rights of persons” (Art. 12m), and provides thatany one campaign may take no more than five weeks ayear and not more than 90 seconds for each transmis-sion. The General Secretariat of Government decideson these campaigns, subject to the approval of theCNTV (who could disapprove). Television licenseesmay determine the form and content of the spot repre-senting the campaign, but the CNTV should verifycompliance with the plan.

Additionally, the CNTV receives new powers tolimit the proportion of advertising that is broadcast dur-ing productions financed by the development fund forprograms of high quality (Arts. 12 and 12 bis). As inthe draft amendments to the TVN Act, it also set normsto which licensees can be held accountable for theirmanagement once a year before the Senate (and, aswith TVN, it is unclear what happens if the Senaterejects the statement submitted).

Transition to digital broadcasting (art. 1 tran-sient): Establishes a minimum period of five years sothat, from the entry into force of the law, each licensee

must cover at least 85% of the population within itsservice area; 100% of coverage should be completedwithin a maximum of eight years. The legislatureassumes that these goals should be met even if viewersare not interested in obtaining digital receivers.

C. Major criticism of the proposalFrom a liberal economic perspective, the Libertad

y Desarrollo (LyD) think tank indicates that the textexceeds the title as the amended substantive aspects ofthe licensing scheme were not justified by the simpletechnological change (LyD, 2009). In particular, LyDcriticizes the fact that operators cannot concentrateonly on a grant of intermediate services, and believesthat this restricts their ability to compete (in this casecorrectly) and further believes that there is no risk ofconcentration of ownership in television given theincreased availability of channels (in this case, incor-rectly, as suggested by the national and internationalexperience in various media).

LyD also states that the term of 20 years forlicenses is inconsistent with the 30 years set out in theGeneral Law of Telecommunications for telecommuni-cations intermediate services and the 25 years forbroadcast licenses (ibid.). The figure is also inconsis-tent with Law No. 19,131 amending Law No. 18,838 in1992, which established indefinite licenses for televi-sion channels available prior to that date, and 25 yearsfor new ones (Sierra, 2006).

Although LyD rejects indefinite licensing, arguingthat holders must apply to renew their licenses in theinterests of their proprietary rights, it does not dare torecommend the final privatization of the spectrum asSierra has done (in Godoy, 2005) although it insists ontalking about concessions (licenses), which by definitionare finite and renewable, as has the CNTV (2009). Froman opposite ideological position, Donoso (2008) high-lights that New Zealand has a 20 year limit on licenses;Italy and England, 12; Spain and France, 10, and theUSA and Australia, eight and five. For the Chilean case,the author suggests a 15-year concession to the applicantand a preferential right to renew its license.

If the issue of time promises to be controversial,the criterion for allocating the grants could be evenmore difficult especially given the ideologized Spanishexperience, where the governments of Aznar (PopularParty, right) and Zapatero (Socialist) favored theirrespective supporters (Bustamante, 2008). While LyDand current TVA licensees prefer only technical crite-ria, this has been strongly criticized by the CNTV


(2009) who, like Donoso (2008), feels it is essential toconsider the content offered by the licensees (free, butresponsibly) as a discriminatory factor. The CNTV alsoclaims that, ultimately, SUBTEL should settle thingsand not the Board, an independent public body withconstitutional status (in contrast, SUBTEL is a techni-cal-administrative body subordinate to a ministry).

Another area of disagreement has to do with thesupport that is given to the “third sector” on television.While LyD regrets positive discrimination in favor oflocal and community licensees, such as reserving 40%of licenses or receiving favor in the competitive funds,those from the opposite position (Saez, 2008a, 2008b,and Donoso, 2008) argue that this ensures public accessto grants of TVA, assuming that their community-basedand nonprofit nature provides real independence fromthe state and private commercial media that now domi-nate the system unchecked. Government public interestcampaigns that the project proposes would replace themedia producers and, for different reasons, LyD alsorejects these campaigns (LyD, 2009).

4. Conclusion

After examining the contemporary significanceof television in Chile, the changes in its business modelas a result of digital convergence, and the theoreticalmodels applied to the current system, we conclude thatthe legal reform proposed by the government seemswell intentioned, but poorly designed: the amendmentlaws were drafted and passed in an outdated contextthat ignored the potential offered by digitization andthe understanding that televison today goes far beyondnetwork television. The reform preserves the inconsis-tencies of liberalism and overlooks the restrictionsshown by the Curran and Seaton model. Nor does ittake into account an updated view of the common goodoriented system: rather it restricts the concept of thepublic service television of TVN, as if the other play-ers could ignore the experiences of public works con-cessions or the Freeview system. (The draft amend-ment to the state network TVN also assumes that itremains in force for all eternity, while even the BBC’smandate is reviewed every 10 years.)

