The Media in the Chilean Transition to Democracy: Context, Process and Evaluation (1990‐2000) A thesis presented to the University of Western Sydney In Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy By Antonio Castillo M.A (Political Science), University of New South Wales M.A (Journalism), University of Technology Sydney
Table of Contents
Contents Acknowledgment I‐II III Foreword IV‐V Abstract VI Part I: Historical Background
Chapter 1: 1.1 Introduction Part I 1.2 Journalism and Media: Between Shadows and Dreams 1‐11 12‐43 Chapter 2: 2.1 The Chilean Road to Socialism (1970‐1973) 44‐51 2.2 Journalism and Media under Allende 52‐64 3.1 Chile under Military Rule (1973‐1989) 65‐79 3.2 Journalism and Media under Pinochet 80‐111 Chapter 3: Part II: Journalism and Media in the Transition to Democracy 4.1 Introduction Part II 112‐117 4.2 A Historical Summary 118‐129 I
4.3 The Dynamic of the Transition 130‐146 4.4 Social and Cultural Regressions 147‐159 4.5 Journalism and Media in Transition 160‐178 4.6 Journalism and Media: Structural Changes 179‐194 195‐222 4.8 News Agenda, Journalism Practice and Ideological Monopoly 223‐248 4.9 Criminalizing Freedom of Expression and Freedom of the Press 249‐278 4.7 Financial Concentration and Monopoly Summary and Conclusion References II
279‐289 290‐322 Acknowledgements This doctoral thesis is indebted to many people. At different times and places they generously provided advice, comments, assistance and encouragement. Without them this work never would have seen the light of day. I would like to mention a few whose knowledge and inspiration were especially valuable: to my thesis supervisors Associate Professor Virginia Nightingale and Associate Professor Lynette Sheridan Burns. I would also like to express my gratitude to Professor Jock Collins and Dr. Martin Hirst who are not only mentors but also central figures in my academic career. I want to express my thanks to the School of Communication Arts, University of Western Sydney, for providing the intellectual and administrative environment conducive to the completion of this doctoral thesis, especially thanks to Gae Sharp and Helen Johnson. Many thanks to my journalism colleagues at UWS, Barbara Alysen and Asha Chand; they are great academics and fantastic friends. Many thank to my good friend and colleague Dr. Hart Cohen. Very special thanks to the librarians at the UWS Ward Library, especially to the wonderful Kaysha Russell. I would like to thank my partner, Jennifer Kingham and my stepsons Jeremy and Mathew. They have been a source of happiness and comfort so much needed during the recurrent days of nostalgia. Thanks also to my parents back in Chile, Norma, Héctor and to my sisters Marcela and Patricia. My next debt of gratitude is to a considerable number of Chilean journalists, and academics and former political comrades who generously shared with me their knowledge, their stories and their experiences. Finally, I would like to dedicate this work to those journalists and academics whose lives were cut short by the murderous dictatorship. They were the best expression of a genuine and generous commitment to democracy and freedom of the press. Sydney, Australia 2006 III
Foreword September 11, 1973 left an indelible mark on Chilean life, both private and public. That September had an auspicious beginning for my own family. My younger sister Marcela was born on September 1. The first day of September was traditionally the beginning of el mes de la patria (the month of the motherland) and marked the beginning of spring. It is a windy month and the clear skies were decorated with colourful kites. Up until 1973, September was a month of celebration. The military coup of September 11, 1973 ended all of that. The month of September has never regained that sense of national celebration ‐ marking Chilean independence from colonial Spanish rule in 1810. Up until 1973 it was a month of unity. Now September is the month when Chileans are reminded they live in a nation of enemies. The military coup not only ended the traditional joy of this month but also submerged Chile ‐ my country ‐ into the darkest period of its history. I remember well, as if it were yesterday, the day that marked the beginning of almost two decades of dictatorship. As a twelve‐year‐old kid I was out playing football on the street with my best friend, when my mother shouted to me to get inside immediately. “Allende has been murdered” were my mother’s words. Despite her caution, there was a sense of calm because everything was happening in Santiago. Our little sleepy town of Ovalle, in the north of Chile, seemed a secure enough place. Soon we realised the actions of the armed forces would also reach us. That day my father did not come home from work as he normally did. He and all the workers from the railway workshop were placed under arrest and his place of work became a military jail. For the new authorities the factory was un nido de comunistas (a nest of communists) and the objective of the military junta was to eradicate from Chile the cancer marxista (Marxist cancer). He remained incarcerated for six months, and then, the workshop closed, leaving him and the others lucky enough to be released, without employment. September is also a personal reminder that I am very much part of this period. I am one of the children of the dictatorship; the generation who lived most of their formative years IV
under the iron rule of General Pinochet. My university years and a considerable part of my professional life developed under military rule. As a student at the University of Concepción, the birth place of the Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionario (Revolutionary Left Movement), I was not only involved in the many and varied efforts to get rid of Pinochet, but my energies were also engaged in preparing for a possible democratic future. As a journalist I was less interested in the day‐to‐day news and more concerned about using journalism as an instrument of denunciation and social change. As the doors of the traditional media were closed, we developed alternative ways to communicate, educate and re socialise Chileans about democratic values. Revista Periferia (Periphery Magazine) and Radio Umbral (Umbral Radio) became our main tools of resistance. The dictatorship lasted more than the few years that some had predicted. It lasted almost two decades. Ironically, the end of the dictatorship coincided with my decision to leave Chile and immigrate to Australia. It is ironic that the central part of this work, the post‐
dictatorship period of 1990‐2000, covers a period that has seen my absence from Chile. This is not a bad thing. I feel the geographic but not an emotional distance has allowed me to look back on this period with a healthy dose of detachment that at times a historical reconstruction and analysis need. This work is not merely a speculative, academic exercise or intended entirely for career enhancement. Despite my appreciation of all the above; it is also the product of a journalist who has gone through an intense individual historical experience and reflection about the recent past of his country. V
Abstract Since the end of the military dictatorship in 1989, Chile’s prolonged and arduous transition to democracy has continued. It has been more than a decade of political and social processes, full of uncertainties, doubts, and compromises. It has been a transition marred by the political and economic remnants of the military dictatorship, by a highly restrictive and authoritarian legal and constitutional system, and by a political class unwilling and, for a long period, unable to introduce truly democratic changes. The dynamic of the Chilean transition has had a deep effect on many sectors of Chilean society, especially the media, traditionally one of the key spheres of public debate. Despite the end of the dictatorship, the Chilean media continue operating within a highly repressive and authoritarian legal and constitutional system, and within an economic model that has left it subject to the rules of the market. The underlying argument of this work is that the Chilean transition to democracy, a political and economic phase achieved by negotiation and compromise, was not accompanied by the establishment of a more democratic, pluralistic media system. The legal and constitutional system left in place by the dictatorship, and maintained almost unchanged by governments during the transition, has severely limited public debate, freedom of expression and the work of journalists. It is my view that the transition to democracy has failed to rekindle more plural media and more open public debate. This thesis examines, from a multidisciplinary perspective, the context, the process and development of the media during the first decade of the transition to democracy (1990‐
2000). Its fundamental objective is to understand the relationship between journalism, the media and the democratic political processes in a post‐dictatorship society. VI
Part I: Historical Background Chapter 1 CHAPTER 1 1.1 Introduction An Inventory of History The transition to democracy in Chile did not start well for the media and journalists. In the early 1990s, prominent Chilean investigative journalist and newspaper editor Francisco Martorell, author of the controversial book Impunidad Diplómatica (Diplomatic Impunity), was forced to leave Chile in an attempt to avoid a certain jail sentence for defamation and contempt.. The first decade of the transition to democracy did not end with good news either. In the final years of the 1990s another prominent journalist was forced to take the painful decision to live in exile. This time it was journalist and author Alejandra Matus, the author of El Libro Negro de la Justicia Chilena (The Black Book of Chilean Justice), a major investigation into corruption and malpractice in the Chilean judiciary. 1
These two cases became symbols of the paradoxes and frustrations experienced by Chilean journalists and the media in the democratic transition that had promised so much in terms of freedom of the press, freedom of expression and media plurality. These two cases became the expression of a political transition that has been unable to reawaken a truly democratic media environment. It is my view that the lack of media plurality and freedom is posing a serious obstacle to the post‐dictatorship consolidation of the Chilean democracy. 2 The cases of Francisco Martorell and Alejandra Matus – both of which will be examined in more detail later in this thesis ‐ expose the dilemmas and contradictions of the Chilean transition to democracy in terms of freedom of expression and freedom of the media. They also expose the political weaknesses and fragility of the Chilean transition in its attempt to create a more pluralistic and democratic media landscape. 1
These cases became not only an international embarrassment for the Government in the transition to democracy, but they also illustrated a political process blemished by the persistence of a legal and institutional context that remains highly undemocratic and authoritarian. 3 Besides, these two cases exposed the persistence in Chile of a profoundly entrenched culture of censorship and fear. The Chilean transition ‐ underpinned by a series of undemocratic pacts and agreements with the former dictator and by the presence of an ultra neoliberal market economy ‐ has had a significant influence on the field of communications. The new authorities, represented by the Concertación de Partidos por la Democracia (The Coalition of Parties for Democracy) have embraced the economic model established by the dictatorship and produced a situation where the media have been left to the “regulatory” mechanisms of the market. This has produced not only the demise of the alternative media that emerged during the dictatorship, but it has also assisted in the financial and ideological concentration of the media apparatus closely linked to the former military dictatorship. In Chile the communication media is, like in the majority of Western societies, a business, and therefore requires a considerable injection of financial resources. Despite the substantive body of research into the characteristics of the Chilean transition, especially in political science and sociology, the relationship between the media and the transition has received little attention. There are key questions that have to be addressed. What is the relationship between the media and political transition in the post‐dictatorship Chile? What is the relationship between the democratization of the media and political democratization in a post‐dictatorship society? What is the impact of the neoliberal economic model on the process of media democratization? Notwithstanding the common assumption about the role that the media and journalists play in the construction of democracy, it is less clear what role the media and journalists play in 2
the process described as a political transition. In the case of Chile, if some section of the media had played a vital role in informing the community about the excesses committed under the dictatorship, it is possible to assume that they would play a key role in the reconstruction of a democratic society. However, it is an assumption that has proven simplistic and wrong. In order to understand the relationship between the media and the Chilean transition to democracy it is imperative to understand the fundamental relationship between the media and the characteristics and political, economic and social dynamics of the Chilean transition. The definition of democracy used throughout this thesis is one characterised as a “system of governance in which rulers are held accountable for their actions in the public realm by citizens, acting indirectly through the competition and cooperation of their elected representatives” (Schmitter and Karl 1991, 76). Although it is relatively easy to establish the beginning of Chile’s long transition to democracy, the end of the process is less clear. 4 In fact the central argument in the political context of this work is that the Chilean transition to democracy has not ended. From a historiographical perspective this poses a difficulty insofar as the transition cannot be analyzed as a period located in the past. The Chilean transition is very much a contemporary process that goes beyond the period 1990‐2000 covered in this work. The Chilean transition to democracy, a period that began in 1990 with the election of the first government of the Concertación de Partidos por la Democracia under the leadership of President Patricio Aylwin, has been a political and historical process full of uncertainties. It has also been a process filled with regression, doubts, and undemocratic negotiations between the new authorities and the former dictatorship’s political and economic elite. The political transition, underpinned by a political agreement to develop a fully recovered democracy, has been marred by the political and economic remnants of the military dictatorship, by a highly restrictive and authoritarian legal and constitutional system, and by an ineffective and captive political class 5 (Otano 1995; Garretón 1995; Jocelyn‐Holt 1999). Assessing the Chilean transition, Garretón describes it as an “incomplete democratization” and of a “poor quality” (1999, 49‐58). Garretón suggests that the transition has established a 3
protected democracy full of authoritarian enclaves left in place by the dictatorship (1999, 59). 6 This idea will be analyzed further in Part 2, Chapter 4. The imperfect character of the Chilean transition has had deeply negative consequences for many sectors of Chilean civil society, and particularly for the media. Traditionally one of the central spheres for public debate in Chile, the media have undoubtedly been one of the most affected casualties of this process. The transition to democracy has been characterised by a public sphere structurally restricted; by a monopolised media and by a legal structure that poses substantial limitations to freedom of expression (Moulián 1997). In the period covered by this work, Chilean journalists continue to work within a still highly repressive and authoritarian legal and constitutional system, and within an economic model that had left the media subject to the rules of a market driven economy. The new democratic authorities have been reluctant to develop and implement a media policy conducive to the promotion of media diversity and plurality. Media deregulation and non‐State media policy, a theme that I will develop in the last part of this work, result from the economic and social model of non‐government intervention left in place by the dictatorship and adopted with enthusiasm by the governments of the transition. This has brought about the total disappearance of the pro‐democracy media that emerged during the military dictatorship and, paradoxically, the consolidation of the two largest media conglomerates, previously associated with the dictatorship of General Pinochet, El Mercurio S.A. and Copesa. This state of affairs tends to confirm the idea that a democracy does not necessarily become a successful process by minimizing the regulatory role of the state. More contentiously, the non‐media policy approach and the lack of support by the new rulers for a democratic media occur in the context of the demobilisation of Chilean civil society. In addition, the limitations of the neoliberal economic model have brought about a decline in media diversity and social mobilisation. 4
This lack of diversity is clearly illustrated by an ideologically right wing news agenda that has systematically excluded important sectors of the left wing, civil society and popular sectors. 7 It is important to point out this is not an accident. This is indeed coherent with the fact that the Chilean transition was built on the basis of a pact between elites and the marginalisation of civil society. In the case of the media news agenda, it is possible to observe a heavy emphasis on the political and financial powers as sources of news stories and media representation. Accordingly, the news agenda of the transition has been unable to interpret, represent and respond to the demands of the civil society. The poor, the peasants, the ethnic minorities, the human rights groups, the environmental organisations have been excluded from the news agenda in the transition established by the El Mercurio S.A through its network of newspapers, including the powerful newspaper El Mercurio; and by Copesa through its flagship newspaper La Tercera. Among media scholars there is agreement that little attention has been given to the relationship between the media and democratic transitions. This work is an attempt to provide, from a macro perspective (Gunther & Mughan 2000, 9), an examination and assessment of the reasons behind the failure of the Chilean transition to rekindle a more plural media and more open public debate. At the macro level, this work examines the relationship between the media and the transition by looking at the Chilean political and historical structures; social and cultural transformations experienced in the last three decades; the media and government institutions; the media regulatory (or non‐regulatory) scheme, the legal and political norms governing the relationship between journalists and politics and the economic model used to democratise the media system. From a wider perspective this work endeavours to provide some clues conducive to understand the relationship between the media and democratic political processes in a post‐dictatorship society. A central theme in this thesis is the impact that the political process has had on the media and on the work of journalists. In this context, this work addresses the repercussions that an incomplete and fragile transition has had on the structure and nature of the Chilean media 5
system. The individual chapters of this thesis, integrating political actors, political programs, ideological affiliation, legal structure, economic models and the media, will be devoted to the construction of a historical and political analysis of the relationship between the transition to democracy and the media. A more ambitious aspiration of this work is to examine and evaluate the role of the communication media in the transition to, and consolidation of, democracy in a formerly authoritarian and totalitarian political regimen. By undertaking ‐ as Gramsci suggested ‐ an “inventory of history” this work endeavours to identify and explore the media trends that can be observed in a society trying to rebuild its democratic structure. Chile, in the last 30 years has experienced three key historical and political situations: a Socialist experiment, a right‐wing military dictatorship and the current and continuing transition to democracy. An analysis of the possible role played by the media and journalism on the democratization and transition process requires first an examination of the role played by the media under the government of Socialist President Salvador Allende and under the right wing dictatorship of General Pinochet. They are part of an historical continuum. Like so many other developing countries that have emerged from authoritarian rule, Chile is a country profoundly immersed in a painful yet cathartic process of establishing the truth about what happened during the dictatorship. In this process the media have been called upon to provide the space and bear witness to this public debate. However, as will be discussed, this is not happening. To the closure of all the independent and pro‐democracy publications that emerged during the military regime, can be added the persistence in democracy of what has been described as prácticas dictatoriales (dictatorship practices). This has been highly visible and evident within the judicial and political sector. Also a factor is the consolidation of a politically conservative and neoliberal news agenda framed and disseminated by the El Mercurio S.A. and Copesa. The financial media monopoly exercised by these two powerful print media organisations is matched only by a practically unchallenged common ideological monopoly. They support and encourage a market 6
neoliberal economic system; promote a conservative set of cultural and social values and favour the so‐called “democracy of agreements.” Chilean journalist Olivia Mönckeberg writes about the “visible fact that there is no media plurality, especially in print media” (2001, 9). For Mönckeberg this is especially worrisome insofar as it is the print media that forms opinion in Chile and that sets the agenda for the rest of the media. There is no doubt that this financial and ideological monopoly is very much part of the vision created by the financial elite for post‐dictatorship Chile. It is not only the control of financial means and power but also the control of key sectors that allows the economic and political right to spread its values. The mass media is one of them. The end of the dictatorship and the transition to democracy has forced a rethink (and modification) of the relationship between the media and political power; between the media and the legal sphere; between the media and the economic system inherited by the governments of the transition and, above all between the media and the public sphere. It is in the light of these considerations that this thesis is also an attempt to assess the state of this relationship that, at different times in recent Chilean history, has experienced consecutive waves of retreat and progress. This is not unique to the Chilean experience. Most post‐
dictatorship Latin American countries tend to experience the same dynamic (Sarlo 1988; Fox 1988). The criteria to evaluate this dynamic include some central issues such as the advances or regression in terms of freedom of expression, media plurality, media policies and legal and constitutional frameworks. This Thesis In researching this thesis, several different academic areas have been incorporated, including those of political science, history, media studies and journalism. These constitute my own areas of academic study and research. In terms of methodology, this work combines historical investigation, political reflection and media analysis. As far as possible, I have tried to interweave these disciplinary threads as a way to allow them to exert some level of control over each other. In addition, in the elaboration of this thesis I have drawn on my personal 7
knowledge and analysis as someone who has lived and worked through an important part of the period covered by this thesis. I have been what social anthropologists call a “participant observer.” Before going further I would like to make a clarification about the way “the media” is defined in this work. Although the definition encompasses a wide range of areas, including regulation, policies, film, music, new media and many others, this thesis has narrowed down the concept of “the media” to news media and to journalism. It has also been narrowed down even further to a very specific area of news media and journalism, political communication. Underlying this second observation is the political role played by journalism and journalists in the democratic process. As Patrick O’Neil observes the way mass media contributes to the process of political transition and democratization depends on the form and function of the media in a given society, shaped by cultural, socioeconomic, and political factors (1998, 7). This thesis is divided into two parts and four chapters. The central theme that binds the parts and chapters is the examination of the media’s contribution to the process of political change and democratisation. Although my central theme is the contribution of the media to the process of democratic transition during the 1990s, this work cannot be constructed without understanding the recent history of Chile. Without the process of what historians call “historical memory” this work would fail in understanding and explaining why things turned out the way they did and how they come together. The emergence and the historical development of the Chilean media are highlighted in the second part of Chapter One. The objective here is to provide some ideas that may be useful in order to build the historical foundations of this study. In addition it provides some of the theoretical approaches that underpin this work. The media under the Socialist government of Salvador Allende is explored in Chapter Two and it is an attempt to explain the conflict between the media and a political project that tried to bring about a profound social and economic change. In Chapter Three this work explores the work of the media and the journalists under military dictatorship. Central themes in this section are freedom of 8
expression, the manipulation mechanism used by the regime to control the media flow and content, and the role played by the independent media in the struggle for democracy. These three early chapters are the basis for assessing the media environment that has emerged during the transition to democracy. Chapter Four constitutes the main body of this thesis. It is a close examination and assessment of the challenges, contradictions and changes experienced by the Chilean media under the political transition to democracy. It explores the political, legal, constitutional, economic and cultural context of the transition and they way they conditioned the role that the media played during this period. Underlying this is the idea that the political‐cultural and socioeconomic spheres have a significant influence on the media. This is particularly relevant in a society like Chile that experienced, in a relatively short period, the change from a dictatorship to a country in the process of democratization, as well as the change from a closed economic system strongly regulated by the state, to an ultra neoliberal model. Accordingly, the fundamental themes of this last chapter are the structural changes experienced by the media, including its privatization, the persistence of a highly authoritarian and repressive judicial system, the consolidation of a print duopoly and the disappearance of the vibrant independent media and journalism that emerged during the military regime. Equally important, this chapter explores the state of freedom of expression and the causes and effects of the restricted spaces for public debate. One of the central failures and flaws of the Chilean transition to democracy has been the inability of the new authorities to democratise the media. Democratising the media involves creating mechanisms that allows civil society to participate in “decisions on the contents and nature of messages, and to influence decisions regarding communications policies” (Reyes Matta 1981, 90). In this regard, there is a consensus that the relationship between the media and the Chilean transition to democracy has been marked by a policy of compromise and even connivance. It 9
has also been marked by the maintenance of a highly authoritarian legal and institutional system and by an economic system that has left the very existence of a pluralistic and diverse media system to the rule of the market. Although the analysis of the media in the transition to democracy is a work in progress, there is an agreement among Chilean media academics that in countries such as Chile the full democratization process will not be completed without a democratization of the media (Somavía 1981, Reyes Matta 1981). Notes 1 After a lengthy legal procedure Francisco Martorell and Alejandra Matus were freed from all charges. Francisco Martorell is today the editor of a weekly, El Periodista; and Alejandra Matus works as a journalist and as journalism academic. 2 The definition of democracy used throughout this thesis is one characterised as a “system of governance in which rulers are held accountable for their actions in the public realm by citizens, acting indirectly through the competition and cooperation of their elected representatives” (Schmitter and Karl 1991, 76). This thesis also adheres to the criteria for identifying a country as democratic put forward by Robert Dahl who speaks of civil and political rights plus fair, competitive, and inclusive elections (1971). 3 In his 1971 seminal work, Robert Dahl proposed seven conditions that a society has to complete in order to be considered as a liberal democracy. 4 As Phillips (1993) has indicated “There are two stories of democracy that circulate today, and, like most tales of political endeavour, they allow us to choose between a happy ending and a future that is still unresolved.” This is, from my point of view the case of Chile an “unresolved” process. 5 From a sociological point of view I have defined “political class” as politicians who have made the political action into a professional activity. For Weber, politicians become a class when individual politicians start to live off politics and strive ‘to make politics a permanent source of income’ (Weber, 1958: 84), they eventually become conscious of a collective interest. (Weber, Max (1958), ‘Politics as a Vocation’, in H.H. Gerth and C.W. Mills (eds), From Max Weber. New York: Oxford University Press, pp.77–128). They are defined by its collective self interest– irrespective of party lines. Its focus is on career opportunities, maintenance and advancement – in other words the institutional context of professional politics. Also see von Beyme (1993: 34) who writes: ‘Member of the political class is he who shares the privileges of government, parliament or a politically orientated ministerial bureaucracy (Beyme, Klaus 10
von (1996), ‘The Concept of Political Class: A New Dimension of Research on Elites?’ West European Politics, Vol.19, pp.68–87. 6 Protected democracy – it is also called “tutelary democracy” ‐ “It’s a regime which has competitive, formally democratic institutions, but in which the power apparatus, typically reduced by this time to the armed forces, retains the capacity to intervene to correct undesirable states of affairs (Przeworksi 1988: 61) Przeworksi, A. 1988. “Democracy as a Contingent Outcome of Conflict.” In J. Elster and R. Slagstad, eds., Constitutionalism and Democracy (pp.59‐83). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 7 For an analysis of the popular and “civil society” movement in Chile (especially in poblaciones or shantytowns) see Phillip D. Ochorn, 1995, Organizing Civil Society: The Popular Sectors and the Struggle for Democracy in Chile (University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press).
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1.2 Journalism and Media: Between Shadows and Dreams A Common History Latin American countries share a seminal common journalism and media history. Martín Barbero, one of the most influential media scholars in the region, points out that the foundation of the mass media in the region rests on the growth of a mass market, central government, national and traditional cultures (1982). He shows the Latin American mass media and mass culture were never the mere popularization of a high culture. For Elizabeth Fox the Latin American media is a product of numerous, different and frequently conflicting interests between government, political movements, artists, and certainly national and foreign financial capital (1988, 24). Fox claims that the character and roles of these interests shifted and changed from country to country during the course of the last five decades. The Latin American communication media have a common history. Its emergence can be traced to the dreams and aspirations of a diverse range of political, financial, cultural and social actors. These dreams and aspirations – political democratisation, economic betterment, cultural preservation and social justice – have not always been accomplished. The history of the Latin American media is full of contradictions and confrontations among those actors who control the media and those who have been excluded from influencing its content and their management. No less important, the history of Latin America is also about the struggle of progressive political forces to devise state strategies to democratise the content of and access to the media on the one side and, on the other, to contain the resistance of media barons to any scheme to regulate content and ownership. 1
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The history of Latin American journalism and media has been written against the backdrop of a region marred by weak, unstable political systems and by a series of failed economic experiments. 2 It is a history about media ownership and democratisation; about state regulation, media content and access. Historically Latin American mass media barons ‐ as also has been the case in the international media ‐ have advocated not only a market economic system but also have not hesitated to bully politically progressive governments that have attempted to establish a regulatory framework that may guarantee the existence of a more democratic media system. The history of the Latin American media is also written against the backdrop of a permanent collision between local traditional cultures; and the cultural products of foreign international media. National and traditional cultures have denounced and been threatened by the penetration – especially through the electronic media ‐ of foreign products that endanger the very survival of local and indigenous cultural expression. There is also a heroic chapter to this history. Latin American media history is also about ruthless government repression, censorship and manipulation. Politically and socially, the Latin American mass media have demonstrated a questionable reputation when it comes to the dreams and aspirations of democracy and social justice of socially and politically progressive forces. The history of Latin American media also has been constructed around the vastly commercial and barely visible public service. Historically and with the exception of Cuba, private local and international entrepreneurs have dominated the Latin American media system. 3 Fox has argued that this is a situation not only brought about by political inability but also by the unwillingness of Latin American political leaders to envisage a different media model to that exported to the region by US commercial media (1997, 29). 13
The history of the Latin American media is also about failure. Most Latin American countries, including Chile, has failed to establish a democratic system for the media that could guarantee plurality, equitable access, freedom and the promotion of local cultural products. It is a failure that has allowed the growth of a media system that is rampantly commercial that has neglected its public service mission. In contrast to other regions, including Europe and Australia, the commercial nature of the Latin America media has not been counterbalanced with the existence of a public system funded by the state. In contrast to other so‐called third world regions such as Africa and Asia, where the media system has been historically under tight control of the state, private financial interests and entrepreneurs have controlled the vast majority of Latin American media. The earliest attempts to develop a public media service in Latin America – able to counterbalance the influence of the commercial media – can be traced back to the early decades of the twentieth century. In the 1920s and 1930s countries such as Uruguay, Mexico and Peru tried to develop a communication system oriented to the promotion of national cultural products and indigenous traditions. They were funded by government subsidies or ownership. These initiatives, designed to protect national identity, were also instrumental in widening the access to education for the urban and rural dispossessed. However, by the end of the 1940s, unable to resist the pressure of powerful foreign forces and the economic interests of the local financial elite, the attempt to create a public system was abandoned. 4 Overwhelmingly, the majority of mass circulating, mainstream newspapers, magazines, radio and television have been linked with right wing political ideologies, political parties and conservative businesspeople. The history of Latin American media shows a cosy and mutually beneficial relationship between media barons and authoritarian regimes. This relationship has been framed not only around political‐
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ideological links, but also around common economic policies and social values. Latin American media owners have historically favoured radical neoliberal economic experiments associated with market deregulation and liberalisation. It is worth noting that while media owners have been liberals in economic planning, they have tended to support the conservative and anachronistic social values defended and promoted by right wing and authoritarian regimes. Lins da Silva suggests that in the context of the free‐market economic system that has prevailed in the region, media owners have been eager to criticise any government intervention and have declared that attempts to develop any scheme to diversify media content and ownership were in breach of media freedom (1990). Defending non‐government intervention, regional media entrepreneurs insist that the foundations of the Latin American communication system rest on the sanctity of private property and non‐government intervention. The failure to establish a public media has led to the consolidation of a monopolistic media landscape, a situation that affects most Latin American countries. Privately controlled broadcasting and newspapers have stubbornly resisted one remedy for this anomaly, the development of national state regulatory policies. In Chile, as in the rest of the region, media entrepreneurs share the same revulsion for any attempt to enact a state regulatory framework that could establish limits and constraints to their privileges and financial aspirations. Despite the resistance, there have been sporadic attempts to devise communication policies to regulate the content and structure of the media in the region. Mainly, they consist of the action taken by centre‐left governments eager to exert centralised control over the bourgeois communication media. 5
The position of media entrepreneurs has been consistent with orthodox market logic that regards media and cultural products as part of economic activity, performing a merely commercial function. This market logic applied to the media regards public 15
service as a “no‐go” zone. The catalogue of irregular attempts to devise national communication policies in Latin America has shown the same pattern. The policies were not only erratic and ill devised, but they have also come under concerted and well‐organised resistance and attack from national and international media conglomerates. The cases of Brazil’s Globo and Chile’s El Mercurio S.A. encouraging and throwing their support behind some of the most brutal regional military dictatorships in the 1970s, have demonstrated that media barons have used their considerable political and financial power to prevent any initiative that could regulate their activities. The resistance to regulation of the media in the region has created a landscape characterised by a limited and undemocratic communication industry. 6 Overwhelmingly, the notion of Latin American media as mainly financial enterprises – with a political perspective ‐ applies to the print and electronic media. However, newspapers in the region were historically conceived as a political enterprise rather than as commercial ventures. El Mercurio newspaper in Chile is a good example. 7 This newspaper is not only the flagship of one of the most powerful media organisations in Chile – El Mercurio S.A. ‐ but it also is the source of considerable political clout for its owner. In Colombia most newspapers have been clearly identified with politically and financially powerful families (Santos Calderón 1989). The period of consolidation of the newspaper market coincided with the emergence in the 1920s of Latin American radio. It was rapidly embraced and by the middle of that decade there was already a highly dynamic radio system. It was privately managed and regulation was left to the law of the market. It was clear from the very beginning that governments in the region were unwilling to provide protection or encouragement to a public funded radio system. This resulted in a radio system highly vulnerable to commercial interference from foreign media corporations, 16
especially US media organisations. Other media products, such as music recordings, magazines and comics, were also subject to this early form of cultural imperialism. The almost non‐existent regulations on foreign ownership and the importance of the region as an area of commercial and ideological influence, encouraged US corporations to begin purchasing and operating their own radio networks with the central objective of advertising mainly US products (Beltrán and Fox 1982, 6‐13). In comparative terms, this situation contrasts markedly with Australia where the viability of media industries – particularly radio and television‐ has been a primary policy concern of governments. Television arrived in Latin America in the 1950s. Like the radio system, television was commercially oriented and privately owned. Ideologically, Latin American television was more ideologically conservative and followed the US model of operation. With limited government regulations, the three largest US television networks, ABC, CBS and NBC, established a stronghold in the region, especially in Mexico and Venezuela. A key moment in the development of television was the creation in 1962 of Brazil’s Globo Television. 8
Throughout Latin America, television is still highly centralised, usually in private hands, advertising driven, and entertainment oriented. It reaches virtually all sectors of the population, typically extending to 80 percent of urban citizens (Aufderheide 2000, 262). Its programming is anchored with the immensely popular prime time “telenovela,” a form that includes the mini‐series and the soap opera. From the early years of radio, in the 1920s, to the predominance of television in the last three decades of the twentieth century, the broadcasting industries have been able to accumulate a political power base able and willing to challenge the power of states and governments. As with radio, attempts to create a public television broadcasting system failed. This has been accompanied by increasing political autonomy. This 17
autonomy and political power have been central factors in the establishment of one of the most concentrated, monopolistic media industries in the world. This autonomy and lack of substantial regulations have allowed private media industries to grow strongly and to become independent of support by any state (Fox 1997, 4). In numerous cases, regional media giants have enjoyed the power either to select sympathetic governments or to depose political leaders regarded as less friendly. Examples abound. Broadcasting giants such as TV Globo in Brazil; Televisa in Mexico and Venevisón in Venezuela have the clout to choose and legitimise national political leaders. Decades of Confrontation The political and social dynamics of the 1960s had far‐reaching implications for the Latin American media and also for journalism. Led by left wing intellectuals, communication researchers and journalists began imagining a non‐commercially oriented, privately owned media landscape. It was a historic moment that coincided with struggles for decolonisation and social change in most Third World regions. The cultural imperialist and economic dependency paradigms were located at the centre of the debate on the role, content, ownership and structure of the media. US cultural and media imperialism were challenged in some countries by the attempt to establish a fully State‐controlled media, as was the case in post‐revolutionary Cuba; or by creating a state owned and subsidized electronic and print media, as was the case in Chile. Peru, Mexico, and Venezuela also attempted to implement similar changes. The objectives were similarly ambitious. They aimed to protect national cultural products, and to promote a more diverse and pluralistic system. As mentioned in the previous section, these efforts – apart from Cuba – were patchy and mostly unsuccessful. In the 1950s and 1960s Latin America was the first region, among developing countries, to identify and assess the main challenges and problems faced by its media 18
system. The media dependency paradigm shaped the intellectual debate about media reforms in the 1960s and 1970s. The central critique addressed the liberal model applied to the structure and content of the media (Beltrán and Fox 1980, Dorfman and Mattelart 1970). This model – shaped by the penetration of non‐Latin American western cultural products – was regarded as undesirable and as a threat to local content. In addition it was suggested that media, organised according to this liberal and capitalistic model, would be an obstacle to democracy and plurality. Media democratisation, diversity, commercialisation and especially the criticism of the private media and the powerless public media were among the themes that influenced Latin American media research in the 1960s. Extensive media research and discussion in international forums centred around key issues such as the private control of the mass media, the absence of public service broadcasting and the lack of channels for popular media access and production (Beltrán 1975, Beltrán and Fox 1980; Freire 1970; Marques de Melo 1985; Martin Barbero 1982, Mattelart 1984; Pasquali 1963, García Canclini 1988). 9 Research in the 1960s and 1970s by Armand Mattelart identified some of the key media issues in the region: monopolistic trends; the link between media owners and the economic and political elite; the lack of access to the media by the poor and dispossessed and the increasing commercialisation of media content. The work of Mattelart in Chile addressed some commons themes with other Latin American countries, such as a critical analysis of the content, structure and function of the communication media (1979). 10
In the early 1970s some countries, such as Chile, Peru, Venezuela and Mexico, attempted to introduce national communications policies designed to ensure greater cultural diversity. 11 They were mainly the work of left‐wing progressive political parties. They also tried to widen the access for different cultural and social groups and engage the media in education development and social change. Attempts to develop a 19
public non‐media oriented media system – as recommended by the 1976 Costa Rica conference ‐ were short lived. The radical changes proposed collided with the interest of national and international private media empires and their growing political power and this limited or prevented altogether the reformers’ capacities to carry out their programmes. In essence, the monopolistic power of national media empires and their transnationals allies, especially in the US, operated as obstacles to more representative and democratic management and operation of the media. Most of these attempts to change the media were violently quashed by military regimes that ruled most of the region from the 1970s until the late 1980s. Attempts to formulate communication media policy were not on the agenda of the military regimes of the mid‐1970s. During the dictatorships that ruled most of the region during this period, “media policies” became a mixture of government propaganda, censorship, commercial expansion, ideological monopoly and economic concentration. O’Donnell points out that those military regimes took control and used the mass media as a tool for social demobilisation by diminishing the level of political awareness and the capacity of civil society to resist violations of its social and political rights (1979). All of this occurred in a context framed by the introduction of neoliberal economic doctrine into the operations of the media. Radio, television, newspapers and magazines were under the tight control of the new military rulers. During this period dominant media organisations supported military coups and commended the neoliberal economic programs (Fox 1988, Peirano 1978, Portales 1981). A handful of powerful broadcasting and newspaper organizations created mutually supportive relationship with the rulers of the day, enabling them to create quasi‐monopolies or duopolies. Some of these corporations, especially in Mexico, Argentina, Brazil and Venezuela, have maintained domestic market dominance and have used this domination as a basis for internationalization. The majority of the 20
military dictatorships that ruled Latin America for most of the 1970s and 1980s were encouraged, supported and their actions promoted by privately owned media organizations (Fox 1988, Waisbord 2000). In Chile, the highly influential and powerful right wing newspaper El Mercurio was not only directly involved in the manoeuvres against Socialist President Salvador Allende but also legitimised in its news coverage the military coup of September 11, 1973. Equally, in Brazil the dominant Globo Television provided unrestricted media and ideological support to the military dictatorship. In Argentina, during the so‐called guerra sucia (dirty war), in the mid 1970s, the privately owned media system not only accepted without resistance the imposition of military censorship but also provided justification for the repression against left‐wing dissidents. On the other hand, from a propaganda point of view, the media contributed to the efforts by the Argentinean state to manufacture social confusion and disinformation (Gregorich 1988, 112). 12
The dictatorships did not hesitate to censor any media opposed to their ideological, political and financial aspirations. The now legendary Spanish expression: no dispare soy periodista! (“Don’t shoot I’m a journalist!”) was an accurate reflection of the harsh repression, seizure, destruction and censorship suffered by Latin American journalists. All Latin American dictatorships have had the same approach to the work of the media. Each dictator sought to suppress avenues for citizens’ participation and deliberation. In one of the many paradoxes of the military regimes, the armed forces put into force a regime of control and terror against the content in the media, but at the same time applied a free market, neoliberal economic model to the management of the media. During the 1980s and 1990s, including the period under dictatorships, most of Latin America experienced an explosion of commercial and electronic media. It became overwhelmingly privately managed and profit oriented. This has been an evolution 21
that has given an increasing level of autonomy and political power to private broadcasting in relation to the State and civil society. Despite the Latin American transitions to democracy at the end of the 1980s and early 1990s, the newly elected authorities have been unable to initiate media reforms to diversify and democratise the communication system. Although they have been able to partially remove some of the most brutal practices against the media, such as censorship and repression, they have been unable to formulate democratising policies. Despite an improvement in freedom of expression and freedom of the media, the 1990s have witnessed a considerable number of abuses against journalists exposing the fragility of the new democracies in upholding the rule of law (Conaghan 2002, Waisbord 2000). The same fragility of the newly established democracies has made it practically impossible to challenge the powerful private media system. Attempts have resulted in the anger of media barons who have not hesitated to use their considerable power to destabilise “unfriendly” governments. Media empires such as Globo in Brazil, Televisa in Mexico, Venevisión in Venezuela and El Mercurio S.A. in Chile have the potential to undermine the democratic process. This was the case in the 2001 “media coup” devised by Venezuela’s media owners against democratically elected Hugo Chavez (Castillo 2003). Some sections of the media were clearly instigators – and some may even have been active participants – in the conspiracy to overthrow Chávez and the rest of Venezuela’s democratic order’ (Hellinger 2002) The Latin American political transitions have also witnessed the unchallenged process of media concentration and the building of empires whose investments go beyond the media industry. Giant media groups in Argentina, such as the Clarín Group are characterised by cross‐media ownership. The Clarín Group has control over radio, cable television, newsprint production and news agency. It also controls the powerful and influential Clarín newspaper. In Brazil, the Globo media conglomerate has 22
