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

Abstract

In undertaking an analysis of the experiences of state-run audiovisual media in Latin America, one encounters the challenge of specifying what exactly is meant by the term “public media.” Part of the academic production, as well as documents from international organizations, have upheld for decades that a series of attributes must be present for such media to be considered public services. These attributes are rarely fully met in the experiences found in the Latin America media landscape. The absence of a Latin American model of state-run media based on some 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 map reveals the most diverse experiences, some of them virtuous, albeit lacking the regularity to become established in the long term, mainly due to their pendulous and naturally short-term relationship vis-à-vis the incumbent administrations. Common and stable features over time are a governmental imprint of varying intensity and, with a few exceptions, a low incidence in terms of audience.