Despite an interest to meet major objectives forthe benefit of the public, including more and better tel-evision for Chileans, the projects sent to Congress sug-gests excessive care not to disturb the main actors his-torically involved in the system. The law does open anew space for community, local, and regional media,but this occurs with only minor changes to CNTV,

SUBTEL, TVN, and the industry supporting TVA with-out acknowledging that the environment is changingradically. Pay television is a key player (and a monop-oly) in the equation, but is not considered. Nor did thenew law consider attempts to integrate other public ini-tiatives that promote different digital technologies fromother ministries, such as Digital Strategy, the Innova-tion Council, and the Plan Enlaces.

The change to digital television equals the changeinaugurated by the railroad or the automobile. Peoplestill travel from Santiago to Valparaiso in a mechanizedvehicle faster than they did in a wagon, but trains andcars are very different. Similarly, people will continueto watch news, soap operas, movies, trade shows, andso on through a screen called “television.” But digitaltechnology allows far more versatility than that offeredby “Television,” which until recently was synonymousonly with broadcast television. The bills sent toCongress are similar to those to amend the law of rail-ways: the rail monopoly (EFE) perhaps might workbetter than before, but that does not stop cars, trucks,and buses standing in for the train.

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Communication Education in Mexico: Overall Trends

María Antonieta Rebeil Corella Jorge Hidalgo Toledo Luis Alberto Luna Reyes

Research Center for Applied CommunicationUniversity Anáhuac México Norte

[email protected] [email protected] [email protected]

A. IntroductionThe teaching of communication in Mexico has

taken surprising directions in recent years. Both a pro-liferation of different approaches to schools of com-munication and a decline in the quality of their pro-grams has accompanied growth in the programs. Wesee this in the most recent statistics generated by theResearch Center for Applied Communication (CICA)in its study, “Regional Map of CommunicationEducation in Latin America,” a study sponsored by theLatin American Federation Faculties of SocialCommunication (FELAFACS) and UNESCO. As anoverview of communication education, we present thehighlights of the report along with some thoughtsabout the direction that the teaching of communicationin Mexico has taken.

The first question that comes to mind when oneexamines the outlook for teaching communication inMexico is this: What is the universe of communicationprograms in Mexico composed of?

The world of education and training in communi-cation in Mexico and elsewhere includes everythingrelated to communication taking place in educationalinstitutions. Furthermore, it involves training activitiesand instruction outside formal education that occurs inconsulting firms or producers of integrated communi-cation for organizations (advertising, public relations,and organizational communication).

The data reported here refer only to those activi-ties that occur within educational establishments or incourses that occur as a part of school programs. Allother training activities in communication (courses,seminars, or training) do not appear her but will bepublished in future investigations.

B. Communication programs in schools anduniversities in Mexico

Throughout almost 50 years of formal teaching ofcommunication in the country (taking as reference thefounding of the first degree in CommunicationSciences in 1960), communication programs havegrown in number. They have taken different namesaccording to their approaches, with an emphasis or pre-specialization set according to their needs. This studyidentified 1,006 communication programs, with differ-ent names related to the discipline. These fall into fourcategories: Communication, Marketing, Design, andJournalism, with several subgroups:

• Communication includes communication studyitself as well as communication joined withother disciplines related to broader socialissues such as culture, education, social com-munication, and so on (75%).

• Marketing includes the areas of corporate ororganizational communication, often market-ing and advertising, organizational communi-cation, marketing and public relations, corpo-rate communication, image building, amongothers (19%).

• Design incorporates degrees such as audiovi-sual design, multimedia, digital imaging, andothers (2%).

• Journalism includes itself, as well as relatedareas such as journalism and public image,journalism and public opinion, etc. (4%).

The vast majority (75%) of programs name them-selves in a manner explicitly related to communicationitself. Sometimes these appear with the name of anoth-

er discipline that often deals with broader social refer-ents such as the mass media, social groups, culturalstudies, education, among others. Another 19% employnames more directly related to businesses or organiza-tions. This portion manifests a concern for the properfunctioning of organizations and businesses in thecountry; with a fifth of the programs, this indicates agrowing interest in organizatinonal communication.

One can conclude that Mexico remains at thebeginning of training in digital design, with only 2% ofcommunication programs using that term. However,many of the other, general communication programsmost likely include specific materials designed to trainyoung people in interactivity and digitization, whoseimportance continually increases in society. Finally, thecategory of journalism has only 4% of the total. Thejournalistic tradition in Mexico dates from 1949, whenthe “Carlos Septien Garcia” School of Journalismbegan as the first school of journalism in the country.However, the discipline of journalism as an exclusivearea of concentration has not grown; communication asa discipline has taken the lead, at least in quantitativeterms. It has incorporated teaching journalism amongother areas of study.