developed a complex network of financial interests in banking, food, agriculture, mining, real estate, telecommunications and insurance. In Colombia, the El Tiempo Group controls cable and satellite television, recording and film studios. It also publishes the largest daily in Colombia, the El Tiempo newspaper (Vizcaíno Gutierrez 1992). In Perú, Panamericana Televisión has interests in radio, free‐to‐air and cable television and telephony (Catalán and Ramm 1997). In Chile, El Mercurio S.A has developed into a horizontally and vertically integrated media empire. It also has a wide range of investments in real state, forestry, printing, publishing houses, retirement funds and mining. In the context of a transition to democracy, all of these media giants turned into non‐
elected powers that have the clout to discourage any attempt to establish a regulatory framework that could democratise the communication system in the region. On the other hand, their embrace of neoliberal economic policies, left in place by the dictatorships, has meant that the media remain under control of market forces. The post‐dictatorship period in the region has shown that there are few political leaders willing and politically able to challenge these commercial media empires. The media empires have been left unchecked in their aspirations to consolidate their financial oligopolistic position and ideological hegemony. Essentially most Latin American political leaders have abandoned the search for a national communication policy. Chilean political leaders have followed the same pattern. Media and Political History The media, and in particular the print press, have been closely linked to the political history of Chile. Since the independence from Spain in the early 1800’s until today, the Chilean media have played a central role as a public space for political and social debate. The media have also echoed the ideological aspirations of a wide range of social, economic and political actors. Chileans have looked to the print media as a public service that provides not only information but also political education (Santibañez 1994, 34). 23
The Chilean press, the most influential medium among the society’s elite, emerged in the nineteenth century to play an important role in the struggle for independence from Spain. It was a movement profoundly influenced by the French Enlightenment. It was during the relatively short government of José Miguel Carrera in 1812 that the printing system became one of the new and important influences in the movement for independence. For the first time in Chilean history, ideas could be printed and disseminated nationally and on a relatively large scale (Thompson 1962, 87‐93). The government of Carrera understood the potential of the print media. Apart from the large number of edicts and revolutionary manifests that emerged from the small government printers, the government also produced the first newspaper called La Aurora de Chile. Dating back to February 1812, it was funded by the Catholic priest, Camilo Enríquez. 13 This priest used the newspaper as an outlet for political dissemination of his revolutionary aspirations. Incidentally, Father Enriquez was also the first Chilean journalist to suffer political repression and exile after being accused by the Spanish crown of propagating the ideas contained in Jean Jaques Rousseau’s Social Contract (Valdebenito 1956; Silva 1958). La Aurora de Chile became a classic example of revolutionary propaganda. Its founder regarded the newspaper as a potent tool for education and enlightenment (Barros Arana 1887, 250). La Aurora de Chile was soon followed by El Monitor Araucano. As was the case with La Aurora de Chile, El Monitor Araucano was a publication financially funded by the government of Carrera. The embryonic print landscape increased with the creation of El Semanario Republicano. These three newspapers had a clear ideological and political objective: political independence from Spanish rule and the establishment of a truly republican system. This antecedent of the modern print media suggests that Chilean journalism began with an honourable history of political activity. Indeed political activity was a central 24
theme of the majority of the Chilean print media. The main object of interest for the newspapers during the first half of the nineteenth century was the progress of the independence movement. They also played the role of political educators introducing citizens to the new republican ideas and providing a public space for participation in the process. The publication of long articles and journalism essays showed the progress of the revolutionary cause in Chile and America, with analysis of different political regimes and aspects of the new constitutions and general political principles. Some monthly magazines, such as El Mercurio de Chile (1822‐3), also contributed to the political discussion of the period. In the 1820’s, Chilean journalism saw the development of a new style more concentrated on news than on opinions. The most famous case was El Mercurio de Valparaiso, established in 1827 and still published today. El Mercurio de Valparaiso was the pioneer in Chile of what can be described as a true “media business.” The connection between the media and financial interests began taking form at the end of the nineteenth century with the consolidation of liberalism in the political, cultural, social and economic spheres. In this historical context, El Mercurio of Santiago, founded in 1900, followed the tradition of its homologue in Valparaiso. This new paradigm – the commercial media company – promoted the emergence of “modern liberal journalism” (Valdebenito 1956, 69). This kind of journalism, constrained by the need to compete in the media market, moved away from the opinion and ideological polemic that shaped the early Chilean newspapers and instead favoured news reportage of day‐to‐day events. This kind of journalism reflects a sense of fatigue with the political struggle of the late 1800s and therefore newspapers began concentrating on contemporary community interest such as sport, social life, art and culture (Vial 1983, 275). Despite early twentieth century state intervention in education and the promotion of the arts and “high culture” through subsidies, this did not extend to the mass media. At the beginning of the twentieth‐century, the print media consolidated into a news 25
market dominated by financial competition and market forces. Accordingly, as Ossandón and Santa Cruz observe, in the context of the liberal‐oligarchic process of modernisation, the press began articulating the basis of a mass cultural market and the development of a mass‐popular public sphere (2000). Santa Cruz points out that in this new reality, the press focused its work on the search for “exclusive information” to compete in the media market (1988). The competition and the market – plus the lack of any state subsidy or regulation ‐ brought about a scenario where the existence of ‘poor newspapers’ was no longer possible (Vial 1983, 276). It was the beginning of the consolidation of a media sphere influenced by a non‐
regulated environment, the logic of the market and product competition. This was an environment that suited El Mercurio. This newspaper was able to draw on substantial financial resources and operate with a modern concept of commercial enterprise. It also had efficient administration, state‐
of‐the‐art technology and a professional approach to journalism (Santa Cruz 1988). The financial and technical capabilities of El Mercurio not only consolidated its presence in the news media market but also caused the demise of newspapers unable to compete with it. This was the case, for example, of El Ferrocarril, a newspaper founded in 1855 and that operated until the first decade of the 1900s, but was unable to match the consolidation of El Mercurio newspaper as a major media player. The early decades of the 1900s also saw the emergence of a mass of popular readership. At this time the print media, especially El Mercurio, began generating new print products. One of those products was the emergence of what was an early example of a “niche magazine.” Zig‐Zag was founded in 1905, and paved the way for an increasing number of magazines dedicated to theatre, entertainment, sport, fashion, literature and home improvement. The period also saw the creation of the first magazine for children, El Peneca (Santiván 1965, 163‐34). 26
The popularisation and mass appeal of the print media, especially the popular‐tabloid press, made another a quantitative leap forward in the 1940s and 1960s. This was mainly due to a substantial increase in the level of literacy among the Chilean population (Collier and Sater 1999). Collier and Sater point out that by 1960 about 70 percent of the population was living in urban areas and 90 percent of the urban population was literate. Overall national literacy had reached 84 percent. With an increasing readership among the masses, the press attempted to popularise the content of newspapers by introducing what Brunner and Catalán have described as a “popular market” (1985, 45). Equipped with an increasing level of literacy, the working class gradually aspired to widen its horizon in terms of knowledge and entertainment. It became the main component of the media’s “popular market” of the 1940s and 1960s. Another important development during the first half of the twentieth‐century was the consolidation of a political‐partisan print media. The main feature was the ideological association between the media and Chilean political parties. This association brought about a public sphere characterised by the existence of a “press of the right, ʺpress of the left,” and the ʺpress of the centre.” The Chilean right was closely linked to El Mercurio. Historically, El Mercurio, owned by one of the richest clans in Chile, the Edwards family, has been the medium for dissemination of right wing ideas and is a powerful cultural institution of the Chilean political and economic right. By the end of the 1950s, El Mercurio had a daily circulation of around 75,000 issues and its national hegemony was reinforced by its avisos económicos a large and indispensable section of classified employment and advertisements (Colliers and Sater 1999, 256). Political views aligned to the centre‐right spectrum were represented by La Tercera, a newspaper under the control of the second largest print media group in Chile, Copesa. Founded in the 1950s by the Pico Cañas family, La Tercera constitutes the second most influential newspaper in Chile. The 1950s also saw the foundation of La Nación, the first State owned newspaper. Currently in circulation and mainly confined 27
to sport news stories, La Nación has suffered from the volatility and dynamics of the Chilean political system and its news agenda has been shaped by the political and ideological views of the government of the day. During the 1960s, and especially throughout the turbulent period of the 1970‐1973 government of President Salvador Allende, the print media became an instrument of virulent political confrontation between government supporters and detractors. The print press of these two decades became known as the prensa de trincheras (the press of the trenches). The materialization of new media players such as El Siglo and the magazine Principios, both owned by the Communist Party; the Socialist Party owned the daily Las Noticias de Ultima Hora and the weekly magazine Arauco intensified the partisan and ideological confrontation in the press. The Christian Democratic Party was associated with the newspaper La Tarde and the magazine Política y Espíritu. It is important to observe that despite the despite the confrontational nature of the print media of this period, it also created one of the most diverse media landscapes in the history of Chilean journalism. A New Landscape The diversification of the communication media extended beyond journalism. Film and radio had also appeared in the early twentieth‐century. This media diversification constituted the starting point for a “cultural landscape.” Gonzalo Catalán observes that this contributed to the development of a socially institutionalised communication system that relied on technological means for the production of “symbolic goods” for a wider range of the public (1985, 7). 14 Similar to the rest of Latin American, radio emerged in Chile in the early 1920s. 15 From the beginning, it was clear that the government would not commit to any kind of state subsidy for the creation of a non‐commercial radio system. Parallel to the rest 28
of the region, this non‐interventionist approach allowed private and profit oriented investors to take control of the radio system. The lack of government protection and regulation opened the Chilean radio companies to hostile takeovers that allowed the penetration of foreign cultural products, especially from US media organisations, to dominate the Chilean media market. The only regulation that was established dates back to the 1920s that gave the president the exclusive right to assign radio frequencies. Up until the early 1960s the powerful radio system was mainly controlled by ideologically conservative and financially private organisations. The airwaves were controlled by the two largest national radio stations with national coverage, Radio Agricultura (Agricultural Radio) controlled by the conservative Agricultural National Society, an association of wealthy landowners; and Radio Minería (Mining Radio) controlled by the owners of the then private Chilean mining industry. Despite being controlled by sectors linked to the Chilean Right; due to mainly profit‐oriented objectives, the Chilean radio system lacked the highly politicised features of the print press and it was primarily a medium oriented to entertainment and ratings. With a population of eight million people, the early 1960s was a period where Chile experienced a dynamic debate on some key transformation for its radio and emerging television system. In 1960 there were around a million transistor radio sets. With the arrival of the Christian Democracy government of Eduardo Frei in 1964 transistor radios became a ubiquitous medium in the city as well as in the countryside. By the mid 1960s there were around 100 radio stations tapping – with a selection of popular music, news, sport and “telenovelas” – into radio’s “popular market” (Collier and Sater 1999, 256). President Frei also attempted to introduce the first regulatory framework for the mass media and to assign the state more control of the media. He also tried to control to the increasing presence of foreign media products, especially from the US by attempting to increase state ownership. However financial and 29
conservative interests – national and international – reacted to this initiative and succeeded in defeating it. The Christian Democrats persisted with this ideal, and created schemes to ensure the participation of the poor and less privileged in media content and operations. Under their initiatives the government was able to implement popular national programs of social and political education. These programs were central to the high‐level politicisation of rural and urban social movements. The objective of President Frei was a political one: to obtain electoral profit from an increasing level of political participation by the masses. Between 1958 and 1973, electoral participation grew by an impressive 400 percent. At the same time, the government began subsidising and promoting the State owned media. The objective was to inject into the political scene, new and traditionally marginalised social actors. It also tried to provide the community with a public broadcasting service that was not provided by the commercial media. Television was introduced in the early 1960s. By 1964 there were only 31,000 television sets in Chile, but by 1970 this number had increased to 374,000. Programming was an eclectic combination of imported American and European programs, and Argentinean and Mexican telenovelas (Collier and Sater 1999, 257). The introduction of television occurred against a backdrop of an increasing level of urbanisation and industrialization that saw the expansion of a commercially viable mass market. This in turn allowed the creation of a target media audience for commercial purposes. In contrast to the radio system, private companies were not allowed to control television. This prohibition, aimed at keeping the private, commercial sector away from television, was based on an agreement reached by Chilean political parties and social leaders of all persuasions. There was a consensus among them that the power and potential of this medium to manipulate society should not be left in private hands. In addition, there was a view that private and profit oriented entrepreneurs 30
would not be able to fulfil the educational potential of television (Hurtado 1988). As a consequence, television was placed under the management of state universities, which were regarded by most of Chilean society, as non‐partisan and non‐profit oriented institutions (Catalán and Dupret 1988, 47). Despite the spirit of public service that inspired the university control, television was never supported by a state financial scheme. This allowed advertising to become a major player in the television system (Arteagabeitia 1990, 13). Television was regulated by the 1970 General Law, which assigned to this medium the role of maintaining, promoting and developing local cultural expression. The 1970 General Law also attempted to guarantee television editorial independence from the government and political parties (Hurtado 1988). The introduction of television in Chile coincided with the winds of social change and the political participation of the 1960s. With a strong emphasis on the radio and television system, the reformist government of Christian Democrat Eduardo Frei strove to widen media access for all political parties and social groups. A key step in this direction was the establishment in 1968 of Televisión Nacional de Chile (Chilean National Television or TVN). However, the first public broadcaster in Chile was not well received by the political parties in opposition. Both the Left and the Right accused the government of Eduardo Frei of attempting to politicise the television system. Set up as a public corporation, Televisión Nacional de Chile was under the stewardship of the Ministry of Education. On the other hand, the right wing and conservative parties did not welcome the establishment of a public broadcasting system, and its underlying aim of fostering grass roots education and mobilisation. This unwelcome expression was consistent with the traditional right wing view that sees an unregulated media market as a guarantee of freedom of expression. It is a view that considers, among other things, that media objectivity and pluralism can only be achieved in a non‐state interventionist system. Echoing their deeply conservative religious and ethical values, media owners advocated that the 31
only acceptable government intervention was for the regulation of advertising that may be deemed to be “too liberal” and go against Catholic and conservative values. Although the founders of Chilean television established a non‐profit oriented system, the reality was that television, including Televisión Nacional de Chile, was never completely free from commercial imperatives. As Hurtado points out, the state and university television of the 1960s and 1970s constituted a hybrid system where advertising began having an increasing level of importance on the nature of the programs (1989). For example, the most important television program in the first 30 years of Chilean television was Sábados Gigantes, a music and quiz show produced and broadcasted by the Canal de la Universidad Católica (Catholic University Television Channel, or Channel 13). A populist and highly commercially oriented five‐
hour program, Sábados Gigantes was from its beginning the most attractive television program in Chilean television for advertisers (Altamirano 1989). Up to 1964 each government devised different policies and schemes for media development. For almost half a decade, the Chilean media moved between state control and private commercial development. However a national consensus regarding media management began disappearing when the 1964 Christian Democratic and the 1970 Socialist governments introduced state regulation and implemented public subsidies to the non‐commercial media. This was a frontal attack on the private interests of local media barons. The communication debate about popular access to the media deepened and reached a level of crisis during the three years of the Socialist government of President Salvador Allende. Although Allende denounced foreign influence in the media and the financial and ideological monopolistic hegemony, he was unable to offer an alternative to the bourgeois communication structure. Political polarization and social conflict had exhausted any possibility of agreement on media management. This polarization and social conflict was mirrored in the media itself. The debate and 32
struggle for media control ended with the collapse of democracy in 1973 and with the establishment of the military dictatorship of General Pinochet. In this year the history of the Chilean media entered unchartered waters. Freedom of Expression and Freedom of the Press in Chile Freedom of expression and freedom of the press have been guaranteed in Chile’s constitutional history. However, these rights have frequently been eroded by a social history of cultural and political authoritarianism. In reality, freedom of expression and freedom of the press have uneasily coexisted with a series of legal and constitutional restrictions and limitations. This has been a historical feature of Chilean legislation and it goes back to the earliest constitutional documents. The Constitutional Disposition of 1811, established by the first post‐colonial independent republican government, included a clause protecting and guaranteeing freedom of expression. However, the very same document included harsh penalties for anybody engaged in anti‐government writings and in publications deemed “to denigrate common citizens” (González and Martinez 1987, 103). 16 Highly influenced by the philosophy of the 1700s Enlightenment, Chilean pro‐
independence leaders incorporated the idea of freedom of the press in their early documents elaborated as part of the war of independence against colonial Spain. Leaders of the Chilean independence movement conceived printing freedom as a fundamental human right (Donoso 1967, 36). Inserted in the ideology of revolution, the notion of “natural rights” was a key fundament in the early pro‐independence movement. As Collier argues, freedom of the press was regarded by the leaders of the independence movement as an “individual natural” right (1967, 147). 33
Printing freedom was clearly stated in Article 23 of the Reglamento Constitucional of 1812 (Constitutional Regulation). However, this also incorporated stringent regulations on the writing, publication and circulation of political information considered as a threat to public order and offensive to “good customs, religion and to the honour of citizens” (Donoso 1967, 52). The regulation provided the Senate with the power to dictate norms and rules limiting freedom of expression and freedom of the press. The powerful influence of the press was recognised in the pro‐independence writings of the period. In addition, it was during this period that the press was granted a watchdog and educational role (Collier 1967, 152). The Reglamento Constitucional of 1812 established an ominous antecedent for future legislation. It introduced the notion that infringements or abuses of freedom of expression and freedom of the press were acts of violation against the interests of the nation (Martínez 1995, 3‐12). This principle recounted in different forms is still a fundamental aspect of the ambiguous relationship between freedom of expression and national security. The Constitution of 1818, that followed the Reglamento Constitutional of 1812, also incorporated the notion of freedom of expression and freedom of the press. However it went even further with the inclusion of a clause guaranteeing the right of all citizens to the libre expresión de pensamientos (freedom of thoughts). The law about printing freedom was developed even further in the Decree of 1813. In Article 1 it establishes that “From now on, there will be a complete and total printing freedom. Man has the right to examine any issue and matter around him and therefore any attempt to restrict and oppose the freedom to publish any writing is abolished. Religious articles can not be published without prior censorship by the Catholic Church” (Vivanco Martínez 1992, 316). The Constitution of 1820 was less libertarian in its approach to freedom of expression and the press. However there was still a strong emphasis on the role of the press as a 34
watchdog. This idea coincided with a period when newspapers became a central feature of the political scene. The editorial of the first issue of the newspaper El Tizón Republicano (The Republican Flame) pointed out that the main role of newspapers was to oversee “all the government activities” and in particular “to fight against public abuses and judicial mismanagement” (1823, 2). Therefore, it was indispensable that the press enjoy the freedom to perform these important functions. In 1823 the newspaper the Clamor de la Patria (Clamour of the Motherland) wrote: “freedom of the press is the guarantee of all freedoms” (1823, 6). The Constitution of 1823, also known as the Constitución Moralista (Moral Constitution) introduced by the authoritarian government of Juan Egaña was a step back in matters relating to press and public freedoms. Juan Egaña questioned the notion that the press should be, by its nature, free. The Constitución Moralista was the first document that enunciated the principle of censorship as an instrument to “combat immorality and excesses committed by the press.” According to this document a “moral society,” the basis for the “happiness of its citizens,” was a pre‐
eminent principle able to override the principle of freedom of speech (Naveas Echiburu 1956). Collier argues that Egaña regarded the press as a key tool in the promotion of “moral values and good behaviour” (1967, 255). The Constitution of 1823 was short‐lived and was followed by the more libertarian Constitution of 1828. Through the Ley de Imprenta of 1828 (Printing Law) the state was granted the role of protecting and fostering the right of citizens to free expression of opinions and ideas. It also determined that the state should ensure the rights to freedom of expression, freedom of property and freedom to publish opinions. They were considered inalienable rights to be enjoyed by all citizens. However, reflecting the contradictions found in most Chilean constitutional documents concerning freedom of expression and the press, the Constitution of 1828 also established a clause whereby the judicial power was entitled to punish abuses committed in the exercise of printing freedom. The Ley de Imprenta introduced four crimes that might be 35
committed by the press: blasphemy, immorality, sedition and defamation (Collier 1967, 153). In order to prevent and punish excesses that might be committed by the press, the Ley de Imprenta established a Jurado de Imprenta (printing judge) responsible to hear all breaches of the law in regard to printed matters (Donoso 1967, 344‐54). The Constitution of 1828 was replaced by the Constitution of 1833. In terms of freedom of expression and freedom of the press, the Constitution of 1833 was ideologically and philosophically closer to the Constitution of 1823. Highly authoritarian, the Constitution of 1833 was the creation of Diego Portales. Although it guaranteed in Chapter 5 the right to freedom of opinion without censorship, it also established numerous clauses hindering freedom of expression and freedom of the press. During the life of the Constitution of 1833 the Chilean press was largely the sphere of influence of small, educated urban elite. In this early period the print press was regarded as an essential instrument in the endorsement of the “sanctity” of the law, the development of a national identity and as a tool for commerce and business (Mera and Ruiz 1986, 193). It was with these objectives in mind that the state established a system of subsidies in order to develop, promote and maintain a viable national press system. Following a reform of the Constitution of 1833, the government introduced in 1846 financial penalties for individuals and institutions accused of infringing the printing laws. Jail penalties were also introduced for major cases of defamation and contempt and in cases that involved “abuses to freedom of expression” (Cifuentes 1933, 31). With the introduction of the 1925 Constitution, which replaced the Constitution of 1833, the principles of printing freedom evolved towards the wider notion of the citizens’ right to be able to express their opinions and ideas in public. This was indeed a major advance in matters of freedom of speech and freedom of expression in the 36
Chilean constitutional system. However, following historical traditions, this was offset by the inclusion of Article 10, No.3, that consecrated a punishment principle designed to act against alleged abuses and crimes that may be committed during the exercise of freedom of opinion. Throughout its long existence until 1980, the Constitution of 1921 experienced several reforms in matters related to freedom of expression and freedom of the press. Most of these reforms tended to limit and impose severe restrictions on freedom of expression and freedom of the press. The first modification to the Constitution of 1925 was the introduction of Law No. 425 which established a wide range of limitations to freedom of expression, including the prohibition against publishing stories about citizens’ private actions and matters. It also introduced harsher penalties in matters related to defamation. In 1931, 1932 and 1937 the Constitution incorporated several laws designed to prohibit the publication and the dissemination of news stories considered as promoting “subversive ideas and values.” They also provided harsh penalties to those media organisations deemed to be promoters of “criminal ideologies against the State” (González, Mera and Vargas 199, 110‐111). These dispositions were especially designed to target the penetration into Chile of Marxist parties. Most of these reforms are the legal precedent and the ideologically authoritarian foundation of the 1948 Ley de Defensa Permamente de la Democracia (Law for the Permanent Defence of Democracy). One of the most symbolic cases of violation to the freedom of expression, the Ley de Defensa Permamente de la Democracia was introduced by the authoritarian and anti‐Communist government of Gabriel González Videla. Fundamentally, the law was passed in Congress with the central objective of banning the Chilean Communist Party. It also gave González Videla ample powers to repress political and media dissidence. One of those who suffered under this repressive law was the Nobel Prize winning poet Pablo Neruda. 17 The Ley de Defensa Permamente de la Democracia was in place until 1958 and became a shameful symbol 37
of the authoritative nature of Chilean rulers in regards to matters of freedom of expression. The restrictive turn taken by the constitutional reforms was reinforced during the right‐wing government of President Jorge Alessandri who in 1964 introduced the so‐
called ley mordaza (Gag law). Based on the same ideologically and authoritarian principles as the 1948 Ley de Defensa Permamente de la Democracia, the ley mordaza introduced new limitations to freedom of expression. It criminalised media comment; opinion or information that was considered defamatory to the honour and dignity of an exclusive group of citizens, most of them linked to the economic, political, social, religious and military elite. Furthermore, the law declared as illegal news stories that “sensationalise” criminal activity. The Christian Democrat government of President Eduardo Frei Montalva strengthened the ley mordaza even further. Under his government the 1967 Ley Sobre Abusos de Publicidad (Law on Abuses of Publicity) was introduced. This law was in place until the introduction in 2001 of the new Ley de Prensa (Press Law). Among its central tenets, the Ley Sobre Abusos de Publicidad established extremely harsh penalties against anyone who, knowingly, published classified documents or any material related to criminal investigations conducted by a court of law. As will be examined a bit later, this law placed severe restrictions on access to public and government information. In addition, this law posed major obstacles to the news coverage of matters of public interest, including judicial criminal inquiries. The Ley Sobre Abusos de Publicidad became the symbol of Chile’s long‐standing image as a conservative, secretive society in matters of public and government information. One of the last reforms to the Constitution of 1925 in the area of freedom of expression was introduced in 1971 by the government of President Salvador Allende. President Allende introduced into the Constitution, Law No.17.398. It was devised to regain some ground in the already limited freedom of expression enjoyed by Chileans. The 38
law recognised freedom of expression and freedom of the press as absolute, unlimited rights of citizens. Chapter 10, article 3 of the Constitution was further reinforced by the introduction of a constitutional norm that guaranteed the freedom to hold and promote political ideas regardless of their ideological aspirations. The importance of this norm resides in the absolute prohibition to impose political and legal restrictions against the existence and promotion of any political ideologies. This was indeed a reaction to previous laws that prohibited the existence of Marxist political parties. Article 19, No3 states: “the Constitution guarantees to all citizens of the Republic, the freedom to emit, without prior censorship, their opinions in writing and verbally, in print, radio, television or in other any form, without prejudice to respond to the crimes that may be committed while exercising of this freedom. It doesn’t constitute either a crime or abuse of this freedom the spreading of any ideology” (Cea Egaña, 1981, 190). The reform of 1971 was the product of the Estatuto de Garantias Democráticas (Statute of Democratic Guarantees) signed by President Allende in 1970. The Estatuto of Garantias Democráticas was a key instrument to protect freedom of expression and freedom of the press by imposing legal limitations to the level of government intervention on matters related to the press. However the escalation of the 1970‐1973 political confrontation, especially within the realm of the media, forced President Allende to rely on laws dictating a state of national emergency to oblige non‐
government private radio stations to broadcast government announcements. This was done in clear breach of constitutional norms that prohibited such measures. Regrettably, despite the real advances experienced in terms of freedom of expression during the government of Salvador Allende, several radio stations opposed to government policies were forced to shutdown (González and Fontaine 1997). The collapse of democracy in 1973 and the installation of the military dictatorship of General Pinochet resulted in an onslaught against freedom of expression and freedom of the press. The dictatorship of General Pinochet, introduced massive restrictions to 39
freedom of expression and the press under the spurious objective of national security. Loveman and Lira observe that although the suppression of freedom of information and the press by legal means and under the pretext of “national security” dates back to the constitutional reforms of the 1930s, the dictatorship managed to widen the reasons and causes used to repress the work of the media (2000). All the press sympathetic to the former government were closed or their assets confiscated and their offices were destroyed. Hundreds of journalists were forced to flee the country. Television channels were brought under military control and the universities, the traditional administrators of the Chilean television system, were controlled by vice‐chancellors appointed by the dictatorship. In the years that followed the coup of September 11, 1973, the military regime relied on administrative, semi‐judicial and even repressive measures to censor news and opinion, ban films for ideological reasons, impound publications and arrest journalists. Between 1973 and 1990, it is estimated that 23 journalists were murdered or simply disappeared. More than 80 media workers, including several journalism students were also killed (Carmona 1997, 10; Baltra 1988). Between 1975 and 1976 the dictatorship, with the acquiescence of the judiciary, introduced several new media restrictions. The majority of these restrictions came from the so‐called Ley de Seguridad Interior del Estado (State Security Law). This was introduced in the context of the Constitutional Act No. 3 of 1976 that replaced the chapter relating to constitutional guarantees to freedom of expression and freedom of the press. In this scenario of legal repression, the dictatorship tightened the censorship circle by introducing newer and harsher penalties for alleged breaches of the Ley de Seguridad Interior del Estado. During the massive pro‐democracy protests of 1983 and 1984, the military regime introduced a new law, Decree Law 320, prohibiting the press coverage of any public rally against the government. The law was soon followed by a military decree that 40
banned press organisations from publishing photographs or reporting pro‐democracy rallies. In addition, the dictatorship gave the Military Court the right to sue and prosecute non‐military citizens accused of defaming the armed forces. In order to provide a constitutional framework for the military regime, the dictatorship replaced the Constitution of 1925 with the Constitution of 1980. 18 The Constitution of 1980 incorporated several clauses and laws designed to guarantee the continuity of military tutelage over civilian and democratically elected authorities. In addition, the Constitution of 1980 provided the legal framework for the transition to democracy. It has also been the legal and constitutional context framing the debate about freedom of expression and freedom of the press in the post‐dictatorship period. Notes 1 Historically, there has been less public debate regarding alternative models of newspaper ownership, management and financing than there has been concerning broadcasting. 2 As mentioned in my article (2005); Latin America has been described by many as a laboratory of failed economic experiments. 3 After the 1959 revolution, Fidel Castro took control of one of Latin America’s most highly developed media systems with more television sets per capita than any other Latin American country. The Cuban government radically altered the country’s dependent capitalist economy and eliminated private ownership. 4 The impact of this failure became far more evident during the 1940s and 1950s with an explosion and the consolidation of the commercial media. The “law of the market” and the opening of media ownership to local and foreign entrepreneurs – brought about a situation that permitted the formation of profitable monopolies and the consolidation of political power in a small number of media organisations. 5 These attempts, though scarce and patchy, have been cynically “condemned” by media corporations as a “threat to freedom of expression” and as an unwanted interference by the State in the free flow of economic management. 41
6 The historical evidence tends to demonstrate that most of Latin America’s commercial media have shown a doubtful commitment to democracy and social justice. Most of the military coups against progressive governments in South America have had the encouragement and support of regional media barons. 7 The newspaper market in Peru is another example. It grew sharply between 1918 and 1928 from 167 to 473 publications. The majority of the publications emerging during this period became the foundations of the financial and political power of a small group of entrepreneurs linked to the Peruvian right wing movement, see Gargúrevich (1987). 8 During the Brazilian dictatorship Globo Television was supported by the military rulers and the financial elite, and became the fourth largest television conglomerate in the world (Sarti 1986). 9 Most of this research condemned the oligopolistic, interlocking media ownership, the biased distribution of access to messages to privileged urban minorities and also the predominance of commercially driven content that exalted consumerism and conservatism. Ever since then, the region has been a fertile ground for media researchers trying to understand and analyse media content, structure, and the role journalism has been called upon to play in these societies. 10 Similar concerns were expressed in the 1976 Intergovernmental Conference on Communications Policies in Latin America and the Caribbean, held in Costa Rica. The Costa Rica conference sought to warn governments in the region about the flaws of the market and of private ownership of the media. The conference called for the development of a media “public service” approach (1976). 11 Media reforms proposed by the elected governments in Venezuela and Mexico occupied a great deal of public debate but were never implemented. In both countries the proposed reforms were practically the first attempt of any government to regulate or impose a public‐service role on the mass media. 12 This mode of media propaganda was successfully replicated by the Chilean military dictatorship. 13 He has been recorded as the first journalist in Chilean history. 14 Catalán suggests that this emergent cultural landscape was brought about by the extension, diversification, segmentation and specialisation of an embryonic cultural market (1987). 42
15 It is important to point out that many of the pioneers of radio in Latin America were amateurs, and the new technology was treated more as a novelty than as a serious new cultural or economic force. 16 All constitutional charters, including the current Constitution of 1980, have followed this pattern of contradictions. 17 A declared Marxist, Neruda was an active and high profile member of the Chilean Communist Party. Following the enactment of this law, Neruda was forced to live in exile and his writings were banned. 18 Written by a group of ultra‐conservative civilian ideologues, the Constitution of 1980 was designed to create a democracia protegida (protected democracy). 43
Chapter 2 CHAPTER 2 2.1 The Chilean Road to Socialism (1970‐1973) Hopes and Shadows The government of the 1970‐1973 Unidad Popular (Popular Unity) was a unique experience in Chilean and international politics. 1 Led by President Salvador Allende, the government of the Unidad Popular attempted to implement a peaceful and democratic transition to a Socialist system. The Chilean road to Socialism was a distinctive process whereby the democratically elected Salvador Allende, and his coalition of communists, socialists and other minor left wing parties tried to reform, by electoral and peaceful means, the economic, social and political structures of Chilean society. 2 Salvador Allende, a Socialist and a Marxist, saw the capitalist system as the root cause of poverty, inequality and exploitation in the Third World. He saw the same economic system as the main reason behind the profoundly unequal wealth distribution so characteristic of Chilean society. 3 President Allende believed that a transition to a Socialist system was the only way to resolve the structural problems of Third World countries including Chile. Although inspired by many other Latin American left‐wing movements, including the Cuban revolution, the Chilean road to Socialism was thought of as a non‐violent process, respectful of liberal western democratic rules and values. The election of Salvador Allende was a major and dramatic event in Chilean history. 4 It was a sign of the developing conflict with US foreign policy in the region. With the election of Salvador Allende, the Chilean united left became the enemy and the new target of the US in the region. The US role in attempting to undermine the government of Salvador Allende has been extensively documented. The CIA spent US$8 million in an effort to create the conditions for a military coup (US Senate Intelligence Committee 1975; Letelier and Moffit 1978). 44
Many Chilean contemporary issues, including the nature and the dynamic of the 1990s transition to democracy, needs to be framed within the context of the historical tragedy that engulfed Chile from 1970. The effects of Allende’s Socialist experiment are still present in the contemporary Chilean political landscape. Echoing Eric Hobsbawn’s observation about the lack of organic relation between the present and the past (1994, 3), Chilean contemporary history cannot be understood and explained without linking it to the recent past. Salvador Allende came to power after three unsuccessful attempts in the three previous national presidential elections. The September 4, 1970 presidential election was a tight contest between the left, centre and right of the political spectrum. Salvador Allende obtained 36.2 percent of the vote, the right wing candidate of the Partido Nacional (National Party) Jorge Alessandri 34.9 and Christian Democrat Radomiro Tomic 27.8 percent (Spooner 1999, 24). 5 However, the election result of September 1970 denied Salvador Allende executive powers. Failing to obtain an absolute majority, the Congress was charged with choosing the president from the two candidates who obtained the two largest preferences. Salvador Allende managed to obtain congressional support from the Christian Democrats, who controlled the largest number of seats, by agreeing to a sign an Estatuto de Garantías Constitucionales (Statute of Democratic Guarantees). This document, that also created some important obstacles for the new government, attempted to ensure that Allende and his left‐wing Unidad Popular would respect the democratic rules and, above all, would abide by the legal framework of the 1925 Constitution, a powerful symbol of the strong democratic tradition and constitutional rule in Chile. 6
Throughout his short government, Allende faced a deeply hostile legislature, a deep‐rooted bureaucracy, and a conservative judicial power. He also became the target of the US’ anti‐
Communist foreign policy in Latin America. 7 Although elected in a free and democratic election Allende was the object of implacable opposition from the Chilean financial and political elite. 8
45
The political opposition against Allende came not only from outside but also from within his own political alliance. President Allende’s peaceful transition to Socialism was questioned, challenged and opposed by some of the most radical sectors of the Unidad Popular. While Allende truly believed that Socialism could be built on the basis of the Chilean democratic tradition, many other associates of the left‐wing coalition aspired to a rapid and profound radicalization of the process (Almeyda 1986). Most of the proponents of this option were members of the Chilean Left who experienced in the 1960s an intense process of radicalization and alignment with the most orthodox and inflexible Marxist and Leninist doctrines. Cancino observes that they attempted to transform the democratically elected Socialist government of Allende into a radical process, with more parallels to 1917 Russia than to 1970 Chile (1988, 439). There is no doubt that the ideological and strategic differences within the Unidad Popular contributed to the collapse of Salvador Allende’s vision. While Allende and many of his followers argued that Socialism could be established on the solid basis of the Chilean democratic tradition, many others sought to by‐pass this tradition. They were on the far left of the Unidad Popular. They were the ultras that assumed the most orthodox and inflexible positions of Marxism (Cancino 1988, 439). 9
The contradictions between the progressive approach taken by Allende and the radical demands of the far‐left caused many dilemmas for the government of the Unidad Popular. Within the left coalition, Communists were in favour of moderation and supported Allende’s process. In contrast the Socialists and other more radical left wing groups, such as the Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionario (Left Revolutionary Movement or MIR), were in favour of a rapid and even a violent process of social and political transformation. 10
The socialist vision of Allende was profoundly idealistic. He tried to implement a series of initiatives for the redistribution of wealth among the needy and workers. Even more significantly the government of President Allende attempted to shift the balance of economic 46
power away from the bourgeoisie to the masses, in the urban and rural areas. His strategy was to provide more power to the state in order to transform it into the key force in the economy. A stronger and more active state was the basis on which President Allende’s economic structural reforms rested. It was an economic program designed to obtain the support of the poor by stimulating economic activity and redistributing income to the most economically disadvantaged sectors of society. There were profound and far‐reaching structural reforms, which were intended to lay the basis for a transition from a capitalist to a Socialist system. It was an economic program with an intense class and ideological dimension that attracted opposition from the Chilean wealthy rural elite and urban bourgeoisie. Although the opposition to these economic measures were strident from the very beginning, it was not until the nationalisation and expropriation of the powerful textile industry that the opposition from the business community became active and organised (Silva 1996, 44‐45). Business people and large‐scale landowners saw the Unidad Popular socialization program as a direct threat to their fundamental economic and political interests (Almeyda 1986). In terms of the agricultural sector, Allende sought to activate the 1967 Ley de Reforma Agraria (Agrarian Reform Law) passed during the previous government of the Christian Democrat Eduardo Frei. Under Allende the speed of land reform increased. All land holdings larger than 80 hectares, or about 200 acres, were eligible to be expropriated and redistributed to peasants (Steenland 1977, 8). By the end of 1972 there were still large properties beyond this limit. The land reform went to the heart of the semi feudal Chilean landownership system. The aim of this reform boiled down to a simplistic proposition –
expropriate some of the largest rural properties, owned by some of the wealthiest Chilean landowners, and distribute them to some of the most impoverished citizens. In a more simplistic notion, the aim of the reform was to create a “classless rural society” (Loveman 1976, 293). 47
The mining sector was not exempt from President Allende’s reformist program. Historically copper has been the main natural resource of Chile. It has also been a resource linked to Chile’s national identity. The nationalization of this resource, in 1971, was one of the first measures taken by President Allende. Until then, the Gran Minería del Cobre (the Great Copper Mining Industry), a financial holding of the three largest copper mines, was owned by several US mining consortiums. By the mid‐1970s these three mines accounted for more than 50 percent of all of Chile’s export earnings (De Vylder 1976, 116). As expected, the US government reacted unfavourably to President Allende’s decision to nationalize the mining sector. Equally central to Allende’s program was the expropriation of some of the largest US’ companies interest in Chile; among them were those of Ford and the International Telephone and Telegraph (ITT). During Allende’s three‐year government, ITT became a formidable adversary of the Socialist government. It channelled substantial financial assistance to right wing parties and to the armed forces during the destabilisation process that resulted in the military coup (Quimantú 1972). Allende was also keen to take over some portion of the urban industrial and financial sector. The expropriation of key sectors of the economy, including privately owned industries and some financial institutions, were vital to the Unidad Popular structural reforms. The creation of a State sector of the economy was without doubt one of the most controversial initiatives taken by Allende. It gave the state an “activist” role in the drive for modifying the ownership of key industries. Under this program, industries taken over by the State were then passed on to workers and employees. Manufacturing a Coup From an ideological viewpoint the Unidad Popular was a threat to the class interests of the Chilean bourgeoisie (Garretón and Moulián 1983). The radical nature of the program of the Unidad Popular brought about relentless opposition from right‐wing politicians. 11 By the end of 1971 right‐wing political groups began lobbying the army to act against the government. 48
