When civic mobilization successfully impacts media policy: Media movements, political opportunities, and democratic reforms

MARÍA SOLEDAD SEGURA; SILVIO WAISBORD

Conferencia; Media and governance in Latin America 2016; 2016

Communication law and policy-making processes inLatin America have historically been captured by political and economic elites.Recent communication laws and policy reforms, however, show unprecedented levelsof civic participation and impact. During the pasttwo decades, civic movements have used various tactics to promote changes in threeareas of media and information policy (broadcasting, access to information, andspeech laws) and championed the notion of communication as a human right. Theimpact of civic mobilization on media policy in the region is a true novelty, suggestingnew forms of engagement and unusual positions of civil society vis-à-vis stateand market actors.  In this paper weexplore whysome media movements succeeded while others failed, and offer an explanationfor their different outcomes across countries.Toanswer these questions, we discuss issues at the core of the complex relationsbetween collective action and policy results. Borrowing insights from theliterature on social movements, we argue that the chances of success arecontingent on political opportunities. Political opportunities refer to"the degree of openness of the formal political structure to advocacyefforts, the nature of alignments between powerful ´elites,´ actual alliancesbetween movements and these elites, and the state´s ability and inclination torepress a movement" (McAdam, McCarthy & Zald, 1996: 8). Politicalopportunities also require other conditions besides elite support, namely,specific political junctures that open particular and appropriate situationsfor media reforms. Political junctures areunique political moments shaped by short-term conditions. The conjunction ofelite allies and unique political junctures form political opportunities thatinfluence the successes and failures of media movements.  Ouranalysis basically confirms that divisions among political and economic elites,the availability of powerful allies among officials and legislators, andspecific political circumstances were crucial for the success of citizens?demands. When these conditions were absent, movements were not able to achievereforms as they faced enormous obstacles to translate mobilization efforts intoeffective policy changes. Progressive polices resulted from the combination ofcitizen mobilization and favorable national political opportunities.