Ombudsman’s Office for Audiences in Latin America. An analysis from the decolonial approach

MARÍA SOLEDAD SEGURA; ALEJANDRO LINARES; ROSE DAYANNE SANTANA NOGUEIRA

Decolonising Approaches to Users and Audiences in the Global South. Context, Theory and Method

Routledge

Año: 2024;

Audienceombudsmen were created in the broadcasting legal reforms carried outin Mexico, Ecuador, Argentina and Uruguay between 2000 and 2020. Ineach country, the design of the Ombudsman was different, as well asits implementation process (or not), the actions carried out by eachinstitution and, therefore, the results obtained.Inthis chapter, from the decolonial (Mignolo, 2000; 2005) andintersectional (Lugones, 2008; Espinosa, 2009) theory, the purpose isto analyze the legal design, the implementation, the actionsdeveloped and the results obtained by the audience’s ombudsmencreated in these countries in this period.TheAudience Ombudsmen, as well as the set of broadcasting legal reformsimplemented in these countries, were not designed from a decolonialtheoretical-political approach; but those of Mexico, Argentina andUruguay are based on the progressive liberal theory; while that ofEcuador did so on the populist perspective (Segura, 2020; Waisbord,2014).However,the way in which these Audience Ombudsmen were implemented - or not -in Latin America and the way they work on the audience’s rightsimplies paying attention to the diversities and inequalities thatexist among the audiences, mainly in historically subalternized and discriminated groups such as women, LGBTTQI, native peoples,Afro-descendants, migrants, disabled people, poor, children, youngand elderly people, among others. Its strategies pose a criticalperspective on the participation in public communication of differentaudiences and promote that of the sectors with the greatestdifficulties.Thisoption, among others, implies a fierce opposition of the powerfulelites of the sector: the concentrated media companies, and thedisinterest or obstruction of the governments.Itis argued that, although the Audience Ombudsmen created in LatinAmerica in the 21st century were not designed from the decolonialapproach nor do they explicitly assume this perspective as inspiringtheir work, their actions, actually, contribute to decolonizingpublic communication to the extent that they tend to strengthen therights of the audience belonging to vulnerable social groups.Theanalysis takes up the studies carried out by Segura & Linares(2022a, 2022b, forthcoming) on the audience ombudsmen and otherparticipatory institutions created by the broadcasting ,telecommunications, and access to information laws in Latin Americain the first decades of the 21st century; and Nogueira´s (2022)ongoing research on ombudsmen in Argentina and Mexico.p { line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0.25cm; background: transparent }