C. The universe of communication programs inMexico

This report presents statistics from a databasedeveloped by 33 researchers who collected data on1,006 programs of communication, journalism, publicrelations, marketing and/or audio-visual design. In pre-vious studies, the National Association of Universitiesand Institutions of Higher Education [la AsociaciónNacional de Universidades e Instituciones de Educ-ación Superior] identified 349 undergraduate programswith a total of 72,663 students (2005). More recently,in 2007, that number rose to 462 undergraduate pro-grams and a total number of 72,224 students. The 2009figure shows another drop in the total number of stu-dents. (See Table 1 for programs by state and region.)

The current database information produced by theResearch Center for Applied Communication (CICA)shows that the distribution of communication studiesprograms is concentrated in three regions: nearly 20%in the Federal District, 13% in the State of Mexico, and10% in Baja California Norte. Other significant per-centages, approaching 5%, appear in the states of Coa-huila, Puebla, and Veracruz, followed by 3% inHidalgo, Michoacan, Nuevo Leon, and Queretaro(Table 1). The states mentioned above have a numberof important programs; their concentration presents a

problem of competition among the different institu-tions in their states. Information centers that providethe discipline of information or a related field com-pound that problem. We should also mention that themaximum number of programs in a given region is 199


Federal entityNumber of

programs

Percent of

total

Aguascalientes 9 .89Baja California Norte 97 9.64Baja California Sur 10 0.99Campeche 14 1.39Chiapas 14 1.39Chihuahua 6 0.59Coahuila 56 5.56Colima 2 .19Distrito Federal 199 19.78Durango 18 1.78Estado de México 127 12.62Guanajuato 50 4.97Guerrero 11 1.09Hidalgo 33 3.28Jalisco 19 1.88Michoacán 31 3.08Morelos 20 1.98Nayarit 11 1.09Nuevo León 31 3.08Oaxaca 9 0.89Puebla 45 4.47Querétaro 28 2.78Quintana Roo 14 1.39San Luis Potosí 14 1.39Sinaloa 8 0.80Sonora 29 2.88Tabasco 6 0.60Tamaulipas 25 2.48Tlaxcala 8 0.80Veracruz 48 4.77Yucatán 8 0.80Zacatecas 6 0.59

Table 1. Communication programs by location.

West CentralNorthwestNortheastSoutheast GulfValle de Mexico

(the Federal District), while the minimum, two pro-grams, occurs in Colima.

As for the regions, we established five divisionsfor the country. Clearly, the Valley of Mexico regioncontains most of the programs, with 379 (almost 38%).Next comes the Southeast Gulf Region, 177 (almost18%), followed by the West Central Region, 170(almost 17%). The Northwest region contains 162(16%), followed by the Northeast Region with thefewest programs, 118 (not quite 12%).

West Central Region

The West Central Region has nine states withalmost one third of the programs in communication inthe state of Guanajuato. Michoacan and Queretarocome next, followed by the state of Colima, which asalready noted has the fewest number of communicationprograms.

Northwest Region

The five states of the Northwest Region(Sonora, Sinaloa, Durango, Baja California Norte,and Baja California Sur) present an area of high con-trast in terms of communication programs. On onehand, we find Sinaloa with only eight programs and,on the other, we see Baja California Norte with 97programs, the third highest in the country. Thus,more than half of the 162 programs in the region areconcentrated in Baja California Norte. This state hasthe highest population of its group, 2,844,469 inhab-itants. It is also the most urbanized with 93% of thepeople living in urban centers. Employment is main-ly in trade, restaurants, and hotels; they produce alarger proportion of the Gross Domestic Product(GDP) than the other four states in the same region(3.6%). These factors, coupled with the closenessthat they have to the United States, may explain thephenomenon of the explosion of communicationschools in the state.

Northeast Region in Mexico

Of the four states in the Northeast Region,Coahuila has 56 of the 118 communication programs inthe region. Of the four states Nuevo Leon is the mostdensely populated, while Coahuila is the least populat-ed. As for economic activity the maquila provides themost important industry in Coahuila; in Nuevo Leónsocial, community, and personal services dominate.Nuevo Leon contributes the largest share to nationalGDP with 7.5%, while the others (Tamaulipas,Chihuahua, and Coahuila) contribute less than half ofthat (3.3%).

Southeast Gulf Region

The Southeast Region includes 10 Gulf states andhas a total of 177 communication programs, of whichover half are found only in two states: Veracruz with 48and Puebla with 45. The most important componentsfrom a quantitative point of view, then, are these twostates. Veracruz has many programs due to its highpopulation (though more than 40% of its populationlive in rural areas). The dominant economic activitiesare the communal, the social, and personal; here thepopulation figures possibly indicate people’s desire forsocial mobility through education. Hence the prolifera-tion of educational services.

Puebla also has a high percentage of rural popu-lation (almost 30%) with a relatively high level of nonSpanish-speaking rural dwellers (12%). The labor mar-ket has a very different composition from Veracruz,making it prominent in manufacturing. The high popu-lation density in both states explains the need for hav-ing many educational institutions.