Internationally, the right‐wing opposition was greatly strengthened by an implacable US opposition against Allende. The US government viewed the Chilean road to Socialism as a dangerous political experiment that could be followed by other countries in the region. From the early days of the Socialist government, it was clear that the US was determined to prevent the emergence of a “new Cuba” in the region (Davis 1985). The manufacture of the military coup began in Washington. The first measure against the government of President Salvador Allende was taken on the economic front. Davis observes that Richard Nixon, attempting to asphyxiate the Chilean economy, denied all US loans and credits to Chile, except those assisting the armed forces (1985, 2‐13). In addition the US relied on its considerable power to cut off or stifle credit from international lending agencies. During the three years of the government of Salvador Allende, the World Bank deprived Chile of all new loans. At the same time the government of President Nixon was extremely generous in providing financial support for the government’s opposition, including the armed forces (Davis 1985). During the three years of the Socialist government, it has been estimated that the CIA provided around US$8 million to opposition groups. One of the main recipients of this funding was the powerful newspaper El Mercurio (Hersh 1983; Marchetti and Marks 1974; Powers 1979; US Senate Intelligence Committee 1975, 26). By the end of 1970 the opposition against President Allende became more open and better organized. The fascist organisation Patria y Libertad (Fatherland and Liberty) launched a campaign of terror designed to exacerbate the feeling of insecurity and disorder. On the other hand the Christian Democratic Party closed the avenues of cooperation with the Unidad Popular. By the end of 1971, the political environment was marked by an air of confrontation and unsustainable economic deterioration. Industries controlled by the government were not profitable and domestic production was at an all time low. Because of the decision by the US to cut off all loans and credits, Chile was unable to afford the importation of many basic necessities. By the end of 1972, the colas (queues) for food and other basic items became commonplace. 49
Apart from financial backing, the CIA also provided intelligence assistance to Allende’s opposition. The CIA was behind the October paro (strike) of 1972 (Faúndez 1988, 236). The strike began in early October and involved the main union of truck owners. In a country highly dependent on road transport, the central objective of the strike was to paralyse the domestic economy. The October 1972 strike was followed by the July and August 1973 general strike of road transport that brought the economy to a standstill. The industrial action was led by the powerful road transport association. This was one of the most important fronts of the so‐
called Comando Gremial, a CIA and foreign business funded association of Chilean entrepreneurs who were committed to the destabilization of the Unidad Popular government (González 2000, 138‐139). The strike brought about a dramatic shortage of basic products. Sugar, flour, oil, toilet paper and toothpaste were not to be found. As was expected, this strike amplified the economic problems and the discontent of the population with the Government’s management of the economy. It seems that the US hoped this action would bring the government to an end (Valenzuela 1978). These events convinced many politicians, including high‐ranking members of the Christian Democratic Party, that a military coup was inevitable. The armed forces indoctrinated by the US’ anticommunist rhetoric saw military intervention as an anti‐communist crusade (Bitar 1986). On September 11, 1973 the day that Allende planned to call a national plebiscite as a move to resolve the political crisis, the armed forces carried out a bloody coup. Led by General Augusto Pinochet, who one month earlier had been named army commander by President Allende, the coup put an end to the Chilean transition to Socialism. Almost two decades of military dictatorship began. 50
Notes 1 For an excellent analysis of the 1970‐1973 government of Allende, see Garretón and Moulián (1983), La Unidad Popular y el conflicto politico en Chile. Santiago: Ediciones Minga. 2 Allende ran his presidential campaign under the banner of the UP Program, a document that had been written and agreed to by all six parties in the coalition. It was called the Basic Program of the UP. Its objective was to begin the construction of socialism in Chile during Allende’s government. 3 The program emphasized economic measures, especially changes in property relations, as the key to laying the foundation for socialism. 4 The 1970 presidential election campaign was a heated affair and it was the reflection both of the division within Chilean society and of the issues that dominated the political debate. 5 The 1970 election was in many ways a replay of the 1958 contest. In both contests Salvador Allende and Jorge Alessandri were candidates, with the third candidate Christian Democrat, Frei in 1958 and Tomic in 1970. 6 One of the most discussed issues is about Allende’s real power to rule. It is possible to observe that Allende, although constitutionally elected, did not really have the necessary popular backing to enact the sweeping social and economic changes. 7 The U.S government was especially annoyed by Allende’s election. Kissinger is reported to have told President Nixon after Allende’s election that just because the Chilean people were foolish enough to have elected him, there was no reason that the United States should allow them to live with the consequences of their actions, see Nathaniel Davis (1983). 8 Traditionally the US has regarded Latin America as a zone of its political, economic and ideological influence. The US has also seen the region as a recipient of its cultural penetration and cultural influence, so in the Cold War scenario, Salvador Allende was an unwelcome leader in the region. 9 One the best know ultra was Jorge Altamirano, a Socialist who today describes himself as an Euro‐Socialist. 10 Sectarianism within the Left was a permanent problem 11 By 1971, many in the opposition believed that the political stalemate in Chile could only be broken by extra constitutional means. 51
2.2 Journalism and Media under Allende Journalism and Media in the Ideological Struggle The electronic media conveyed president Salvador Allende’s first and last messages to the nation. Salvador Allende’s first proclamations were broadcast nationally on a television cadena (television link‐up). His last message, in the early hours of the military coup of September 11, 1973, was conveyed by one of the last radio stations to be shut down, Radio Magallanes. 1 In a way these two events tend to illustrate the centrality of the media and journalism in the political drama that engulfed Chile during the three years of the government of the Unidad Popular. The struggle in the media system between 1970 and 1973 was not for the fainthearted. It was a war of positions fought between the pro‐government media and the media opposed to the socialist experiment. It was also an ideological struggle. 2
As Dooner argues, while the pro‐Allende media became a vociferous defender and promoter of the government of the Unidad Popular; the opposition media developed an openly seditious and conspiratorial line against Allende (1989, 25). 3 Dooner points out that the right wing media created a feeling in the community that the military coup of 1973 was an inevitable even “logical end” to a critical chapter in Chilean history (1989, 26). In the dramatic last hours of the Allende government, Radio Magallanes, owned then by the Communist Party, was one of the last strongholds of political resistance to the coup. As González Camus recounts, despite a heavy aerial bombardment, Radio Magallanes maintained its broadcasts for a few hours calling workers to take “positions of combat” in defence of the government (1988, 242‐44). Radio Magallanes provides a typical example of the partisan role taken by the media during the socialist government. 52
During the government of the Unidad Popular the Chilean media increased significantly in importance as a social and political actor. The presidential election of 1970 was the first political contest in Chilean history fought within a media landscape characterised by an increasing popularity of television. 4 In an increasingly mediated political scenario, Allende faced a central dilemma: what to do with the media in the context of the Chilean road to socialism. During 1970‐1973, the unresolved dilemma of the Unidad Popular was to find an alternative to the right wing hegemonic media system in Chile. President Allende faced the challenge of ruling within a media and cultural landscape mainly dominated by a politically conservative social class. The wealthy bourgeoisie owned most of the mainstream media (Dooner 1989). However, Allende not only faced a well established conservative media, but also a cultural and intellectual landscape mainly controlled by the bourgeoisie. Armand and Michelle Mattelart, long time observers of the Chilean media note that the Unidad Popular faced a bourgeoisie that was, of course, dependent, but also armed with a political intelligence acquired during its long history of managing public affairs in a true representative democracy (1992, 181). For the political Left, the problem consisted of confronting a bourgeoisie that had remained in place while also accepting the rules of political pluralism (Mattelart and Mattelart 1992, 181). Prior to his election, Salvador Allende was an enduring critic of the effects of private and foreign ownership of the Chilean media. However, when the Unidad Popular finally reached power he was incapable of offering an alternative media policy to modify the monopolistic and commercial nature of the Chilean communication system. This was despite the importance given by the Unidad Popular’s political program to the role of the media. The program of the Unidad Popular insisted that the print and electronic media, as well as film studios and publishing houses, were fundamental to the formation of a new socialist culture. 5 The aims of the communication program were lofty and ambitious. It entrusted the media with educational roles and objectives and attempted to give popular organisations control over media outlets (Alexander 1978, 246). In addition the program envisaged the 53
establishment of a media system free from commercial imperatives and monopolies (Alexander 1978, 246‐247). Allende’s inability to offer an alternative model of media ownership or financing meant that during his three years of government the media maintained its capitalist and commercial nature. It also meant that other key problems in democratising the communication system, such as the nationalisation of some key print and electronic media organisations and the treatment of news and entertainment content, were not resolved. No less important was the failure to establish effective channels of communication between the government and its supporters. 6 There were several important reasons for the Unidad Popular’s political inability to implement its media project. First of all, President Allende was unable to achieve, given the different ideological tendencies within the Left wing coalition, a unified approach to media policy. Secondly, there was resolute national and international opposition to the Unidad Popular’s media program. Finally, Salvador Allende was severely limited by the Estatuto de Garantías Constitucionales. Under this document, he was obliged to support a law that effectively banned his government from taking control of any media organizations without the approval of Congress, where the Unidad Popular lacked sufficient numbers on its own. This meant that President Allende was left without the legal instruments to even maintain control of the state‐owned media set up by the previous government of the Christian Democratic Party. Playing the role of watchdog for the Estatuto de Garantías Constitucionales, the Christian Democratic Party warned President Allende that any attempt to discriminate in terms of the sale or supply to the media of “paper, ink, machinery, or elements for their operation, or with respect to the authorization or permission necessary for their acquisition within, or outside of, the country” would be contested (Sigmund 1977, 188‐220). Essentially this meant that President Allende’s plan to take control of the strategic La Papelera, a paper and cardboard manufacturing company, was out of the question. This powerful business conglomerate, owned by the conservative former President Arturo Alessandri, exercised a 54
complete monopoly over some of the basic resources used by the print media and book publishers, such as paper and ink. During the 1970s La Papelera supplied 60 percent of the paper needed for newspapers and magazines. Allende therefore attempted to bypass the constitutional guarantee by trying to purchase, on behalf of the State, shares in the company (Santa Cruz 1988). His objective was to take control of the company by making the State its largest shareholder. By controlling the supply of paper, Salvador Allende’s political aim was to keep the opposition print media at bay. It was a bold act whose main target was the right wing newspaper El Mercurio. The newspaper reacted accusing President Allende of curbing freedom of the press and breaking the agreement signed with the Christian Democratic Party. El Mercurio ran daily advertisements on its front pages warning stockholders of La Papelera against selling out to the state. Eventually, La Papelera stockholders resisted the Unidad Popular buyout offer. In addition, the government backed away from purchasing shares due to the high cost and the condition that stockholders be paid cash for their shares. For many observers at the time, the attempted take over of La Papelera was the issue that triggered the strong opposition of El Mercurio to Allende. From this moment, until the collapse of the Socialist government, El Mercurio became the single most important tool of the anti‐Allende campaign. Although Salvador Allende was unable to break the conservative media hegemony, he was not completely deprived of media outlets to spread his message and political aspirations. Although they did not have the level of penetration of the conservative media, approximately two thirds of all media were sympathetic to his government (Ortúzar 1972). At the beginning of his government, President Allende secured considerable control of Radio Portales, largely owned by the Hirmas family. One of the richest textile and clothing manufacturers in the country, the Hirmas family avoided the government’s expropriation of its business by relinquishing to the State 51 percent of control over Radio Portales. In the 1970s Radio Portales reached more than 25 percent of the audience in the capital city, Santiago, and became an effective magnifier of President Allende’s transition to Socialism. 55
President Allende added to his media apparatus Radio Corporación. Ironically, Agustin Edwards, the patriarch and owner of El Mercurio newspaper, sold this radio station to the Unidad Popular. Allende did not only rely on the media system in order to build a space for public discourse. He attempted to improve access by the masses to platforms of public debate by supporting the creation of an alternative public sphere of popular culture and the arts. Allende placed a hefty emphasis on the access to mass culture and art products by socially and economically disadvantaged people. Classical music, ballet, poetry, folkloric artistic expressions were regularly taken to some of the most impoverished urban neighbourhoods (Jara 1983, 164). Although President Allende tried unsuccessfully to keep control of the state‐owned media, his government was more successful in articulating and promoting a dynamic and highly political popular culture. He was committed to the promotion of public ownership of the local film, book and music recording industries (Mattelart 1983, 356‐357). As Mattelart explains: “on entering the communication market which is controlled by the enemy’s model, the Unidad Popular tried to adopt the methods of the bourgeoisie in order to subvert this market from within” (1983, 356). During the three years of the Unidad Popular, the clash between mass culture and the project for social change was constant. New questions were raised concerning the difficulty of redefining the emotional relationship between the media and their users; the complexity of imagining forms of participation other than the “sensorial;the difficulty of linking the media to a project of social development that broke with the vision of the “revolution of rising expectations”; the difficulty of mastering the flow of a communication system increasingly linked to a transnationals structure of information production. This was shown by the conflicting relationship between the popular government and the major news agencies, such as the US based United Press International (UPI), which too often only reproduced internationally the news appearing in the dailies and magazines of an openly seditious opposition press. 56
Finally, there was the inability of traditional political policies to take into account the role played by the media in a society extremely divided both ideologically and socially. These were the issues that the military coup against President Salvador Allende left unresolved (Mattelart 1994, 173‐174). Trench Journalism Between 1970 and 1973, the mass media and journalism in particular became the public sphere in which the different political and ideological forces fought for the hearts and minds of the Chilean people. The media landscape was an ideological battleground and journalists became political activists and agitators. 7 What best describes the period is the emergence of what was called periodismo de barricadas (trench journalism). The political turmoil brought about a particular form of journalistic practice. It was a period where an adversarial style of journalism flourished. The press of the Right, Left and Centre were tireless in their partisanship and ideological sectarianism. In the period 1970‐1973 there were 46 newspapers in Chile and most of them were published along different ideological lines and they were vociferous promoters of their own partisan and ideological views. Objectivity and fairness, concepts so treasured by journalists, were professional ideals archived for better times. During the three years of the Unidad Popular government, trench journalism flourished within the context of a politically segmented audience. The political polarisation of Chilean society was mirrored in the media and in journalism, and became one of the realms of pro and anti‐government political struggles. Radio stations, newspapers, magazines and television stations articulated their content in the confrontational style that characterised this period. It was in the print media that the radicalisation of Chilean society was best demonstrated. 8 Arguably the most strident voice was that of El Clarín. Owned by Darío Sainte‐Marie, a 57
Bolivian citizen and resident in Chile, this tabloid newspaper supported President Allende and became a ruthless critic of both the Christian Democratic Party and the right wing opposition. The left wing perspective was also expressed in Punto Final, Chile Hoy, Vistazo, Ahora and Puro Chile. President Allende also counted on the government‐owned La Nación; El Siglo, owned by the Chilean Communist Party; and Ultima Hora, the organ of the Socialist Party. In contrast to the right and centre of politics, the Left did not have a homogenous view of President Allende’s government. For example Punto Final, the weekly published by the radical MIR was relentless in its criticism of Allende’s transition to socialism. Advocating a radicalization of the political struggle, Punto Final accused Allende of bourgeois tendencies. The Christian Democratic Party’s media outlets were La Tarde, La Prensa and the magazines Vea and Política y Espíritu. The Chilean Right articulated its anti‐Allende stance through magazines such as Sepa and Tizona, both of them with clear fascist tendencies. It also published a daily tabloid called Tribuna and ran unsophisticated anti‐Allende propaganda that certainly helped the political destabilization. 9 Tribuna used front‐page headlines to convey the message that Allende was corrupt and even that he was an alcoholic. One of the infamous headlines, a mix of humor and defamation, read: “Found out‐ Yankee secret agent attempting to assassinate Allende; his name is Johnny Walker.” Frequently, Allende was portrayed as an alcoholic and a womanizer (Reyes Matta 1986). In the early years of President Allende’s government, Tribuna targeted daily the armed forces for what it considered as support for the socialist transition. High‐ranking officers were accused of selling out for good salaries, housing, and other benefits. When Allende attempted to approach the armed forces to resolve the political crisis, Tribuna accused some high‐ranking officers of disloyalty. One of those officers, a general by the name of Augusto Pinochet threatened to sue the magazine for “serious offences against the dignity of the armed forces” (Spooner 1994, 26). 10
However, the collapse of President Allende’s government cannot be understood without looking at the role played by El Mercurio. 11 A voice of the Chilean Right, El Mercurio has 58
traditionally set the news agenda in Chile. It also exerts an almost unchallenged journalistic hegemony. This hegemonic influence is achieved by two means. Firstly, it targets the whole society with the aim of obtaining a general consensus on central conservative ideological values, such as free market and private property; and secondly it plays the role of intermediary and arbiter among the different factions of the Chilean Right (Sunkel 1983). During the Unidad Popular government, El Mercurio added a new dimension to its operations; it became a tool of psycho‐political warfare. Alisky points out that technically and financially assisted by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), this newspaper became the vanguard of a sophisticated media opposition against the Unidad Popular (1981, 204). The CIA directed around US$1, 6 million dollars to El Mercurio during this period. This financial aid compensated El Mercurio for the loss of State advertising that was redirected by Allende to a more sympathetic news media. 12 This newspaper engaged in a systematic campaign of disinformation designed to create fear among the middle class and create a coup atmosphere (Freed and Landis 1980). It resorted to sophisticated propaganda techniques to create an environment of instability and uncertainty within the society. Frequently its front pages were splashed with stories of crime and street violence. “El Mercurio set aside its traditionally composed layout and replaced it with broad headlines, stretching across the whole newspaper, with the objective of hammering readers with stories more suitable to tabloid than broadsheet newspaper” (Reyes Matta 1986,72). Repeatedly, the newspaper juxtaposed images of President Allende with images of violence and people queuing in front of shops waiting for food and other basic products (Durán 1995). It targeted the collective imagination of specific social groups, especially the middle class, with the use of disconnected analogies, metaphors and other rhetorical resources (Durán and Rockman 1986, 29‐62). It was a classic case of political propaganda and ideological warfare. Despite the fact that Allende had support from a reasonable number of sympathetic newspapers and radio stations, they were unable to break the hegemonic message of the anti‐Allende media. 59
The way the media acted and the people’s reaction during this period tended to confirm some theories about the impact of the media. For example, newspapers attempted to gain support for their cause by a careful selection of words used in the production of some stories. As Riesmans has observed, although printed words by their own cannot exercise social coercion, they can powerfully establish the ways in which people respond (1950, 112). As he explains, this is particularly important in situations of conflict when specific words and concepts can have a high degree of aggression. Following Schram’s ideas on media effect, the print and electronic media were used as a “national stimulant” instead of tranquilliser (1965, 75). 13
In the case of the government of Salvador Allende, and within a situation of generalised crisis, the media had a strong effect on the behaviour of citizens. They assisted in creating a climate of collective hysteria, lack of confidence and hate. In the case of the Chilean experience, the media, both from the Left and the Right, became agents of indoctrination, reinforcing extreme attitudes, beliefs and prejudices. In the end, Chileans fed with an array of dramatic stories, accepted less reluctantly a violent exit from the crisis. This was also the solution suggested by El Mercurio. The majority of its editorials during this period tended to advocate the “inevitability” of a military coup (Sunkel 1983). The end to the crisis by military intervention was a real option by late 1972. By then the Chilean Right had increased its media operation against President Allende. He was subject to personal slander and character assassination. Disinformation became bolder and the calls for a forced overthrow of the government were openly seditious. Allende hit back accusing El Mercurio of promoting a climate of political instability and chaos. Allende reacted by imposing hefty taxes on the newspaper and by denying government advertising. In October 1971, the police raided the headquarters of the newspaper searching for weapons. They found none. In July 1973, during the national strike, in an editorial El Mercurio explicitly called for military intervention. In part the editorial said: “it is the categorical duty of sensible people 60
to put an end to looting and disorder stimulated by an inept and crazy government that smothers us … in order to accomplish this task of political salvation, we have to renounce all political parties, the masquerade of elections, the poisoned and deceitful propaganda, and turn over to a few select military men the task of putting an end to political anarchy” (Valenzuela 1978, 90). By September 10, the day before the military coup, the then director of the newspaper Arturo Fontaine was warned of the imminent military action. Aware of the upcoming events, El Mercurio moved its operations from the city center to the printing offices of the Edwards group on the outskirts of Santiago (González Camus 2000, 119‐323). In September 11, two right wing controlled radio stations Radio Agricultura and Radio Minería became the main broadcasting apparatus for the seditious armed forces. On September 11, 8:32am, Radio Agricultura broadcast a communiqué demanding the resignation of President Allende. The communiqué warned the pro‐Allende radio stations to cease operations or otherwise they would be militarily “punished by land and air” (Wheelan 1989, 455). The headquarters of the Left wing radio stations, including Radio Portales, Radio Corporación and Radio Magallanes, became the target of aerial attack, while others, such as Radio Sargento Candelaria and Radio Balmaceda, were taken over. The only radio station that managed to stay on air was Radio Magallanes. This radio station broadcast the last message of President Allende. In the days after the coup 40 radio stations and dozens of print publications were taken over by the military. It was the beginning of a ferocious repression against journalists. It also saw the destruction of a media system that is still experiencing the after effects of the ensuing brutal regime that lasted nearly two decades. The End of the Experiment The Chilean road to Socialism was a political experiment filled with paradoxes and contradictions. It was in the media that they were most evident. President Allende’s transition to Socialism was an attempt to bring about profound social, economic and political structural changes within the framework of a media landscape regulated by a liberal‐
capitalist economy. Yet, during the government of a Marxist president, the media system had maintained its commercial and capitalist structure (Mattelart 1980). Portales observes that as 61
a result, the Left wing media was obliged to adopt and follow a policy of market competition with the objective of contending with the right wing media hegemony (1983, 64). In this context, the competitive nature of a commercial, capitalist system was preserved and the left wing newspapers, following the mould of the right wing publications, regarded sales volume and circulation as their first priority (Israel 1989, 123). Just like the right wing, the leftist print and electronic media exploited sex, sport, crime and sensationalism to build up mass circulation. Ironically, the commercial success of some left wing newspapers paralleled their failure to provide general political analysis and education. On the other hand, the government’s communication media was limited to slogans and sensationalist phrases, without explaining the problems and the objectives of the transition to Socialism. Indeed, news stories were reported, but there was no political or civic education (Israel 1989, 124). It was a lost battle against a well‐established and consolidated bourgeois system. Unable to compete with the commercial media, the Left was pushed into a defensive position. From here, the Chilean Left tried to compete by adopting the contents and style of the right wing media. The Left media used sensationalist and bold headlines and similar news agendas and values as the Right. This was a desperate attempt to counter its ideological deficiencies, and in trying to emulate the Right, the left wing media reduced its own political influence. Failing to take advantage of the political momentum of the first years of the Unidad Popular’s government, the left wing media created a chaotic news agenda without any organic relation to the social base. In addition, the excesses of the left wing media resulted in counter productive competition among themselves causing a saturation of the tabloid‐
oriented media (Mattelart 1972). Under Allende, journalists from the Left, used to being in opposition, were not well equipped to adapt to the new reality of being in power. Their own sectarian disagreements prevented the establishment of a single centre for the defence and promotion of the transition to socialism. This contrasted with the right wing media, which was able to articulate around El Mercurio, a single, consistent and successful opposition to the Unidad Popular. The 62
Chilean Left was incapable of understanding that the mass media could not be changed by a mere inversion of the signs of the messages which they transmited (Mattelart 1980, xxiv). Allende was unable to formulate an alternative to the hegemonic right wing media and the alternative envisioned was rather simplistic, to change the content leaving unchanged the ownership and structure of the media. In the final analysis, the failure of the left wing media to support the socialist transition derived from the fundamentally unresolved contradictions within the Unidad Popular and from the inevitable contradiction between social change and the preservation of individual freedom. In the end, the problems faced by the government of Salvador Allende were no different from those facing other regimes attempting to break traditional patterns of social and economic relations without tearing down the institutional foundations of liberal democracy. Notes 1 During times of national emergency, all radio stations were frequently linked into a national chain and were limited to government reports. 2 As Mattelart observes, the bourgeoisie placed its communication apparatus at the service of its “mass line” at the same time that it began to activate all the other instances of the superstructure which were under its control, such as the judiciary, Parliament, other ideological apparatuses, and so on. 3 The right wing media became “agitators” and collective organisers, to use Lenin’s prescription for the function of the press. 4 Inexpensive government‐subsidised television sets were provided under Allende’s administration as a popuar measure 5 One of the best examples of this was the establishment of Editorial Quimantú. This government pubishing house, succeded in breaking the old pattern of small editions at high prices, and sold five million books in two year. Offering educational content at low prices, Quimantú made available to Chilean workers on history, politics, economics; fiction, classics and poetry. 63
6 Instead of being instruments for mobilising the organised masses, the left’s media served, despite themselves, as the tranquillisers of the middle strata. 7 Journalism is after all a social institution. 8 I think it is important to bear in mind that it was not the media that created the political crisis; however it played a key role in amplifying the political tension. 9 The opposition newspapers were quite vitriolic and even verbally violent in their depiction of the Allende government. In fact, some analysts have claimed that the newspapers engaged in a systematic campaign of disinformation designed to frighten the middle class and create a coup atmosphere. See Donald Freed and Fred Landis. 1980. Death in Washington. Westport: Lawrence Hill. 10 Ironically, Pinochet, then commander of the Chilean army’s Santiago garrison, appealed to print journalists to decrease the sensationalist tone of so much of the country’s press, to reduce tensions. 11 Even before Allende was inaugurated as president of Chile, the owner of El Mercurio, Agustín Edwards, came to Washington and discussed with the CIA the timing for possible action to prevent Allende from taking office. 12 At the time of Allende’s election, El Mercurio already was in some financial difficulty with creditors. 13 It has been demonstrated that in social conditions of “normality”, the effect of the media on people is less predominant than in a context of social conflict (Klapper 1966). 64
CHAPTER 3 3.1 Chile under Military Rule Military Intervention: A Lasting Consequence The September 11, 1973 military coup overthrew the democratically elected Socialist government of President Salvador Allende, and marked the beginning of nearly two decades of military rule headed by General Augusto Pinochet. 1 The coup brought to an end Chile’s constitutional and democratic tradition, which had lasted several decades (Valenzuela 1978). The military dictatorship carried out a level of State terrorism unknown in Chilean history until then. 2 The military rulers did not only immerse Chilean society into a state of fear but also created a deep sense of hate and distrust among its citizens. Freedom of expression was crushed and torture became common practice. 3 The military rule, from 1973 to 1989, had profound and lasting consequences on Chilean society. It is my view that the Chilean transition to democracy cannot be understood without assessing the impact the dictatorship had on the social and political sphere of this country. The military junta 4 was officially sworn in on the eve of September 11, 1973. 5 The first official measure was to draw up a document giving the junta “supreme power” and appointing army General Augusto Pinochet as the junta president (Cavallo, Salazar and Sepúlveda 1990, 8). Steve Volk observes that under the iron fist of General Pinochet, the military junta built a dictatorship based on the power of the armed forces and the economic support provided by the private business elite (1999). Although the government of the armed forces was formed mainly from the army, navy, air force and police there were also a considerable number of civilians who joined the dictatorship. From the end of the 1970s and into the 1980s, General Pinochet began replacing members of the armed forces with civilians in key government posts. An important number 65
of them came from the right wing parties and from fascist groups, such as Patria y Libertad. Among them there were also some right wing intellectuals inspired by European fascist movements, especially in Italy and Spain. General Pinochet also recruited members of the right‐wing faction of the Christian Democratic Party. The newspaper company El Mercurio S.A was also a source of valuable media and political expertise. An important number of its executives and other senior managers were recruited from this conglomerate. One example was the case of Hernán Cubillos, a high‐ranking executive working for this newspaper, who in 1976 became the first civilian Foreign Affairs Minister in the dictatorship. This relationship and the common goals between the military and El Mercurio S.A. deepened throughout the nearly two decades of the dictatorship. El Mercurio S.A., the financial elite and the vast majority of the Chilean Right regarded the military coup as the ideal context in which to implement their economic, political and ideological project without opposition from other political parties. In the pursuit of their aspirations leading figures of Chilean right wing parties, especially from the Partido Nacional (National Party), went to extremes to find justification for the massive human rights abuses committed by the dictatorship. The silence of the El Mercurio newspaper about human rights abuses contrasted with its enthusiastic editorial support given daily to the military regime and its economic model. The perpetration of the worst cases of torture and political assassination were committed during the implementation of the neoliberal economic model. It is a model that caused the impoverishment of a vast section of the population and enriched, on the other hand, a small number of business people who collaborated with the Pinochet regime (Mönckeberg 2001, 31). The strategy of dictatorship collaborators was to consolidate their economic power by taking control of the State’s financial activities, including banks, retirement funds and health schemes. However, they understood that their long‐term political and economic consolidation depended on their ability to control key strategic areas re‐oriented to promote their ideological values. For the Chilean Right the financial control of education, especially 66
the university sector was essential. Mönckeberg suggest that equally central to its aspirations was control over the mass media (2001, 176). The political, economic and social impact of the Pinochet regime has been far‐reaching and lasting. Politically, Chilean society has become less committed and far more suspicious of democracy. Chileans have lost their sense of pride in their political institutions. Despite the many conflicts, Chileans used to regard politics as a noble activity. Economically, the dictatorship destroyed the notions of living in a poor but communal, shared society. The dictatorship installed the notion of individual economic achievement. Chileans lost their sense of solidarity and common goals. Valenzuela and Constable suggest that socially, the Chilean society has become more inflexible than ever in history. As a result it has turned into a more aggressive, hermetic and hierarchical society (1993, 9‐11). The dictatorship was a traumatic experience that has produced profound damage to the social norms and democratic traditions. In the media and public sphere self‐censorship has become an enduring practice. Fear has become the definitive feature of Chilean society. Chile is today a nation of enemies and it is a society where the historical memory is still alive. Constitutional Framework and National Security Doctrine Although similar to other dictatorship experiences in Latin America and elsewhere, the Chilean dictatorship had some very particular characteristics. As Rabkin observes the dictator Pinochet sought to justify his rule with the argument that he was preparing a way for a “renovated” democracy,” purged of previous vices (1992). 6
The dictatorship of General Pinochet was skilfully framed by a set of laws and ad hoc institutions. Central to the regime of General Pinochet was the establishment of the Constitution of 1980. A profoundly undemocratic document, the Constitution of 1980 67
replaced the Constitution of 1925. The Constitution of 1980 is a document still in place and despite its undemocratic features has experienced only minor changes. 7 One of the main architects of the Constitution of 1980 was the neo‐fascist intellectual Jaime Guzmán, arguably the main civilian ideologue of the dictatorship (Pollack 1999, 7). Guzmán 8 was responsible for designing a constitutional framework able to guarantee the maintenance and continuation of the political values and ideological views of the dictatorship. 9 It was considered the central document that would preserve the “achievements” of the dictatorship even in democracy. The task of writing the final draft of the Constitution was given to a committee headed by the then Minister of Justice Mónica Madariaga and Minister of Finances Carlos Cáceres. An economist with fascist tendencies, Carlos Cáceres argued that the right to vote in political elections should only be given to entrepreneurs (Spooner 1994, 147). It was an effort to remove from political debate civil society, which was regarded by economic technocrats as an economically non‐productive sector. Although this was Caceres’ aspiration it did not eventuate, the Constitution of 1980 established a so‐called “limited and protected democracy” that has framed the existence of what Maira calls a “democracy of low intensity” (1998). 10
Under this “democracy of low intensity” the Constitution of 1980 established a series of mechanisms that made any reform almost impossible. The central doctrine was the maintenance of the influence of the military over civilian institutions, even in the post‐
dictatorship transition to democracy. Apart from limiting the scope of democratic participation, the new constitutional system imposed severe limitations on popular participation in public debate. In particular, the Constitution of 1980 deters and thwarts the action and political participation of Chilean left‐wing parties (Valenzuela and Valenzuela 1986, 193‐194). In summary, the 1980 Constitution further strengthened the personal power of General Pinochet by making available to him, and to his regime, a set of laws that provided validity and justification for his actions. As well as from having a constitutional framework, the military dictatorship had a clear ideological foundation. The regime of General Pinochet was based on the National Security 68
Doctrine. A product of the Cold War, the National Security Doctrine was a deeply anti‐
communist principle articulated by the USA, Latin American armed forces, who became the main recipients and guardians of this doctrine. Luis Maira observes the National Security Doctrine was promoted and widely spread by the US throughout Latin America in an attempt to prevent the advancement of Marxism in the region. This objective became even more urgent after the Cuban Revolution of 1959 (1998). As with the rest of the armed forces in the region, the Chilean army was profoundly influenced by this doctrine. The armed forces saw themselves as guardians of liberal democracy and western Christian values. In the light of this doctrine, the objectives of the Chilean dictatorship were twofold. Firstly, it attempted to depoliticize society by eliminating left wing parties and grassroots organizations, including unions, student associations and cultural groups, and promote a set of individual values. Secondly, the dictatorship tried, successfully, to destroy old political institutions and replace them with new political views and economic principles. The dictatorship of General Pinochet resembles what has been described as a bureaucratic‐
authoritarian system. Karen Remmer argues that, fundamentally, this is a political system based on the establishment of a close cooperation between the armed forces, civilian technocrats and foreign capital (1991, 174‐182). However, the Chilean dictatorship presents an important variation to this bureaucratic‐authoritarian model. In the case of Chile, General Pinochet was able to install a dictatorship with a strong personal influence. In comparative terms, the Chilean dictatorship followed the dictatorship model established in Spain by Dictator Francisco Franco (Arriagada 1988). General Pinochet never hid his profound admiration for el caudillo (the leader), as Franco became known in Spain. Repression and Human Rights Pinochet carried out, during 1973‐1977, a massive and brutal political purge against the Chilean Left and against anybody else opposed to the dictatorship. 11 The systematic killing of thousands of members of the left‐wing movement, the forced exile of dissidents, and the 69
widespread use of torture became the norm. All political parties were banned and their headquarters and properties were confiscated. Newspapers, magazines and radio stations aligned to left wing parties were closed and their assets confiscated. Baltra observes that among the main casualties of the purge were hundreds of journalists and journalism students (1998). It was during this four‐year period that one of the most brutal events took place. To this day it remains a primary symbol of Chile’s traumatic past. In October 1973 General Jorge Arellano Stark, commander of the Santiago army garrison, was dispatched by General Pinochet to summarily execute political prisoners being held in concentration camps established in six cities in the north of Chile. This episode became known as the caravana de la muerte (convoy of death) (Verdugo 1989). Among the 62 people executed and buried in unmarked graves was journalist Carlos Berger. General Arellano Stark’s objective was not only to execute the prisoners but also to create within the civilian population a profound sense of fear. Constable and Valenzuela suggest that the brutality of the episode is still part of the Chilean subconscious, a reminder of the recent past (1991, 38). The caravana de la muerte showed that the political repression carried out by the dictatorship was not improvised. As a matter of fact General Pinochet created a complex and intricate apparatus for political repression. This included the formation of a national political police force with close links to other repressive state apparatuses in the region, including Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and Brazil. Pinochet’s government also established tight associations with European fascist organizations, especially in Italy. The infamous Dirección de Inteligencia Nacional (Office of National Intelligence or DINA) was, during the first years of the dictatorship, an efficient and brutal repressive apparatus. The DINA was under the control of General Pinochet’s intelligence chief, Colonel Manuel Contreras. 12 Covert and terrorist operations of the DINA were carried out overseas as well as in Chile. Among its innumerable victims, the DINA was responsible for the murder of the former Chilean army commander Carlos Prats and his wife in Buenos Aires in October 1, 1974. Two years later, on September 21, 1976, a car bomb planted by an American agent working for the 70
DINA killed Allende’s former minister Orlando Letelier and his American secretary Ronni Moffitt in Washington. After a long investigation by an American attorney, the US requested the extradition of the brain behind this organization, General Manuel Contreras. The request was denied by the Chilean justice system and the government skillfully attempted to diffuse the impasse with the US by abolishing the DINA. However, this was soon replaced by a no less brutal organization, the Central Nacional de Informaciones (National Center for Information or CNI). The DINA and the CNI were responsible for thousands of dissidents who were executed and more than a thousand people who are still missing. As several Chilean writers have observed, missing people are the most brutal legacy of the dictatorship and remain an open wound in Chilean society (Pacheco 1980, Verdugo and Orrego 1980, Gómez 1999, Weitzel 2001). Despite the fact that the coup against President Allende was executed without substantial opposition, General Pinochet attempted to construct the idea of an “internal war” against leftists, or for that matter against any individual or group opposed to his project. Human rights violations, including the torture and disappearance of opponents also had another existential objective, the creation of fear. Torture was not part of an irrational practice. Writing about Latin American dictatorships, Perelli argues that torture was used as a means of social control and fear, and in this context dissent and public debate were also annihilated (Perelli 1990). For Perelli the brutal and massive repression of the Chilean left‐
wing movement, university academics, students, intellectuals, artists, journalists and many others, had a central and unquestionable objective: it was a systematic and well organized political cleansing. Economic Model and Class Divide As with the rest of the Latin American dictatorships of the 1970s and 1980s, the Chilean dictatorship carried out a fast‐track liberalization and privatization of economic activity. This was done in parallel to the suppression of political and civil liberties. The implementation of the neoliberal market’s economic model was at the top of the agenda. On September 12, 1973, the members of the Military Junta began discussing the economic plan put forward by a 71
group of Chilean economists. They were members of the so‐called Chicago Boys (Fontaine 1988, 14‐20). The Chicago Boys were a group of right‐wing economists formed at the University of Chicago under the guidance of Nobel Prize winner Milton Friedman and Arnold Harberger (Siavelis 2000). As Siavelis argues, the Chicago Boys were persuaded that the Chilean economy had been suffocated by an extremely interventionist welfare state. They hoped to replace it by an ultra‐liberal free market model. Friedman, who visited Chile in 1975, advised Pinochet to promote and consolidate a free market economic model, urging the government to avoid any state intervention in the economy and financial management. After some resistance from members of the business sector, the “Chicago Boys” economists received absolute autonomy from the regime to carry out the transition to a neoliberal market system. In this way Chile became what can be considered the first orthodox and ultra neoliberal economic model implemented in the region (Valdés 1989). The non‐state interventionism suggested by the Chicago Boys allowed market forces to set the rules of the game. Free‐market theories were rapidly implemented; liberalization of market forces, the inhibition of the state as an agent of economic management and the privatization of key sectors of the economy. Hundreds of businesses owned by the state were privatized and land, factories and industries expropriated during the government of President Allende were returned to their previous owners. The majority of these measures favored a small group of powerful local commercial firms. They were also behind the enrichment of right wing political leaders with business interests (Pollack 1999, 169‐170). The economic transition into a free‐market model also involved the promulgation of a new “labor agreement” between workers and bosses. This new Labor Plan was the work of economist José Piñera who applied free market economic principles to the relationship between employers and employees. Imbued with the ideals of the neoliberal agenda, Piñera saw labor as a commodity that should be subject to market forces. Labor unions and strikes were banned (Fontaine 1988, 47‐48). Social security was also privatized and universities were forced to implement self‐funding policies. Campero suggests this was an economic model 72
with a sort of Darwinian approach whereby the strongest would be able to thrive and the weakest would be obliterated (1991, 128‐158). Although the Chicago Boys opened the Chilean economy to international investors, the benefits were not seen by the masses. On April 24, 1975 the dictatorship announced an economic plan of austerity. It was “economic shock therapy” where public spending was reduced by between 15 and 25 percent. The main objective of the plan was to achieve a quick reduction in the rapidly increasing inflation rate inflation. The shock treatment did not work. The economy shrank and unemployment reached 18 percent. The gap between rich and poor widened. 13
By 1979 unemployment recovered marginally to 12.5 percent. However, it was still three times as high as it was during the government of Unidad Popular. Besides, the official figure given by the regime did not include the growing number of Chileans surviving on the so‐
