State Media and Digital Citizenship in Latin America: Is There a Place for the Weak?

NATALÍ SCHEJTMAN; EZEQUIEL RIVERO; MARTÍN BECERRA

The Values of Public Service Media in the Internet Society

Palgrave

Lugar: London; Año: 2021; p. 309 - 325

In undertaking an analysis of the experiences of state-run audiovisualmedia in Latin America, one encounters the challenge of specifying whatexactly is meant by the term ?public media.? Part of the academic production, as well as documents from international organizations, have upheldfor decades that a series of attributes must be present for such media to beconsidered public services. These attributes are rarely fully met in theexperiences found in the Latin America media landscape.The absence of a Latin American model of state-run media based onsome basic consensus?for instance, on the quality and stability of programming, and on the autonomy with respect to political and economic powers to defne their fnancing and forms of governance and control?leads to an especially fragmented and heterogeneous map. This mapreveals the most diverse experiences, some of them virtuous, albeit lackingthe regularity to become established in the long term, mainly due to theirpendulous and naturally short-term relationship vis-à-vis the incumbentadministrations. Common and stable features over time are a governmental imprint of varying intensity and, with a few exceptions, a low incidencein terms of audience.