In contrast, the state of Oaxaca has an averagepopulation but with an indigenous population of 35%,with 5% non Spanish speakers. The low demand foreducational opportunities can be explained by the factthat 35% of the population is rural. The also mayexplain the fact that this state has fewer communicationprograms.

Region Valle de Mexico

The region Valle de Mexico poses sharp contrastswith the Federal District and the State of Mexico hav-ing 326 out of the 379 communication programs in thearea. This Region is highly centralized, with a largeconcentration of educational activities, which is alsoreflected in its economy, politics, culture, and otherareas of national development.

The Federal District contains nearly nine millionpeople (8.4% of the total population) virtually all urbandwellers. It also has the highest index of formal educa-tion in the nation with an average of 10.2 years of edu-cation (indicating upper secondary education).Community, social, and personal services give theDistrict a 21.8% share of National GDP. This explainswhy they can afford the large number of 199 schools orprograms in the territory.

On the other hand, the State of Mexico has a pop-ulation of over 14 million people, and 13.6% of allcommunication programs in the country. Althoughmuch of the population lives in urban areas, still 13%live outside the urban areas. Their average level ofschooling is 8.7 years of formal education (almost fin-


ishing high school) and 3% speaking indigenous lan-guages. The main industry is manufacturing, specifi-cally the manufacture of metal products, machinery,and equipment. It contributes 9.7% to the nationalGDP. These conditions, plus the proximity to thenational center of Mexico City, make the state ofMexico a state that can support many communicationschools or programs.

Communication Programs in Urban Areas

More than half of the communication programsidentified in the survey are located in the capital citiesof the states. The rest appear in cities of second andthird importance. There are virtually no communica-tion programs in rural areas. This urban concentrationof programs points to the fact that training in commu-nication, or any of its related disciplines, appears as aneed arising from the concentration of populations andan increase in the professional activities that have to dowith industrialization and services.

Universities/schools with communication programs

The system of universities or schools in whichcommunication programs operate in Mexico is pre-dominantly private. Out of 1,006 programs, 802 (80%)belong to the private sector, leaving only 204 in pub-lic universities. Communication education thereforearises mainly from private initiatives and, in quantita-tive terms, has achieved an exponential growthunmatched in other Latin American countries. Manyof these initiatives have been established and devel-oped outside the framework of educational laws andregulations and quality control by government agen-cies and academic accreditations. Proof of this is thatthe Accreditation Council of Communication(CONAC) has accredited only 16 programs in com-munication nationwide and that CONEICC lists only74 school members of communication.

Indeed the figures we refer to throughout thisessay reveal the level of quality that some communica-tion programs have in Mexico. The proliferation ofunits or campuses with the designation communicationand its affiliated programs in the country as well as thefact that they do not have any certification by theMinistry of Education are matters of high priority forthe country.

D. ConclusionThis study of Mexico found 1,006 communica-

tion programs taught in the context of formal educa-tional institutions. There are a variety of designations

that apply to teaching the discipline of communication,including categories related to:

• Communication itself coupled with social issuessuch as culture, media collectives, or communica-tion and education;

• Business or organizational communication thatrelate to disciplines such as marketing, public rela-tions, advertising, and corporate communications;

• Design that has to do with digital audiovisualdesign, computerized moving images, the creationof video games, among others; and

• Journalism, the study of public communication,public opinion itself, and so on.The regionalization of programs in Mexico

indicates considerable concentration in some cities,with almost 40% of programs in the Valley of Mexicowith an additional concentration in Baja CaliforniaNorte, which has grown very significantly, setting itapart from the rest of country with 97 communicationprograms. One possible explanation for this may bethe closeness of this state to the United States ofAmerica, as well as its population and the kind ofeconomic activities carried out in addition to its highurban concentration.

The evidence for the presence of communicationprograms in urban areas points to the fact that theyarise in the midst of population centers and from eco-nomic activities associated with industrialization andthe provision of services of all kinds.

Finally, we should highlight the fact that 80% ofthese programs appear as private sector initiatives.While many of these are clear examples of success sto-ries and offer high quality education, these constitutevery few of the total. The vast majority of the programshave developed outside of legal and institutionalframeworks, licensing and supervision by the Ministryof Public Education (SEP), and its quality control, bothin their curricula and in their faculties, guidelines, man-agers, systems assessment, and certification. Thismarks the whole sprawl of an industry that best resem-bles a business formed to obtain easy profits, ratherthan strengthening education and training in communi-cation for the country.