called informal economy, including seasonal fruit pickers and street hawkers. They became the losers in this economic model. The concentration of wealth into just a few hands went parallel with the increasing impoverishment of vast sectors of the Chilean society. The economic model transformed Chile into a country with one of the worst wealth distributions in the world (Castillo 2005, 34). Chilean society has always been deeply divided along class lines. Despite this, during the Pinochet regime this was accentuated even further. The neoliberal model brought about a profound class divides and class structure. While millions of Chileans survived by working as street car‐minders, street sellers and beggars, a small minority were living in conditions more equivalent to First World countries. Wealth was enjoyed by just a few and their opulence was grotesquely obvious. Well‐off Chileans and members of the business world saw popular classes and the left‐wing militants as a threat to their privileges and interests. This illustrates Frieden’s observation that the support given by the business sector to the ruthless military regimes is frequently driven by “class fear” (1991, 150‐151). 73
The deepening of class differences was not the only social effect of the neoliberal model. It also brought about an individualistic society where the collective interest was no longer important. Individual interests, goals and achievements were encouraged, whereas the collective dimension was discarded. This was part of the project of society developed by the dictatorship, whose central objective was to fracture all social and political expression. The dictatorship succeeded in its aim. Fracture and division are features of contemporary Chilean society. Although the neoliberal model achieved some successes, including the internationalization of the economy, by 1981 this model began showing negative signs. The economic crises of 1981‐1983 harshly challenged the military regime’s pretensions to project radical neoliberal economic policies. As Silva points out: “the extreme monetarist approach to an open economy contributed heavily to Chile’s worst economic depression since the 1930s” (1991, 98). By 1983 the dream experiment of the Chicago Boys was over. The Chilean economic model collapsed during 1981‐1983. The devaluation of the Chilean currency on June 16, 1982 further hurt the economic situation. The Chilean peso was devalued by 15.5 percent and settled at 39 to the US dollar. Much of domestic private‐sector debt was in dollars. Thousands of borrowers saw their financial obligations increase as the Chilean peso kept sliding against the US greenback. Large numbers of businesses went bankrupt. In 1982, there were 810 cases of bankruptcy (Edwards and Cox Edwards 1987, 78). Unemployment reached over 20 percent and by 1983 this had increased to 28.5 percent. In Santiago, poverty increased from 28.5 percent in 1969 to 49 percent in 1987 (Tironi 1989, 26). General Pinochet blamed external factors for the Chilean malaise accusing international financial institutions of being infiltrated by “Marxists” (Huneuus 2000, 399‐400). The Beginning of the End Although the opposition to the dictatorship dates back to the first months of the coup of 1973, it was not until 1983 that the pro‐democracy movement was able to articulate a more organic movement towards democracy. The economic crisis that reached its peak in 1983 not only signaled the collapse of the economic model designed by the economists of the 74
dictatorship, but it also paved the way for the first massive street demonstrations against the regime. 14
Apart from the leading role played by the left‐wing movement, another key aspect behind these demonstrations was the reappearance of the middle class in public debate. Until 1983, the middle class was part of a silent segment that enjoyed some level of prosperity. Martínez and Tironi suggest that significant sectors of the middle class, severely hit by the economic melt down and at risk of falling to an unprecedented level of poverty, began awakening from their political lethargy becoming a formidable anti‐dictatorship force (1985). One of the first expressions of this political and social mobilization was the establishment in 1983 of the Proyecto para el Desarrollo Nacional (Project for a National Development or PRODEN). Mainly a civic‐political alliance, PRODEN made the first serious attempt to explore a road map towards democracy and called for the establishment of a unicameral congress within six months. The dictator flatly rejected this appeal, like many others that came later. The Alianza Democrática (Democratic Alliance or AD) was also formed in 1983. The AD was composed of prominent members of the main political parties of the Chilean Left and Centre. The key demands of the AD were an end to the dictatorship, the establishment of a constitutional assembly and the modification of the Constitution of 1980. Pinochet rejected these calls and stubbornly confirmed that the Constitution of 1980 was not negotiable. To this day the Constitution of 1980 has not undergone any major modifications. The AD and the clandestine Communist Party were behind the massive street demonstrations of 1983. This movement became a symbol of popular resistance. It was also the re‐emergence of the popular movement that until then had been subdued and not publicly visible. From the point of view of the media, the demonstrations of 1983 became part of the news agenda of a pro‐democracy media that began re‐emerging around this time. One of the few anti‐regime radio stations that was left operating, Radio Cooperativa, played a key role in promoting and giving coverage to the massive street rallies and public meetings. This was in 75
contrast, as expected, to the lack of coverage by the pro‐regime media, including El Mercurio, which opted either to plainly ignore the massive events or to construct them as acts of social disorder (Spooner 1994,187). Similarly, the pro‐government Televisión Nacional de Chile attempted to de‐legitimize the peaceful demonstrations by depicting them as “acts of violence” (Hopenhayn 1984). Although the pro‐democratic movement suffered a new wave of political repression, including the arrest of some of its key leaders, this became a catalyst for a more permanent, decisive opposition against the dictator. This new wave of protest reached its peak in 1986. The movement was strengthened even further with the formation of the Asamblea de la Civilidad (Civic Assembly). 15 1986 became known as the año decisivo (the decisive year) and although it did not see the fall of the dictatorship, it reinvigorated the pro‐democracy movement. Thousands of Chileans from impoverished shantytowns, human rights organizations, university students, unionists, artists and intellectuals maintained the pace and the momentum of the protests. 16 The 1983 and 1986 street demonstrations were unable to break the dictatorship, however they helped to recover the traditional social mobilization of Chilean society, especially among the urban and rural poor. Grassroots organizations, alternative educational centers, youth groups, solidarity associations began flourishing again and streets protests were regarded as spaces of public participation (de la Maza and Garcés 1985). They became public spheres for community participation and dialogue. The inability of the street movement to produce the fall of the dictatorship convinced the pro‐democracy leaders that the only way out was the political defeat of Pinochet at the ballot box. Therefore, the strategy and objectives were directed towards the electoral defeat of General Pinochet in the 1988 plebiscite. This strategy received a major boost with the visit to Chile in 1987 of Pope John Paul II. The visit of John Paul II in April 1987 involved a five‐day trip with 24 public events held in Santiago and other major cities. Until then all public events had not been authorized. Even 76
more importantly, the presence of the Pope and the massive attendances at his public appearances marked what was called the apertura (opening) on Chilean television. The Pope’s message, broadcast by all television stations, was a fervent call for reconciliation and democracy. The tight control over television broadcasting began cracking. For the first time since 1973, Catholic activists were heard on television criticizing the dictatorship and denouncing human rights abuses. Undoubtedly, the presence in Chile of the main leader of the Catholic Church marked the opening and the emergence of cracks in, what was until then, an almost unbreakable authoritarian order. The definitive event towards the end of the dictatorship was the October 5, 1988 plebiscite. Chileans were called to vote “Yes” for the continuity of the Pinochet government or vote “No” for the end of the dictatorship and the establishment of an Asamblea Constitucional (Constitutional Assembly). The plebiscite was a well‐designed political strategy directed by El Mercurio and the then Minister of Interior Enrique Montero Marx (Cavallo et al 1990, 563‐
564). Anticipating an easy win for the Yes option, the objective of the dictator’s strategists was to extend military rule for a further eight years. Huneeus writes that the Military Junta named General Pinochet as candidate for the plebiscite although he was already showing some level of unpopularity among members of the armed forces (2001, 564‐74). Prior to the plebiscite, General Pinochet was forced to accept a set of guarantees in order to ensure the transparency and fairness of the contest. One of the central guarantees was the access by the opposition to free television slots to promote the “No” option. The impact of these television slots, as will be examined in the next section, was comprehensive and central to the outcome of the plebiscite. The “No” option received the support of 55 percent of the votes and it was a major, although momentary defeat for General Pinochet. Why the defeat was momentary will be analyzed in the section assessing the Chilean transition. The key outcome of this plebiscite was the fact that General Pinochet was forced to accept an “itinerary to democracy.” The key stage of this road map towards democracy was the presidential and congressional election of 1989. The first democratic election for nearly two decades was held on December 77
15, 1989. The Concertación de Partidos por la Democracia, a centre‐left alliance of sixteen parties, nominated Christian Democrat Patricio Aylwin; the dictatorship put forward the former finance minister Hernán Buchi. The third presidential candidate was Francisco Javier Errázuriz, a right‐wing populist independent and member of the business sector. Six million Chileans turned out to vote. The final result showed an easy win for Patricio Aylwin with 55.2 percent of the votes. Hernán Buchi followed with 29.3 percent and Francisco Javier Errázuriz obtained only 14.4 percent. The Concertación de Partidos por la Democracia also won the majority of seats in the lower house of Congress. However, due to the 1980 Constitution that guaranteed nine appointees by the dictatorship, the Concertación de Partidos por la Democracia was able to control only 22 of 47 seats. General Pinochet’s last day in power was March 11, 1990. The month of March marks the beginning of autumn in Chile and this autumn marked the beginning of the transition to democracy. Notes 1 On the regime of Pinochet, see Arturo Valenzuela, “The Military in Power. The Consolidation of One‐Man Rule,” Paul W.Drake and Ivan Jaksic (eds.), The Struggle for Democracy in Chile (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1995) and J. Sanmuel Valenzulea and Arturo Valenzuela, Military Rule in Chile. Dictatorships and Oppositions (Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 1986). 2 On September 11, 1973, the junta issued Decree Law No.5, which specified that the domestic “State of Siege” should be understood as a state of time of war. 3 The litetarure on the human rights abuses in Chile is voluminous. The most comprehensive and authoritative single document on the human rights violations in Chile is the Informe sobre la situacion de los derechos humanos en Chile (Washington, D.C., 1985). 4 The military junta consisted of the four branches of the armed forces, General Augusto Pinochet of the army, Gustavo Leigh Guzmán of the air force, Admiral José Toribio Merino Castro of the navy, and General César Mendoza Durán, de director of the Carabineros (National Police). 78
5 Decree Law No.1, issued on the day of the coup, vested all authority in the junta as a collective body; Decree Law No. 9, issued the next day, specified that any references in extant legislation to the president of the republic would apply to the junta as a whole. 6 See Manuel Antonio Garretón, 1983, El Proceso Político Chileno. 7 For discussion of the constitution, see Luz Bulnes Aldunate, Constitución política de la República de Chile: Concordancias, anotaciones y fuentes (Santiago, 1981). 8 Jaime Guzmán had originally joined the government as an adviser to General Leigh but soon realized Pinochet was the rising star. He was assassinated in 1991 by a left‐wing armed organization. 9 Fascism: This is a concept what was only used once to describe the ideological affiliation of Jaime Guzmán, the main ideologue of the dictatorship and key figure in drafting the Constitution of 1980. Ideologically, Jame Guzmán was close to Spain’s Falangue and to the ideals of Franco. Guzmán saw the dictatorship as the best option to recreate the fascist’s ideals: a high degree of nationalism, economic corporatism (Guzmán was an entrenched enemy of the Chicago Boys and their neoliberal economic policies), and a powerful dictatorial leader. 10 See Luis Maira. 1986. Las Dictaduras en America Latina. Santiago: CESOC. 11 Most of those who disappeared were leaders of the Socialist and Communist parties and the MIR. In the MIR alone, 123 leaders were killed after 1973. According to the Rettig Report three thousands people were killed during the dictatorship. 12 For a description of the formation and organization of the DINA, see “Qué cosa es la DINA,” Chile América, No. 31‐32 (May‐June), pp.172‐75. 13 For a comprehensive analysis of the neoliberal model implemented in Chile see: Pilar Vergara, 1984, Auge y caída del neoliberalismo en Chile. 14 For a comprehensive analysis of the protestas (protest) see Gonzálo de la Maza and Mario Garcés, 1985, La explosión de las mayorías: Protesta nacional 1983‐1984. 15 From my point of view the Civic Assembly was the most important opposition effort to rearticulate the political and social spheres. 16 The role of the popular movement, especially in urban neighbourhoods, is examined by Julia Paley, in Marketing Democracy: Power and Social Movements in Post‐Dictatorship Chile, 2001. 79
3.2 Journalism and Media under Pinochet The Media: A Military Booty One of the first targets of repression following the military coup of September 1973 was the media system. The media was considered part of the military booty and soon emerged as a key component of the institutional, political, cultural and social aims of the new regime (Vitale 1999, 262). The military junta closed down all but the government‐controlled outlets. There were a few exceptions. The most prominent: El Mercurio. On the evening of September 12, 1973, the four members of the Military Junta appeared on a national television broadcast explaining the reasons behind the coup and the future measures that would be taken by the regime. 1 From that moment on, the media became an essential part of the regime’s apparatus of propaganda, manipulation and ideological diffusion. Munizaga and Achsenius observe that the communication policy of the regime attempted to consolidate power. The focus of this policy aimed at preventing or restricting the flow of information used by the “enemy” (1983). 2
The military coup crushed not only the long tradition of democracy; but it also destroyed a media system that, despite its deficiencies, gave space to a wide range of ideas and opinions and was a vibrant place for public debate. Although not unique, the Chilean military dictatorship became a classic case study of media control and manipulation. The regime exercised total control over the media. As Salinas points out: “No new radio station, magazine, daily newspaper nor books were allowed to circulate without previous authorisation from the government” (1981, 294). The relationship between the Chilean dictatorship and the media confirmed one central paradigm of journalism under totalitarian regimes: the non‐elected elite takes over the media with the objective of manipulating the citizenry. During most of the dictatorship of General Pinochet, pro‐government newspapers, magazines, television and radio stations were used 80
as instruments of social control. 3 The media under the control of dictatorship also developed a news agenda highly critical of democratic political activity. As Portales et al observes politics was an “evil” activity negative to the nation, and politicians were portrayed as ambitious and selfish (1989:17). Whilst President Allende did not have a clear plan on what to do with the media during his three‐year government, General Pinochet had no such dilemmas. Fundamentally, General Pinochet followed the blueprint developed by other Latin American dictatorships. General Pinochet, like other dictators, used the mass media to control public and private information and news. He also established a close alliance with powerful media owners, especially with the owner of the El Mercurio newspaper. This was an alliance of mutual convenience and common political, economic and ideological goals. Indeed this is not unique to the Chilean dictatorship. As Curran argues the close relationship established by the military regime with media owners was a direct result of the fact that the latter tended to be part of the system of power (2002, 221). From the early days of the dictatorship, General Pinochet carried out a systematic strategy of repression, censorship and destruction of the media system. Only the pro‐dictatorship newspapers and a small number of loyal radio stations were allowed to maintain operations. They became either collaborators or docile propaganda tools of the military regime (Munizaga and de la Maza 1978). The pro‐dictatorship media and journalists sympathetic to the overthrow of President Allende provided uncritical support to the new regime. 4
The media under authoritarian regimes has been a fertile area of academic study and research. There is a wide range of ideas expressed regarding the media’s role. For example it has been argued that in democracy the role of the media is to defend political liberties and keep authorities accountable. In contrast, in non‐democratic and authoritarian political regimes the media are frequently used as a tool of citizen manipulation and social control (Neuman 1991; Kinder and Sears 1985). Another approach tends to see the media as an instrument of social and political de‐mobilisation. 81
This was indeed the case in the majority of Latin American countries under dictatorial regimes. In this context the communication media played a key role in lowering the level of political awareness of the collective society and lessening the capacity of individuals to be aware of their rights and responsibilities and exercise them socially and politically (O’Donnell 1979). 5
While part of the media sympathetic to the dictatorship was allowed to maintain their operations, the media opposed to the military regime were severely repressed. Throughout the nearly two decades of dictatorship, the media and the work of journalists were subject to censorship and also physical harassment. The repressive actions of the military government against media organizations and journalists have become the actions that have had the most enduring impact. These actions have permeated the structure and dynamic of the Chilean communication media system well beyond the demise of the dictatorship (Munizaga 1993, 91‐92). The relationship between the media and the dictatorship cannot be understood without examining two central features of this period: the emergence of an alternative pro‐democracy media and the rapid implementation of a process of modernization and privatization of the communication system. These issues remain the most distinctive and long lasting aspects that emerged during the dictatorship. They are key to the way the communication system has functioned in the post‐1990 Chilean transition to democracy. Controlling the Electronic Media Up to 1973 Chile had one of the largest and most dynamic radio systems in Latin America. 6 The military coup of September 1973 put a dramatic end to this. Among the first repressive measures taken by the military regime was against the radio system. In a matter of hours following the coup, the Military Junta ordered the closure of 44 radio stations. Some others, such as Radio Minería and Radio Portales were allowed to continue their operations. In addition the military regime set up a new radio station Radio Nacional de Chile (Chilean 82
National Radio). With the enthusiastic support of their owners, these radio stations soon became effective tools of the communication and propaganda apparatus of the military regime. Radio Minería was owned by the powerful Sociedad Nacional de Minería (National Mining Society), the main Chilean industrial alliance of mining entrepreneurs. The understanding between the mining barons and the perpetrators of the military coup was clearly demonstrated throughout the unfolding coup d état. During the hours prior to the coup, Radio Minería became an effective communication medium by establishing a broadcast network used by the different sections of the armed forces to coordinate the plot against President Allende. The loyalty of Radio Minería was rewarded generously by the dictatorship. From the late 1970s to the mid 1980s Radio Minería became one of the main recipients of State advertising and loans from State controlled financial institutions (Lassagni et al 1985, 17). Radio Portales was a special case. Originally, the Chilean Socialist Party owned this radio station. However hours after the coup, it was taken over by the Military Junta. During the 1960s and early 1970s, especially during the government of President Salvador Allende, Radio Portales was a highly popular radio station with a strong social service orientation. It drew its audience from some of the most impoverished rural and urban sectors of the Chilean society. It was also a pioneer radio station in broadcasting from different locations, especially from some of the numerous shantytowns in Santiago. After being taken over by the military regime, Radio Portales was transferred to a group of entrepreneurs closely connected with the new regime, including Vasco Costa who became one of the first civilian ministers in the military regime and Ignacio Aste, a businessman linked to General Pinochet. The radio apparatus of the dictatorship was completed with the creation in 1974 of Radio Nacional de Chile. With financial assistance provided by the dictatorship Radio Nacional de Chile was able to modernize its equipment and soon became the largest radio network in the country. It also was one of the first Chilean radio stations able to establish an international 83
short‐wave news and current‐affairs service. As Lassagni, Edwards and Bonnefoy explain this radio station was established with the aim to counteract the increasingly hostile international view of the military regime (1985, 65‐67). The only radio station not completely committed to the dictatorship but still allowed to keep broadcasting was Radio Balmaceda, owned by the Christian Democratic Party. 7 However this did not last long. The gradual estrangement of the Christian Democratic Party from the dictatorship, especially due to the increasing level of human rights violations left Radio Balmaceda in a fragile position. Following a series of radio programs denouncing the state of human rights in 1976, the military regime ordered the permanent closure of the radio station. With Radio Balmaceda closed, the Christian Democratic Party put their economic resources into the creation of a new radio station. It was called Radio Cooperativa (Cooperative Radio). Following a controlled liberalization of the media system, the dictatorship allowed Radio Cooperativa to operate but the transmissions were limited to Santiago and the nearby port‐
city of Valparaiso. Radio Cooperativa 8 was not only able to dodge the repressive environment of the dictatorship, but it was also able to financially survive due to a skilful combination of commercial imperatives and the establishment of wider programming, not just politics (Lassagni and Edwards 1988, 34). The other radio station that was able to avoid closure was Radio Chilena (Chilean Radio). This was mainly due to the fact that it was owned by the powerful and influential Chilean Catholic Church. One of the first radio stations in Chile, Radio Chilena was founded in 1923 and has traditionally been identified with the more socially and economically disadvantaged sections of the Chilean society. Traditionally Radio Chilena has been an interlocutor and magnifier of the demands of the working class, union organizations and peasants (Lasagni et al 1985, 104). During the dictatorship Radio Chilena was one of most critical and daring voices against the military regime. In an attempt to avoid a clash with the Catholic Church, the military regime 84
let Radio Chilena operate until the mid‐1980s. In 1984 Radio Chilena station was finally forced to cease transmissions after breaching the military regime’s instructions not to cover the massive anti‐government rallies of 1983 and 1984. The closure was also triggered by the decision of Radio Chilena to air a news story about the imminent resignation from the Military Junta of the Air Force General Fernando Matthei (Filippi 1984, 5). 9
The television system was arguably the most affected medium during the dictatorship. It was also the most effective instrument for spreading the propaganda, manipulation and misinformation of the dictatorship. After the military coup, the main television channels, Televisión Nacional de Chile, the Canal de la Universidad Católica and the Canal de la Universidad de Chile were placed under the control of a military management (Fuenzalida 1988, 52). Moreover, government funding ceased, forcing the stations to become entirely dependent on advertising. Until then these television channels were able to manage their operations through government’s financial assistance and advertising. In the context of the neoliberal economic model implemented by the military all these channels were left to the rule of the market. Several small regional television stations suffered a similar fate. Among the three television stations operating in Chile during the government of President Allende, Televisión Nacional de Chile was the most affected by the military regime. The facilities of the television channel were seized and some of the most valuable visual documentaries and films were destroyed. In 1973 a military decree placed the Televisión Nacional de Chile under an executive director appointed by General Pinochet. In 1974, the television channel was transferred from the Ministerio de Educación (Ministry of Education) to the Secretaría General de Gobierno (Government General Secretariat). In this new department the Televisión Nacional de Chile was transformed into one of the most enthusiastic and effective propaganda instruments of the military regime. 10
The television stations owned by the Chilean National University and by the Chilean Catholic University came under the strict control of the vice‐chancellors who were appointed 85
by the regime. 11 The regime’s intervention in the television system operated by academic institutions marked the end of the traditional ethos of ideological and political independence that had characterised Chilean television for more than a decade. Controlled by government appointees, all the television stations deprived the pro‐democracy movement of any access to their programs and kept completely silent about human rights abuses committed by the regime. Television channels became the electronic voice of the dictatorship. As Carmona poinst out, they attempted to convince Chileans they were living in a sort of “Garden of Eden” (2005, 8). During the dictatorship, the television system hid and manipulated information and characterised pro‐democracy leaders as faceless and undesirable citizens. By mentioning their names and without screening their faces, pro‐democracy political and civic leaders became ghosts that produced a reaction of ignorance regarding their aspirations and demands. The news agenda was overwhelmingly dominated by official news. 12
In the almost two decades of military rule about 70 percent of the television news agenda emanated from government sources and from news generated by the regime (Análisis 1986, 20). It was not until 1987 that the first images of the leaders of the civic and political opposition began appearing on the screen of the television channels. This was sparked by the visit of the late Pope John Paul II to Chile. The impact of the visit by John Paul II, in April 1987, on the media and on the struggle for democracy was profound and irreversible. This issue will be examined again later in this section. The Dictator’s Print Media After the purge against the left wing media, the dictatorship tried to consolidate a front of loyal print media. 13 As a society with a high level of literacy, Chileans have traditionally relied on the print media, newspapers and magazines, for political communication. Shortly after the coup, only four newspapers were allowed to circulate: El Mercurio, La Tercera, La Segunda and Las Ultimas Noticias. All of them became important instruments of ideological and social indoctrination. Similar to the television and radio system, the print media 86
constructed a profoundly distorted reality by developing an agenda setting that praised the work of the new regime and demonised the political opposition and supporters of the pro‐
democracy movement. The print media and the dictatorship developed a mutually self‐serving relationship. Newspapers such as El Mercurio and La Tercera and magazines such as Qué Pasa, and Ercilla became the central news outlets used by the regime to spread its authoritarian ideology. In addition, the ideologues of the dictatorship, most of them right wing civilians, relied on these publications to defend and promote the new political and economic order. News organizations experiencing economic difficulties, such as El Mercurio and La Tercera, were granted generous soft loans and rescue packages (González, Mellado and Pino 1999, 41‐44). In return they became uncritical allies and supporters of the government. The strength of the relationship between the regime and these news organisations was due not only to financial imperatives but, more significantly, to ideological conformity. Navarro suggests that ideological conformity between the regime and the print media was well reflected in the economic sphere (1985). In a non‐contested political landscape, the print media became instrumental in endorsing and promoting the economic program and objectives of the Chilean business class. This was facilitated by an inherent relationship between media owners, the business class and the new rulers. A majority of the Chilean economic sectors controlled one or more media organizations, including all the national newspapers. For example, the powerful business group of Vial and Cruzat‐Larrain exercised a powerful influence on government economic management through the columns and reportage of the influential weekly magazine Ercilla. This magazine was staffed by some key figures of the economic and political right. El Mercurio was undoubtedly the media organization most ideologically allied with the new regime. From the outset of the military dictatorship, El Mercurio enjoyed a privileged position. Managers and high‐ranking members of this newspaper were the first civilians to be granted an invitation to meet with the military junta. Silva observes this was in stark 87
contrast with the initial antipathy of Pinochet toward most business people whose requests to meet the dictator were refused on several occasions (1996). Délano writes about a “special” relationship between El Mercurio and the dictatorship (1983, 47‐48). He writes that the so‐
called “weekly working meetings” held between General Pinochet and Agustín Edwards Eastman, the powerful owner of the conglomerate El Mercurio S.A, strengthened this relationship even further. Agustín Edwards Eastman has been at the helm of El Mercurio S.A. since 1963. He inherited the powerful media conglomerate from his grandfather, the founder of this media empire, Agustín Edward Bulge. In contrast to his grandfather, Edwards Eastman is a public figure less comfortable with political pluralism and far more authoritarian in terms of political and social policies. From his position at the head of El Mercurio S.A., he has been relentless in advocating an aristocratic government system under a capitalist neoliberal economic model. For Edwards Eastman, the advent of the dictatorship was an ideal historical opportunity to achieve his ideological and economic objectives. 14
The influence of the El Mercurio newspaper on the dictatorship’s policies and its powerful role in the agenda‐setting process was clearly articulated by the late Jaime Guzman, the main civilian ideologue of the dictatorship. Quoted in the June 1, 1980 edition of El Mercurio Guzman said: “I totally agree with all the editorials of El Mercurio; on matters that I have not formed any opinion yet, I follow and adopt the opinions expressed by El Mercurio.” Throughout the dictatorship this newspaper was unyielding in promoting the idea that democracy per se lacked real value. Academics and political thinkers who defended and promoted this version of democracy received extensive coverage in this newspaper. One of the favourite ideologues of the Chilean Right, Friedrich von Hayek, a Chicago University economist, received wide exposure when he put forward the notion that a dictatorship could become more liberal than a liberal democracy (Cristi 2000, 46). 15
El Mercurio played an essential role in legitimising the dictatorship. It also provided the dictatorship with the economic expertise of some of its executives. Throughout the 1970s and 88
1980s, civilians began replacing the military in key government posts and several of them were recruited from the ranks of this newspaper. For example, the first civilian minister for foreign affairs, Hernán Cubillos, was a high‐ranking executive of the newspaper. He was followed by Juan Pablo Illanes, a long time director of El Mercurio, who was appointed to the Health Ministry. Another key collaborator with the military regime was Joaquín Lavín, who was one of the most influential editors of the financial section of El Mercurio. He was also one of the founders of the pro‐Pinochet Union Demócrata Independiente (Independent Democratic Union or UDI). El Mercurio was given the task of promoting the dictatorship’s neoliberal economic model. By doing so, it was also able to lobby for the appointment of close associates to key government positions. For example, the strategic economic portfolio was given to Lorenzo Gotuzzo, and the Office of Planning was entrusted to retired navy officer Roberto Kelly (Edwards and Lederman 1998). Both officers had close relationships with Agustín Edwards Eastman. The neoliberal economic model favoured by El Mercurio pre‐dated the coup of 1973. The neoliberal model had been part of the news agenda of El Mercurio since 1955 when the US Klein‐Sacks mission arrived in Chile to promote and encourage governments to implement drastic market‐driven economic policies (Dermota 2000). Since then, El Mercurio has not altered its position on economic policy. In the 1960s the Klein‐Sacks mission was followed by a group of economic academics from Chicago University who, under the “Chilean Project” exchange program, visited the country to promote the benefits of the neoliberal economic model. Sergio de Castro and Ernesto Fontaine, two key figures of the Chilean Right, hosted the delegation, which was led by economists Theodore Schultz and Arnold Harberger (Vial Correa 1999, 82‐84). During the dictatorship, De Castro and Fontaine, both economics graduates from the Chilean Catholic University, became editors of the influential business “Section B” of El Mercurio, the long standing specialized financial pages created by Edwards Eastman in 1978 to promote neoliberal economic policies. The promotion of neoliberal economic policy was not left solely to El Mercurio. It was an undertaking also carried out by Qué Pasa, a magazine established in 1971 with the financial 89
assistance of Edwards Eastman. Valdés points out that Qué Pasa enhanced even further the media apparatus of the Chilean Right and was a vigorous promoter, during the dictatorship and the transition to democracy, of market economic policies (1995, 225). During the government of Salvador Allende, El Mercurio and Que Pasa became the main channels for the publication and dissemination of the academic papers produced by the Centro de Estudios Socio Económicos (Centre for Socio‐ Economic Studies), a think tank funded by Agustín Edwards and staffed by the Chicago Boys (Pollack 1999, 46). As Pollack comments a key moment in El Mercurio’s lobby for the establishment of a neoliberal economic system was the visit in March of 1975 by the mentor of the Chicago Boys, Professor Milton Friedman. An academic at the University of Chicago and economics Nobel Prize winner, Friedman met with Pinochet and convinced him to implement a radical process of privatisation and the implementation of a strict free‐market economic course of action (Collier and Sater 1996, 365). El Mercurio gave wide and generous coverage to his visit and the events he addressed. The visit was a success for this newspaper and the Chicago Boys. 16
The loyalty of El Mercurio paid high dividends. The dictatorship rewarded the newspaper with lucrative State subsidies and preferential treatment in terms of State advertising. In addition, the forced closure of unsympathetic news organizations was a major boost to El Mercurio’ s circulation and access to the profitable advertising market. After the coup of 1973, the readership of El Mercurio jumped from 22 percent in 1973 to 46 percent for most of the military regime (Délano et al 1983, 16). On the other hand, the sale of advertising increased twofold between 1979 and 1981 (Délano et al 1983, 39). However, not all was positive and rosy for the coffers of this broadsheet. During the 1970s El Mercurio had accumulated a debt close to US$100 million. The debt of the newspaper was a matter of concern for Pinochet. The dictator himself organised a rescue package that consisted of soft loans provided by three financial institutions controlled by the regime. Chilean journalist and academic Reinaldo Silva points out that to this day, despite significant efforts during the post‐dictatorship period, this financial arrangement has not been completely disclosed and investigated (Silva 1995). In his investigation Silva found that the 90
Oficina Nacional de Bancos e Instituciones Financieras (National Office of Banks and Financial Institutions), the organization keeping record of this financial arrangement, had frequently refused to disclose any information in this regard arguing that the information was confidential. The newspaper’s financial state experienced another setback during the economic crisis of 1981‐1985 and the devaluation of the Chilean currency. In 1980 El Mercurio had purchased a new, state‐of‐the‐art printing system for US$13 million. This was during the period when the exchange rate was US$1 to $30 Chilean pesos. The situation changed dramatically when in 1985 the Chilean currency was devalued and US$1 was the equivalent of $160 Chilean pesos. The debt of El Mercurio blew out to US$100 million dollars. In addition, the newspaper had to endure the financial crisis in the advertising market. In 1983 the earnings of this newspaper had fallen from US$22.5 million in 1980 to US$14.5 million. Chilean journalist Juan Pablo Cárdenas found that in 1989, the former financial editor of El Mercurio and then head of the Chilean State Bank Alvaro Bardón, developed a series of economic measures to reduce the massive debts of the newspapers, including new loans of US$67 million (1984, 18‐19). The objective of these loans was not only to save the newspaper from bankruptcy but even more importantly to “protect” and make El Mercurio less vulnerable to possible interference from future democratic authorities. In addition, the package not only saved the newspaper, but it injected essential resources that have been instrumental in strengthening the position of the broadsheet in the Chilean media market. Less influential, but equally loyal to the dictatorship, was the tabloid La Tercera. In its origins, in the 1950s, it was a daily newspaper controlled by the centre‐left Partido Radical (Radical Party). During the dictatorship La Tercera became part of Grupo Copesa (Copesa Group), the second most powerful print media conglomerate in Chile. During the economic management of the Chicago Boys, La Tercera was the only serious challenge to El Mercurio in terms of circulation. However, the financial crisis of the 1980’s also hit La Tercera. In 1987, the commercial value of the newspaper was halved and it had an accumulated debt of US$19 million. In order to survive the newspaper was bought by a group of economists closely 91
linked to the military regime. They negotiated an economic survival package of US$1million with the Chilean State Bank. El Mercurio and La Tercera are today the most profitable and well‐established news organizations in the country. As during the dictatorship, these two newspapers continue to set the news agenda and, as will be explored in the next chapter, they constitute a media duopoly that exercises an almost unchallenged ideological monopoly. Censorship and Propaganda Among the flood of military decrees pronounced in the early days of the dictatorship, the new regime declared that all communication news would be subject to prior censorship and proceeded, as mentioned earlier, to close most print and electronic media. The media policy of tight control adopted by the regime of General Pinochet was coherent with the dictatorship’s objective of demobilising the highly politicised Chilean society. In doing so, as O Donell observes, citizens were not only put under tight control, but more importantly, the closure of communication channels tended to diminish the citizen’s social and political awareness and their ability to know and exercise their social and political rights (1979). Munizaga points out that this goal was achieved by 1976 (1982). Munizaga also observes that by 1976 the military government had successfully and efficiently ended all political and social debate and placed radio, television, newspapers and magazines under firm control. The military coup had a devastating impact on the media, journalistic practices and public debate. Furthermore, it caused lasting damage to the relationship between the media and the citizenry. On the one hand, citizens lost confidence in the media as a trusted component of the public sphere. On the other, citizens stopped regarding the media as a mediator between them and the State. This was especially evident during the first, massive pro‐democracy rallies of 1983, when the official media either ignored publicly expressed democratic aspirations of the masses, or covered them as violent actions carried out by left‐wing dissidents (Gutiérrez and Munizaga 1983). 92
Essentially, the dictatorship managed to redefine the historical connection between political parties, news organizations and journalism. The association between political parties and the media, an association that involved ownership and ideological affinities, was violently interrupted by the confiscation and closure of party owned newspapers, magazines and radio stations. The media apparatus of the Chilean Left was effectively destroyed. Hundreds of left wing journalists suffered repression, murder and exile. Towards the end of the 1970s around 50 journalists were languishing in the concentration camps of Dawson and Chacabuco, in the south of Chile (Carmona 2005, 8). While not experiencing the same ferocious repression suffered by the leftist media, the Christian Democratic Party also saw the closure of its media interests. However it was able to maintain some of its media outlets by dodging the tight control and censorship. The few anti‐
dictatorship media outlets that were allowed to operate were financially crippled by denying them access to State advertising and by frequently interrupting their operations (Lavquen 2004, 2). This was the case, for example, for the influential magazine Ercilla, founded in 1933 and owned by a group of Christian Democrat politicians. During the dictatorship Ercilla was deprived of advertising and its owners were forced to sell it to Manuel Cruzat, a pro‐
Pinochet businessman. Cruzat’s first measure was to sack its director Emilio Filippi, a respected journalist and strong critic of the new regime. In a matter of days Ercilla turned into a mouthpiece for the regime. During the dictatorship, the media mirrored the pattern of a society deeply divided. There was a media sector that threw its support behind the military regime and discouraged any manifestation of democratic struggle. On the other hand, there was an opposition or alternative media that encouraged pro‐democracy actions and played an important role in opening spaces for political dissent, participation and resistance. Similar processes developed simultaneously in the broader society. By promoting and encouraging fear and a lack of trust, the military were able to divorce the historical relationship between intellectuals and the social movement. This was an essential strategy devised to establish an ideological separation between politics, education, art and the media. It also had a propaganda 93
dimension whereby it blocked the dissemination of political and cultural ideas, while it subjected the everyday to the official discourse The loyal pro‐dictatorship apparatus, especially El Mercurio and Televisión Nacional de Chile, conveyed the official discourse. In addition they played a fundamental function in providing legitimacy to the military regime. One of the methods used was “appropriation” and “redefinition,” in the news agenda, of concepts fundamentally linked to citizens’ aspirations, such as “freedom”, “security,” “peace,” and “nationhood”. This use of language tends to illustrate the views of O’Shaughnessy, who observes: “language is not natural or neutral but carries certain values. It is also a venue of political struggle” (O’Shaughnessy 1999, 93). 17
The media became a gatekeeper of not only the news that was printed or broadcast but also the concepts and language used in their production. For example, the military authority censored news stories that included words such as “bombs” or “blackouts”. Usually associated with anti‐dictatorship armed groups, these words conveyed the perception of authorities unable to control the political situation. Publications such as El Mercurio and La Tercera published news stories written in such an oblique style and angle that only a careful reader could understand the real meaning of the story. Skilfully, these two newspapers diminished the impact and the dramatic effects of major cases of human rights violations by using anodyne and almost neutral concepts. Spooner observes that the systematic violent torture suffered by political dissidents was represented as apremios ilegítimos (unlawful pressure) (Spooner 1994, 9). 18 Frequently, major and symbolic cases that shocked local and international communities were downgraded to day‐to‐day crime stories. This was the case of Sebastían Acevedo, a modest resident of the southern city of Lota, who in a desperate attempt to obtain the freedom of his daughter from the hands of the feared Central Nacional de Información or CNI, self‐himself on fire on November 11, 1983, in front of the Catholic Cathedral in the city of Concepción. The story and the dramatic images of the immolation were widely covered by the 94
international media. El Mercurio, however, published it in the crime section and without photos (Délano et al 1983, 29). 19 The firm government control of the media, public debate and freedom of speech had been strengthened even further with the promulgation of the Constitution of 1980. The Constitution of 1980 was ratified by the majority of the population in a plebiscite in which the opposition was denied complete access to the media. The new Constitution singled out three groups that were to have special obligations and responsibilities in the new political regime. These groups were the political parties, the unions and the media. Among all the social and political actors in these three sectors, the Constitution of 1980 declared that journalists had the greatest responsibility in society. It was indeed a confirmation of the centrality of the media and journalists in the Chilean political process. The Constitution established that anybody who had been accused and condemned for terrorist acts within the last 15 years could not be a journalist. It also established that journalists had to be “responsible” for the information passed onto the public and journalists “must respect the right to privacy and honour of Chileans.” Under the Constitution of 1980, the law required the authorisation of the government for the foundation of any new media outlet. The Constitution also established severe limitations on freedom of speech and freedom of the press. Article 8, declared illegal the action of any individual or group that disseminated doctrines and ideologies threatening the basic structures of society including the “institution of the family”. Clearly targeting Marxist political parties, the Constitution also prohibited any group that defended and advocated a “concept of society or the state which was totalitarian or based on class struggle.” Any organization, movement, or party that held these views was to be outlawed. In addition, individuals judged to have propagated such beliefs were subject to severe sanctions. What the Constitution of 1980 did was to establish a legal framework that consecrated a collective censorship and forced out of public debate significant sections of Chilean society. Between 1973 and 1989 the pro‐democracy forces, especially from the Left, were denied any public sphere of expression, participation and access to the media. 95
The dictatorship developed a highly sophisticated mechanism of censorship. This worked at all levels of society. The majority of the right‐wing media proprietors, convinced that the priority of the military regime was the elimination of the “Marxist threat,” accepted the imposition of censorship. The Chilean dictatorship learned from the neighbouring Argentinean dictatorship some censorship techniques employed against the media and general citizens. Both countries suffered a parallel, similar process of political and cultural repression and censorship. Beatriz Sarlo points out that the Argentinean military relied on three censorship techniques: the unknown which tends to generate rumour; exemplary measures which create terror; and subtle and double meaning messages that produce fear and intimidation (1988, 104). 20
These censorship techniques were employed in Chile with a central objective: the dissemination of fear. Considering that fear is a defining feature of Chilean society, the aim of the dictatorship was readily achieved. Following the Argentinean model of repression, Chilean journalists were only partially informed about those matters that were subject to censorship. Self‐censorship became the norm. Arriagada suggests that self‐censorship is worse than official government censorship because the authors themselves modify their works. This is related to the implied mechanism of self‐censorship that provided control over the content of information that flowed from the media (Arriagada 1983). The regime appointed censor was the only person to be fully aware of what was censored and frequently what was censored was left to the sole discretion of the censor. There were no clear guidelines, let alone a list of things that journalists were not allowed to report. The censorship mechanism showed an extraordinary ability to enlarge the un‐defined areas of censorship. As a result, it generated a self‐imposed belief that all expressions could be subject to censorship and ultimate repression. Subjected to these undefined guidelines, most journalists opted to operate away from the un‐stated ʺno go zones.ʺ With this approach, direct censorship gave way to a culture of self‐censorship that was gradually incorporated 96
into the practice of journalism. Chilean journalists not only toned down their stories but also avoided the inclusion of any fact that was likely to cause the anger of officials (García 1999). Censorship was not only applied to publications opposed to the military regime but also those that were sympathetic. For example, the right‐wing tabloid La Segunda, was out of circulation in 1978 for four months for publishing a story about the shortage of cigarettes. The censor determined that the story could have had the potential to “disturb social tranquillity” (Millas 1985, 9‐23). 21 Similar to the censorship, the media propaganda scheme was also institutionalised and became part of a bureaucratic structure of the State. The propaganda job was assigned to the The Dirección de Información Nacional and Comunicación Social (Office of National Information and Social Communication or DINACOS). It was also in charge of the official censorship machine. DINACOS not only censored the work of local journalists, it also maintained a tight control over the work of foreign correspondents who, in order to work in Chile, were forced to obtain media accreditation from DINACOS Equally central to the regime’s censorship and propaganda systems was the role played by the Secretaría General de Gobierno (General Secretariat of Government or SGG). A cabinet‐
