Luis Herrera
Media Regulation Manifesto
Media in its modern form surrounds us in every aspect of our lives. Media takes the distinct forms of television, radio, internet, newspaper, art, film, etc. Because of the different forms the media has today, it literally can present itself in every part of our everyday lives. For this reason, it becomes clear that the media can become a weapon for the powerful to use in order to influence our way of thinking about certain ideas. In this case, the government of countries is what uses the media to make sure that the people see only certain aspects of reality. In what is known as media conglomerates, corporate leaders take control of large chunks of the media and show only what benefits their interests. If a few media conglomerates had control of what is put on TV, the newspaper, and radio, then the people would be forced to take part in a government where diversity is limited.
Take the United States as an example. Much of what goes on television today is owned by a few TV conglomerates. Disney/ABC, CBS, and NBC are three giant conglomerates that own the majority of the channels on cable. What this implies is that the corporate leaders of these conglomerates decide what goes on in the majority of the channels that we can watch. We basically only have a little over three different opinions on newscast that we can view. Since politics in the U.S. is already extremely polarized, these TV conglomerates only contribute to the non-diverse politics present in the country. This was also the case in Mexico. Televisa, also a large television conglomerate, controlled the entire television world in Mexico during the time when the PRI political party was in power for 71 years. It is obvious that during this 71 year period, Televisa only showed programs and advertisements that catered to PRI. The same can be said about Grupo Clarin in Argentina and its manipulation of the media to support the military governments in power during the 1970s. There is no diversity, no voice for people in countries where the majority of the media is controlled by the minority.
For this reason, we must begin to demand that the government restructures the ownership of media and distributes these ownership rights to the people. In this way, we can avoid what has happened in other countries, which is the media manipulating the people and establishing unwanted regimes. By restructuring this ownership, more diversity will exist in politics which in turn can create more voices in the government. In order for this to function, we must look at Argentina’s Ley de Medios and analyze what they are doing right as well as what they are doing wrong and implement the same ideals in the United States. With enough voices calling out for change in media ownership, we can accomplish our goal of bringing more diversity to the media and creating more voices for the people.
