Pluralism and Media Concentration in Latin America

Martín Becerra

The right to receive and impart information in democratic countries — enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Inter-American Convention on Human Rights — is the perfect starting point to discuss communication pluralism in contemporary society

Indeed, the principles in these agreements that ensure a free and equitable flow of information and guarantee content plurality are preconditions for building and improving democratic governance.

In several different countries, the need to strengthen public space by promoting content diversity and pluralism of information is on the list of communication policy revisions currently under way. A prominent example of this is the Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions adopted by the UNESCO General Conference of 2005, which is being implemented in Europe and several other regions. This convention reformulates the regulatory capacity of the States in the industrialized culture sector.

To guarantee pluralism, however, several diverse obstacles must be overcome. These include what human rights doctrine in the Americas defines as direct threats to freedom of expression (e.g., censorship, physical threats and assassination attempts against journalists), as well as so-called indirect threats. Among the latter is the process of ownership concentration within the information and communication industries (which obviously include mass media).

As part of a program sponsored by the Instituto Prensa y Sociedad (IPYS or Institute for Press and Society) focusing on media concentration in Latin American countries, Guillermo Mastrini and I have published the book “Periodistas y magnates: estructura y concentración de las industrias culturales en América Latina” (“Journalists and Tycoons: Structure and Concentration of Latin American Cultural Industries”) which studies media concentration in Latin American countries.

We are currently updating the data for Latin America where, paradoxically, legitimately elected governments are giving little consideration to state intervention guaranteeing pluralism and diversity. During the book launch in Buenos Aires in 2006, Lenart Kucic, the representative of the Slovenian journal Media Watch, summed up the three most significant effects of mass media concentration:

1) A tendency towards amalgamating editorial lines as a result of the reduction in the number of voices. For example, none of the numerous TV outlets owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp conglomerate strayed from a policy of zealous support for the Bush administration’s invasion of Iraq, which Murdoch openly endorses;

2) The existence of a conflict of interests between the goal of providing information and the economic structure of the media conglomerate. The growing conglomerates do not limit their activities to the field of communications. Rather, they extend into other economic sectors so that the political and economic information presented (and omitted) is filtered through their interests.

3) The need to implement economies of scale and reduce labour and administrative costs drives media conglomerates to maximize use of their physical assets and human resources in the different media sectors and facilities they control. The resulting deterioration in content quality and the reduction of the hired labor force are two interrelated outcomes that affect both the product and the end user.

For his part, the work of Carles Llorens Maluquer has helped consider other negative effects of media concentration as it relates to pluralism:
The risk of having one entity control a significant number of information channels;
Fewer information sources or content homogenization;
Attempts to exclude weaker competitors or new independent actors from the market; and
A capacity for greater influence in the political system.

Llorens Maluquer defines pluralism in a more precise way: it is the system that recognizes a plurality of economic and political doctrines or methods. He says that plurality lies in the multitude of information, whereas diversity emphasizes variety, difference or abundance of content. Consequently, plurality has to do with quantity, while diversity is linked to variety: pluralism is a more political dimension.

As a result, plurality is about promoting the existence of different forms of mass media per market – regardless of content, which may or may not be varied. Pluralism is not just the plurality of media, but rather the expression of diverse principles or doctrines. Pluralism and diversity could be used as synonyms and must be based on both the diversity of the media and of their content. Of course, numerous effective strategies to promote pluralism have been implemented, mainly in Europe and North America. But in Latin America, there is a serious lack of institutional experience on this matter.

Indeed, the research in “Journalists and Tycoons” regarding the structure and concentration of the culture and information industries in Latin America reveals that the regional media concentration indexes are higher than those of other regions. On the one hand, in each of the information industries (e.g., print media, as well as public or cable TV), more than 75 per cent of the market is dominated by four main operators. On the other hand, we are observing a growth of “conglomeral” multimedia concentration typical in media groups that have a presence in most media markets as well as in telecommunications.

Our research indicates that concentration does not behave similarly in all latitudes, or in the same location in different historical periods. On the contrary, it is a dynamic process subject to constant change. The need to promote pluralism as a basis for the re-creation of public space warrants further studies and action. This is especially true as pluralism is so closely linked to democratic performance in present-day societies whose socialization processes are unavoidably mediated by the information and communication industries.

Dr. Becerra is a Professor at the National University of Quilmes and a researcher at CONICET, Argentina.