level office that took charge of propaganda and ideology, the Secretaría General de Gobierno was behind the manufacture of one of the most publicised and sophisticated propaganda campaigns during the dictatorship. The campaign was developed around the publication of the so‐called El Libro Blanco (The White Book). This book alleged that prior to the coup of September 11, 1973; the government of Salvador Allende had intended to carry out a terrorist plot, labelled Plan Z. The central part of the plan was to murder high‐ranking military officials during the traditional military parade of September 19, 1973. This fabrication, financed by the CIA, alleged that prominent civilians, including business people and politicians were also the targets of this plan. The Plan Z allegation, found to be a sham a year later, attempted to justify the coup of September 1973 by portraying the Chilean Left as murderous, enemies of democracy and a threat to the whole society. 97
The media apparatus of the dictatorship was also responsible for providing a positive spin on the regime and for attempting to diffuse the international condemnation of the military regime. Lacking expertise, the regime sought the skills of public relations experts. Days after the coup, the dictatorship hired the services of the Washington‐based public relations firm, Worden and Company. The brief of the firm was to provide crisis management advice, especially on the negative news coverage of the military regime in the United States. In 1974 the dictatorship signed a contract with a subsidiary of the public relations firm J. Walter Thompson. The deal was called off after the Washington Post published a story on the contract (Schoultz 1981, 53). The propaganda apparatus of the Pinochet government was relentless in fabricating news stories that maintained confusion and disinformation. The pro‐dictatorship media, especially El Mercurio and Televisión Nacional de Chile, provided considerable power of media dissemination. It was El Mercurio that published for the first time a story about an alleged internal struggle within the ranks of the clandestine Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionario (Left Revolutionary Movement or MIR). 22 The story, published on June 23, 1975, alluded to the execution of 60 resistance fighters of the MIR supposedly killed by their own comrades. A month later, on July 24, 1975, the pro‐regime tabloid La Segunda reported that a group of 59 Chilean left‐wing guerrillas, hidden in the South of Argentina, were killed in a clash with Argentinean police. As the Rettig Commission, a human rights investigation established during the transition to democracy in 1992, confirmed 20 years later both stories were manufactured by the government and conveyed to the public by the pro‐dictatorship media (García 1999). The stories published in El Mercurio and La Segunda were part of a government operation to cover up the arrest, torture and ultimate murder of 119 left‐wing dissidents organised by Pinochet’s political police (Lagos 2002, 14). The centrality of the print media to the propaganda effort of the dictatorship was continually emphasised throughout the regime. In 1986 the propaganda apparatus of the dictatorship elaborated an intricate media scheme to twist the compromising defection to the US of 98
Chilean army Major Armando Fernandez Larios, a key witness and accomplice in the 1976 assassination in Washington of President Allende’s foreign minister Orlando Letelier. A few days after the defection of Fernandez Larios, a new glossy magazine, Negro en el Blanco hit the newsstands of Santiago. The low‐priced magazine was completely dedicated to the coverage of the defection of Fernandez Lario. The Negro en el Blanco reported that the Chilean army officer did not defect but instead was kidnapped and brainwashed by the CIA. The testimony of Fernadez Larios was a key part of the investigation that eventually implicated the direct participation of the Pinochet government in the assassination of Orlando Letelier and his American secretary Ronni Moffitt. Negro en el Blanco was a one‐issue magazine that never was seen again in Chilean newsagencies. The 1976 car‐bomb assassination in Washington of Chilean exiled leader Orlando Letelier and Ronni Moffit was a major story widely covered by the US and international media. However the Chilean media hardly covered it and when it was mentioned this story was relegated to the daily police section instead of being reported as an act of international terrorism (Análisis 1987, 21). The selection process of stories published in the Chilean media showed a clear pattern of a selective news agenda. Most of the international stories published and broadcast in the pro‐
regime media showed the same perspective one of chaos, disorder and economic problems. The Chilean print and electronic media widely and enthusiastically covered them. This is a classic example of agenda setting (MacCombs and Shaw 1972, 1993) where impact, conflict and drama were the news values used in the editorial news filtering and selection of international stories. Throughout the dictatorship, the international section of the print and electronic media were characterised by a Manichean conceptualization of the world, presenting evil and negative developments abroad and peace and progress at home. It was the construction of local order as opposed to international chaos. The Alternative Media: A Democratic Voice The repression suffered by journalists opposed to the dictatorship and the closure of an important number of media organizations deprived the Chilean society of an alternative media able to challenge the official media discourse. This scenario remained unchanged until 99
the end of the 1970s when the first expressions of an alternative and pro‐democracy media began to timidly emerge. 23 The alternative media emerged as a form of protest and magnifier of the voices of pro‐democracy leaders. At the same time the alternative media provided, albeit through many obstacles, some level of media diversity. The alternative media in Chile played an important role in eroding the message of the official media (Castillo 1986). 24
The alternative media constituted a different option to the dictatorship‐controlled media and provided a space for democratic and participatory communication. The antecedents of the Chilean alternative media can be found in the dissenting, clandestine culture that emerged in the early years of the dictatorship to offer a voice of opposition to official discourse, and resistance to the repressive regime (Brunner et at 1989). In addition, this can be traced back to the popular, grass‐roots media that flourished during the government of President Salvador Allende (Mattelart 1992, 181‐191). During the first years of the Pinochet regime, popular sectors, pro‐democracy journalists, underground organisations of urban workers, university students and shantytown religious groups concentrated their democratic efforts by organizing a clandestine and underground media system based on a public sphere of political and cultural analysis and praxis. As part of this movement, dissident and university graduate journalists began developing what was described as periodismo popular (popular journalism). 25 It was a movement that attracted a considerable number of young people who from their own experience sought to develop an alternative to the mainstream official journalism (Castillo 1986, 16). 26 In Chile, periodismo popular became an alternative communication strategy developed by some of the most impoverished sectors of Chilean society. It became a symbol of cultural survival and resistance and to a large extent it was an “activist” response to the official journalism practiced by pro‐dictatorship journalists (Castillo 1986, 24). In this alternative media space the democratic opposition was thus able to create a new public discourse outside the limits imposed by the dictatorship. It became a public sphere in 100
the true Habermasian sense. Indeed this alternative media and public sphere assisted the pro‐democracy efforts in developing and popularising democratic and openly oppositional values and reintroducing opposition leaders and political specialists to the public (Habermas 1989). The alternative media became the medium through which political opposition; the democratic aspirations and demands for human rights were channelled. The emergence of an alternative media was due to one key factor: the limited circulation that they enjoyed. Given their more limited circulation, less rigorous government control was exercised than with regard to daily newspapers, and they were in a better position to articulate democratic values and provide a public forum for once underground opposition groups. Sunkel observes that throughout the military dictatorship, the print media was able to develop a multi‐party, inclusive ideological approach. The objective was to articulate a common political message of opposition to the military regime (1994, 169). One of the pioneers of the pro‐democracy alternative media that emerged during the dictatorship was Emilio Filippi. One of the most respected journalists in Chile, Filippi was behind the establishment of Hoy magazine. Thanks to a loan of US$200,000 obtained from the Catholic organization Maryknoll, Filippi launched Hoy magazine in 1978 (Mobarec and Spiniak 2001, 34‐40). The first clashes between the new magazine and the military dictatorship began a year later. In June 1979 the magazine ran into trouble with the regime’s censors when it published interviews with two leading figures of the clandestine Chilean Socialist Party: Clodomiro Almeyda, and Carlos Altamirano. The military regime ordered the suspension of Hoy for two months. Despite the financial and repressive obstacles, Hoy magazine was able to survive for almost two decades. This was mainly due to the editorial approach taken by the magazine. Aware that a direct, aggressive approach could mean the permanent closure of the magazine, Hoy magazine opted for developing a non‐confrontational news agenda. Mobarec and Spiniak point out that the magazine avoided transforming the dictatorship into the unique, central target of its editorial line (2001, 43‐44). Emilio Filippi injected into the management and 101
editorial approach a dose of pragmatism. This was clearly reflected by the non‐rejection of the new regime and by promoting the idea that it was better to be part of the mainstream in order to maintain effective participation and influence. The pragmatism of Filippi paid off and Hoy became a news agenda setting magazine able to attract a wider readership, including even members of the military regime. The Catholic Church was also involved in the emergence of the alternative media by launching Revista Solidaridad (Solidarity Magazine), a human rights publication that circulated in churches and parishes. Equally important in opening the spaces of public debate was the establishment of the magazine Revista Mensaje (Message Magazine). A monthly magazine published by the Catholic order of the Jesuits, Revista Mensaje became a forum of discussion and analysis of theological and political issues (Hevia Interview, 2001). 27 With a strong news agenda of political opposition and human rights promotion, Análisis magazine also appeared at the end of the 1970s. It was established under the sponsorship of the Academia de Humanismo Cristiano (Academy of Christian Humanism) a Catholic academic institution. These publications were soon joined by the left‐leaning Apsi magazine.This magazine was granted permission for publication with the condition that it would only be allowed to cover international news and would be only available by subscription. It was not until 1981 that Apsi magazine was permitted to be sold in newsagencies. However shortly after, publishing a series of investigative stories denouncing the human rights violations perpetrated by the CNI, the magazine was banned for twelve months. It reappeared again in 1983; however in 1984 it was forced once again to close and only reappeared at the end of the military dictatorship. Apsi marked an important development in investigative journalism, a field that until then was practically unknown in Chilean journalism. The highly successful investigative journalism magazine Cauce began circulation in 1983, in the context of the massive anti‐government rallies of that year. Following the investigative tradition of Apsi, Cauce managed to publish some of the most outstanding investigative 102
stories during the military regime. The magazine recruited highly experienced journalists. Among them was Mónica González whose investigation into the construction of a giant and extravagant residence ordered by Pinochet in Lo Curro, one of the most exclusive suburbs of Santiago, exposed the financial corruption of the dictator and his family. Cauce was also successful in securing in 1984 an interview with General Gustavo Leigh, one of the original members of the military junta, whose resignation to the military junta exposed the infighting and contradictions within the military regime (Segovia 1990). 28 These magazines tended to have very low circulation and a readership limited to the middle to upper classes and to a well‐educated audience. Deprived of any advertising, most of the alternative media survived through the financial support of international humanitarian organisations and also by foreign political parties with ideological connections to Chilean parties. This financial support was crucial for the survival of the alternative media, since most of them were incapable of surviving through market mechanisms, such as advertising and circulation. For example, Análisis and Apsi obtained in 1980 only 0.21 percent and 0.17 percent, respectively, of all advertising income. In terms of circulation in 1980 Análisis accounted for just 3.28 percent and Apsi 4.21 percent of total annual magazine sales (Catalán 1981). As will be examined later this funding began drying up during the post‐dictatorship transition to democracy causing the disappearance of most alternative media. Another important development in the opening of spaces for public discussion was the emergence in 1987 of the pro‐democracy newspapers La Epoca and Fortín Mapocho. Veteran newsman Emilio Filippi launched La Epoca in 1987, not only as a voice of opposition against the dictatorship but also as an attempt to cultivate an ʺenlightenedʺ readership that could provide the basis of its financial success (Buckman 1991, 16). Fortín Mapocho was funded by Jorge Lavandero, a Christian Democrat politician, who bought the publishing rights and the business name of an old tabloid newspaper that was originally published in the 1940s by vendors of La Vega Central, a well known Santiago fruit and vegetable market (Lavandero 1997, 126‐134). 103
Fortín Mapocho appealed to the working class‐audience, unions and left‐wing political leaders (Ossandón and Rojas 1989, 104‐109). It also tried to compete with the pro‐dictatorship tabloids La Tercera, La Cuarta, and Las Ultimas Noticias (Ossandón and Rojas 1989, 41‐2). Sunkel points out that, in contrast to the alternative magazines, these two newspapers attempted to reach a wider audience and became part of the commercial and mainstream news media market. However their readership was still defined in political terms (1991b) Among all the repression, censorship and financial difficulties, the transition to democracy in Chile owes the alternative media an important debt. It played a major role in the struggle for democracy and in introducing some level of pluralism into the media system. It promoted freedom of expression and along the way it opened venues for public participation and dissent. In addition, the alternative media became a public platform for opposition political leaders to express their aspirations and convictions. In the absence of traditional venues of political debate, the media became the place where an important part of the political struggle was fought (Contreras, 1983). Equally important, the alternative media was a tool for civic and democratic education. During the last years of the dictatorship and with the transition to democracy in its early days, the alternative magazines began publishing cuadernos para la democracia (booklets for democratic education). These booklets were published as free supplements found in the weekly alternative magazines. These civic education booklets played an important role in familiarizing Chilean society once again with their old tradition of democratic values (Castillo 1986, 12). They provided details relevant to the electoral law; party lists, the structure of electoral districts, candidates’ selection procedures and basic information about how to vote. They also played a central role in re‐legitimizing political activity, an action that the dictatorship attempted to demonise. Finally, the media introduced into the news agenda three themes closely linked to the democratic struggle: human rights, political activity and the problem of poverty (Sunkel 1991a). 104
The media and the Political apertura Two major events at the end of the 1980s illustrate the role played by the media in the process of democratization of Chilean society. These two events were the April 1987 tour by the late Pope John Paul II to Chile and the Plebiscite campaign of 1988 and in both of them the media played a decisive role in what was described as apertura política (political opening). 29 Furthermore, this political opening marked the beginning of the end of the dictatorship and the first stage of the transition to democracy. The five‐day visit of the late John Paul II in April 1987 involved 24 public events attended by thousands of Chileans. They were the first public meetings permitted by the military regime since the coup of 1973. In order to secure wide access for the community to the message of the Pope, the Catholic Church reached an agreement with the government to broadcast the events without censorship, and avoiding any attempt to manipulate the visit. Although Televisión Nacional de Chile did attempt to manipulate and distort the public appearance of the Catholic leader, it was unable to completely block the expressions of anti‐government dissent shown on the television screen. The Canal de la Universidad Católica or Channel 13 provided a more open and almost non‐censored broadcast of all 24 events held throughout the country. Channel 13 was at the forefront of the political opening by scheduling in prime time a daily panel to analyse the Pope’s visit. Prominent political leaders and social figures, who until then were banned from appearing on television, became frequent participants in these television debates (Portales et al 1980, 100‐1). The television broadcast of the mass meetings of Chilean Catholics and the Catholic leader was a turning point in the political landscape. This event made a major contribution to the inauguration of a new scenario where Chilean citizens began expressing a profound discontent with the regime and contemplating a more democratic future. After more than a decade of censorship, Chileans were able to perceive and share common aspirations for democracy and justice. 105
Although the political apertura resulted in some level of political freedom, the media and journalists were still under the heavy hand of censorship and control. After some relaxation, television still remained firmly under the dictatorship’s control and the purge against dissident journalists continued. In the same year as the Pope’s visit to Chile, the editor of Análisis magazine Juan Pablo Cárdenas was convicted for allegedly offending the armed forces. He was sentenced to 541 days in jail. The previous year Análisis had seen the abduction and murder of its international editor José Carrasco. In 1989, the editor of Apsi magazine Marcelo Contreras was indicted for publishing a story claiming that Pinochet owned a mansion in Paraguay. The second, major event that illustrates the role played by the media in the democratization process was the October 5, 1988, plebiscite. As was discussed in the previous section, the 1988 plebiscite called Chileans to vote Yes for the continuity of the Pinochet government or vote No for the end of the dictatorship and the establishment of a Constitutional Assembly. As part of an agreement reached by the opposition and the regime, the Yes and the No campaigns were allowed a 30‐minute segment of free daily television programming. The television slot became an elaborate advertising campaign that had a powerful impact on the outcome of the plebiscite. 30
The opposition, a coalition of 17 political parties that became the Concertación de Partidos por la Democracia (Coalition of Parties for Democracy), developed a media campaign that emphasized a peaceful democratic future. Hirmas observes that in contrast to the rather gloomy and dark media campaign designed by the media strategist of the military regime, the opposition campaign used humour and a message of non‐hate to defeat the almost invincible dictator (1993). The propaganda for the No option was portrayed as a unique opportunity for Chileans to defeat the dictatorship and move towards a democratic system. The central message of the successful No spot was that there was nothing to fear, and for a society immersed in State sponsored fear this was a powerful message. In the end, the military regime option was defeated by a substantial margin: 54.7 percent of Chileans voted No and 43 percent Yes. Méndez, Godoy, Barros, and Fontaine argue that there was little 106
doubt that the television campaign designed by the democratic opposition was a decisive, vital factor in the final outcome of the 1988 plebiscite (Méndez et al. 1989). Deregulation and Privatization The structural changes experienced by Chilean journalism and the media system during the dictatorship were far‐reaching. Arguably the most important changes occurred within the television system. Reflecting its pro‐market orientation and the neoliberal economic model the regime made an aggressive push to privatize and modernize the media system. This was part of the neoliberal economic model characterised by the State withdrawal from the marketplace (Cauas and Saieh 1980, 11‐13). The privatization of the media system was delayed and occurred rapidly during the last years of the dictatorship. Radio and the print media were the first to experience this process and it was followed by television at the end of the 1980s. Foxley points out that the emergence of private media operators was the direct result of the fast process of privatisation and economic liberalisation implemented by the dictatorship (1983). 31 An important step taken towards an increasing involvement of the private sector was the abolition in 1977 of all existing restrictions on advertising. During the so‐called economic boom of the early 1980s, the advertising market expanded dramatically. Imbued with a free‐
market, liberal economic ideology, the military regime invested extensively in new communication technology and increased the level of state media advertising. During the second part of the dictatorship, the level of government advertising grew by more than 60 percent (Munizaga 1982, 41‐68). The main beneficiary was television, which displaced the daily press, as the main recipient of advertising. Between 1989 and 1993, advertising spending increased from US$23.5 million to approximately US$391.9 million. Of the latter, 43.5 percent was spent on television advertising, 37.3 percent on newspapers, 10.7 percent on radio, and 4.4 percent on magazines (Time América Economía 1994). 107
The modernization push, within the market‐driven economy, saw an increase in the capability of the media to reach a greater massive audience. In addition, the expansion in the ability of Chileans to access financial credit allowed them to access the new and modern communication infrastructure. By 1983, almost 95 percent of Chilean households had at least one television set and during the 1980s television became the most popular medium for cultural consumption (Catalán and Sunkel 1990). Brunner, Barrios and Catalán observe that in this context television became the most dynamic sub‐sector of the culture industry (1989). The radio system experienced a similar dynamic. The major development in the industry was the emergence of FM transmissions. With the opening of the market and the elimination of import taxes, Chilean FM radio stations became flooded with the new sounds of rock and pop. This dynamic forced a considerable number of AM radio stations to shift to the FM band. From a socio‐political point of view, the commercial and advertising‐driven emphasis given to the media system brought about a weakness in the political and social role played by the media in previous years. Also, it strengthened the commercial imperative of the communication system. Inserted in a highly commercial model, the old educational and promotional ethos of a television system had to give way to a system conducive to high ratings. Television became a commercial industry guided by ratings, financial success and entertainment. This was exacerbated further by the authorisation given to international investors to open and operate television channels (Tironi and Sunkel 1993). The privatization process also had an impact on the way that political parties related to the communication system. During the 1980s, most of the communication system, except for the alternative media, became part of the market economy. The destruction of the old system, whereby media organizations were owned and controlled by political parties, was replaced by a media system owned by private investors. In the last years of the dictatorship, the traditional old television system received a major transformation when the regime granted 108
broadcasting licences to entrepreneur Ricardo Claro, who began operating Megavisión or Channel 9; and to banker Alvaro Saieh who launched La Red or Channel 4 (Arteagabeitia 1990, 12‐16). Both media entrepreneurs were close allies of the dictatorship and during the transition to democracy they used their respective powerful positions to maintain and promote the values and the ideological aspirations of the military dictatorship. Notes 1 In a televised speech to the nation on Wednesday, September 12, the junta declared the Congress closed, political parties that had made up the UP illegal, and all others in recess. 2 In a 1974 speech Pinochet praised the press as the defender of the fatherland against “international Marxism” (Munizaga and Achsenius 1983). 3 The communications policy of the military regime had the goal of consolidating power. 4 Fox suggests that the Chilean military regime, as it was the case with other dictatorships in the region, found the modern media’s monolithic organization of power, their sophisticated new technologies and their easy use of symbolism particularly well suited to achieving its goals of propaganda and information control (1988, 26). 5 There is also the perception that the media tended to legitimise the non‐democratic system by attempting to generate a social consensus about the “benefits of their totalitarian ideological plans” (Linz 1974, 146‐7). 6 As was mentioned in a previous section of this work, during the 1960s, the government of Christian Democrat Eduardo Frei transformed radio into the main tool of social promotion of rural and urban workers. 7 Essentially this was due to the initial support given by this political party to the military coup. 8 Radio Cooperative is today one of the most trusted media outlets in Chile. 9 This sensational story, ignored by most of the pro‐regime media, exposed one of the few fissures in the military regime. 10 It also became the less trusted. The flagship news service “60 Minutes” it was popularly known as “60 lies.” 11 Most of the vice‐chancellors appointed in the initial years of the dictatorship were high‐
ranking officers of the armed forces. 109
12 It was not until the end of the 1980s that the faces of leading members of the opposition were seen on television. 13 Though the government wields a predominant control over mass communication, this does not necessarily mean it is the owner of the media. In fascist governments, for example, the media remains in private hands. See Friedrich and Brzezinski (1966). 14 Any study of the media’s ideological monopoly in Chile and its influence on agenda setting in Chilean society cannot be understood without looking at the role played by this media organization. 15 This was an idea underpinning the dictatorship and the ideological news agenda of El Mercurio. Indeed, throughout the nearly two decades of dictatorship, this broadsheet advocated an authoritarian society, even a dictatorship, where neoliberal economic policies could be implemented without political and social opposition. 16 On April 24, 1975, Pinochet announced an economic program of stringent monetarist policies as recommended by the visiting professor. 17 This was well understood by the propagandists of the military regime and by the pro‐
dictatorship media. Words and concepts used to construct news stories became weapons in the government’s ideological arsenal to capture the moral high ground over issues such as freedom, security, national security and even democracy. These concepts were linked to the armed forces, to their action in deposing President Allende and even in their brutal repression against left‐wing militants. These ideas were propagated and became part of the daily indoctrination attempts by the dictatorship. 18 Spooner points out that dramatic and violent cases of torture were represented as “unnecessary use of force” used, for example, in a game of soccer (1994, 9). 19 As Délanos observes this event was de‐dramatised and its exclusion from the news media diminished its impact. In an Orwellian approach, the pro‐dictatorship media transformed this event into a non‐event. 20 Luis Vitale speaks about the establishment of what he describes as a “self‐collective repression” (1999, 262). 21 Similar to the experience during the Argentinean dictatorship, the Chilean censorship split the society by cutting off the channels of communication between cultural mediators, the intellectuals and the rest of society (Sarlo 1988, 104). 110
22 The MIR defined itself as an insurrectionary group since the 1960s. Many of the MIR’s principal leaders, intermediary cadres, and militants were killed, arrested, or expelled from Chile. 23 For an analysis of the independent and grassroots media during the Pinochet Dictatorship see Rosalind Bresnahan, 2002, “Radio and the democratic Movement in Chile 1973‐1990: Independent and Grass Roots Voices During the Pinochet Dictatorship.” Journal of Radio Studies, 9,1,161‐181. 24 In this respect the alternative media in Chile emulated the role played by the pro‐
democracy media in the rest of Latin America. Elizabeth Fox observes that during this period, the Latin American media played a crucial role in filtering, decoding, interpreting and assisting people to resist the monolithic messages of the mass media (1988, 27). In still others, the alternative media served a specific political role of popular organization and education. 25 In the 1980s I was involved in training “popular journalists” in some of the poblaciones (shantytowns) in the southern city of Concepción. 26 Popular journalism featured prominently in the social popular movement in Latin America and one of the most recognisable expressions in the region are the Radio Mineras (Mining Radios) established in the 1940s in Bolivia by tin miners. 27 Jorge Hevia was editor of Revista Mensaje. Interview, Santiago 2001. 28 General Gustavo Leigh was the first key member of the military coup of September 1973 who appeared in an alternative and pro‐democracy publication. 29 For a comprehensive analysis of the role played by television during the visit of the John Paul II see Diego Portales et al (1988) Televisión Chilena Censura o Libertad. Santiago: Pehuén. 30 During the campaign, the dictatorship used the entire state apparatus, including regional and municipal authorities, and control of television. 31 In addition, the process of globalisation and the internationalization of the Chilean economy strengthened the whole process further (Portales 1981).
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Part II: Journalism and Media in the Transition to Democracy Chapter 4 CHAPTER 4 4.1 Introduction Part II Journalism and Media in Transition The plebiscite of October 5, 1988, and the subsequent democratic election of 1990 are two events that marked the beginning of Chile’s transition to democracy. They paved the way towards the democratization of Chilean society after almost two decades of military dictatorship. From a political and historical perspective an assessment of the Chilean transition brings mixed reactions. For some sectors of Chilean society, the Chilean transition to democracy has been assessed as a model of political stability that has created the ideal conditions for economic efficiency and consolidation. However, there is another sector, especially those marginalized by the negotiated nature of the transition that considers the process to be unsatisfactory and undemocratic. Otano argues that one of the most visible elements of this unsatisfactory process is the decision to maintain unchanged the authoritarian Constitution of 1980 (1995, 20). The other element that induces negative views about the Chilean transition is the continuance of the neo‐liberal economic model implemented by the economists of the dictatorship. These two elements, frequently used to assess the success or failure of the transition, were also two central issues on the negotiating table between the dictatorship and the pro‐democracy political leaders. 1 Since the end of the dictatorship, these two issues have been the foundations of the so‐called democracia de los acuerdos (democracy of agreements) or democracia de los consensos (democracy of consensus). These two concepts, acuerdos and consenso, tend to be misleading. They give the impression of being a process widely agreed upon, accepted and broadly popular among the civil society. As will be examined shortly, the semantics of these concepts tends to conceal many contradictions, paradoxes and frustrations presented by the Chilean transition. After 112
more than a decade of political transition it is reasonable to say that Chilean post‐dictatorship society is lagging behind in terms of institutional and social reforms conducive to achieving an end to the transition period and to establish a truly democratic society. The contradictions, paradoxes and frustrations of the Chilean transition have had a profound impact on the media, journalism and public debate. During the 1990s the media, understood in the Habermasian tradition as a public sphere (1994), have lost their characteristic to be the social space for the expressions of civil society. We understand this social space as the media mediated physical space where a free and open discussion is held (Bailie and Winseck 1997). As was the case in the rest of Latin America, Chilean newly elected democratic authorities came to power without any new scheme to reorganize the mass media (Fox 1988, 29). The vacuum left by this failure in the post‐dictatorship period was filled by the notion of an unregulated or no‐media policy. The lack of a clear state media regulatory system, as is the case in Chile, has brought about a high level of concentration in media ownership (Vera 1998, 93). Walter Krohne points out that Chilean citizens have also been subject to an ideological monopoly enjoyed by the Chilean Right and propagated through a largely conservative media (2004, 10). Krohne concludes that the Chilean Right is the main engineer of public opinion and this has posed a major risk to the political stability of the country (Interview 2004). 2
For Hernán Osses, journalist and academic, “the maintenance of the Constitution of 1980 and the inability or unwillingness to bring about changes to some of the most undemocratic institutional structures in Chilean society, including the power of the judicial system, have been factors that have impacted on the role, structure and work of the media and journalism in the transition to democracy” (Interview, 2001). 3
The continuation of some of the most restrictive political practices and preservation of the legal instruments established by the dictatorship have resulted in an impoverishment of the media’s work and in a political process of poor quality (González Pino 2000, 136). 113
Infringements to freedom of expression and the harassment of journalists, common features of the dictatorship, have continued in the transition to democracy. Journalists Raquel Olea points out that “while during the dictatorship the repression experienced by journalists came from the executive power, during the transition it has come from deeply conservative and archaic judicial powers” (Interview, 2002). 4
However, this disappointing state of affairs is not only due to an undemocratic constitutional and judicial context. It is also due to the lack of political will and democratic commitment by the new authorities to introduce democratic reforms. And, although the majority of laws that threaten freedom of expression and freedom of the press were not developed by governments during the transition, it is reasonable to conclude that the first two governments of the transition; Patricio Aylwin (1990‐1996); and Eduardo Frei Ruiz Tagle (1996‐2002) took no “positive” action to effectively protect freedom of expression. One of the central principles of a consolidated democracy, a system based on public debate, is to guarantee freedom of expression and freedom of the press. This has been recognized by international bodies such as the European Court of Justice that has confirmed that freedom of expression is intimately aligned to democracy and is especially applicable to political debate (1986). Freedom of expression and freedom of the press are perhaps two of the most powerful fundamentals in the process of democratic transition. They promote and, even more importantly, they validate the democratic process. The validation of the Chilean democratic process has been severely dented due to the lack of judicial initiatives to align national legislation on freedom of expression matters to modern international jurisprudence (González Pino 2000, 151). Thus, it is not surprising that freedom of expression and information in Chile is limited to a level not comparable to any other western democracy (Medina 1998, 36; Human Rights Watch 1998, 3). In contrast to other post‐dictatorship societies, developing processes for democratization, freedom of expression and freedom of the media have not been central issues in Chile. For example, the lack of centrality of the media in the Chilean context can be contrasted to the 114
democratization of South Africa where the media became an essential basis of the post‐
apartheid period (Tomasselli 1989; Louw 1991). The lack of media centrality in the Chilean transition is also illustrated by the neglect shown to media diversity. The neo‐liberal economic model established by General Pinochet has produced a media ownership structure that is highly undemocratic and leaves the majority of Chileans without a ready means of media expression. As many studies have noted, the market economy system has many limitations when it comes to the media. There is a perception that the commercial logic used in the production and transmission of ideas and the conservative ideology of media owners are responsible for impediments to broad access and democratic communication systems (Garnham 1990; Murdock 1982 and O’Neill 1992). The embracement of a market economy and the rapid process of media privatisation have resulted in a Chilean communication system unprotected from the commercialism of the international media system. This has weakened the old tradition of public service. In the last two decades the Chilean media system has followed the global trend whereby public broadcasting and the public service ethos have declined in relevance (Herman and McChesney 1997, 1). As Bresnahan observes that during the first decade of the transition, the Concertación’s adoption of the market model of the media influenced a series of policy choices that have contributed significantly to the debilitated public sphere of the Chilean media (2003, 44). Following the international trend of the 1980s and 1990s, the Chilean media have undergone major deregulation. This process was initiated by the dictatorship and intensified during the transition to democracy. The deregulation process has occurred against a backdrop policy of no media regulation by the State that has had, as will be examined later, a damaging effect on media diversity and public debate. One of the main results of the deregulation and lack of a media policy is a highly concentrated communication industry. Television, cable, newspapers, and radio are all 115
controlled by five major economic groups, along with a dozen medium‐sized groups and extensive foreign capital (Fazio 1997). In a society that has accepted the rule of the market and treats citizens as consumers, the communication media has failed in promoting an informed citizenry, public debate, and critical thinking. Civil society 5 has been deprived from a pluralistic access to the media system. The installation of democratically elected civilian presidents in Chile has not produced a consolidated democracy. 6 The political inability and, at times, unwillingness to implement far‐reaching reforms to the constitutional and institutional order have meant that Chile is still living a process of transition. The considerable power retained by the armed forces, the undemocratic nature of the Congress, a social exclusionary neo‐liberal economic model still in place, the persistence of a culture of fear, and the unresolved issue of human rights violations are evidence that Chile is still living an endless transition to democracy. The requirements of a truly consolidated democracy have not yet been met. The objective of the final section of this work is to examine from a micro and macro perspective the relationship between the media and the transition to democracy. At the micro level this section looks at the political impact of the media in the process of re‐socialization of Chilean society with norms of democracy. At a macro‐level, this chapter examines the changes to the structure of the communication system and how these changes have affected the “quality of democracy.” The fundamental questions look at the role played by the mass media in representative democracies and the challenges posed by the transition to democracy to the communication media. These questions are approached following Touraine’s view about contemporary political representation of society. He argues this representation is in crisis and, therefore, the media seem to be the new representative of civil society (1995). From this perspective and from the notion of an incomplete Chilean transition, the undertaking is to determine whether the Chilean media system has filled the vacuum left by an apparent lack of political representation. In order to respond to this it is necessary to integrate into a single body of 116
research the relationship between the mass media and the democratization process experienced by Chilean society. Notes 1 After the 1989 elections, many of those intellectuals and political leaders of the pro‐
democracy movement were appointed to powerful post in the governments of the transition. 2 Walter Khrone is a journalists and currently teaches at the Journalism School of Universidad de Santiago. Interview, Santiago 2004. 3 Hernán Osses journalist and academic, School of Journalism, University of Concepción. Interview, Concepción 2001. 4 Raquel Olea, journalist Revista de El Canelo. Interview, Santiago 2002. 5 Grame Hill defines Civil Society as “autonomous groups which aggregate the views and activities of individuals and which act to promote and defend the interests of those people, including against the state” (Hill, Graeme. 2000. The Dynamics of Democratization. London: MacMillan Press. Pp.5 and 6). According to Weigle and Butterfield, civil society is “the independent self‐organization of society, the constituent parts of which voluntarily engage in public activity to pursue individual, group, or national interests within the context of a legally defined state‐society relationship” (Marcia A. Weigle and Jim Butterfield, “Civil Society in reforming Communist Regimes. The Logic of Emergence, Comparative Politics 25, 1 October 1992, p.3). The strength of this definition lies in its acknowledgment of the importance of state recognition of a sphere of autonomous social activity, but its weakness is the view that that sphere must be legally defined. 6 For a very insightful discussion of the use of consolidate democracies, see Schedler (1998). In his view, “The term ‘democratic consolidation’ should refer to expectations of regime continuity – and nothing else” (Schedler 1998, 103). I have used the concept of “democratic consolidation” and I mean basically the end of the transition and the establishment of fully democratic elected institutions, such as the parliament, and the removal of undemocratic features of the constitutional framework. 117
4.2 A Historical Summary Continuity and Military Patronage The result of the autumn 1989 presidential election was not only a convincing electoral victory for the pro‐democracy forces of the Concertación de Partidos por la Democracia, but also the beginning of a complex and long process of transition to democracy 1 . On March 28, 1990, in the first cabinet meeting, President Patricio Aylwin (1990‐1994) identified three major priorities: the reform of the political system; the search for justice, truth and reconciliation and the so‐called “payment of social debt” (Mosciatti 1990). When President Aylwin was sworn in as the first president of the transition to democracy, he accepted the political, institutional, economic and more importantly the constitutional rules established by the dictatorship. To govern under the shadow of the former regime was an essential part of the democracy by agreements negotiated between the dictatorship and the pro‐democracy forces. A central feature of Aylwin’s government was the notion that the transition was an ongoing progress. This notion dispelled, from the outset, the idea that Chile was a consolidated and well‐established democracy. President Aylwin was aware of the level of continuity, in relation to the dictatorship, that characterized his government and the need to moderate the political and economic demands. The same moderation was required from the media. 2
President Aylwin not only inherited the constitutional and structural framework of the dictatorship, he also became heir to the entrenched notion among the armed forces that the Concertación’s political win in the voting booths was neither a rejection of the former regime nor a mandate to dismantle the legacy of the dictatorship. The government of the armed forces billed the end of the dictatorship as the conclusion to a self‐imposed mission. In his last message as dictator, General Pinochet described his departure as a “mission accomplished” (Fernández 1997, 326). 3 The departure of General Pinochet and the beginning 118
of the transition to democracy were part of a process led by political elite with scant participation from the civil society. Fundamentally, it was a negotiated exit, with many undemocratic and authoritarian features. As Oxhorn and Ducatenzeiler have observed the lack of participation of the civil society – or social movement – has contributed to the “limited democratic content” of societies such as Chile (1998). The constitutional, institutional and historical legacies have been formidable obstacles for the governments of the transition in their aspiration to close this period. As will be examined a bit later, the transition to democracy was built on the basis of an authoritarian state or, at the very least, inside a political and historical context polluted by the presence of the so‐called enclaves autoritarios (authoritarian enclaves) and institutional amarres (knots). They were left in place to guarantee the continuity of the regime and the preservation of the “achievements” of the dictatorship. Huneuus argues that one of the most effective enclaves autoritarios left in place by the dictatorship was the appointment, either by election or de facto appointment, of former city mayors to the Congress (2000, 599‐622). This was done in the last year of the dictatorship. They became known as senadores designados (designated senators). 4 Collier and Sater point out that their role was to block any attempt to modify the constitutional and institutional structure constructed by the dictatorship (1998, 330). The other key enclave autoritario was the armed forces. The long shadow cast by the armed forces over the transition has been a confirmation of their political power and influence through their participation in the Consejo de Seguridad Nacional (National Security Council) and representation in the Senate by the so‐called senadores vitalicios (senators for life). One of the senadores vitalicios was General Pinochet. After turning over his office to President Aylwin in 1990, the former dictator spent eight more years as Chile’s army commander. Using a prerogative established in the Constitution of 1980, Pinochet then took a permanent seat in the Chilean Congress as a senador vitalicio. 5 By the end of the 1990s, the first decade of the transition, the former dictator remained in the national psyche, despite his international humiliation when arrested in London in October 1989. 6 119
The presence of the armed forces on the national scene has kept alive, for many Chileans, a far more pervasive factor: fear. In the early stages of the transition to democracy, the armed forces staged two public acts to show their strength and to maintain a sense of fear in the community. The first of these events was held in December 1990. It became known as the ejercicio de enlace (link‐up exercise) whereby soldiers throughout the country stayed in the barracks “awaiting orders.” A second military show of force was carried out on May 28, 1993. It involved the deployment of several hundred army special forces troops in full gear near the presidential palace, La Moneda. It was known as the boinazo (due to the black boinas or berets worn). Both actions were considered a show of military strength. They were also open provocation to the government and a major setback to the process of democratization and a demonstration of the fragility of the Chilean transition. The reluctance of the armed forces to retire from the political scene and their independence from civilian political power has been exacerbated by their substantial budget. In a law passed during the dictatorship 10 percent of the value of all copper sales, the main natural resource in Chile, goes to the military’s budget. Attempts by the governments of the transition to dismantle this law have repeatedly been defeated in Parliament thanks to the presence of the senadores designados. Collier and Sater observe that the presence of the armed forces in the political sphere tends to confirm that it is likely that no future Chilean government will be able to ignore the armed forces (1998, 328) Things did not change much during the second government of the Concertación. The Election of Eduardo Frei‐Tagle (1994‐2000), the second democratically elected leader of the transition, was an easy electoral triumph for the Concertación. In a landslide victory, President Frei obtained 58 percent of the electoral votes and was sworn in as president on March 11, 1994. He inherited unresolved constitutional, institutional and socio‐economic problems. However, in contrast to President Aylwin who made genuine attempts to implement changes to the political system, President Frei was less committed to move the process beyond the transition towards a truly consolidated democracy. He became an 120
administrator of the transition and his administration was characterized by a high degree of political idleness and stagnation. A technocrat and a more conservative and pragmatic administrator, President Frei was less concerned by the presence of the armed forces on the national scene. On the contrary, he was far more receptive and sympathetic towards them (Agüero 2003, 259). This was clearly illustrated by the position taken by his government in relation to the October 16, 1998, arrest of General Pinochet in London. The arrest of the former dictator by the British police, acting on a request from Spanish judge Baltazar Garzón was an attempt to prosecute and extradite Pinochet for crimes against Spanish citizens between September 11, 1973, and December 31, 1983 (Davis 2000, 9). The arrest of Pinochet was a hard test for the Chilean transition and the commitment of the Concertación to bring to justice those responsible for human rights abuses. 7 It also tested the lack of reconciliation within Chilean society. Pragmatically, and attempting to defuse a potential show of force by the armed forces, President Frei put in place a government campaign to obtain the release and return to Chile of the former dictator. His objective was achieved when Pinochet finally was liberated and allowed to fly back to Chile on March 2, 2000. The return of Pinochet and the guarantee given by President Frei to try Pinochet in Chile was never fulfilled. Jocelyn‐Holt Letelier suggest that the arrest of Pinochet and the efforts made by the government of the Concertación to obtain his return to Chile, rather than to prosecute him, has exposed the civil‐military nature of the Chilean transition and the lack of influence of political activists (1999, 306). Justice and Reconciliation: A Case of Discontent The lack of justice and the continuity of the constitutional, institutional and socio‐economic model left in place by the dictatorship brought about not only an incomplete transition, but have exacerbated the notion of a society living deeply divided along the lines of historical representation and interpretations of the recent past. The transition has exposed the non‐