Researchers participating in this studyBelow are the names and institutions that participated

in this effort: Dr. José Eduardo Borunda Escobedo of theUniversidad Autonoma de Chihuahua Ciudad JuarezCampus; Dr. Casas Pérez Maria de la Luz of the InstitutoTecnologico de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey CampusCuernavaca; Mtra. Ivone Castro Cota at the University of theWest, Unit Los Mochis; Dr. Chong Lee White at the


Autonomous University of Coahuila Torreón Unit; Mr. De laRocha Ledezma at the Jorge Benavente Lasallian University,SC; Mtra. Delgado Sánchez Yulieth of the University ofCentral Mexico; Mr. Durazo Jesus Moreno of theUniversidad Kino, AC; Dr. Figueroa Romeo of VeracruzanaUniversity; MSc. Joaquín Gutiérrez of Mateo SanguinoCampechano Institute; MC Jacinta Pérez Hernández atJuárez Autonomous University of Tabasco; Dr. LucilaHinojosa of Cordova Autonomous University of NuevoLeón; Alejandra Islas, Professor of the Universidad AnahuacOaxaca; MSc. Gerardo Barrios Leon of the AutonomousUniversity of Baja California, Tijuana Campus; Mtra. Mariade Lourdes Lopez Gutierrez of the Universidad del Valle deMexico Campus Tlalpan; Mtra. Ruth Lopez LanderosIldebranda at Loyola University of the Pacific; Mr. LópezVázquez Victor Hugo at the Universidad Anahuac Cancún;MSc. Alfredo Gonzalez Lugo, Michoacan Institute ofEducation Sciences “José María Morelos”; Mr. Mejia Ortegaof Isabel Victoria Campechano Institute; Mtra. ErikaMining, Institute of Technology and Higher Studies ofMonterrey Campus Estado de Mexico; Mtra. VanessaAmezcua of Carmen Muriel Autonomous University ofQueretaro; MSc. Malpica Nieto Jorge of the UniversidadAutonoma de Tamaulipas, Tampico Campus; MSc. StefanoSerrano Niro from Universidad Anahuac Mexico Norte; Mr.Roche Mauricio Ortíz, Autonomous University of HidalgoState; Mtra. Eva Maria Perez Castrejon, PopularAutonomous University of Puebla State; MSc. Duran JuanCarlos Perez of the Universidad del Altiplano; Mtra. AnaKarina Gomez Robles, University of Colima; Mtra. IrazoquiYadira Robles, University Atemajac Valley; MSc. SubíasGordillo Rafael of the Universidad del Valle de MexicoCampus Querétaro; Mtra. Marisol Rodriguez Tello, AnahuacUniversity Mayab; Mtra. Yazmin Gutierrez Vargas of theUniversidad Autonoma de Baja California MexicaliCampus; Mr. Vera Lopez Juan Antonio of the UniversidadAutonoma de Aguascalientes; and Mtra. Victor Victoria,University Atemajac Valley.

Sources

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Chong, B. (2008). Los retos en la formación de los comuni-cadores en México. Códigos, Revista de Ciencias de laComunicación, 1(1). [Tercera Época, Año 1]. México:Universidad de las Américas Puebla.

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nos de utilidad social? Códigos, Revista de Ciencias dela Comunicación, 1(1). [Tercera Época, Año 1].México: Universidad de las Américas Puebla.

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Book Reviews

Cavelty, Myriam, Victor Mauer, and Sai Felica

Krishna-Hensel (Eds.). Power and Security in theInformation Age: Investigating the Role of the State inCyberspace. Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2007. Pp. xiv,167. ISBN: 978-0-7546-7088-9 (hbk.) $29.99 (online:$26.99 at www.ashgatepublishing.com).

In five central chapters, introduced by a lucid andfar-reaching preface and a dense and ambiguous “con-clusion,” this co-edited, co-authored volume publishedin December 2007 raises the specter and the difficultyof analyzing the threats and risks in cyberspace to therelationship of the Internet with the notion of the cyber-state, particularly its ability to control informationabout its citizens, infiltrate enemy systems, monitorprotections, and reach across borders to learn aboutnew information. The role of countries in both over-seeing and cultivating the range of information sys-tems—financial, civil, governmental, and military—are, to understate the matter, of sufficient complexitythat the best minds of the generation must addressthem. Despite the difficulties of a multiple edited, mul-tiple authored text, involving professors fromSwitzerland, the U.S., and Ireland, this book advancesthe argument in important ways. It is best suited for areference library, graduate students in political scienceand international relations, and less so for the under-graduate communication classroom.

In her preface, Auburn University Professor SaiFelicia Krishna-Hensel outlines the main challengesfacing governments and policy professionals: (1) theInternet is being used in criminal modes; and (2)controlling criminality undermines the “freedoms”that informed the development of the web. Thesimultaneous tension between the free flow of infor-mation and the potential for terrorism is more thanany one country can control or pretend to oversee,and as a result the need for cooperation among gov-ernments has never been greater, if mainly for theircollective defense.

As chapters 1-3 outline, the debates and implica-tions for public policy are interconnected, ideological-ly and technically, and challenging. While standardiza-

tion of security initiatives is a given “good,” integra-tion of national, regional, and international securitystandards is a new imperative. Yet this is a complex andcomplicated business, both at the technical level, as theauthors point out, and at the level of defense, especial-ly as it pertains to terrorism, as the fourth to sixth chap-ters of the book detail. In a post 9-11 world, scrubbingdefense secrets, and legislation such as the Patriot Actand the UN Security Resolution 1373 were designed toprotect against terrorist threats. As the global culture ofinformation exchange develops, a growing culture ofcybersecurity in advanced countries cannot overlookthe challenges that are simultaneously growing in thedeveloping economies of the world as well.

