For democratic governance of media and public communication. Analysis of participatory state institutions created in Latin America between 2000 and 2015

SEGURA, MARÍA SOLEDAD; LINARES, ALEJANDRO

Media Governance. A cosmopolitan critique

Palgrave Macmillan

Año: 2022; p. 205 - 229

The central problem of this chapter is the following: To what extent did the participatory institutions created by the audiovisual communication, telecommunications, and access to information laws sanctioned with social participation between 2000 and 2015 in Mexico, Ecuador, Argentina and Uruguay, succeed (or not) in enabling the impact of civic organizations in the policy making processes and in avoiding or limiting their capture by political and economic elites?Our argument is as follows: The participatory institutions created by communication laws sanctioned with social participation in Mexico, Ecuador, Argentina and Uruguay between 2000 and 2015 did not succeed in ensuring citizen impact on communication policies and on media governance, but remained subsumed within party negotiations and/or political alliances dependent on social general disputes. This prevented them from facing, with a certain autonomy, the resistance of government and business elites to the reforms. However, they did manage to carry out some initiatives that circumstantially limited or suspended the elite capture of communication policies.