121
accepted reality of living in a “nation of enemies” (Constable and Valenzuela 1993). The frustrations produced by the democracy by agreements have introduced a new theme in the transition to democracy: el descontento (the discontent). One of the key factors in the existence of Chile’s historical divide and discontent has been the inability to reach national reconciliación (and current investigations for human right violations and financial corruption.). Reconciliación has been one of the fundamental themes of the transition. Boeninger wrote that President Aylwin was the first leader to articulate this concept (1997, 395). Boeninger argues that Aylwin wanted to be remembered as the “president for the reconciliation” and his government conceived national reconciliation as its fundamental mission. Despite his genuine efforts Aylwin and his two successors, Presidents Frei and Lagos, were unable to achieve this aspiration. In Chile, reconciliation has broader socio‐economic dimensions. Apart from resolving human rights violations, and current investigations for human right violations and financial corruption. also has an economic dimension, which is to resolve the problem of poverty and the industrial relations system. In this context the goal of reconciliation has been a challenge not easy to achieve (Barret 2001). However, the central and most emblematic issue in the process of reconciliation has been the thorny issue of human rights abuses committed during the dictatorship and the trial of those responsible for the murder, disappearance and torture of thousands of Chileans (Otano 1995, 320). President Patricio Aylwin attempted to resolve this issue with the creation, on April 24, 1990, of the Comisión de Verdad y Reconciliación (Commission of Truth and Reconciliation). The Comisión de Verdad y Reconciliación was in charge of investigating all human rights abuses that resulted in death between September 11, 1973, and March 11, 1990 (Loveman and Lira 1999, 349). After almost a year of work, President Aylwin announced publicly the findings of the investigation on March 1991. In a well‐documented account, the Comisión de Verdad y Reconciliación accounted that 2,279 people had been murdered during the dictatorship. 122
Although it was beyond its scope, the document also reported thousands of cases of torture. The result of the investigation confirmed the direct responsibility of the armed forces in the perpetration of these killings, disappearances and tortures. Adding a new element to the national discontent, the government of the Concertación admitted that it would be unable to persecute the perpetrators of those crimes. The Ley de Amnistía (Amnesty Law) designed by General Pinochet in 1978 prevented the judgment of those involved in human rights abuses committed between 1973 and 1978. 8 One of the results of the Comisión de Verdad y Reconciliación was the creation of the Corporación Nacional para la Reparación y Reconciliación (National Corporation for Reparation and Reconciliation). The role of the Corporación was to provide financial compensation to the victims of human right abuses. By the end of 1992 the Corporación had provided financial compensation to over 4,500 relatives of human rights victims. Apart from the financial reparations, governments of the transition have been unable to bring to justice those responsible for human rights violations. The problem has exposed once again the dilemma of ruling within the legal framework left in place by the dictatorship. The government of President Eduardo Frei was more conservative, technocratic and less enthusiastic toward human rights. This approach to human rights was clearly stated from the early days of his government when the General Secretary of the Presidency, Germán Correa, said that human rights would not be an essential part of the Frei government (La Epoca 1994, 5). Then, wittingly or unwittingly, President Frei declared that human rights were a problem already resolved by his predecessor. The lack of political commitment and the legal knots faced by the Concertación with respect to the investigation of human rights abuses has been in stark contrast to the aspirations for justice expressed by a large sector of Chilean society. Throughout the 1990s different public opinion polls showed that between 75 and 88 percent of the population were favourable towards human rights investigations. At the same time between 62 and 70 percent supported the legal process against those responsible for human rights abuses (Amnesty International 123
1996, 22). By the end of the first decade, the first two governments of the transition had been unable to resolve the problems of human rights, reconciliation, truth and justice. They had become elusive aspirations. This was even more so when the armed forces and their civilian collaborators reiterated that in order to achieve reconciliation the past had to be put to rest (Loveman and Lira 2001). However, the past is still present in Chilean society. One of those elements of the past that is still present among Chileans is fear. 9 The most definite consequence of the Chilean political trauma is the persistence of a culture of fear. This has left a profound wound on the social tissue of Chilean society. Although Chileans want to move forward this psychological injury becomes an insurmountable obstacle. Fear is one of the reasons for the low level of social and community participation in the transition to democracy. Fear is not, however, the only reason behind the withdrawal from social and political participation. It is also due to the nature, and way the transition has been conducted by the governments of the Concertación. From its early gestation, the transition has been articulated and managed by political elite without the participation of the civil society, especially grassroots organisations. The governments of the Concertación have explicitly discouraged any manifestation of public activism under the perception this might degenerate into conflict that may disrupt the transition. One of the social sectors most affected by this approach has been the union movement. A courageous and central actor in the struggle for democracy, during the transition to democracy the workers movement has been displaced and weakened by the ruling political elite, losing its substantial political and social power. Both President Aylwin and President Frei did not show any interest in fostering and strengthening the workers’ movement. On the contrary, many attempts by the Confederación Unitaria de Trabajadores (United Workers’ Confederation or CUT), the main national union, to engage in public demonstrations on behalf of Chilean workers, have found opposition and a lack of cooperation from the governments. During the 1990s the Concertación systematically denied permission for street 124
rallies organized by unions. In addition, union membership dropped dramatically. It is estimated that in the 1990s only 13 percent of Chilean workers are unionised (Fernández 1996, 286). 10
While reconciliation is on the wane in the social agenda, discontent has become the new theme of the Chilean transition. Although the theme of the discontent is widely spread in Chilean society, it is among the youth that it is most evident. Frustrated by an anodyne political process and unfulfilled promises, young people have deserted the electoral system. There are around one million young people who are not registered to vote. Also, they have been left alienated by an economic system that encourages consumerism and individualistic goals. Inequality and Poverty The economic system has not only encouraged consumerism and individualism, but it also has increased the level of poverty and the breach between the haves and the have‐nots. The aggressive neoliberal economic model introduced by the Chicago Boys during the dictatorship was adopted and deepened by the Concertación. Varas points out that in this model of neoliberal transition people “have been trapped and absorbed by the market (1998: 145). During their respective administrations, President Aylwin and President Frei pursued the same economic model as General Pinochet. Essentially, this meant accepting the pre‐
eminence of market forces as regulator of economic management. 11 The maintenance of the economic model was not only part of the democracy by agreements, but also an attempt to lure and appease the powerful Chilean business sector. 12 The implementation and maintenance of the neoliberal economic model come at an extraordinarily high social cost. President Aylwin inherited from the dictatorship a society that included nearly four million citizens living in poverty. This was a staggering figure for a population of only 12 million people. Without introducing changes to the model, President 125
Aylwin attempted to deal with some of the most urgent social demands of the civil society, including the problem of poverty, the access to a decent health system and a shortage in housing. Fernandois and Morris point out that President Frei, on the other hand was a technocrat whose central objective was to maintain the economic model of macroeconomic stability and the rate of growth (1995). Poverty and inequality have become the deudas sociales (social debts) of the Chilean transition. One of the first measures taken by President Aylwin was to legislate in order to remedy this social debt. Some of his achievements in this area were positive. For example, he was able to increase taxes in order to finance $2.35 billion pesos in public spending. Under Aylwin, social spending increased by 30 percent in real terms (El Mercurio 1993, 1‐20). However, this is still below what it was prior to the military dictatorship. In the mid‐1990s social spending was around 14 percent of the gross national product, this was well below the 25 percent allocated during the 1960s (Hardy 1997, 38). Under his administration, there was a relative improvement of the paltry minimum monthly wage of $18,000 pesos (approximately US$30) to $26,000 pesos (approximately US$43). The economic management during the transition to democracy has produced mixed results. During the period covered by this research, 1990‐2000, the economy grew an average of 7 percent a year and experienced a significant process of economic diversification of exports. Foreign investment in the mining sector and forests increased. However, these economic achievements have not trickled down to the majority of the population. It is estimated that one quarter of the population lives in poverty. This has been exacerbated by the unequal distribution of income, the second worst among eleven Latin American countries (Hardy 1997, 17). During the first decade of the transition, the gap between the poorest and the wealthiest 20 percent worsened. In 1987, the top 20 percent accounted for 13.3 times the income of the poorest 20 percent; by the middle of the 1990s the gap widened to 13.83 times (CASEN 1996, 9). Poverty and inequality remain the definitive socio‐economic 126
issues not resolved by the transition. One of the criteria that determine the strength and the consolidation of a democratic system is the more or less equal enjoyment of economic growth. In the case of Chile this has not been achieved. Institutional and Political Idleness The lack of effective political power in the democratically elected governments has been a permanent feature of the transition to democracy. The ability to manoeuvre and introduce democratic changes has been stifled by an institutional system and constitutional mechanism left in place by the dictatorship. Essentially, it is possible to argue that Chile has been unable to have a consolidated democracy. 13
In this authoritarian context, approximately 20 percent of the Senate was appointed and the binominal electoral system has given disproportionate political representation to the right wing minority. Essentially, this skewed system gave right wing political candidates access to the legislature with one‐third of the popular vote. Under this rule, the Chilean Right, considered a custodian of the dictatorship continuity, has held a majority of seats in the Senate during the transition, There have been some achievements. Two important achievements of the government of President Frei were reforms introduced to the local government sector and to the judicial system. With the introduction of local government reform, this area of governance was given the power to coordinate and control public service job creation and remuneration. The reform to the judicial system included the creation of the Ministerio Público (Public Ministry), a government controlled office of public prosecution granted the power to investigate criminal and civil cases and with the authority to transfer these cases to a judge. Basically, this reform was an 127
attempt to take away from judges the dual role of investigators and judges in criminal and civil cases. However, in terms of the most substantial institutional and constitutional aspects, President Aylwin and President Frei were far less successful. While the 1980s became known as the lost decade in economic terms, the 1990s, the first decade of the Chilean transition to democracy, has also been lost in terms of creating a truly democratic society. As will be examined in the next section, the Concertación has transformed the features of the transition into the permanent norms of what can be considered a procedural democracy instead of a substantive democracy. In this procedural democracy, the transition has been incomplete and almost all the constitutional reforms that the Concertación promised to implement have not been achieved (La Epoca 1998, 3). In addition as will be examined in the following part, a transition to democracy reaches a conclusion when the new democratically elected authorities are able to remove the institutional dispositions left in place by the military regime and, at the same time, are capable of installing a new institutional deal (O’Donnell 1996, 2). In the light of this, it is possible to argue that instead of a consolidated new regime, Chile continues experiencing a continual and seemingly endless transition. It is in this political and historical context that the role and the relationship between the media and the transition to democracy will be examined. Notes 1 For comprehensive historical analysis of this period see Oppenheim 1999. 128
2 I will get back to this. However it is important to consign the first call by the government to the media was to assist in the reconciliation process. This was indeed a call to moderate the coverage of human rights abuses. 3 Pinochet spoke of misión cumplida – that can also be translated as “outcomes achieved.” 4 The system of designated senators was abolished in 2005. 5 In 2004 Pinochet – who is under investigation for financial frauds‐ lost his political immunity and was forced to relinquish his sit in the senate. 6 Pinochet is currently under investigations for financial corruption. 7 For an examination of human rights and society in a post‐dictatorship country, see: Jelin, Elizabeth, and Eric Hershberg. 1996. Constructing Democracy: Human Rights, Citizenship, and Society in Latin America. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press. 8 This was the period when the majority of human rights violations occurred. 9 In order to understand the extent of this fear sees Patricia Politzer. 1985. Miedo en Chile (Fear in Chile). Santiago: CESOC. 10 In the context of the theory of transitions to democracy, the lack of participation by civil society in general and the attempt by the ruling elite to discourage a vibrant and participatory civil society are further evidence of a society that has been unable to achieve a truly consolidated democratic system. 11 For a discussion of the lack of changes of the economic model and its result (especially in terms of the distribution of income) during the Aylwin government, see Schneider 1995, 201‐
2. 12 The armed forces and the financial elite considered the economic model as one of the achievements of the dictatorship. 13 Consolidated democracy: For a very insightful discussion of the use of consolidation, see Schedler (1998). In his view, “The term ‘democratic consolidation’ should refer to expectations of regime continuity – and nothing else” (Schedler 1998, 103). I have used the concept of “democratic consolidation” ‐‐ and I mean basically the end of the transition and the establishment of fully democratic elected institutions, such as the parliament, and the removal of undemocratic features of the constitutional framework. 129
4.3 The Dynamic of the Transition A Theoretical Approach The impact and role played by the Chilean media have been strongly shaped by the nature and the dynamic of the political transition to democracy. To understand the role and the impact the media have had in the post‐dictatorship period, it is important to examine the way the transition has developed. Undoubtedly the dynamic of the Chilean transition, including the institutional, constitutional, economic and socio‐cultural features, have had far‐
reaching consequences on the way the Chilean media, and journalists in particular, have performed their role and function during 1990‐2000, the period covered by this research. The Chilean experience, like that of other post‐dictatorship and authoritarian political processes has been conceptualised by the study of transitions, or transitology, which has been informed by a vast array of research forming the “transition to democracy literature.ʺ Arguably a large part of the study of transitions is due to the landmark work of Guillermo O’Donnell, Philippe C. Schmitter and Laurence Whitehead, Transitions from Authoritarian Rule (1986). This study is the basis for a vast number of broad studies looking at political transitions (Di Palma 1990; Przeworski 1991; Pridham 1995; Linz and Stepan 1996; Haggard and Kaufman 1995; Gunther 1995). O’Donnell and Schmitter defined “transition to democracy” as a political process located between two different political regimes (1994, 19). This rather straightforward definition conceals, however, the enormous complexity of this process. The complexities that underpin this process are, incidentally, the only points of agreement reached among scholars examining this political process. 1
The theory of transitology points out that the nature of a transition to democracy is determined by three factors: the starting point of the process of democratisation, the agents of 130
democratisation and the objectives established. In addition, the transition literature has conceptualised the course of regime change in terms of three phases: breakdown, democratic transition, and democratic consolidation (Lechner 1984, Garretón 1984, Dieter and Solari 1988, Linz 1990, Varas 1984). Following these parameters it is possible to jump to an early comment: the Chilean transition is incomplete, as it has not achieved the last stage of democratic consolidation. The other way to put it is that Chile has not reached a “completed democracy” it is the classical example in Latin America of a “constitutional semi democracy (Schedler 1998: 98). This is the classical case of a country were the outgoing regime was able to write certain non‐democratic rules into the constitution. Linz and Stepan suggest that a democracy becomes consolidated 2 not only in the constitutional sphere but also when a “large part of the public sustain the idea that the procedures and the democratic institutions constitute the most appropriate mode to govern the collective life in a society and when the support for anti‐systemic is relatively small or it is more or less isolated from the pro‐democracy forces” (1996, 6). In the non‐constitutional or formal sphere a transition reaches its end when public opinion shares the common perception that democracy has achieved a stage of consolidation. As will be examined later in this section, the majority of the Chilean public tends to share not only a sense of discontent but also a belief that the democratic system in Chile is deeply flawed. 3 This is what Agüero describes as the “systematic pessimism” in regard to the democratization process (1998, 3). 4 The optimistic view on the transition points out that democracy had been achieved gradually with a minimum of violence and had been spearheaded by middle sector parties rather than those representing the working class or the oligarchy. 5 The Chilean transition, like that in other Latin American countries, is the product of the 1970s and 1980s process of “dis‐democratisation” by force. Similar to other contemporary post‐
dictatorship Latin American countries, the main feature of the Chilean transition is its limited, strictly political character with domestic elite playing the decisive role in determining the democratic process and the result. In addition, the Chilean and Latin American model of transition shares the global conditions of the so‐called systemic 131
transitions or institutional transitions based on a process determined by the rules and procedures established by preceding authoritarian governments. The systemic nature of the Chilean transition is found in the political itinerary and pattern of the Spanish and Brazilian transitions. Similar to Brazil and Spain, the Chilean government of the armed forces did not collapse due to failed external military adventure, as was the case in Argentina and Greece. Furthermore, in contrast to the dictatorships in Portugal and Nicaragua, Chile did not experience an internal turmoil, civil war or revolution. The transition in Chile has been the product of a political agreement between the former and new authorities with the objective of establishing what has been described as a democracy by consensus. Berurgounioux and Manin suggest that democracy by consensus tends to favour a government conducted by a large coalition of parties (1989) and this has been a model favoured by the post‐dictatorship ruling government of the Concertación de Partidos por la Democracia. In the light of this, the aim of the Concertación during the transition had been to put into practice a series of social and political relationships where negotiation and the search for consensus replace confrontation and conflict (Boeninger 1986, 13). Confrontation and conflict are two frequently cited rhetorical expressions that tend to bring to light the tensions, contradictions and dilemmas of this political process. The next expression is political and economic continuity. Referring to the continuity of this regime, the former dictator recurrently pointed out that the next democratically elected government would find todo atado y bien atado (everything tied up and tied up well) (Loveman 1990, 67). Essentially, “the armed forces never returned to the barracks. 6 They remain a potent political actor, capable of exerting pressure that changes government policy” (Weeks 2000, 65). In this scenario of continuity, the Chilean transition can be analysed from the point of a view of a pacto (pact). The idea of a pact refers to an agreement between sectors that, acknowledging their differences, express their willingness to resolve a given conflict. 7 Through a pact, they express their keenness to self‐regulate and even tame their particular 132
social and political demands. O’Donnnell and Schmitter point out that a pact involves a tactical or instrumental arrangement based on the existence of shared objectives albeit not similar. In general terms, a pact tends to be a transitory solution to the crisis (1986). 8
Also, the nature of the Chilean transition to democracy can be informed by Huntington’s third wave of democratization. In his approach to the third wave of democratization, Huntington points to a transition achieved by a forced process of social, political and economic transactions (1991, 114). Huntington’s theory of transaction involves a process of compromise between two given parties that enjoy an unequal balance of power. Testing this approach in relation to Chile, it is possible to argue that the dictatorship was able to negotiate the transition, from a position of power, with the pro‐democracy forces. The latter, although enjoying popular support, did not enjoy the same level of power and were not able to achieve a more satisfactory outcome. The power base of the dictatorship rested in a coherent set of rules established in the Constitution of 1980, in an economic system that showed significant success and in the cohesive and monolithic armed forces. The key method used to assess the Chilean transition to democracy consists of examining the tensions and key dilemmas within this model. More precisely, it will scrutinize the transition evaluating the “costs and benefits” of the different aspects of this model. In this context the question to address is whether Chile is facing the normal contradictions of a society going through a dual process of democratization and modernization. In political terms, post‐
dictatorship stability has been achieved at the expense of a broader participation, especially among civil society. In the same context, this evaluation needs to assess whether the democracy by agreements and pacts, controlled by authoritarian forces, are beneficial or unfavourable for the process of democratization. In economic terms the Chilean model has been able to maintain a relatively high level of growth and macroeconomic stability. However this has been achieved at the expense of a series of social policies needed to resolve the acute problem of mass poverty and the unequal distribution of wealth and income. The model so far has failed in terms of equity and 133
distribution. As equity is considered a measure of a truly democratic society, the unequal distribution of wealth reflects the inability of the Concertación to conclude the transition to democracy. 9 Indicators of a consolidated democracy go beyond the political and economic sphere. Any assessment of the health and consolidation of a democratic system must include the evaluation of a wider range of social issues mediated between a community and their elected representatives. The environment, protection of ethnic minorities and media plurality are, among others, indicators of a consolidated democratic system. In terms of environment, the question is whether Chile can sustain an economic formula for exports without causing major damage to the environment (Hojman 1993). In relation to the treatment of ethnic minorities, the transition has shown complete neglect regarding their demands and this has tested the depth of the Chilean transition (Subercaseaux 2002, 38). The depth of the Chilean transition can also be measured by its successes and failures in providing a historical context that guarantees plurality and diversity in the media sphere. As will be examined in the following sections, the transition has been in an historical context where Chile has developed the least pluralism in economic and ideological spheres in Latin America (Sunkel and Geoffreoy 2001). The problem with of a transition conducted under the premises outlined above is the potential risk of “consolidating” what Shain and Linz describe as a “tutelary democracy” (1995). As Shain and Linz point out: “In countries where the authoritarian regime, now defining itself as a caretaker administration, remains strong, there is a greater likelihood that the incumbent will force concessions from the democratic opponents (1995:60). From Transition to Transaction The Chilean transition can be traced back to 1983 when a broad political alliance of pro‐
democracy forces, the Alianza Democrática (Democratic Alliance), made the first attempt to explore a political agenda for democracy. The Alianza Democrática, a blend of center and 134
moderate left wing parties, sought the end of the dictatorship and the establishment of a constitutional assembly with the objective of introducing changes to the Constitution of 1980 (Collier and Sater 1998, 320‐323). The Constitution of 1980 was the main obstacle to a peaceful and organized transition to democracy. However, the dictatorship not only rejected the aspirations of the Alianza Democrática but also confirmed that the Constitution of 1980 was non negotiable. The eventual acceptance of this document by the pro‐democracy forces was the first concession, among many, that began shaping the nature of the Chilean transition to democracy. The Alianza Democrática was the antecedent of the Concertación de Partidos por la Democracia. 10 Garretón argues that the plebiscite of October 5, 1988, was the key event that marked the beginning of the end of the dictatorship and the first stage towards democratization (1999). Organized to decide the future of the military regime, the plebiscite was part of what became a negotiated transition between General Pinochet and the political leaders of the Concertación. As was examined earlier, the majority of Chileans rejected the continuation of the military regime and the result of the plebiscite was a momentary but partial political defeat for General Pinochet. Although there is no concrete historical evidence that the defeat of General Pinochet in the October plebiscite was predicted, it is certain the adverse result was one of the scenarios contemplated by the aging dictator. With this in mind the strategists and ideologues of the dictatorship put in place, what Jung and Shapiro describe as a “power sharing” post‐
dictatorship system (1994). The basis of this system was the acceptance by the Concertación de Partidos por la Democracia of the constitutional and institutional conditions imposed by General Pinochet. The “power sharing” doctrine was framed as a democracy by agreements or democracy by consensus. In this context the Concertación de Partidos por la Democracia was forced to accept, among other things, the maintenance of the authoritarian Constitution of 1980, the 135
preservation of the economic model of a market economy and to leave in place a series of judicial measures set up to avoid the judgment of human rights violations committed by members of the armed forces. Garretón observes that the strategy of “power sharing”, or a sort of cohabitation, obviously had the effect of limiting the transition process and brought about a low‐quality restricted democracy, full of authoritarian enclaves (1999, 260). The presence of the authoritarian enclaves has resulted in a protected democracy, which was the central objective of the ideologues of the dictatorship. It has also been defined as a post‐
Pinochet democracy since the Concertación de Partidos por la Democracia agreed to comply with several concessions forced through by the dictator. Among the concessions, the Concertación agreed to dismantle the anti‐dictatorship grassroots movements, including unions, professional colleges, student organizations and even neighborhood centers (Portales 2000, 50‐51). There is no doubt that the transition to democracy brought about a political system that, as O’Donnell argues, is clearly superior to the dictatorship (1999). In addition it is relatively better off when compared to other societies in transition. However, the current Chilean system is definitely worse when compared with its own democratic past and with the democratic standards applicable in the post‐authoritarian context. The insufficiency and weaknesses of the Chilean transition have generated a thorough dissatisfaction amongst the citizenry. The majority of the population perceive the transition as illegitimate and its negotiated nature as fraudulent. This is best illustrated by the low participation in the ballot box as shown in the 1997 parliamentarian elections and also by the decline in popular support suffered by the Concertación which fell from 55 percent in 1993 to 50 percent in 1997. A reluctance to be part of the democratisation process was especially prevalent among younger voters and is illustrated by a significant number of invalid votes. In the 1997 parliamentarian election 18 percent of the votes were invalid and this is a significant increase from the 10 percent in 1993. In the 1993 and 1997 parliamentary elections, the Concertación lost 850,000 votes (Lagos 1997, 125). 136
Chile has the lowest level of citizen satisfaction with its post‐dictatorship democratic system when compared to other Latin American countries. For example, in a 1996 Latinobarómetro 11 survey measuring how citizens of 17 Latin American countries evaluated their respective nation’s degree of democracy, Chile ranked 15th; only Mexico and Guatemala ranked lower. In addition, only 27 percent of the respondents professed satisfaction with Chile’s democracy, a substantial decline from the 75 percent approval rating recorded in 1990. Only 10 percent believed that democracy was fully established in the country (Lagos 1997, 134‐135; Linz and Stepan 1996, 217). The cost of this “pacted” transition has been high. A large section of Chilean society has expressed their discontent with the methods and outcomes of this process. What is observable in post‐dictatorship Chile is the consolidation of a major cultural theme: el descontento (the discontent). Underneath the auspices of an apparent democracy by consensus, rests a growing feeling of discontent and disillusionment with the political elite and its attempt to “consolidate” a fictitious scenario of social harmony (Epstein 1993; Moulian 1997). 12 Observers, such as Moulian, argue that the nature of the post‐dictatorship system ‐ a protected and authoritarian democracy built on the basis of a political pact – is the central reason behind this social discontent. The transition to democracy was achieved by reaching a series of agreements and consensus framed in a highly authoritarian non‐democratic constitutional and institutional context and whose key feature is the element of continuity with the military dictatorship. In addition, it is a transition under the permanent presence and influence of the armed forces. Loveman argues that the authoritarian nature of the transition has had a power of inhibition over the political system (1994). Gill points out that the paradox of the “pacted” democratic transition is that it has progressed towards democracy by “undemocratic means” (2000, 53). In the early days of the transition, 137
the newly elected democratic authorities admitted that the new process would be a stage marred by the institutional and constitutional presence of the former regime. 13 Negotiation, Pacts and Continuity The Chilean transition to democracy and its stability as a political process is due to what Hunter describes as a process of negotiation and bargaining (1998: 295). Hunter points out: “democracy’s persistence stems in no small part from a process of mutual testing, negotiation, and bargaining between civilian governments and military leaders” (1998:295). The Chilean transition fits into a model where, as Hilbink comments, negotiations between the main actors become central to this political process (2000, 52). Moreover, when such negotiations result in an agreement, such as the agreements that were reached between the Coalition of Parties and the former dictator, this becomes a pact crucial to the smooth itinerary of the transition process. A pact is defined by O’Donnell and Schmitter as “an explicit but not always publicly explained or justified, agreement among a select set of actors which seeks to define (or better, to redefine) rules governing the exercise of power on the basis of mutual guarantees for the ‘vital interests’ of those entering into it” (1986, 37). Pacts are an attempt to provide a greater degree of certainty during the transition by guaranteeing the interests of major parties and thereby assuring those parties that the transition will not have significantly adverse consequences for them. The pact on the Chilean transition involved a high level of concessions and agreements. In this process of negotiation, the dictator maintained the upper hand. Following the analysis of transitions by Baumgartner, Buckley, Burns and Schuster; General Pinochet effectively defined the rules of the game by the maintenance of his “meta‐power” (1976, 224‐225). 14
Portales points out that among the concessions, the Concertación de Partidos por la Democracia agreed to dismantle anti‐Pinochet grass‐roots organizations, human rights associations, unions, professional colleges, student organizations, and even neighborhood centers (2000, 50‐51). The Concertación also discouraged the permanence of the democratic 138
media that was at the forefront of the struggle against the dictatorship. Essentially, the Concertación attempted to disempowering civil society, a key factor in the 1983–1986 mass mobilization period that was regarded by the new authorities and old rulers as a possible source of disruption to a “smooth transition.” From the high level of civic society political participation before 1973 and considerable mobilization against Pinochet, there was nothing left in place. 15 Restraint is the best way to describe the way the Concertación has dealt with the human rights violations. A highly emblematic issue and key component of the reconciliation process, the Coalition agreed to deal with human rights within the dubious notion of justicia en la medida de lo possible (justice as far as it is possible). This has been the logic around the figure of General Pinochet. The way the government approached the arrest of Pinochet in London in 1998 illustrated the effects of democracy by pacts or agreements. The Concertación went to Pinochet’s defence when he was arrested in London, and rejected the constitutional accusation against him put forward during this time by the Christian Democrat members of the Congress. Within O’Donnell and Schmitter’s framework of a “pacted” transition (1986), the Concertación made an “explicit but not always publicly explicated or justified agreement” to moderate and even ignore the demands by human rights groups to bring to justice the main perpetrators of human rights violations, including current members of the armed forces. It is illustrative that it took two years for the families of missing people to get an audience with President Patricio Aylwin, whereas his successor President Eduardo Frei Ruiz‐Tagle just slammed the door of government house in the face of human rights groups and the association of families of detainees and missing dissidents (Oppenheim 1999, 214‐15). If the transition to democracy involves a great deal of continuity, the maintenance of the economic model is the best example of this. With minimum resistance and even with enthusiasm the Concertación agreed to maintain and administer the economic neoliberal model established by General Pinochet. Essentially, this economic model requires a system 139
whereby the State relinquishes its role as the main regulator of the economy. Boasting the dubious reputation of having the most unequal income distribution in Latin America and even in the world, the Chilean economic model has proven to be incompatible with democratic consolidation. Equally incompatible with a real democracy is the absence of a strong labour movement. In the last decade, the historically influential union movement has been squashed. Workers live in precarious conditions and the unions are weak. The attempts at restoring the union and workers rights, abolished by the dictatorship, have not been successful and therefore salaries have languished behind economic growth and labour productivity (Hershberg 1997). Apart from this, the economic model has pushed the export industry to levels that are causing dramatic damage to the environment. Indigenous land is under threat and the rights of indigenous people have been ignored. Military Guardianship The subordination of the armed forces to democratically elected civil authorities is a central component in a process of democratization in post‐military dictatorship societies. Failing this criterion, societies cannot see themselves on the road to complete democratization. This is, however, the state of many post‐dictatorship Latin American societies, including Chile. Resembling the situation in many other recently democratized Latin American countries, the Chilean armed forces still hold a high level of authority over the political process (Linz and Stepan 1996). Disregarding the pre‐Pinochet doctrine of non‐political and non‐deliberating armed forces, the current scenario shows the Chilean military taking the role of guardianship of the so‐called “protected democracy” devised by Pinochet. The armed forces have become not only “a State within the State,” but they have become the State itself (Sánchez 1990, 290‐
300). The role and the influence of the armed forces during the transition are clearly articulated within the Consejo Nacional de Seguridad (National Security Council). The Consejo Nacional 140
de Seguridad is formed by two senators designated by the President; three others selected by the Supreme Court and four appointees from the armed forces. They include only ex‐
commanders‐in‐chief, ex‐sub‐commanders‐in‐chief, and former directors of the national police. As members of this political institution, the armed forces have been granted the power to participate in political deliberations. The participation of the armed forces in the Consejo Nacional de Seguridad has given sympathizers of the former dictatorship a power of veto over legislation and constitutional reforms. In addition it has granted the armed forces an extraordinary level of political autonomy. For example, the president cannot directly remove the commander‐in‐chief of the armed forces. Before 1973, the president could remove any officer, including the head of the armed forces. Strengthening the armed forces position, the Constitution of 1980 permits commanders‐in‐chief to stay in office for four years and the president can remove them only with the approval of the Consejo Nacional de Seguridad, in which the armed forces hold half the votes. Furthermore, the president cannot promote or remove officers of the armed forces without the approval of the respective commanders‐in‐chief. A constitutional law that grants the armed forces a minimum budget further reinforces their autonomy. The autonomy of the armed forces, including professional and doctrinal independence, means that there is no civilian involvement in their training programs. Since 1990, the armed forces have created their own educational programs, changed their logistical structure, and bought new weapons with minimal civilian influence (Varas and Fuentes 1994). The new doctrine of autonomy and independence from civilian authority is reflected by the refusal to consider the civilian minister of defense as a superior authority. Repeatedly, the armed forces chiefs have contended that the “relationship with the minister of defense is merely administrative” (Boeninger 1997, 394). 16
In essence, the doctrine of army obedience to civil power and non‐political deliberation that existed before the coup of 1973 has been abolished and has been replaced by a self‐appointed role of democracy guardianship. This is the basic principle underpinning the notion of a 141
protected democracy. Associated with the dictatorial and even imperial doctrines of Friedrich Hayek – whose work inspired the authors of the Constitution of 1980 – the guardianship doctrine rests upon the maintenance of the doctrine of national security, limited popular sovereignty and the existence of lifelong Senators. The late Jaime Guzman, an exponent of Hayek’s authoritarian model and the main civilian ideologue of the dictatorship, first articulated this idea of guardianship in Chile. A neo‐fascist assassinated in 1992, Jaime Guzman outlined in 1987 a transition to “constitutional normality guided by the Chilean military” (Spooner 1999, 132). In his 1987 speech, Guzman described the new post‐dictatorship democracy as “protected and authoritarian” (Spooner 1999, 132). The doctrine also establishes a guarantee that prohibits any attempt by a civilian government to seek legal remedy for human rights abuses committed by the armed forces. 17 In the role of guardian of democracy and custodian of the “government of the armed forces,” the military has not only relied upon its considerable constitutional power, but has also resorted to threatening, “sabre rattling.” The 1991 ejercicio de enlace (link‐up exercise) reminded everyone that the armed forces were beyond civilian authority and judgment. A similar reminder was carried out in May 28, 1993, by 500 members of the army’s special forces in the so‐called boinazo. Both actions not only refuted the claim that the transition was over, as declared by President Aylwin in August 6, 1991, but also confirmed that the armed forces were continuing their interference in the political process. Authoritarian Enclaves and Poderes Fácticos A central instrument of the protected democracy, and the power sharing doctrine, has been the institutionalization of what has been described as “authoritarian enclaves” (Garretón 1995). These authoritarian enclaves include the armed forces, the electoral system, the judicial apparatus, the parliament and even the most conservative sections of the Catholic Church (Opus Dei). These authoritarian enclaves have become non‐elected poderes fácticos (de facto powers) capable of exercising the power of veto and influence over civilian institutions and even over political decisions carried out by popularly elected representatives. 142
While the armed forces constitute one of the most powerful expressions of the authoritarian enclaves another important component is the establishment of an electoral system with undemocratic features and the existence of the senadores designados (non‐elected senators). The electoral system was designed to enhance the presence of the Chilean Right in both houses of Congress. The skewed binominal electoral system means that in order for an electoral team to win both seats, it needs to obtain more than two thirds of the vote in the constituency. Therefore, in a two‐team electoral race, the Right could obtain half of the seats in the legislature with only a little more than a third of the votes cast. Thanks to this system and the appointee senators, the Right has enjoyed, throughout the transition, a majority in the Senate. Both mechanisms have made it extremely difficult, if not impossible, for the democratically elected government to obtain the quorum that is needed to reform the constitutional system. According to the legislative system introduced during the dictatorship, in order to reform the Constitution the Concertación had to obtain a majority of two thirds in both houses of Congress. Throughout the period covered by this work, the Concertación has been unable to gain this majority. Munck and Bosworth argue that the existence of designated senators and a skewed electoral law introduce, in effect, a trade‐off between democracy and the stability of Chile’s current politics (1999, 487). Fundamentally, the political stability that Chile has achieved in the post‐dictatorship period was gained by restricting and constraining party competition, which is one of the basic features of any consolidated Western democracy. Another basic feature of a consolidated democracy is the fact that key political decisions are taken by democratically elected institutions. This has not always happened in post‐
dictatorship Chile. During the Chilean transition the non‐elected de facto powers have had a substantial level of influence upon the political process. Working behind and in the shadow of the process of democratization, the de facto powers constitute a tight, symbiotic relationship between right wing sectors, most of them loyal allies of the former dictator, the 143
armed forces and the business sector. These de facto powers exert an influence that surpasses the sway exercised by democratically elected institutions. 18 With a high degree of leverage outside the democratically elected institutions of power, including the presidency, plus the continuity of the economic system, the Chilean Right has not shown any real aspiration to access elected spheres of power. Essentially, the real power of the Chilean Right rests with the business sector and the media, especially the powerful newspaper El Mercurio. The business sector exercises an enormous power by financing the political campaigns and by its control over the majority of the mainstream media organizations (Fazio 1997; Silva 1995). The Chilean Right has also been successful in establishing enclaves of de facto power within the cultural and academic institutions. This has been achieved by the powerful influence of the ultra‐conservative Catholic movement Opus Dei and the Legionarios de Cristo Members of this movement, linked to the financial elite, which have managed for example to exert a powerful editorial and managerial control over Channel 13, the television channel under the control of the Chilean Catholic University (Otano 1995, 285). These two ultra‐conservative organizations control several private universities. The role and experience of the Chilean media in the first decade of the post‐dictatorship period cannot be explained without understanding the dynamic of the Chilean transition to democracy. The democracy by agreements or democracy by consensus has not only been a factor that has shaped the structure and content of the communication system, but it has also seen the emergence of an increasingly undemocratic media ownership structure. It has left the majority of Chilean society without a voice in the media and without a chance for truly developed public debate. 144
Notes 1 For an analysis of transitions unable to reach a full consolidation see the work of Guillermo D’Donnell Schmitter, and Laurence Whitehead, eds. Transition from Authoritarian Rule: Comparative Perspectives 4 vols. 2 For a very insightful discussion of the use of consolidation, see Schedler (1998). In his view, “The term ‘democratic consolidation’ should refer to expectations of regime continuity – and nothing else” (Schedler 1998, 103). 3 The post transition literature usually contemplated a sequence through which, first, democracy was attained and, second, a process of consolidation would presumably be initiated. Thus, consolidation comprised the idea that the democratic nature of post‐
transition regimes ceased to be problematic 4 Agüero points out that for those holding a pessimistic view of democratization, and this is not only in Chile but in Latin America in general, many of the post‐dictatorship changes are close to being just façade, behind which authoritarian structures remain well entrenched, albeit in disguise, or ready to resurface at any sign of crisis. 5 Needles to say this is the view held by the political class that has conducted the transition 6 In this scenario de armed forces maintain am internal security and political role, and they are partial autonomy. See Brian Loveman, 1994, “Protected Democracies and Military Guardianship: Political Transitions in Latin America, 1978‐1993,” in Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs 36(2):105‐188. 7 Because political elite (or political class) that created the pact most likely designed if favourably towards themselves, they have a common interest in not renegotiating, but keeping it unaltered. 8 Essentially pact refers to a transition mode where elites agree upon a multilateral compromise among themselves, as in the case of Spain and Uruguay. 9 Chile and Brazil have the worst distribution of income in Latin America. 10 However, it was not until 1998 that the pro‐democracy block saw a real and concrete possibility of putting an end to the dictatorship. 11 Corporación Latinobarómetro is an independent organisation based in Santiago, Chile, that funds and coordinates an annual survey conducted in 17 countries in Latin America 12 Certainly one of the aspects that produce discontent is the lack of economic and social opportunities, especially among young people. 145
13 At the beginning of his mandate President Patricio Aylwin acknowledged that the post‐
dictatorship democracy would contain an element of continuity with the military regime. There is the wide spread political perception, that the transition is more a continuity rather than a change. 14 The Concertación de Partidos por la Democracia was forced to accept rule under and within the legal framework of the authoritarian Constitution of 1980. 15 This is a scenario that Samuel Huntington has described as a “trade‐off between participation and moderation” (1991, 169). It is a scenario that partially opens venues for political participation in return for popular restraint. 16 President Patricio Aylwin attempted, from the outset of his government, to address the issue of civilian supremacy over the military. However, the new civilian authorities had few institutional and political tools to achieve this goal. 17 To some extent, the unresolved issue of human rights violations and the absence of substantive legal procedures against violators of human rights during the transition can be explained by this doctrine which is deeply embedded in the psyche of the Chilean armed forces. 18 It could be argued that the transition is merely administered by the ruling political coalition. Nevertheless the actual political and economic power is the domain of this sort of parallel system of government.