The volume concludes that the central securitypolicy today is to protect society from “asymmetri-cal” threats that arise from the information revolu-tion. Security requirements are increased not only bythe inseparability of basic civil systems such as trans-portation from the military; by the globalizationprocesses that result from the opening up of the mar-ketplace to liberal, democratic forces; and by the freeexchange of news, information, opinion, private, andpublic data. All of these at once stimulate cross bor-der exchanges and cross national infrastructures, butthe widespread access to telecommunications net-works exacerbates the need for security requirementsglobally. So where does that leave the State, theNation accustomed to dominating the news, ideolog-ically? It must position each state in a newly aggres-sive posture, at once defensive, self-protective, andpointedly into surveillance. New forms of warfare, asthe authors point out, have emerged from the strate-gic minds that transcend the marketplace, commerce,information flow, and news. The complexity of theinfrastructure and concentration of informationthrusts the Nation State into a role of unprecedentedimportance. The question, it would seem, is for thedemocratic order to temper the urge to self-protectwith the allure of collaborative, shared risk thatmight diminish the threats to any one internationalactor. At the same time, and from the opposite end ofthe ideological spectrum, precision militarism, basedon precise information about the enemy, is the newworld order that needs to be addressed by liberaldemocracies dedicated to the freedom of ideas, news,information exchange, science, and public opinion inthe global mediated public square. It would seem thatone or the other tide must prevail, but the irony andthe interest of this book is to suggest that both might


co-exist: one system on the surface and readily acces-sible; the other hidden, surreptitious, and equallyavailable.

The volume includes a reference list and anindex. —Claire Badaracco

Marquette University

Malesevic, Sinisa. The Sociology of Ethnicity.London: SAGE Publications, Ltd. 2004. Pp. 200. ISBN978-0-7619-4041-8 (hbk.) $106.00; 978-0-7619-4042-5 (pb.) $53.95.

Formulating a definition for the term “ethnicity”has vexed scholars across disciplines, resulting in a con-ceptual potpourri reeking of ideological factionalism.For example, a somewhat facile stance—bordering onthe facetious—dismisses ethnicity as a social constructinvented by anthropologists to ensure they find whatthey seek. One of the more radical definitions rejectsclassifying people along primordial racial lines in favorof viewing ethnicity as an “informal political organiza-tion.” Thus, London stockbrokers constitute an “ethnicgroup” because they collectively strive for materialspoils—and, for good measure, they also tend to marryinto their own class. So thought Abner Cohen, whosemuch lauded anthropological field studies likened stock-brokers to Hausa traders—in cattle and kola nuts—inNigeria because both groups derived their identity fromcommerce rather than from racial or tribal origins.

Cohen’s theories are among the more salient sur-veyed by Sinisa Malesevic in The Sociology ofEthnicity, an attempt to systematize and critique thethicket of ideas grown dense around ethnicity—a termcoined in 1953 by the sociologist David Riesman, bestknown for his treatise on conformity, The LonelyCrowd. Malesevic manages his task through selectivi-ty, limiting his analyses to the eight research para-digms he deems the most influential. These he labelsNeo-Marxism, Functionalism, Symbolic Interaction-ism, Sociobiology, Rational Choice Theory, EliteTheory, Neo-Weberianism, and Anti-foundationalism.This classification scheme structures the book. Achapter is devoted to each paradigm, which Malesevicunfolds by summarizing the seminal writings of like-minded thinkers. Malesevic does more than simplybroker ideas, however. He critiques, adjudicates, anddefends. Take Malesevic’s defense of sociobiology, afavorite target of those “socially conscious” criticswho fear implications that ethnic superiority is geneti-cally determined:

Although sociobiological arguments have beenoccasionally used [as proof of racial inferiority]this type of criticism [of sociobiology] is notonly analytically weak but is often very counter-productive. First, any systematic theoreticalattempt to explain the motives of human behav-ior is open to misinterpretation, simplification,political manipulation, and general misuse. If wehold Darwin responsible for racism and sexism,we can, with equal vigor, hold Thomas Aquinasresponsible for the Spanish Inquisition,Rousseau for the Jacobin Reign of Terror . . . . [Itis] pointless to condemn or prevent academicinquiry on the grounds of its potential misuse.(pp. 86-87)

This is a good sample of the quality of the author’sthinking and the fair-mindedness of his commentary.