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4.4 Social and Cultural Regressions Narrowing the Political Debate The dynamic of the Chilean transition, with all its regressions and uncertainties, has also had a powerful impact upon the cultural and social spheres of society. 1 Considering that most of the modern social and cultural sphere is mediated through the word and images of the media (Giddens 1991), it is reasonable to argue that the media during the transition have to be assessed in the context of the social and cultural transformations experienced by post‐
dictatorship Chilean society. The impoverishment of the media landscape in the context of the democracy by agreements and a government reluctance to deal with controversy has shaped the social and cultural sphere of the transition to democracy. In addition, the reduction of spaces for public debate has undoubtedly conspired against the revival of the vigorous and proud pre‐dictatorship tradition of a highly sophisticated “civil society culture” and social movement. 2
The arrest of General Pinochet in London in 1998 was a brief moment that augured a renaissance of healthy public debate. However the Frei administration, fearing an explosion of dissent and vigorous discussion, opted for shutting down this narrow avenue of participation and public debate (Pizarro 1999, 17). Assessing the transition as a historical period, Subercaseaux has described this period as a stage of social and cultural fragmentation, with an environment not conducive to critical thought, risk taking or dissent (1994, 83). For academic Bernardita Ramírez “this historical context, where critical thinking and dissent have been replaced by a forced sense of social and cultural consensus, has witnessed the disappearance of the big issues that traditionally shaped the social and cultural sphere of Chilean society (Interview, 2001). 3
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Journalist and academic Faride Zerán suggests that the transition has also witnessed the construction of a public debate and news media agenda dominated by the narrow political elite, the business sector and the armed forces (2000, 54). Faride Zerán argues that these agents have constructed a social and public debate, mediated by the media, profoundly conservative, archaic and ideologically monothematic. 4
As an example of the many paradoxes and contradictions of the Chilean process, the social and cultural sphere has been dominated by an archaic and conservative discourse, whereas the economic sphere has been framed by a liberal and modern public discourse. Significant issues such as the legislation on divorce, abortion, and sexual diversity; the situation of ethnic minorities, the violation of human rights and the environment have been replaced by themes such as economic growth, soccer and non‐confrontational issues. Hormazábal observes that in a mass mediated society, this trend has been reinforced by the communication system, which is largely representative of conservative values and located to the right of the political spectrum (1999, 60). The hegemonic presence of a conservative social and cultural discourse has gone unchallenged by the lack of an alternative media landscape. The disappearance of virtually all the alternative and pro‐democracy media that emerged during the dictatorship and the ideological monopoly held by two major media organizations, closely linked to the military regime, are two of the most significant issues to address during the transition to democracy. In one of the greatest paradoxes of the transition, the collapse of the alternative media meant that the only coalition able to play the role of independent mediators between citizens and the political elite disappeared. Paradoxically the disappearance of the alternative media was an event contemporary to the financial consolidation of media organizations that were aligned with the dictatorship; this was especially the case for media conglomerates El Mercurio S.A. and Copesa. During the transition and contrary to popular belief these conglomerates, publishers of El Mercurio and La Tercera newspapers among others, did not lose their grip on the domestic media market. They did not lose their grip either on the market of ideas. Their economic monopoly has 148
paralleled their unchallenged ideological hegemony. In the context of an ideologically monopolized media landscape, Chilean society has been deprived of what Carey describes as a “culture of political conversation” (Carey 1995, 373‐402). Similarly, Daniel Hallin speculates that this lack of political conversation is due to the failure of the mainstream media to drive public discourse (1992, 292). The failed role of the media in exercising its position as a public platform for social and cultural “conversation” is due to the maintenance of a pervasive culture of self‐censorship. This is not only reflected in the media but also in individual experience. In this societal experience censorship responds to another legacy of the dictatorship, that is fear. The brutal political repression experienced during almost two decades of dictatorship installed in the national psyche a deeply entrenched culture of terror and distrust (Politzer 1988, Lechner 1988). The lack of re‐socialisation by the new political condition has ensured Chileans remain deeply apprehensive about speaking openly and freely. This is also true about journalists who still tend to perform their work with self‐censorship, a scenario more commonly seen under authoritarian regimes. Self‐censorship and the deficit in terms of public debate are intimately connected to the “theme” of fear that permeates the collective and individual experience of Chilean society. The fear of a political regression towards a traumatic recent past has brought about a society that strives to steer away from conflict and dissent. It is within this logic that Chileans live in a continuing struggle to leave behind a traumatic past and move forward to the future. However, this is not always achieved. As has been experienced in countless cases during the transition to democracy, these societal aspirations have been continuously disturbed by painful events that resurface, maintaining society in an unending state of conflict. Dramatic issues, such as the discovery in the early 1990s of numerous mass graves containing the bodies of hundreds of left‐wing sympathisers executed during the dictatorship, were painful reminders of a recent past that does not want to go away. Despite the fact that the majority want disclosure regarding the whereabouts of 149
the bodies of those executed by the military regime, the discovery of the graves was seen an unwanted reason for conflict, especially regarding the interpretation of the recent past. Avoiding conflict and building a transition by consensus have been central objectives of the ruling political elite. Moulián argues that the intellectual cadres of the Concertación have played a central role in the construction of this fable of consensus (1997). 5 They have assisted in creating a milieu of political conformity and intellectual complacency. Alexander Wilde describes this scenario as a “conspiracy of consensus” originating among political elites but permeating the whole society (1999). Wilde observes that the rejection and diminishment of conflicts, a key component of the conspiracy of consensus, has been achieved by a deliberate policy of reducing the spaces of public debate and social dissent. Resorting to the questionable argument that democracy could be at risk and needs to be consolidated, the Concertación has been engaged in systematic efforts to discourage public debate on the “big social issues” (Moulián 1997; Jocelyn‐Holt 1997; Zerán 1997). The media system, as one of the tools of this conspiracy, has been aligned with this objective by constructing a news narrative of consensus, passivity and conformism. It has also avoided amplifying the frequent emergence of reminders of the past. As Moulián observes one of the mechanisms of domination in Chile is “the silence of the media” on the demands and action of the civil society (2005, 21). The manufactured consensus between the former and current ruling political elite has created a political transition characterised by a high level of cynicism, apathy and marginalisation in the political process. One of the most popular expressions among young people in the 1990s – no estamos ni ahi (this could be translated as “it doesn’t concern us”) – has been an illustration of this cynicism. It has also been an expression that illustrates a profound sense of social and political disengagement. This malaise has been echoed by the inability of the ruling Concertación to restore the high level of social and political participation seen in the political elections prior to 1973 (Drake and Jaksic 2002, 14). 6 This is an especially significant feature among young people who, during the transition, have become the sector most reluctant to participate in the presidential 150
and congressional elections held during the 1990s. The self‐marginalisation of civil society from the dynamic of the transition is mainly due to a low level of trust in the manner in which the transition has been conducted. Since the beginning of the transition to democracy, the political elite have shown a noticeable inclination to avoid the cut and thrust of public debate, a key indicator of the health and strength of a democratic process. 7 Besides this, the political elite has been characterised by its notably thin‐skinned reaction to media criticism. During the first few years of the transition and during the existence of the alternative, pro‐democratic media, the ruling political elite was subject to severe media scrutiny about the lack of substantial advances in the area of human rights. The reaction to this media criticism was swift. Editors and individual journalists became the target of the so‐called telefonaso, a direct telephone call from high‐
ranking officials threatening the author of the allegedly “offensive story.” The telefonaso became shorthand for political interference and harassment of the media by the government (Figueroa, Interview 2000). 8
However, journalists were not the only actors subjected to principles of the conspiracy of consensus. Intellectuals, artists and writers were also subject to government disapproval every time their work expressed doubts about the real advancement of the transition. The celebrated Chilean writer Ariel Dorfman whose internationally acclaimed play “Death and the Maiden” – a play that deals with the relationship between a torturer and his victim ‐ was harshly criticised by members of the ruling Concertación. Government officials deemed the play as an irritating reminder of the recent past and a threat to the conspiracy of consensus. Dorfman has been an example of the fate experienced by a whole generation of Chilean independent intellectuals. The transition has seen the intellectual subject, especially the one that had not been institutionalized as part of the ruling elite, socially marginalized, detached and with a discourse constrained by democracy by agreements and consensus. From the historiographic point of view the hostile response to Ariel Dorfman, and to many others, represents a process of historical obliteration. Any attempts to recover the “historical memory” have been condemned as not contributing to the process of national reconciliation 151
and consensus. Timothy Scully suggests that the ghosts of the past and the manufactured consensus, promoted by the ruling political elite, have brought about “social boredom” and a community withdrawal from the highly dynamic, notwithstanding divisive, social and political participation of the 1960s and 1970s (1992). The conspiracy of consensus that has framed the transition in Chile has brought about what Chilean writer Marco Antonio de la Parra has described as mala memoria (1997). Translated literally as “bad memory,” it expresses the inability, willingly or unwillingly, to remember events that may have caused traumatic experiences. The Chilean historical memory has become scattered, partial and sorrowful. The notion of the mala memoria is closely linked to the idea that Chileans have lost what historians call the conciencia histórica (historical conscience). Behind this is the conscious refusal by society to revisit events of the recent past. In this scenario, the mala memoria becomes the uppermost phase of forgetfulness (Moulián 1997, 36). The late José Donoso, one of the best‐known Chilean novelists, wrote that Chileans live under a tupido velo de silencio (a thick veil of silence). This veil of silence is frequently laid on the media and on the work of journalists. Censorship and Conservatism The Chilean transition to democracy has consolidated some of the most contradictory features among post‐dictatorship societies in the region. The Chilean political elite have presented the world with an image of an orderly, democratic, modern society deeply committed to an open, liberal economic system. However this cannot be said of its regressive, morally conservative and highly censored public debate. Hopenhayn rightly comments that post‐dictatorship Chilean society lives a socio‐cultural schizophrenia where the secularisation of the free‐market economy is developed within the realm of a culturally regressive sphere (1993, 138). In essence, an ultra liberal economic system functions in a highly conservative and self‐censored socio‐cultural context. Journalist Daniel Olave and writer Marco Antonio de La Parra point out that Chile is still a society full of prohibitions, 152
regulations and censorships and this is not only in relation to freedom of expression, but it is also in matters related to “freedom of thoughts” (2001, 17). One of the most regressive aspects of Chilean society is the limited level of freedom of expression and freedom of the press. This has gone parallel with a persisting high level of explicit censorship usually only found in non‐democratic regimes. This is an obstacle to the consolidation of the democratic process. It is well founded that “overt censorship gives way to informal relations of power and thus limits public access to information vital to critical analysis, political action, and the maintenance of civil society” (Bagdikian 1988; Herman and Chomsky 1988). In this limited public access to information, the transition to democracy has seen the emergence of the “untouched” social themes. These untouched themes that have emerged in the 1990s, such as drug addiction, sexuality, alcoholism, religion, abortion and gay rights, have been systematically excluded from the public debate and from the news agenda of the print and electronic media. The existence of censorship is the expression of a society that, after almost two decades of being deprived of democratic norms, finds itself ill at ease dealing with social and cultural diversity. The transition to democracy has failed to foster a diversity of opinions and political leaders have unashamedly censored public debate and certainly the work of the media. The situation experienced by journalists in charge of covering the activities of the Chilean Congress is illustrative. It has become the norm for parliamentarians to impose barriers of censorship and legal threats against journalists who criticise their performance. In Chile elected parliamentarians have been characterised by their lack of attendance at sessions of Congress and some of them, including government representatives, have not attended the discussion of critical legislative matters. Stories like these, that would be front‐page stories in any respectable democratic society, have never been published (Pozo, Interview 2002). 9
It is not only about government‐sponsored censorship but it is also an internalised notion of self‐censorship. Chomsky and Herman comment that self‐censorship, rather than a conspiracy in setting the media agenda, is at work. They assert that most biased choices in 153
the media arise because people have internalised preconceptions and must adapt to constant media ownership, market and political changes (1988, ix). The culture of censorship and conservatism is also highly visible in films and other artistic expressions. Although there has been some progress since the days of dictatorship when films such as Costa Gavra’s “Missing” was banned, the transition has not been completely free of this kind of censorship. One of the most illustrative cases is the film the “Last Temptation of Christ” by acclaimed American director Martin Scorcesse. The film was banned from screening in 1997, when the Chilean Supreme Court ruled that the historical figure of Jesus Christ had been distorted, humiliated and his honour damaged. The Supreme Court accepted the rather bizarre thesis that Jesus Christ, as an historical figure, was defamed under the legal prescription established in the Chilean State Security Law. This law, that will be examined a bit later, established that from 1990 the defamation of prominent members of the Chilean social political and religious elite was considered a crime against public order. In February 2001, the Inter‐American Court of Human Rights condemned Chile for breaching the American Convention on Human Rights and gave the government six months to reverse the prohibition of the Last Temptation of Christ. The decision was not enforced and the film is still banned. Between 1972 and 2001 there have been 884 films censured and 33 percent of them were censored during the first decade of the transition to democracy (Education Ministry 2001, 16) Artistic expression has also been subject to heavy censorship. In January 25, 2000, Chileans were exposed to a piece of artistic expression that challenged the level of censorship and tolerance in contemporary Chilean society. Known as the Nautilus Project, the artistic expression showed a young actress living in a house with glass walls that was built on one of the main streets in downtown Santiago. The actress carried out all her activities in full view of those passing by. The project was designed to promote a debate about censorship and the rights and limits of individual privacy. Although opinion polls showed support for the project, it was subject to relentless condemnation by some of the most conservative sections of Chilean society, including the Catholic Church (Human Rights Watch 2001). 10
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Although the Catholic Church was a courageous defender of human rights during the dictatorship, during the transition it has turned into one of the main sources of censorship and moral conservatism and it has not hesitated to use its considerable power to influence the government and media organisations. In 1991, the Catholic Church forced the government and media organisations to withdraw a media campaign designed to prevent AIDS. The media spot recommended the use of condoms, a message that was harshly condemned by the Catholic hierarchy. Responding to this pressure, the majority of media organisation, including the Canal de la Universidad Católica (Catholic University Television Channel, or Channel 13). and Channel 9 declined to broadcast the US$1.3 million government advertisements. The print media followed suit. The newspapers El Mercurio, La Tercera and La Segunda declined to publish the campaign’s advertisements. Eventually, the government of President Patricio Aylwin gave in to pressure by the Catholic Church and the whole campaign was cancelled (Otano 1992, 4). Transition and Civil Society One of the most disappointing aspects of the Chilean transition has been the exclusion of civil society from the process of democratisation and with the media playing an important part in this exclusion. 11 This is in contrast to some of the media theory approaches that points out that the media should aim to empower civil society (Sparks and Reading 1995). This concept, civil society as the basis of a truly consolidated democratic system, has become increasingly popular over the past years in the literature of transitology (Bardoel 1996, 292). Gill defines civil society as “a society in which there are autonomous groups which aggregate the views and activities of individuals and which act to promote and defend the interests of those people, including against the state. This implies that there is public discussion of issues, with questions of public policy being debated widely within the community rather than being decided solely by a regime elite” (2000, 5). Abramson et al point to the function that the national media have had as an important source of common civic culture, in which the goals are a common political vocabulary, a common 155
political agenda and the formation of public opinion (1988). According to Habermas the power of civil society, that he defines as peripheral to the political centre, lies in its sensitivity to new social issues (1992, 461). In the context of an elite‐controlled process, as has been the case in Chile, the transition has become “democracy without people.” The Chilean transition to democracy has become an arrangement where procedures and forms tend to displace the substance, and civil society has been excluded from this process. In this context political communication that does not uphold the “democracy of consensus” has been regarded, by the ruling elite, as a threat to social order and political stability. 12 One of key factors that explain this “democracy without people” and the lack of public debate is the nature of the relationship between the political regime and civil society. In the social and political arena of the post‐1990s transition, political parties do not enjoy the exclusive role they had in the past as depositories of the majority of social demands. Besides, the current historical context has become more fragmented. There are new and varied actors whose strategies do not coincide necessarily with the established and traditional political parties. In this context civil society has attempted to channel its own demands and aspirations by the mobilization of its own cadres. The uncooperative and negative reaction by the political elite to the action of the civil society has been coherent with the exclusionary nature of the transition. The exclusively political nature of the transition, involving only an elite of political leaders, has established a conservative and limited approach to democracy. This goes back to the negotiations that led to the Plebiscite of 1988. It was carried out with the explicit exclusion of civil society. It became a process described as pacto de las elites (pact among elites). The absence of the civil society from this political process echoes the idea that civil mass action, although stimulating change, is often not the crucial factor in advancing democratic reconstruction (Huntington 1991, 146). In addition Di Palma argues that civil society and the various institutions around it have been viewed as secondary actors if not mere instruments in this process, lacking the power to shape transitions or to craft new democracies 156
themselves (1990). Therefore, the conduct of the process, the agreements and the policies are left solely to the political elite. The relationship between the political elite and civil society in the Chilean transition can be contrasted with the role played by civil society in the process of democratization of some Southern European countries where popular activism was the most significant factor. Admittedly, this was mainly due to the fact that, in contrast to European societies where civil societies were better established and were able to maintain their integrity during authoritarian regimes (Schmitter 1986, 7), civil society in Chile and the rest of Latin America experienced profound dislocation and political repression. During the extended transition, civil society has acted as a passive spectator and uncritical voyeur of mass‐media images. The media fed this conformist apathy and has become the tool that “sells” the idea of a society in “transition to modernity.” However, modernity has been constructed by the media as a mere process of consumption. The media, arguing from a neoliberal economic position, have reduced the citizenry to the target of media cultural products designed to simply entertain instead of inform and prepare citizens as agents of democratization. In this context the media has been stripped of their social service role and has been turned into an agent of consumption. The effect of this is the transformation of civil society into a fragmented entity, which Baudrillard calls a “citizen‐consumer” (1996). In addition, the construction of the citizen consumer of Baudrillard has gone parallel with the irruption of what Lechner describes as the ciudadano desmasificado (1998). A product of the neoliberal economic model, this ciudadano desmasificado, which is essentially the fragmentation of Chilean society into individual citizen‐consumers not connected to each other, has created a new type of socialization where traditional links of solidarity are displaced by “negative individualism” and consumption. The ciudadano desmasificado can be examined from the point of view of Haberma’s theory about the degeneration of the liberal public sphere (1996). According to Harbermas this is the effect of the commercialization and transformation of the media into vehicles for the 157
promotion of consumption. In this context, civil society in the post‐dictatorship society has been reduced to a hybrid passive political agent and, at the same time, an active agent of consumption. Political passivity and commercial consumption have been encouraged by a media more concerned with ratings and entertainment than developing a news agenda that may assist the re‐familiarization of Chilean citizens with civic and political norms. Notes 1 For an examination into post‐dictatorship Latin American societies see: Mainwaring, Scott, andArturo Valenzuela. 1999. Politics, Society, and Democracy: Latin America. Boulder, Colorado, Westview Press. 2 I use the terms “social movement” as defined and explained by Touraine (1994b.88, 262). As Touraine notes, “A social movement always rests upon the liberation of a social actor,” and can only be defended by social movements. Thus “if democracy is nothing more than a system of institutional guarantees, who will defend them when they are threatened?” 3 Bernardita Ramírez is an academic at the School of Journalism, Universidad de Chile. Interview, Santiago 2001. 4 This comment was made by Faride Zerán in a public lecture given in Santiago in 2003. The author of this thesis attended this event held at the Universidad de Chile. 5 The intellectual cadres of the Concertación became key leaders and ministers in the post‐
dictatorship governments. 6 On attitudes toward citizen participation in Chile, see Garretón (1994). 7 On the need for participation as a pre‐condition for the success of public policies, see Bradford (1994). 8 Alexis Figueroa is a journalist. Interview, Santiago 2000. 9 This information was provided by Susana Pozo Pizarro. She is a journalist and academic, Universidad de La Serena. Interview, La Serena, 2002. 10 Eventually, a judge in charge of investigating this complaint dismissed this case. 11 As Mainwaring (1994) observes, civil society is an important source for democratic innovations. 158
12 The demobilization of the social movement during the transition is commented by Foweraker (1995). He writes in page 108, “In Chile the more moderate movements were rapidly drawn into political society as soon as a date had been set for the constitutional plebiscite, and grassroots mobilization only lasted as long as the plebiscitary and electoral campaign themselves. Participation rates dropped dramatically after March 1990, indicating that social movements were likely to be demobilized permanently by the return to democratic politics.” 159
4.5 Journalism and Media in Transition Towards a Theoretical Framework This section is based on two central ideas. The first is the assumption that the media and the work of journalists play a central role in democracy. In this context, there exists a dominant paradigm that visualises two central roles played by the media. First of all, the media are given the role of keeping the political elite accountable and, at the same time, keeping citizens informed and able to assist in building a “responsive and responsible” democratic system (Delli Carpini and Keeter 1996, 1). The second point of departure is related to the hypothesis that establishes a direct correlation between mass communication and democracy. Essentially, this means that in the context of a society in transition, such as the case of Chile, the media and journalism play a key role in assisting societies to rebuild their democratic institutions and reintroduce citizens to democratic practice and to political culture. 1 This role is magnified in the context of the modern “crisis of democratic representation.” In this context the mass media is called upon to take part in the role of what Touraine calls “citizenship representation” (1995, 47‐50). As Habermas observes, central to the understanding of the relationship between the media and a democratisation process rests the concept of a public sphere as the social space for the expression of the demands and concerns of the civil society (1989). This is understood as a public sphere, or social space, that encompasses venues of mediation, such as the media, available to citizens to engage in free and open dialogue about matters of public interest (Corcoran and Paschal 1995; Maxwell 1997; O’Neil 1998). A central part in this mediation and open dialogue of citizens is the notion that the media system not only plays the role of magnifier of citizens’ aspirations, it is also instrumental in developing a political culture among citizens who, after a period of non‐political engagement, are reintroduced to the democratic game of political discussion and political struggle. 160
In a democratic context the media and journalists, as professionals of information, become the institutional and intellectual providers of information and communication opportunities. The ultimate objective is to develop an environment for what Hardt describes as an “effective” political discussion (1993, 87‐102). In other words, the media are regarded as vital conduits in the relationship between State and society. With this in mind, the media become a public space of mediation and political education that allows citizens to make informed and responsible decisions. 2
This idea of reintroducing citizens to a newly recovered democratic system gives journalism the duty of “informing” and “educating” citizens. These two roles are inextricably linked to the health of democratic systems and therefore journalism becomes what Schultz calls an “agent for democracyʺ (1991, 8). In a democratic system, it is taken for granted that healthy, plural and participative political systems need an informed and politically aware civil society. In this milieu the media become vital to the establishment and the strength of a civil society. As was suggested earlier, transitology regards this as one of the vital conditions for the consolidation of a post‐dictatorship democratic system. It has been argued that a failure to meet this condition damages the foundation of the democratic system (Splichal and Wasko 1993; Krohne 2004). The democratic system is also damaged when the newly elected democratic leaders are either unable or unwilling to democratise the media. In the context of transitology, the democratisation of the media demands the creation of a mechanism that allows civil society to participate in “decisions on the contents and nature of messages, and to influence decisions regarding communication policies” (Reyes Matta 1981, 90). Furthermore, Garnham observes that in the context of political transitions, the institutions and process of communication become a central and integral part of the political structure and process (1994, 361). A central objective of communication policies in a post‐dictatorship society is the creation of mechanisms that promote and guarantee freedom of expression and freedom of the media. In a classic and consolidated liberal democracy the media, and especially political 161
communication, are constitutionally guaranteed and protected from government intervention and interference. In such a political system, the government is called upon to implement a public policy that attempts to institutionalise media pluralism in order to provide the civil society with a wide range of political viewpoints and opinions. This principle echoes the argument put forward by John Keane who maintains that public policy should attempt to provide a truly pluralistic media system, which would “enable little people in big societies to send and receive opinion in a variety of ways” (1995, 265). In addition, a consolidated democratic system provides better conditions for the development of a media system more resistant to political intrusion. 3 For scholars of Latin American politics and journalism, despite the process of democratization, notwithstanding substantial improvements in civil liberties and professional development in the region, domestic media outlets remain vulnerable to political manipulation and bribery, especially in the context of weak and uncertain economies (Conaghan 2002, 116). The relationship between the media and a democratic regime is starkly different to the one commonly found in a non‐democratic system. Most of the scholars in this area point out that under non‐elected rulers, the media tend to repress and manipulate the population. As was examined in the section about the Chilean media under the dictatorship of General Pinochet, in these political regimes the media becomes subject to censorship and journalists are the targets of political repression. Furthermore, political communication is subject to a highly sophisticated system of news selection and agenda setting. Linz points out that in a non‐
democratic process the media assist the regime to demobilise civil society (1975). While in a democratic regime the media become the promoter of public liberties, in a non‐
democratic regime the media become an instrument of “public manipulation” (Neuman 1991, 22‐47; Kinder and Sears 1985). The idea that the media and journalism in a democratic context becomes a promoter of public liberties, the channel of political expressions of citizens and the watchdog of the ruling elite is a popular theory. This is in contrast with the role that the media and journalism perform under an authoritarian system where they are part of the propaganda and indoctrination apparatus of the non‐elected rulers. These two contrasting 162
roles given to the media are linked to the popular perception that the media have the potential power to change the way people think (Neuman 1991, 87; Kinder and Sears 1985, 706). Within the classic media effect approach, the view that the media influences the way people think is deeply imprinted in the popular perception. This is not always sustained by empirical studies. The unidirectional and totalitarian effect, especially exercised by the television communication media, has been subject to scholarly scrutiny. Some of the seminal research about media effect, including Klapper’s work, suggests that the media have a minimal and almost imperceptible influence on the political message addressed to citizens (1960). This assessment about media effect can be used to explain, for example, the low level of political indoctrination experienced by Chilean society during nearly two decades of military dictatorship. As was examined earlier, it could be argued that despite the dictatorship’s absolute control over the media system, the military regime failed “to convince” Chileans about the alleged benefits of a non‐democratic system. As soon as Chileans were given the possibility to express in the ballot box their views about the dictatorship, the dictatorship was rejected as an undesirable political system. 4 One of the central media themes identified by transitology is the link between the quality of the political communication and the quality of democracy. Writing about the function of “political communication” Gunther and Mughan argue that scholarly research in political science shows a deficit in analysing the mutually influencing interface between the stream of political information and the fundamental democratic character of political regimes and citizen’s political attitudes (2000,1‐2). This deficit is the result of several factors, including a fragmented and compartmentalized research agenda among political science and media analysis and the lack of interaction among these disciplines. These factors are important as obstacles to a better understanding of the relationship between the media, journalism and the political process. 163
In order to achieve a better understanding of the relationship between the media and the process of democratization, Gunther and Mughan suggest combining macro and micro perspectives to examine and explore this relationship (2000, 1‐2). By micro perspectives Gunther and Mughan attempt to examine the individual‐effects of political communication including questions such as whether the media changes political attitudes and whether there are some individuals more susceptible to media influence than others. At the macro‐level the challenge is to look at the structure of “the media system and how these systems affect politics.” Principally this is related to government regulation, media policies and ownership structure. The quality of political communication is one of the key issues that emerged during the Chilean transition to democracy. This has become an even more central theme in light of the consolidation of television as the most popular source of citizens’ political communication. Television has become not only the main source of information but also the most trusted source of political communication. Now, this poses an additional problem relating to the quality of the political communication conveyed by this medium. An assessment of Chilean television’s political communication is discouraging. 5 Television tends to convey political news as a ʺhorse raceʺ and there is an excessive concentration on the character and image of political leaders. Policies are rarely conveyed. Most of the time, television coverage tends to trivialise the political process. The shallowness of the political communication provided by television tends to weaken the democracy and the capacity to keep political leaders accountable (Ranney 1983; Bennett 1988; Entman 1989; Iyengar 1991; Patterson 1993; Fallows 1996). The point that relates to societies in transition is the following; while a consolidated democracy might be able to “afford” a low quality political communication; a society attempting to rebuild its democratic institutions requires a political discourse conducted by a high quality political news agenda. The quality of “political communication” in a society in transition to democracy can be measured and assessed by several factors including: the coverage of the policies, the balanced evaluation of the commitment by political leaders and parties to the process of democratisation; the commitment to encourage the civil society to 164
participate in the political process instead of playing a demobilising role. In a society under political transition, the function of a political news agenda is to inform and reintroduce citizens to a scenario of political plurality and civility. Any process of democratization needs citizens well supplied with a wide range of quality political communication. Carpini and Keeter observe this is a fundamental part of the democratization process (1996, 1). A Media in Transition The following section of this work has relied upon the integration of macro and micro level perspectives with the objective of a deeper understanding of the relationship between the media, and journalism in the Chilean transition to democracy. The Chilean transition is not only a political process. It is also a process of transformation of the relationship between citizens and the media. The 1990s was not only the decade of ongoing and politically frustrating efforts to consolidate the transition to democracy. It was also a period that questioned the conventional role assigned and the guarantees enjoyed by the media in a democratic society. As examined earlier, the Chilean consolidation of its democratic system continues to be an elusive goal. This is also the reality experienced by the post‐dictatorship Chilean media. One can argue that the Chilean media is also experiencing its own transition. Similar to the non‐
consolidated democratic process, the media’s development also shows a democratic shortfall. Behind this shortfall is the evident neglect shown by the ruling elite to create a communication process. This is in contrast to the notion suggested by Bennet who argues that that during political transitions, the “design of communication processes is as crucial as the design of political, economic, and social institutions” (1998, 206). In Chile, as has been the case in the majority of Latin American countries, the democratization process has shown a significant deficit in democratising the mass media. The question is then to define “democratic media.” Jakubowicz argues that democratising the media requires “going beyond the concept of freedom of speech and espousing that of the right to communicate” (1995, 132). This would put the parallel obligation on the 165
democratic society to provide ways and means for exercising this right, that is, by assisting, supporting, or subsidizing in various ways the foundation and the operation of newspapers, periodicals, broadcast media, and so on, by organizations, minorities, and groups unable to finance the establishment and operation of their own media.” By extension, the lack of a consolidated democracy has produced a communication system that is neither diverse nor ideologically pluralistic. This confirms that the role and the shortcomings of the media and journalism cannot be separated from the social and political milieu in which communication is produced and received (Fox 1988). In the Chilean case, the milieu has been a transition bursting with uncertainties and non‐democratic features. This media in transition have been unable to democratise the access to and the representation of civil society. In addition, during the transition to democracy the media have been instrumental in creating a spurious idea of modernity where the civil society has been made into an agent of consumerism of material and cultural products, instead of an agent of democratization. This has been exacerbated by the nature of the Chilean economic system and the impact of this model on the media system. As I have mentioned earlier, the Chilean transition has adopted a market neoliberal model left in place by the dictatorship. This model has brought about a media system where the logic of the market is winning over the quality of the information. The Chilean model can be examined in the light of McChesney’s “rich media and poor democracy” approach whereby the “corporate media explosion” is closely linked to a “corresponding implosion of public life” (1999, 3). Under this paradigm, the neoliberal model applied to the media has contributed to the emergence of a passive citizenry and a low level of social and political engagement in the democratization process. The lack of political engagement can be traced to the shallowness of the communication news agenda. The logic of the neoliberal market system has pushed the development of a media news agenda that shows a very limited representation of significant social issues and their protagonists (Cabieses, Interview 2001). 6 This is for example the deficit in representation in the mainstream media of the aspirations and problems of the rural and 166
urban poor, ethnic minorities and workers. This restricted news agenda has brought about a voiceless civil society. Undoubtedly, the common interests of the State, the market and the commercially controlled media are major obstacles to the development of a media system able to foster and assist the process of reinforcing the participation of the civil society in the process of democratization. The participation of the civil society and its re‐socialisation with democratic and pluralistic practices, a role usually assigned to the media, is even more vital in societies that have emerged from long periods of authoritarianism and dictatorship. In the Chilean context, the two decades of dictatorship saw an erosion of the traditional values of tolerance, democracy and plurality. They were substituted by non‐democratic and non‐pluralistic social practices. These social practices became entrenched individual and institutional ways of socialisation, better described as prácticas dictatoriales (dictatorship practices). One of the clearest expressions of the prácticas dictatoriales can be found in the relationship between the legal system and the media. The prácticas dictatoriales by the judiciary power in relation to the media have been a notable aspect of the transition. As will be analysed in more detail later, the media and journalism have performed their role in a highly restrictive media law framework. The Chilean laws affecting the work of the media are the harshest in any contemporary Western democracy. 7 The preservation of a self‐censorship culture has brought about a scenario where public debate has been stifled. The Chilean transition has, to some degree, put a question mark over the traditional paradigm where, in a democracy the media is completely free while in non‐
democratic regimes it is completely repressed. 8 Chile is a case in point. What the Chilean transition has shown is that the political elite appreciate the “value” of a non‐inquisitive and non‐intrusive media. The dictatorship mentality imbued in the political class, combined with the traditional authoritarian character of Chilean politicians, and has undermined an inquisitive media and an independent style of journalism. 167
The relationship between the media and the governments of the transition is full of paradoxes and contradictions. The main paradox shows that the end of the dictatorship did not end the authoritarian practices suffered by the media and journalists. Examples abound and illustrate these contradictions. For example, in 1992 the government attempted to prevent the publication of a photograph of President Aylwin suffering a hemorrhage during one of his public appearances. In 1996, his successor President Eduardo Frei complained to the editors of the tabloid El Metropolitano for publishing the word “president” in lower case (Diaz 1996, 15). Although anecdotal, these cases are examples of a pattern of political interference. They are also good examples of the culture of authoritarianism engraved in the national psyche and especially among the ruling elite. However, the main source of conflict between the media and the transition has been about the coverage of human rights abuses committed during the dictatorship. During the 1990s, the ruling political elite were actively engaged in discouraging the media investigation of thousands of cases of human rights abuses. 9 Similar to the dictatorship, the transition has regarded journalists as “undesirable witnesses.” During the first decade of the transition individual journalists and media organizations have been subjected to a systematic persecution, especially from the judiciary. 10 Parallel to the lack of guarantees in terms of freedom of expression and freedom of the press, the transition to democracy has failed in providing a more pluralistic media system. On the contrary, the first decade of the transition witnessed the consolidation of a financially and ideologically monopolised media system. This has posed a key obstacle to the necessary independence and media diversity required by journalists to carry out their work (Castillo 1996, 38). As James Curran observes: the highly monopolised Chilean media system has left journalists deprived of alternative channels from where to neutralise the political and business interests of the economic and political elite ((1990, 88). The monopolised media system demonstrates that the newly elected elite came to power with the same level of improvisation and neglect shown by the rest of the post‐dictatorship leaders of the region. This tends to demonstrate Fox’s opinion about the lack of a real plan to 168
develop a more democratic media by the democratic authorities (Fox 1988). This has brought about a situation characterised by the absence of any alternative to the private and entrepreneurial control of the media system. The governments of the transition in Chile, like others in the region, have been unable or unwilling to find a “role” for the media in the new political context. The approach taken has been to redefine State‐media relations in the direction of privatization and deregulation. In other words, this approach has given the State the rationale needed to justify the non‐incorporation of the media into the process of democratisation. The deregulation and privatization of the Chilean communication media have not only been the underlying principles behind the non‐incorporation of the media into the democratization process, but they were also policies coherent with the financial insertion of Chile into the dynamic of globalization. The Chilean incorporation into this development has been possible through its embrace of the neoliberal economic policies left in place by the dictatorship. Therefore, in the context of the Chilean democratisation, the post dictatorship authorities have envisioned that the transition was better served by the existence of a privately owned deregulated media structure. There is a general and very popular notion, that liberal democracies with a deregulated economic system are the best guarantors of a “competitive and vibrant marketplace of ideas” (Neuman 1991, 138). This is an idea deeply embedded among the Chilean political and economic elite. 11 As will be examined later, the principles of deregulation and privatisation have been the ideological foundation of the “no‐media policy scenario” adopted by the governments of the transition (Sunkel and Geoffroy 2001, 21). This no‐media policy approach has left the Chilean media subject to market forces, to very little media regulation and to a lack of protection, especially in terms of media plurality and diversity. In terms of civil society, this neoliberal approach has reduced citizens to consumers and media democratisation has been regarded as the expansion of market forces. The no‐policy approach to media regulation has been a flawed development. The first decade of the transition demonstrates that a completely unregulated and free‐market 169
approach has not developed a strong and pluralistic media system in Chile. This is also true of many Latin American post‐dictatorship societies where the media have been left to the whims of the market and to the authoritarian culture inherited by elected politicians (León 2002, 2). Indeed one of the most negative approaches taken by the Chilean government has been to minimise their regulatory role. The many problems experienced by the Chilean transition have proved that minimising government regulation does not necessarily enhance a healthy democracy. In Chile, the authorities have not developed any initiatives to break down traditional private control let alone to incorporate into the media system the representation of a wider spectrum of the society. In comparative terms, the Chilean and in general the Latin American post‐dictatorship relationship between the media and the democratization process contrasts substantially to the situation in places such as Asia, Eastern Europe and Africa. In these regions the media system was regarded as a vital component in the process of democratic transition. In this context the media system was subject to State control and ownership. Similarly, the role played by the media in the Spanish transition to democracy differs substantially from the Chilean and Latin American experience. From the early stages of the Spanish transition to democracy, the print and electronic media became a central political tool in re‐introducing the civil society to democratic life (Gunther, Montero and Wert 2000, 51). A key role in the consolidation of the Spanish democracy was played by the print media, in particular newspapers. While in Chile the print media have been almost absent from the process of transition, in post‐Franco Spain, the communications media played the political function of re‐familiarising the population with democratic values and re‐enforcing the legitimacy of the new regime. The Chilean media‐democracy experience has a lot to learn from the Spanish political process. In the Spanish transition the media served as the principal channel for the communication of partisan cues, democratic values, political information, and norms of tolerance of differing political views. The Spanish media, both the electronic and print, became the most visible and accessible public sphere where citizens from different ideological persuasions could debate with one another. The media became an informal and 170
indirect instrument of dissemination of pluralistic attitudes and norms of tolerance and became instrumental in placing democratic reforms on the news agenda. 12 Regrettably, the Chilean political elite has opted not to follow the Spanish transition model. The function of the media in the Chilean transition to democracy has not followed the role that alternative journalism played during the dictatorship. In the last years of the dictatorship many journalists who were at the forefront of the democratic struggle began rethinking their role in the new scenario. At the beginning of the transition to democracy, Chilean journalists thought of their jobs at two parallel levels, as agents of the democratic consolidation and as narrators of the recent violent past. However, it took only one year, the first of the transition, to realise that independent and assertive journalism would not be part of the democratization process. Chile is not unique in this regard. The majority of post‐
dictatorship societies in the region have experienced a similar situation whereby the “positiveʺ role played by journalism in fostering democracy has been replaced by an increasing level of non‐pluralistic media concentration, uniformity and entrenched commercialisation. From a macro perspective this is the product of a deficiency in media policies. On the other hand, at a micro‐level there is, among civil society, a profound disillusionment with the current political communication system. As was demonstrated by the post‐Franco Spanish transition, one of the first and foremost roles assigned to the media was to educate the civil society about how to become actively involved in the democratization process. However, in the Chilean transition citizens have perceived that the media and journalism have largely withdrawn from the role of democratic education for the civil society. Although the theory of the media as an instrument of “demobilisation” of civil society under democratic governments is one of the areas neglected by media and political science, it is possible to argue that the Chilean experience is a good point of departure for this analysis. The lack of relevance given by the Chilean governments of the transition to the media has been illustrated not only by the no‐media policy approach, but also by their reluctance to compensate those media organisations whose infrastructure was confiscated by the 171
dictatorship just after the military coup (Paredes, Interview 2002). 13 It was not until 1993 that Congress began discussing the problem of compensation. After six long years languishing in Parliament, a compensation law was finally approved. However, it was subject to so many revisions and reforms that the beneficiaries of the compensation, most of them former left‐
wing media organisations, did not receive proper financial or even moral compensation. Some others have not been able to obtain even an apology from the current ruling elite. One of the most symbolic cases was the case of Victory Pey, the owner of Clarín, one of the most popular left wing newspapers of the 1970s. For more than 20 years Victor Pey has been attempting unsuccessfully to obtain State compensation for the loss and confiscation of the building and equipment of Clarín. All his requests for compensation have been refused (Uribe 1999, 155) Media, Memory and Market During the 1990s, the Chilean media had been marked by two factors closely linked to the way the transition was achieved. The first factor was related to the way the Chilean historical memory had been shaped. During the transition to democracy the “administrators of the consensus” made a consistent attempt to diminish the profundity of the historical pain experienced by the Chilean society during the dictatorship. In this context, there was a concerted institutional effort to erase, or at least to discourage, the historical memory of the traumatic past. In doing so, the political leaders of the transition tried to discourage any actions that might result in the “eruption of the past” into the current scenario of a fragile democratic transition. The political elite visualized this as a threat to the official discourse that tended to celebrate the “achievements of the negotiated transition.” The second factor was related to the inclusion of the Chilean economy in the dynamic of globalisation. In this situation, Ossa has suggested that the Coalition was forced to expand the transition by consensus in order to adapt it to the evolving forces of the communication market (2000, 69). The inclusion of the Chilean economy into the global market meant that the media system, as happened with other areas, was left vulnerable to the market. Under these circumstances the Chilean media experienced a rapid process of commercialization. 172
In regards to historical memory, the alternative and pro‐democracy media system that emerged during the dictatorship was considered archivists of recent memories. However, the political elite perceived the alternative media as a potential threat, raising issues that the government would prefer out of the public sphere. 14 The official rejection of a media policy able to protect the alternative pro‐democracy media, as a repository of historical memory, reflects the government’s attempt to water down the crimes committed by the dictatorship. Nelly Richard observes that in a transition marred by a consensus of silence, independent journalists have been regarded as a driving force of dissent and public debate (1998, 30). The absence of a media policy not only demonstrates the neglect shown by the ruling Concertación de Partidos por la Democracia, it also reflects the “domestication” of the media by the ruling elite. What the Concertación has attempted during the transition is to tame and transform journalism and the media system into an apparatus of societal consensus instead of being an instrument of dissent and public debate. Tironi and Sunkel argue that the governments of the Concertación have transformed this “domesticated media” into agents of a manufactured‐consensus regarding the benefits of the free‐market economy model left in place by the dictatorship (2000, 165). The Chilean political elite regards societal consensus on the economic model, plus the moderation in the news coverage of controversial issues, as essential factors in maintaining the integrity of “politics by agreements” (Interview Peralta 2002). 15 Therefore the Concertación has called on the media “not to obstruct” the transitional process. This is definitely a far cry from the role that the media and journalism should play in a consolidated democracy or at least in a society attempting to rebuild its democratic institutions and social practices. The pressure and interference by the political elite in the media began in the early days of the transition. In one of the many paradoxes of the transition, the main targets of political interference and harassment were the courageous journalists and media outlets that emerged during the dictatorship in opposition to the regime of General Pinochet. The same political 173
elite that relied on pro‐democracy and independent media to advance their causes began rethinking the role of the alternative media in the transition to democracy. Contrary to the expectations of the majority of journalists who worked in the alternative media, the political elite began looking at this media as instruments of their own political aspirations (Montealegre, Interview 2002). 16 In doing so they tried to exert tight control on their publications and individual journalists. Krohne argues that the prevalent perception among the political elite was that the independent media should not only be closely aligned to the work of the new rulers, but also uncritical players in a deeply flawed political process (2004). Political interference became the norm, especially with State controlled media organizations. Repeatedly, they came under government pressure to avoid covering news stories that were considered potential causes of “irritation” to the armed forces and the former dictator. One of the cases that became the symbol of government interference was the so‐called “pinocheques” and involved the oldest son of Pinochet and some high‐ranking members of the armed forces. A story of financial corruption, it threatened to destabilize the whole process of transition. The former dictator considered the story, uncovered by the State‐controlled newspaper La Nación, a direct attack against the armed forces and his family. Prior to publication of the sensational story, the former dictator ordered the deployment of 60 members of the army’s special forces in the vicinity of the government palace. The evident threat was designed to force the government of President Aylwin to intervene and force the editors of La Nación not to publish the story. In addition, the government, following instructions from the armed forces, forced the newspaper to publish a story absolving the armed forces and General Pinochet’s son of any unlawful activity. The saga that lasted 24 hours and escalated into a war of words between the government and the editorial management of La Nación ended when the then deputy‐editor of the newspaper, Alberto Luengo, went ahead with the publication of the original story (Otano 1995, 306‐320). Although this case showed the commitment of a media organisation to maintain its editorial independence, the cost was high. In the case of La Nación, the government was not keen to tolerate this “excessive” 174
independence. In a matter of two years, most of the editors and journalists from La Nación were sacked and the newspaper became an outlet dedicated mainly to the coverage of sports stories. During the government of President Aylwin, Televisión Nacional de Chile was under government pressure not to air an exclusive interview with Michael Townley, the American CIA agent who was involved in the assassination of Allende’s minister Orlando Letelier in Washington. President Aylwin feared that Michael Townley could identify during the interview some current members of the armed forces who also participated in the political murder. President Aylwin saw the story as a potential cause of conflict with the armed forces and a major risk to the “democracy by consensus.” The television channel did not broadcast the interview (Otano 1995, 329‐330). Another illustration of State‐sponsored censorship and editorial interference was the 1996 massive fraud involving the Ministry for Housing. Officers of this ministry reached an agreement with a private company to build hundreds of houses to cover the enormous housing shortage suffered by some of the most impoverished sectors in the country. In order to appropriate part of the construction budget to the personal profit of members of the Ministry of Housing and individuals in the construction company, the houses were built with second‐hand or cheap material. When the first rains of the winter of 1996 arrived the new houses crumbled leaving thousands of people homeless. El Mercurio uncovered the fraud; however, the editors decided not publish the story. Otano comments this editorial decision was the product of an agreement of “non‐aggression between the editor of El Mercurio, Juan Pablo Illanes, and the then head of the government’s communication apparatus Eugenio Tironi (1995, 244). At the end of the 1990s, Televisión Nacional de Chile was involved in a major confrontation with the government of President Frei when two exclusive investigative television stories were considered a threat to democratic stability. One story was about the fate of hundreds of political prisoners whose disappearance and whereabouts had not been explained by the armed forces. The other story was an exposé of the massive financial assistance given by the 175
CIA to Chilean right wing militants and members of the armed forces with the objective of deposing the government of President Salvador Allende. Fearing the reaction of the armed forces, the government pressured the television channel not to broadcast the stories. In a saga that lasted several weeks, senior journalists and managers of the television station threatened to resign if the government persisted with its interference. Finally both programs were aired and attracted one of the highest rating audiences (Cabezas 2000, 12). However the transition to democracy has been filled with stories that were never printed or broadcasted. They were stories that fit into the notion of the public right to know, including the funding allocated to political campaigns; the persistence of the anti‐democratic system of designated senators; and stories questioning the democratic credentials of the Constitution of 1980. During the transition to democracy these stories became no‐go zones for journalists, especially for those working in the State media, such as La Nación and Televisión Nacional de Chile. Underlying the paradoxes encountered by the media during the transition is the notion held by the political elite that the independent media should neither criticize nor appraise the State’s record in the democratization process. After a long period of political inactivity, the political elite attempted to force the independent media to develop a non‐critical stance. Sunkel argues that the constant pressure to transform the media system into a loyal courtesan is perhaps one of the key features of the relationship between the transition to democracy and the media in contemporary Chile (1992, 19). This has had a devastating effect on the independent and pro‐democracy media that had emerged during the dictatorship. The refusal to become one of the uncritical actors of the transition transformed the independent media into an obstacle to democracy by agreements and consensus. Accordingly, the Concertación implemented, within the logic of a no‐media policy scenario, a concerted effort to bring down the alternative media. Uribe suggest that a key strategy was to deprive them of the lucrative State advertising market (1999, 43‐45). During the transition to democracy, the relationship between the media and the government was developed within the principles of a market economic model. During the 1990s the 176
principles of the market economic system were applied to cultural development and the world of ideas. As Andrés Aylwin argues these same principles were used to frame the public right to know, an idea deeply embedded in the role of the media (1995, 5). Notes 1 This was the case of the Spanish media during the post‐Franco transition to democracy. 2 This is especially important when a whole generation, as was the case in Chile, were disassociated for almost two decades from the mechanics of the democratic process. 3 This is a provision that has not been well developed in the Latin American post‐
dictatorship context. 4 While on this topic, it is important to observe that during the almost two decades of dictatorship, Chileans were able to compensate for the deficit of a democratic mainstream communication by accessing alternative channels of political communication, especially through the alternative media. However, it is also important to remember that the alternative media was mainly a limited media channel usually accessed by the pro‐democracy political elite. 5 This is not only an assessment at the local but also at the global level. There is a view that television communication of political matters is shallow, sketchy and superficial. 6 Eduardo Cabieses is a Chilean journalist and editor of Punto Final, one of the oldest left‐
wing weeklies in Chile. Interview, Concepción 2001. 7 Regrettably, this has perpetuated the scenario of self‐censorship that was common during the regime of General Pinochet. 8 This conventional understanding, originating during the Cold War period, has come into question when it comes to post Cold War transitions to democracy. 9 Paradoxically, this is the same political elite who, during the military dictatorship, encouraged pro‐democracy journalists to be relentless in exposing the brutality of the dictatorship. 10 The Chilean transition illustrates that post‐dictatorship societies are no guarantee of freedom of expression and freedom of the press. 11 The Chilean case has shown this is not only a simplistic assumption but it is also a flawed view. 177
12 The consolidation of the Spanish transition to democracy, a period that lasted less than a decade, demonstrated the relevance of the media in assisting the political elite in democratising the social institutions and in legitimizing the value of a democratic system. 13 Information provided by Julio Paredes. He is a journalist and works for El Sur de Concepcion. Interview, Concepcion 2002 14 Horacio Eloy is a journalist. Interview, Santiago 2000. 15 Sergio Peralta is a lawyer and journalist. Interview, La Serena 2002.