Malesevic’s chapter on Elite Theory—which fea-tures Cohen’s work—is notable on two counts: (1) itspertinence to the present-day global crisis created byunregulated Wall Street machinations; and (2) its show-ing the difficulty of attempting to place certain thinkersin paradigmatic boxes; the ideas subsumed under EliteTheory—as in other chapters—are multidisciplinary.This is apparent in the adage “ethnicity is politics,”which describes Elite Theory’s foundational position(p. 111). States Cohen:

Ethnicity in modern society is the outcome ofintensive interaction between different culturegroups and not the result of a tendency to sepa-ratism. It is the result of intensive strugglebetween groups over new strategic positions ofpower within the structure of the new stateplaces of employment, taxation, funds for devel-opment, education, political positions, and so on.(p. 116)

The writers classed as Elite Theorists discountnominal differences among political and social sys-tems. Regardless of the appellation—democracy,monarchy, socialism—a minority always dominatesthe majority. Just as in pre-modern times, social orderis shaped by an oligarchy’s incessant attempt to imposeits will upon the masses. Although technology andother factors have precipitated increased mass politicalparticipation, “in reality social structures remain res-olutely hierarchical, and change is little more than acamouflage for the elite’s tighter grip on politicalpower” (p. 112). Essentially, power is acquired andheld through a blend of symbol manipulation and bruteforce. Malesevic traces the roots of this stance toMachiavelli. By placing symbol manipulation at the


center of political and economic life, Elite Theorysteers social analysis into the realm of psychology orthe investigation of the “irrational.”

A chief proponent of the irrational nature of socialaction was Vilfredo Pareto, the Italian thinker who for-mulated the “80-20 principle.” The principle states that80% of any given outcome derives from 20% of thepossible causes. (Pareto had noticed that 20% of theItalian population owned 80% of the nation’s land.) Inexplaining how the few manage to dominate the many,Pareto revived Machiavelli’s metaphoric dictum thatholding power requires the combined characteristics ofthe lion and the fox: The lion possesses determinationand frightening brute strength, but is susceptible to thecleverly laid traps that the fox evades through naturalcunning. Applied to the human domain, fox-like cun-ning represents the manipulation of symbols: slipperypersuasive stratagems whose successful deploymentplays upon the irrationality of human behavior. Paretotermed the “non-logical” motives that govern humanbeings “residuas.” These “are deeply rooted sentimentsand impulses” that “are the paramount and stablesource of individual action” (p. 112). However, tomaintain enough social order to enable societies tofunction, these irrational impulses or residuas must begiven a rational veneer. This involves “encoding andformulating” residuas as “reasoned and rational.” Thusresiduas are transformed into intellectual constructscalled “derivations,” which are rational justifications

for deeply irrational motives. Official elite claims,such that they struggle “to safeguard democracy,”“to protect the Islamic way of life” or “to preservesocialism,” amount to nothing more than justifi-cation of the personal or group drive to hold oracquire power. In this process more successfulelites are able, through the use of supple deriva-tions, to intensify mass residuas. The popular sup-port of leaders is reflected in a ruler’s ability tomeet mass sentiments. (p. 112-13)

In agitating mass sentiment, the notion of ethnic-ity is a useful tool. The familiar ploy, as Malesevicexplains it, involves dressing up particular interests asessential to universal well-being. This ruse becomesevident during power struggles between political eliteswho use ethnic rituals and symbols to mobilize themasses. “The emotional appeals to potent symbolssuch as the common ethnic ancestry or ethnic heroworship is the most expedient device for elites inachieving their ends” (p. 117). In The Production ofHindu-Muslim Violence in Contemporary India, Paul

Brass shows the flammability of cultural markers suchas the Urdu language, sacred cows, and Shari’a law.These markers were manipulated by competing Hinduand Muslim elites. These factions, however, used onlythe most expedient symbols—rather than those centralto each religion—subtly distorting their meanings. Forexample, the inversion of the statement “‘Hindusrevere the cow’ into ‘those who revere the cow areHindus’ illustrates an elite’s power to transform theexisting cultural markers into forceful political sym-bols for ethno-mobilization” (p. 119).

The weakest chapter in The Sociology of Ethnicityis Malesevic’s concluding attempt to examine the 1994Rwandan genocide through the lens of each of the eightparadigms. This exercise feels forced and lends itself tounwitting reification. For example, “The neo-Marxistexplanation would focus on the colonial strategy ofdivide and rule pursued by both German and Belgiancolonizers” (p. 160). This explanation, of course, isentirely Malesevic’s hypothetical extrapolation, whichhe imputes to an imaginary and monolithic tribe calledthe neo-Marxists. Hence the reification.

Stumble though he might, Malesevic is alwayscompelling. He evenhandedly fulfills his stated pur-pose of surveying the leading theories on ethnicity. Indoing so, Malesevic introduces the reader to a vastrange of first-rate thinkers. Implicitly, The Sociology ofEthnicity also demonstrates the artificiality of attempt-ing to grasp the complexities of the social worldthrough academic divisions.

The book includes references (pp. 185-194), aname index (pp. 195-196), and a subject index (pp.197-200). —Tony Osborne

Gonzaga University

Schiller, Dan, How to Think about Information.Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2007.Pp. 288. ISBN13: 978-0-252-03132-8 (hbk.) $35.00;978-0-252-07755-5 (pb.) $25.00.

It is a tribute to the power of this book’s insightsthat when reading it you find yourself reverting to yourdog-eared copies of other important books: Empire andCommunications by Harold Innis; Communication asCulture by James W. Carey; and The PoliticalEconomy of Media by Robert W. McChesney. And toworks by Herb Schiller, this author’s father.

However, Dan Schiller, located like several of theabove scholars at the University of Illinois, has a papertrail of his own to be proud of. His previous works


include Digital Capitalism: Networking the GlobalMarket System; Theorizing Communication: A Histor-ical Reckoning; Telematics and Government; andObjectivity and the News: The Public and the Rise ofCommercial Journalism.

So we embark on this culture and informationtechnology journey guided by previous scholarship inthe United States and abroad; Raymond William andStuart Hall appear regularly in Schiller’s writings. Weare asked here to reflect on “how to think about infor-mation”—is it a resource for individual and globaldevelopment or a product, a commodity to enrich cor-porate profits? Much of the book deals with examiningcommodification:

[I]t is helpful to focus not on the commodity initself but rather on the commodification process.An uneven but ongoing process of commodifi-cation is foundational to capitalist development;its historical generalization throughout the infor-mational sphere constitutes a landmark of thecontemporary political economy. (p. 21)

The Preface notes that “in this work, ‘information’operates as a kind of shorthand to include the converg-ing fields of culture, media, and telecommunications.”

Chapter 1 is a slightly revised version ofSchiller’s essay in The Political Economy ofInformation, (edited by Vincent Mosco and JanetWasko, 1988). Here he frames contemporary thinkingabout information in the context of political economy.“We suggest that the Information commodity hasbecome the prime site of contemporary expansion—such as it is—within and for the world market sys-tem” (pp. 16-17).

Schiller examines the overlaps and differencesbetween information and culture in Chapter 2. Heemphasizes that “often supported by telecommunica-tions infrastructures, Information has become anincreasingly significant factor of production across alleconomic sectors, including agriculture and manufac-turing as well as high-tech services” (p. 24). Movingbeyond Daniel Bell and the postindustrial theorists, theauthor notes that “information-commodity theoristsbegin with capitalism . . .” where “a commodity is aresource that is produced for the market by wagelabor.” He calls upon Ithiel de Sola Pool, RaymondWilliams, and Stuart Hall to enrich his analysis of therelations of cultural and informational production.

Chapter 3 tracks the expansion of information andcommunication technologies (ICTs).

During the 1980s and especially the 1990s, thelargest and fastest reorganization of productiveassets in world business history took place,loosely synchronized to make-over what hadbeen a (typically inadequate) public service intoa corporate-commercial function. (p. 41)

Schiller concludes, “The digital divide is, most pro-foundly about the distribution of social power to makepolicy for the production and distribution of Infor-mation resources. Unless the power is broadly shared,democracy itself is threatened” (p. 57).

Chapter 4 gives an informative and usefuloverview of U.S. telecommunication system develop-ment by business users, much of it for their own inter-nal use. Colorful terms begin to appear such as “infor-mationalized capitalism,” “broadbandits,” “cyberneticcapitalism,” and “Republic of information.” Chapter 5gives stark data about the telecommunications melt-down in 2001 and 2002, providing “a grim lesson ininformation-age economics.” (It would be interestingto compare these data with the reality of the globalfinancial crisis almost a decade later.)

In Chapter 6 Schiller explores the commodifica-tion of the culture industry—books, music, films,blockbusters, star personalities, mass publicity, widedistribution, and market tie-ins, for example. The battleis detailed between U.S. “cultural imperialism” andglobal struggles for diversity. Again, it would be inter-esting to have this story updated, especially in the lightof a new President and administration and FederalCommunication Commission in Washington.

Chapters 7 and 8 provide useful details about theimpact of advertising and mobile telephone technolo-gy—with data that reach up to about 2005. Both fieldshave changed since those years, but the figures here areboth informative and dramatic.

The final chapter of this valuable book focuses on“China, Information and the World Economy.” WithChina v. Google headlines greeting us today, it’s help-ful to review recent data on China’s reintegration intoglobal capitalism, with emphasis on the ICT sector.

Many of these chapters are updated reprints ofSchiller’s work previously published elsewhere.However, it is valuable to have all these topics linkedand integrated into this volume. Sixty pages of notesand an index add to its value.

—Frances Forde PludeNotre Dame College, Cleveland


Documents

IN THIS Communication in Latin American Contextscscc.scu.edu/trends/v29/CRT_v29_n2_June2010.pdf19th century we find evidence of Latin American stud-ies on certain phenomena of communication