16 Hernán Montealegre, journalist and columnist, Revista Rocinante. Interview, Santiago 2002 178
4.6 Journalism and Media: Structural Changes Private and Commercial The neoliberal economic policies of the Pinochet regime and the withdrawal of state subsidies exposed the Chilean media to foreign competition for the first time. Under its free‐
market policy the dictatorship moved to make the government owned media, the national television network, the national film industry, and the government’s publishing house financially self‐sufficient (Fuenzalida 1983). This paved the way for a rapid process of privatisation, deregulation and commercialisation of the Chilean media. The privatisation and deregulation was accentuated by the inclusion of the Chilean media in the wave of deregulation and privatisation experienced globally in the late 1980s and 1990s. In Chile the process of deregulation and privatisation initiated by the military dictatorship towards the end of the 1980s was an integral part of the neoliberal economic model embraced by the military regime (Osorio, Interview 2003). 1 In harmony with its political‐economy orientation, the military regime imposed a policy of self‐financing on the media and they were left to operate according to the logic of the market. This approach of non‐government intervention – or no‐media policy ‐ continued under the government of the Concertación. During this period, from the late 1980s until the end of the 1990s, the media were deregulated, privatised and the orientation changed to entertainment. 2 Writing about government intervention in the media system, Turner and Cunningham explain that in most cases, “government can provide two broad types of intervention: it can subsidise the input to cultural activity; or it can try to intervene through regulation” (1993, 8). The Concertación initiated neither of these interventions. In fact, the most salient characteristic during the 1990s was the almost non‐existence of state intervention when it came to limiting media concentration or encouraging the diversification of the media industry by the provision of subsidies. This was also accompanied by a process of de‐
politicisation of the media, especially in the case of television. The outcome of this process 179
was expected. Fox observes that this process has resulted in a weaker and less protagonist role for the Chilean media in domestic politics (1997, 128). Television occupied a dominant position in this process of deregulation and privatisation. The introduction of privately owned commercial broadcasting and cable television consolidated a US‐style commercial model, encouraged cross‐media ownership, and opened Chilean television to foreign investors for the first time. 3 As well as embracing the economic neoliberal model left in place by the dictatorship, the ruling Concertación strengthened the process of privatisation and deregulation. Under the new government, the media became almost completely dominated by the private sector. It is estimated that up to 85 percent of the Chilean media, print and electronic, is controlled by private entrepreneurs, while a small section is owned by non‐profit organisations, including religious and humanitarian groups (Brunner and Catalán 1995). Tironi and Sunkel observe that similar to the media philosophy of the dictatorship, the Concertación saw the privatisation and commercialisation of the media system as an essential prerequisite to its modernisation (1993). They observe that the result of the deregulation and privatisation was a highly commercial and financially concentrated media system. Despite the urgency for any democracy to put in place strategies to assist the development of a more plural media, this issue has occupied a marginal place in the public policy agenda of the Chilean transition to democracy. 4
The linkage between market choice and democracy, within a neoliberal economic model, has been the basis of the Concertación’s approach to the media. The decision of the governments to maintain the model unchanged was underpinned by the general and rather simplistic perception that democracy was better served by a completely deregulated media system. 5 Arguing these principles were better served by eliminating any possible state control of the media, early in his government President Patricio Aylwin took the step to privatise the state electronic and print media. In 1994 the state operated Radio Nacional was sold to private 180
investors and the state run newspaper La Nación was put under the management of a board of directors (Secretaría de Comunicación y Cultura 1990). Among the leaders of the transition there was a view that a liberal democracy 6 with a vibrant marketplace of ideas was better served by an open and competitive commercial media. As Neuman points out this has been an idea deeply popular in most western democracies (1991, 131). This has not occurred in Chile and this is due to the lack of a truly well funded independent public media. In contrast to other western democracies, which assisted the establishment of a public service media, especially public television, Chilean authorities have not followed this same path. Chilean authorities have followed and imitated the US experience of the transformation of the media system rather than the Australian and European processes of deregulation. In doing so the Chilean media system has not been able to perform a positive role in the process of democratization. The deregulation and its basic principle of self‐reliance on commercial advertising has become a powerful inducement to emphasise entertainment, ratings and images, instead of serious political information. The process of deregulation and its commercialisation has deeply eroded the public service role given historically to the Chilean media. The outcome has been the deterioration of the quality of political information needed by citizens in order to play an active role in the process of democratisation. 7 As Portales has argued, “the process of consolidation of the protected democracy and the neoliberal economic model has had its correlation in creating a structure of media ownership more undemocratic, that has left the majority of society without a media voice” (2000, 436). The undemocratic nature of the Chilean commercial media can also be assessed from their uncritical and loyal attachment to the Chilean neoliberal ideological and economic model. McChesney points to Chile as a prime example of how the media as “global marketing networks” serve as “ideological agents of neoliberalism,” generating “a passive, depoliticised populace” that seeks satisfaction in personal consumption rather than pursuing fundamental social change, which is portrayed as neither possible nor desirable (1999, 111‐113). 181
The position of the Concertación has been that the best communication policy is actually a “no‐media policy” approach (Sunkel and Geoffrey 2001, 21). 8 This is a model based on at least minimum government intervention in the management of the economy. In this context the Chilean media have been asked to function under a profit oriented scenario aimed at increasing ratings and advertising. Under these parameters, the media have been central to the main objective of the economic model; the promotion of an economic pattern of consumption (Munizaga 1993, 97). In accordance with this principle the governments of the transition have operated under the premise that the development of the media industry, under the rule of the market, will assure media plurality and freedom of expression. Splichal argues this is a flawed notion. In fact, media markets are oligopolistic, with high barriers to entry in which free choice is severely limited by constrained supply (1995, 56‐57). In this no‐media policy approach, the regulatory role of the state becomes non‐existent and the media system is left subject to the “regulatory mechanism” of the market. This approach has been reinforced by the ideological view that the communication process is essentially a market product and therefore it should be subject to imperatives, rules and aims of the market system. The no‐media policy approach has neither produced a pluralistic media environment nor facilitated access by civil society to the communication system. This failed approach was recognised by the 1999 Programa Fundacional de la Concertación (Foundation Program of the Coalition). This document assessed that after almost a decade of government, the communication system has been neglected and the lack of a communication policy has failed to deliver a pluralistic and democratic communication system (Concertación de Partidos por la Democracia 1999, 114). Deregulation has had a powerful impact by establishing an uneven level of competition between the largest media organisations in the country and the smaller independent and pro‐
democracy media outlets that emerged during the military dictatorship. The latter have been 182
unable to survive in this non‐regulated system. Some attempts to introduce subsidies have systematically failed. Generally subsidies to newspapers and magazines have tended to generate conflicting views. Some commentators argue that subsidies threaten the rationalisation imposed by the market whereas others suggest that they can play an important part in expanding the media landscape (Interview Cárdenas 2002). 9 The first and probably the most far‐reaching structural change in the media is related to ownership. Notable was the transformation of the Televisión Nacional de Chile into an autonomous public entity managed by a board of directors nominated by the Senate. The case of the Televisión Nacional de Chile illustrates not only the way financial forces have operated in dismantling viable communication, but also it shows the ideological forces behind its transformation. At the end of the dictatorship the Televisión Nacional de Chile was deeply in debt and therefore highly vulnerable to political interference. In this context, right‐wing politicians linked to the dictatorship, attempted to sell the television station. A political and ideological decision rather than an economic one, the selling of the Televisión Nacional de Chile was part of a general strategy to deprive the new democratically elected authorities of a powerful communication channel that could pose a challenge to the traditionally right‐wing Canal de la Universidad Católica (Catholic University Television Channel, or Channel 13). The attractiveness of the Chilean television system for international investors increased in the 1990s due to the high level of penetration of television in the market. By 1992, television had become universal with nearly 95 percent of penetration nationally and almost 99 percent in Santiago (Consejo Nacional de Televisión 2001, 1). La Red and Megavision were the first two privately owned and operated television channels established in Chile. Alvaro Saieh and Ricardo Claro, two of the wealthiest and most influential personalities in Chile established these two channels. Both men are also powerful members of the Chilean right‐wing movement and loyal allies of the dictatorship. 10 183
In November 1989 Alvaro Saieh entered into a partnership with Canadian financier Albert Friedberg of the Toronto Trust Mutual Fund and obtained the franchise for the privately owned television station, La Red. Saieh became the largest single stockholder with 15 percent. This move was followed by Ricardo Claro who in 1991 cemented a financial agreement with Mexican broadcasting giant Televisa in order to establish Megavision. These two entrepreneurs are also major investors in shipping, forestry, banks, agriculture and industry (Secretaría de Comunicación y Cultura 1994, 44). In 1991, Ricardo Claro sold his 49 percent interest in Megavisión to the Mexican media giant Televisa, which he bought back in 2002. La Red began broadcasting in May 1991 and it also represented the entry of the newspaper chain Copesa into the television system (Secretaría de Comunicación y Cultura 1994, 43). The link between La Red and Copesa was strengthened when La Red signed an agreement to acquire news from Copesa. In 1998, Mexico’s TV Azteca bought a controlling 75 percent interest in La Red with a plan to emphasise sports and news. In 1993 another major Latin American communication conglomerate entered the Chilean broadcast television market when Universidad de Chile’s Channel 11 responded to ongoing losses by leasing its frequency to Venevisión. This is the main Venezuelan media conglomerate controlled by the Cisneros group. 11 The predominance of commercial television was further reinforced by the expansion of cable and satellite television. Approximately 20 percent of Chilean households, or 787,961, currently receive one of the pay services (18 percent cable and 2.6 percent satellite) (Consejo Nacional de Televisión 2001, 6). With Televisión Nacional de Chile under an independent and multi‐party board of directors, the semi‐privatised newspaper La Nación has been effectively the only semi‐public media organization left in place. The state owns 70 percent of La Nación and private investors own the rest. Furthermore the government is entitled to nominate the members of the board of directors. During the transition, this newspaper has tried to reinvent itself by targeting the middle class, professional readership in an effort to challenge the monopoly of El Mercurio and La Tercera. Following the result of several public opinion polls done during the first few 184
years of the transition that showed readers wanted a newspaper less politicised but with a clear point of view, La Nación attempted to widen its news agenda (Santibañez and Luengo 1993, 110‐114). During the second half of the 1990s, La Nación began including in its news agenda a wider range of stories including gender and social issues, environmental problems and family matters. However the efforts made by La Nación to become an independent media organization were eroded by the efforts of the Concertación to interfere in the editorial operations of this newspaper. During the first years of the transition there were frequent “telephone calls” from La Moneda, the government house, to the editors of La Nación to tone down some news stories critical of the government or the armed forces (Spooner 1994, 263). Finally, it is important to point out that the lack of media plurality and ownership concentration in the media system has been subject to criticism by significant number of key international organisations, such as the European Human Rights Commission and the United Nations Human Rights Commission. These organisations have warned that states and governments have a major responsibility to avoid media concentration and to promote media diversity. The European Human Rights Commission has stated that a State may be contravening its obligations to the right to receive and circulate information when it fails in its duty of protecting society from an excessive press concentration (Freedom of Expression Handbook 1993, 77‐78). Equally, the European Council of Ministers Committee stated in 1982 that ʺ States have the obligation to prevent the infringements against the freedom of expression and information and they have to adopt policies designed to promote, as far it is possible, media diversity and pluralism of sources of information, allowing, therefore, a plurality of ideas and opinionsʺ (Freedom of Expression Handbook 1993, 78‐79). In 1983, the United Nations Human Rights Committee pointed out that, with the development and advancement of the modern mass media, effective measures are needed to prevent interferences against the rights of everybody to express freely as is guaranteed in Article 19 (3) of the International Pact (Human Rights Commission 1983, 109). 12 185
No‐media Policy and the Collapse of Media Diversity According to several Chilean journalists and academics, the no‐government intervention approach taken by the Concertación – described as a no‐media policy ‐ has not only assisted the consolidation of a monopolised media environment but it has also helped the ideological consolidation of the hegemonic right‐wing media (Torres, Interview 2001 and Zarricueta, Interview 2001). 13 In addition, the lack of a media policy able to counterbalance and challenge the logic of the market has also produced a major tragedy for the Chilean media, the disappearance of the independent and pro‐democracy media that had emerged during the dictatorship. The disappearance of these independent and alternative magazines has been not only one of the many paradoxes of the transition but also a major factor in the impoverishment of the Chilean communication system. In these independent newspapers and magazines, the governments of the Concertación inherited a major democratic resource and instrument. However, the newly elected authorities’ policies towards them ranged from indifferent to hostile (Interview Cárdenas 2002). These newspapers and magazines were viewed more as potential critics than as allies in rebuilding Chilean democracy. Not only did the Concertación fail to support the independent media during the transition but also in some cases it actively contributed to their demise (Interview Osses 2002). 14 The effect has been devastating in terms of media diversity and public discourse. The main result of this has been the impoverishment of public discourse and a limited level of debate over the pace and direction of the transition. The transition was deprived of some of Chile’s best expressions of journalism and citizens have been left without alternative voices to the hegemonic ideological presence of media organisation such as El Mercurio and La Tercera. What the Chilean society has seen is a complete disregard for the role played by an independent media. This has gone against the notion that a democratic society should play a central role in assisting, supporting, or subsidizing in various ways the foundation and the operation of newspapers, periodicals, broadcast media, and so on, by organisations, minorities, and groups unable to finance the establishment and operation of their own media 186
(Jakubowicz 1995, 132). Imbued in a neoliberal model and with a no‐interventionist policy, the Concertación did not make any attempt to provide assistance or subsidies needed by the majority of the independent media to survive. Early in the transition well‐known print media organisations began succumbing to the lack of a media policy approach designed to foster plurality and diversity of ideas. The collapse of the pro‐democracy magazines and newspapers, published around a narrow news agenda, was in part due to the loss of political interest by Chilean society. 15 It appears that after nearly two decades of dictatorship, Chileans wanted to move away from some of the issues that constituted the main news agenda of the pro‐democracy media. Although issues such as human rights and the search for justice were still important issues, Chileans became far more concerned with subjects that affected them individually, especially on issues related to their economic and employment situation. Because most of the independent media emerged with a clear anti‐dictatorship angle, with the end of the regime of General Pinochet they were left without a “natural enemy”. In addition, the independent media had to compete in the deregulated media market with well established, financially consolidated newspapers and magazines such as El Mercurio, La Tercera and Qué Pasa. Thanks to the generous financial support received during the dictatorship, these three publications began the transition process with well‐equipped offices, new infrastructure and with a strategic plan that allowed them to establish important economic agreements with financial institutions and private corporations. 16 The experience of the Chilean transition contrasts with the Spanish transition to democracy. In the Spanish transition, the press evolved in a manner that one might have anticipated following the demise of an authoritarian regime: readers shifted to the emerging democratic press, and those newspapers that had supported Franco’s regime virtually disappeared. This did not happen in Chile. Newspapers and magazines that supported the dictatorship, such as El Mercurio, La Tercera and Qué Pasa have not only survived the change in regime but they 187
have consolidated their presence in the market. These are publications that have a wider news agenda and tend to mix political news with sensationalism and entertainment. In November 1991 Latin America’s pioneer weekly magazine, Ercilla, succumbed to the new economic realities of high‐cost hardware and increased competition for finite advertising revenue (Buckman 1991, 16‐17). Ercilla was denied advertising revenue by the Aylwin government from such government owned enterprises as the national lottery, the Santiago subway, and Codelco, the copper company (Buckman 1991, 16‐17, 32). The popular tabloid Fortín Mapocho ceased publication shortly after. The fifty‐year‐old photojournalism magazine Vea suffered a similar fate. For Hernán Olea the disappearance of the independent media produced an information vacuum (Interview 2002). 17 According to Olea, crucial social, economic and political decisions taken by the new authorities, including reforms to the sensitive health and education system were not subject to media scrutiny and analysis. Even the media opposed to the new regime decided not to question the policy decisions taken by the Concertación. The neglect shown by the ruling Concertación to the alternative and pro‐democracy media contrasted with its willingness to establish a friendly relationship with the right‐wing media, especially with El Mercurio. Otano points out that in the early days of the transition, President Patricio Aylwin approached personally the owner of the newspaper, Agustín Edwards, in order to develop a policy of “non‐aggression” toward the government (1999, 47). Otano argues that there were mutual benefits in this pact of non‐aggression. El Mercurio treated the new government with a high level of deference in its news coverage as long as the Coalition kept intact the economic model. The government responded to this deference by providing exclusive access to official political sources and information. Otano found that El Mercurio also enjoyed privileged, preferential access to the lucrative sources of state advertising. The closure and disappearance of the alternative media brought about a profound regression in terms of media plurality and freedom of expression in Chile. Lagos and Sunkel observe 188
that ideologically, the disappearance of the pro‐democracy magazines and newspapers; the consolidation in the print media of the duopoly of El Mercurio and La Tercera brought about a society dominated by ultra‐liberal views in the economic sphere and by ultra‐conservative notions in terms of moral issues (1999, 15). The collapse of newspapers and magazines during the transition was swift and irreversible. Cauce magazine, one of the best examples of investigative journalism, ended is operations in 1989. It was later followed by some of cultural magazines owned by the left such as Pluma y Pincel, folded in 1993, and Página Abierta, forced to close in 1991. Other publications identified with the left such as El Siglo and Punto Final can still be found in newsagencies despite suffering serious financial problems (Sunkel 1992). They have a small and limited circulation. Therefore they have little influence on the mainstream political sphere. Apsi magazine attempted to reposition itself as a post‐dictatorship magazine. In 1990 it changed its layout and adopted colour in its photographs and the old slogan of the magazine: “the right to dissent” was changed to “what is coming”. In an attempt to attract a wider audience it began publishing special supplements on cinema, video, literature and music and even more importantly it toned down its coverage of political issues (Salcedo 1991). However this effort failed and Apsi, which began as a pro‐democracy outlet in the early years of the dictatorship in 1977, was forced to close down in 1993. A similar demise was suffered by Análisis magazine. Founded in 1977, it was bought in 1991 by a group of Christian Democrat entrepreneurs and during the first years of the transition maintained some of the quality expressions of journalism shown during the dictatorship. However, the identification of the magazine as a mainly political and anti‐dictatorship voice conspired against its appeal to a wider audience. It is also important to point out that the disappearance of Apsi and Análisis was also due to a concerted effort by the government of President Aylwin to remove media organisations that he considered hostile to the armed forces and to the way the transition to democracy was being achieved. It was President Aylwin who personally blocked funding that the Dutch 189
government had offered to Análisis and several other magazines to assist them in weathering the neoliberal model (Cárdenas 2002, 9). Análisis was forced to close in 1993. The succession of closures of magazines was completed with the financial collapse of the Christian Democrat Hoy magazine that was forced to end its operations in 1998 (Cortés 1998). Another major loss to Chilean journalism and to the transition to democracy was the closure of the newspaper La Epoca. After the 1990 closure of the newspaper Fortin Mapocho, La Epoca was the only independent newspaper left. Founded by Emilio Filippi, La Epoca began publication in 1987. It had all the characteristics of a media organization that expressed the spirit of a new historical chapter in the struggle for democracy. It followed the examples of other “foundational” newspapers such as the French Le Monde, founded in 1944 following the expulsion of the Nazis from France or El Pais in post‐Franco Spain. Like these newspapers, La Epoca was conceived as a newspaper for the new democracy and as a space for public debate. 18 Facing major economic problems, Emilio Filippi attempted to keep the paper from going under by entering into a financial agreement with an unlikely investor Alvaro Saieh, the right‐wing financier and owner of La Red Television. Saieh was also the main shareholder in the right‐wing La Tercera, La Cuarta and Revista Qué Pasa. The agreement with Filippi resulted in Chile’s first US style joint operating agreement, whereby Saieh’s umbrella company Copesa, took over La Epoca’s distribution, advertising, printing, and administrative functions. Emilio Filippi, meanwhile retained editorial independence (Buckman 1991, 16‐17,32). However with its centre‐left news agenda, the newspaper was unable to survive in the new economic context. The main problem was its inability to attract readers from El Mercurio and its failure to obtain support from the government. The collapse of La Epoca marked the end of the democratic media’s efforts to maintain their relevance in the transition to democracy. The causes of the collapse of the independent and pro‐democracy media are varied and some of them have already been enunciated. However, and, as Cárdenas observes, there was a clear lack of political will by the Concertación to support and foster the existence of a highly 190
“opinionated media” that could have scrutinised the way that the transition was conducted (2002). Cárdenas points out that during the transition to democracy the independent media was forced to censor stories that were critical of the newly elected authorities. In addition, the governments of the transition began applying political pressure on the independent media to tone down its coverage and investigations into human right violations. The governments of the transition went even further, avoiding the disclosure of information that could be seen as anti‐armed forces. La Epoca and La Nación experienced government pressure every time they attempted to expose cases of corruption involving the former authorities. From the beginning of the transition, the government was keen to discourage the mobilisation of the civil society and therefore to see the disappearance of the political magazines and newspapers was appealing and desirable. This was even more crucial in the context of the democracy by agreements that has framed the Chilean transition. Otano argues that the consensus and agreements between the new and old rulers became a strategy of social demobilisation and the disappearance of the alternative, pro‐democratic media fitted into this model (2000, 46). The other reason has to do with a progressive state of de‐politicisation experienced by post‐
dictatorship Chilean society. One of the expressions of this was an unwillingness to revisit some of the traditional themes covered by the independent, pro‐ democracy media, such as human rights and justice. The society in transition was less eager to engage in the “themes” related to dictatorship. There was also a general aspiration to move forward. In this regard, the media that emerged during the dictatorship was unable to widen its news agenda in order to appeal to a wider audience. This showed the inability among the independent media to adapt to the new historical context. It was evident they were unable and did not know how to adjust their news agenda and financial operations to the post‐dictatorship period. It was also the case that some publications, such as La Epoca were considered too close to a particular political party, in this case too close to the Christian Democratic Party. This political affiliation played against their efforts to play a larger role in the advertising market, an area dominated by the Chilean Right. 191
The demise of the independent media was also due to their inability to interpret and channel the societal aspirations of the non‐politically engaged members of society. Otano argues that the independent media were not able to exercise a style of journalism that could mirror the changes experienced by a society that, after the dictatorship, moved away from the “big collective causes” such as freedom of expression and human rights (2000, 48). This was particularly significant in the case of the Análisis and Apsi magazines and La Epoca newspaper. They were unable to find the right course of action to retain or increase their respective readerships. As these publications maintained their narrow news agenda, newspapers such as El Mercurio and La Tercera began widening the news coverage and trying to appeal to a centre‐left readership. One of the strategies was, for example, to include members of the centre‐left intelligentsia in the opinion pages. The majority of them were linked to the ruling Concertación. In general terms, the independent media was unable to formulate a new journalism approach capable of reflecting the challenges posed by the post‐dictatorship period. In a way, it seems they lacked new journalistic ideas or formulas capable of addressing the ambiguities of the political transition. The disappearance of the confrontational and emotional discourse of the dictatorship, involving themes of human rights and democratization, left the alternative media bereft of key themes in its news coverage agenda. In an increasingly tabloid‐
entertainment media scenario, the alternative newspapers and magazines were unable to compete in the unregulated market. Equally central to the collapse of the pro‐democracy media was the end of financial support provided to them by international non‐government organizations. Publications such as Análisis, Cauce and Apsi relied heavily on international aid. The end of the dictatorship meant the end to this financial assistance. The election of President Patricio Aylwin marked the end of Chile as a target of external aid and cooperation. When some European humanitarian organisations attempted to maintain the flow of financial assistance to Chilean organisations, including to some left‐wing media outlets, the government of the Concertación 192
built insurmountable bureaucratic barriers. The Concertación considered such assistance as foreign interference in domestic matters. Lagos and Ravanal observe that, ironically, the political parties of the Concertación, especially the Christian Democrats and the Socialist, had been the major recipients of foreign financial assistance during the election campaigns (2002). Notes 1 Hugo Osorio is a journalist and member of the Chilean College of Journalists. Interview, Santiago 2003. 2 The governments of the Concertación opted for a no‐intervention market‐driven approach in regard to the media and cultural policy. Even education, traditionally an activity controlled by the State, was mainly left to the rule of the market. 3 Although it is a topic not covered in this work, it is relevant to comment that the presence of foreign ownership was facilitated by the introduction of the new Press Law established in 2001. This law introduced some important changes to media ownership by foreign citizens. It eliminated the requirement of citizenship and it established that a non‐Chilean citizen would be able to own a media organization as long as he or she was living within Chilean territory. This requirement has facilitated the presence of regional and international media entrepreneurs in the management of the Chilean media, especially in radio and television (Osorio 2002). 4 McChesney argues that this non‐government intervention is in contrast to the notion that media concentration and the way the media are controlled, structured and subsidised should be at the heart of democratic debate (1999, 7). 5 This philosophy was also applied to the principles of freedom of expression, freedom of the press and media plurality. 6 In the thesis I refer to liberal democracy as a form of representative political system where political freedoms are guaranteed. I also refer to a system where rights and freedoms are constitutionally guaranteed and protected. I also refer to a political system where people are able to elect their representatives. Behind my definition there is a criticism insofar as “liberal democracy” has been linked to private property and to the rule of political elite. I do relate Liberal democracy to the notion of “bourgeois” democracy where public property and the capitalist system are regarded as the unique form of economic organisation of society. 7 The irony is that, as opposed to the traditional perception, the unregulated media in newly democratizing contexts is less productive in terms of citizen’s participation and access. 193
8 From my point of view this non‐interventionist approach has to be understood in the broader context of the negotiated nature of the transition to democracy. The presence of the Socialist Party in the political alliance has forced the Concertación to demonstrate throughout the transition its “commitment” to no‐state intervention in economic matters. In doing so, it has worked under the market economic model left in place by the dictatorship. 9 Juan Pablo Cárdenas is a journalist and academic. He was the editor of Análisis Magazine. Interview, Santiago 2002. 10 Ricardo Claro is also member of the Opus Dei, the ultraconservative Catholic movement. 11 Thus while the Universidad de Chile remains the legal licence holder for Channel 11, in practice it has become just another private commercial channel. 12 However, it is important to point out that neither international norms nor international jurisprudence have elaborated a set of criteria that might assist in determining under which circumstances an excessive media concentration could threaten media plurality. There is also the absence of clear regulations that might prevent the excessive media concentration. 13 Fernando Torres is a journalist and academic, Universidad ARCIS. Interview, Santiago 2001. Carlos Zarricueta is a journalist and academic, Universidad ARCIS. Interview, Santiago 2001. 14 Hernán Osses is a journalist and now teaches at the School of Journalism, University of Concepción. Osses is strong believed that the Concertación was behind the financial crisis that caused the collapse of the alternative media. For him, this was very much part of the pact between the leaders of the Concertación and Pinochet. 15 The end of the dictatorship and the beginning of the transition saw the end of the “heroic” struggle for what was described as the “big political projects,” including human rights, democratisation and social change. 16 Although they maintained their loyalty to the former dictatorship, they were skilful enough to widen the news agenda appealing to a wider readership. 17 Hernán Olea is a journalist and teaches at the School of Journalism, University of Concepción. 18 It was also conceived as a newspaper able to challenge the ideological influence of El Mercurio. 194
4.7 Financial Concentration and Monopoly Lack of Diversity From a media perspective, Chile like most post‐dictatorship South American nations has been subject to the global process of financial concentration and monopolisation. The continuing neoliberal economic model first implemented by the dictatorship has reinforced this process. 1 As Baltra observes the fate of the communication system was sealed by the adoption of this economic model (2004, 14). This meant that media policy became a function of the neoliberal model, deterring governments from attempting regulation of the media system. While the military regime played a central role in the formation of a highly concentrated media system; the governments of the transition have not developed any policy to reverse such situation. The concentration of the Chilean media can be measured according to three factors: who owns the media; the distribution of the advertising market and the level of audience market share. These three factors will be analysed in this section. The current reality is a highly concentrated and monopolised media system, whose contribution to the democratic process appears weak and unsatisfactory. From the point of view of media diversity the outcome has been discouraging. The final communiqué of the 2004 Encuentro Mundial de Intelectuales and Artistas (World Conference of Intellectuals and Artists) in Caracas, Venezuela, denounced the financial mass media concentration as a major risk to democracy in the region (2004, 43). This meeting of intellectuals and artists pointed out that the ownership of the majority of the mass media by a small group of media barons had transformed freedom of information into a fallacy. It said that the media power used by the hegemonic project distorts the truth, manipulates history and promotes social and political alienation. 195
The warning of these intellectuals and artists has been at the centre of the media discussion in Chile since the early years of the transition to democracy. However after more than a decade of transition, this discussion has not resulted in a truly democratic media. Rightly, Waisbord argues that during the transition to democracy Chile developed into one of the most concentrated, monopolised and non‐pluralistic media systems in the region (2000, 58). Furthermore there are mediatised mechanisms, including the access to advertising and subsidies that limit and obstruct the sustainability and the emergence of new mediums. The highly concentrated Chilean media system, in both print and broadcast, has developed into a classic example of media concentration produced by a system of amalgamation and mergers. This is characterised by vertical, horizontal and multimedia integration. Effectively, vertical, horizontal and multimedia integration have been the strategies of economic growth for media companies. 2
In the case of the print media this means that the media organization apart from producing the product‐content is able to print this material in its own printing house and is also in control of the channels of distribution. In the case of a horizontal integration, “a company owns the same type of media in different markets and introduces in these markets products that have been successfully introduced in the original market” (Sánchez‐Tabernero et al 1993, 95). 3 As has happened in the Chilean case, this type of media integration – and here I am relying on Francisco Larenas Bouquot’s analysis on media synergies (1999, 111) –‐ represents a serious threat to media organisations that are not integrated into large holdings. This is even more threatening in the context of a media market subject to financial competition. In this case, smaller and independent media organisations face certain demise due to low circulation and lack of advertising. It took less than a decade – with the downfall of the majority of Chilean small and independent media organisations – to prove Larena Bouquot’ analysis. 196
Currently there are four large media conglomerates that dominate the media market in Chile. El Mercurio S.A. dominates 18 publications, Copesa controls three newspapers and one magazine; the Claro group owns a television channel, a radio station and a publishing house; and the Cooperativa group controls a national network of radio stations and a television channel. 4
Although most Chilean media is highly concentrated, it is in the print media, especially in the newspaper market, where the major concentration has occurred. 5 Their financial concentration also has an ideological hegemonic perspective. By vertical and horizontal integration processes, the two largest print media conglomerates in Chile, El Mercurio S.A. and Copesa, have been able to consolidate their position in the print media market. According to Sunkel, the dominant position of these two media organisations began with the elimination of all of the left‐wing press that had existed until 1973 (2002). Their leading position and eventual control of the market was further reinforced by almost three decades of acquisitions, mergers, trade agreements and in some cases the disappearance of competitors. In comparison to other periods in Chilean history the country now has one of the smallest newspaper markets in Latin America and the majority of the existing newspapers are incorporated into the El Mercurio S.A and Copesa stables. The flagship publication of El Mercurio S.A. is the newspaper El Mercurio, which came out in the early years of the twentieth‐century. Between the 1940s and the late 1960s, El Mercurio S.A. and Copesa flourished exerting significant influence on the Chilean media scene. However it was not until the 1970s that they began consolidating their media monopoly. 6 This is in contrast to the 1960s and prior to the 1973 military coup. During this period the flagships of these conglomerates, El Mercurio and La Tercera failed to weaken the influence and significance of the partisan newspapers and magazines available to the highly politicised society of the period. In fact, the political press of this period, mainly controlled by left‐wing parties and by the Christian democrats, was highly influential in setting the news agenda prior to the collapse of democracy. 7
197
By the early 1980s one out of every two newspapers that circulated in Chile was owned by El Mercurio S.A. In addition, the same media conglomerate controlled three out of the five newspapers edited in Santiago. In terms of the advertising market, El Mercurio S.A. attracted, during this period, about 70 percent of advertising and one out of two journalists were employed by this media organisation (Délano, Luengo and Salazar 1983, 14). El Mercurio S.A. had enjoyed an almost unchallenged newspaper monopoly until the mid‐
1950s when the Picó‐Cañas, a rich family of entrepreneurs, launched Copesa. The publisher of La Tercera, La Cuarta and La Hora newspapers, Copesa is controlled by a group of economists and members of the financial elite who became wealthy during the dictatorship (Sunkel and Catalán 1991). By 1998 in Chile there were seven national dailies and 20 regional newspapers. National dailies are those that are published and distributed from the capital city Santiago and have a broad circulation throughout most of the country. Regional newspapers are those published and only circulated in some of the 12 regions that make up the political and administrative structure of Chile. All of the dailies and regional newspapers now belong to these media giants (Cortés 1998). Examples of the classic definition of a media conglomerate that has grown through vertical integration, El Mercurio S.A. and Copesa, not only publish several newspapers in the capital city and regional areas but also have the means to print and distribute their products. Essentially the financial success of these media organisations is based on their industrial capability to produce communication content, to publish it in their own printing houses and to use their own distribution systems to reach their respective clients and audiences (Sunkel, Interview 2002). 8 These characteristics establish the difference between them and the rest of the print media and raise an almost insurmountable barrier to the emergence and survival of possible competitors (Portales 1981, 131‐132). In this context, the print publishing scenario is 198
narrowed down to a handful of companies and publications linked together by common financial and frequently ideological interests. During the transition to democracy, El Mercurio S.A and Copesa have financially and ideologically dominated not only the print media but also the rest of the country’s media. Attempts to break this monopoly have been unsuccessful. In 1993, a legislative initiative to promote media plurality and to break the media monopoly was defeated and pronounced unconstitutional by the Chilean Supreme Court. Not surprisingly El Mercurio S.A and Copesa, the two main beneficiaries of the highly monopolised Chilean communication system, were actively involved in discouraging any attempt to break their stronghold. 9 Splichal suggest that media markets are oligopolistic with strong barriers preventing the entry of new players (1995, 56‐57). In this context El Mercurio S.A. and Copesa have been instrumental in obstructing the entry of new media operators. This was the case of the daily Metro. In 1992 both media conglomerates successfully relied on the Constitution of 1980 to boycott the entrance to the market of Metro, a free daily newspaper delivered in Santiago’s metro stations. Metro relied on advertising. The Swedish group Modern Times Group (MTG) obtained the exclusive rights to distribute the newspaper in the metro of Santiago. The National Press Association, an organization controlled by El Mercurio S.A. and Copesa, relied on the Constitution of 1980 whereby the government must request permission to the Senate before allowing the publication of any new media outlet to be distributed on the premises of any State operated service. With the majority of the Senate controlled by right‐
wing parties, the appeal was successful and MTG was forced to distribute the newspaper outside metro stations. At the beginning of 2000 the fate of this newspaper was sealed by the decision of Supreme Court to ban its distribution (Fazio 2002, 318). Another attempt in 1999 to break into the newspaper market by the independently published El Metropolitano newspaper experienced innumerable obstacles. It was published by Edición Moneda S.A.,a business created by the Hites group (Fazio 2002, 319). The newspaper folded 199
after experiencing major distribution obstacles imposed by the two distribution companies that exist in Chile. Both distribution companies belong to El Mercurio S.A. and to Copesa. The Concertación has operated under the premise that a market‐driven media industry will be able to assure media plurality and freedom of expression. Essentially, the post‐
dictatorship administration has adopted the philosophy that “the best policy is not having a policy” (Sunkel and Geoffrey 2001, 21), and as a result, the regulatory role of the State becomes non‐existent and the media have been left subject to the “regulatory mechanism” of the market. The most visible outcome of this non‐regulatory media policy has been twofold. On the one hand it has been a key component in the consolidation of the monopolistic media dominance by El Mercurio S.A. and Copesa. On the other hand it has been one, if not the most important cause, behind the disappearance of the majority of the independent and pro‐democracy news media that emerged during the dictatorship. Unable to compete in the non‐regulated and highly commercial media environment these media organisations were forced to close their operations leaving a profound vacuum in the Chilean communication system. Advertising and Readership Concentration As is the case in the global media context, The Chilean media industry operates within the parameters of two market principles. Essentially the media create one single product to participate in two distinct markets: goods and services. The goods offered by the media are “product‐content.” This essentially is the production of entertainment and information available to the public in the form of television and radio programs; magazines, newspapers, videos and films. 10 The main media organisations operating in Chile, newspapers, radio and television, are highly dependent on advertising. In the area of newspaper circulation, El Mercurio S.A. and Copesa exert an unchallenged media duopoly in Chile. They are major business 200
conglomerates formed by a group of companies that operate in the print media and with financial interests that branch out to a diverse range of other economic areas. At the heart of El Mercurio S.A. is Agustín Edwards Eastman, the most powerful media owner in Chile. In the print media, his conglomerate operates through three national and 14 regional print media companies (Ramirez 1999). It controls the influential El Mercurio newspaper. It also publishes the tabloids of national circulation La Ultimas Noticias and La Segunda. In addition it controls fourteen regional dailies. They are EL Mercurio de Valparaiso, La Estrella de Arica, La Estrella de Iquique, La Estrella del Norte, El Mercurio de Antofagasta, El Líder de San Antonio El Mercurio de Calama, La Estrella del Loa, La Prensa de Tocopilla, El Austral de Temuco, El Austral de Valdivia, El Austral de Osorno and El Llanquihue. In addition this conglomerate owns the printing and publishing company Publicaciones Lo Castillo and Imprenta el Almendral that, apart from printing the conglomerate’s newspapers, also publish the advertising magazine Dato Aviso. El Mercurio S.A. also controls the two largest newspaper, magazine and book distributors in Chile: Distribuidora de Publicaciones CLC and Distribuidoras de Publicaciones ATM. In addition it owns the printing house Imprenta Almendral. 11 Copesa, the second largest media conglomerate, has come a long way since its financial crisis of the mid‐1980s. Its financial consolidation was the work of two prominent members of the Chilean right‐wing political and business sector, Alvaro Saieh and Carlos Abumohor. In November 1988 these two investors joined forces with other business people and members of the dictatorship to revamp the indebted conglomerate. Saieh became the largest stockholder with 33 percent while Abumohor held 16.6 percent. A month later, in December of 1988, Saieh took control of the political magazine Qué Pasa that was incorporated into Copesa (Buckman 1992, 16‐17,38). During the period covered by this work, 1990‐2000, this media conglomerate has strengthened its media operations by its control of three newspapers and one magazine. All 201
of them enjoy national circulation. Its flagship is La Tercera; the second most read newspaper in Chile. It also publishes the tabloids La Cuarta , La Hora and Qué Pasa, the only surviving mainstream Chilean political magazine. Apart from Saieh and Abumohor, the main shareholders of Copesa include some of the highest raking civilian members of the former dictatorship, including Miguel Angel Poduje, Sergio de Castro, Alberto Kassis, Alex Abumohor and Juan Carlos Latorre (Annual Report Copesa 1997). Similar to El Mercurio S.A, Copesa has financial interests in other areas of the economy. In the case of Copesa, its financial investments have been mainly channelled into the highly profitable private retirement funds (Associación de Fondos de Pensiones or AFPs) and into real estate business (Peña 1998). In 1992, this media conglomerate entered into a business venture with the printing and publishing house Ediciones Chiloé. As a result of this arrangement, they established Distribución y Servicios Meta, a company that distributes and commercialises newspapers, magazines, books and catalogues. Through this structure Copesa is able to print and distribute its own products. 12 The financial consolidation of El Mercurio S.A. and Copesa was not only due to their circulation and advertising power but also to the preferential and privileged treatment given to them by the dictatorship. Despite the financial crisis of the 1980s, both conglomerates were able to continue their operations uninterrupted. It was a reward for the loyalty shown to General Pinochet. In the final years of the dictatorship, Pinochet secured the financial strength of El Mercurio S.A and Copesa through various means. These two media conglomerates were the recipients of generous government subsidies and lucrative financial agreements with the national State Bank. El Mercurio S.A. and Copesa were massively in debt to this financial institution. In order to minimise the debt Pinochet ordered the State Bank to buy in advance 10 years of publicity space both in El Mercurio and La Tercera (Mönckeberg 2001, 176). In December 1989, the year that saw the end of the dictatorship, the State Bank purchased 223,307 cm./columns of daily advertising space in El Mercurio. This permitted El Mercurio 202
S.A. to see its debt with the State Bank reduced to US$1,8 million. Furthermore this also allowed El Mercurio S.A. to obtain from Citibank a further loan of US$ 6.8 million in capital investment. This loan was central to the modernisation of El Mercurio S.A.’s printing and distribution systems. La Tercera on the other hand, traded off US$1.5 million of its debt by allocating 82,500 cm./ columns in daily State Bank advertising for 10 years (Dermota 2000, 46). These financial deals done at the end of the dictatorship have never been subject to any journalistic investigation and, because of the cosy relationship between the governments of the transition and these two media conglomerates, this arrangement has not been investigated by the relevant authorities (Cárdenas, Interview 2004). 13 In this print media scenario, the only mainstream media organisation that can offer some level of diversity is La Nación Ltd. This is mainly owned by the State that controls 69.3 percent of shares. The rest is controlled by Colliguay (29.5 percent), a private investing company and by other minor investors (1.2 percent). La Nación Ltd publishes the daily La Nación, and El Diario Oficial, a publication that publicises laws, contracts and other financial deals, as required by laws. La Nación is managed by a board of directors and the President of the Republic nominates the board’s president. The board is in charge of imparting general directions and representing the interests of the government and private shareholders. This level of ownership allows the State to have tight control over the operations of the company, especially over the editorial decisions of the newspaper La Nación. This newspaper is a vital tool for the State insofar as it allows it to create in the news agenda issues that the rest of the media is reluctant to publish (Geoffroy and Castillo 1997). 14
This concentration also operates in terms of advertising. The advertising sector in Chile represents one per cent of the national product. This is equivalent to US$600 million (Uribe 1999, 176). However, it is deeply unequal in terms of distribution and access. 15 Important sectors of the media and the journalism industry, including the Chilean Colegio de Periodistas Profesionales (College of Professional Journalists) has advocated the establishment of equality in the State advertising distribution. So far this has not been 203
achieved and there is nothing to suggest this will change in the foreseeable future (Colegio de Periodistas 2000, 6). The advertising market is mostly dominated by El Mercurio S.A.. Critical to understanding the high level of concentration and monopoly in the print media is the distribution of and participation in the advertising market. The conservative ideological affinity of the Chilean business sector explains to a large extent the preferential treatment given to right‐wing media in terms of advertising. One of the causes, discussed earlier, of the lack of a more plural and diverse media sector in Chile was precisely the refusal by the Chilean business sector to channel some of its advertising budget into the centre‐left media. As Portales suggests, the difference between the newspapers El Mercurio and La Tercera and the centre‐left press is essentially the easy and favoured access by the duopoly to the advertising market (1981, 79‐
80). The 1980s and 1990s saw some important changes in the distribution of advertising in the media industry. These changes saw the television sector become the main beneficiary of the advertising market, while the print media experienced a substantial decline. In the 1970s the daily press received approximately 50 percent of the advertising. This was followed by television with around one third, radio with less than one tenth and magazines received one twentieth of the advertising distribution (Portales 1981, 137). This is in contrast to the figures of the late 1980s and throughout 1990s that show a decline in advertising allocated to the print media. For example in 1998, newspapers obtained around 35 percent of advertising, whereas television jumped to more than 56 percent (Megatime 1999). Indeed, this shift was due to the high level of television penetration and its access to the masses. During this period, television became the main source of news and entertainment. Despite the decline of advertising in the print media, El Mercurio S.A and Copesa managed to obtain the largest share of the national advertising market. The following figures illustrate this trend. In the 1970s the El Mercurio conglomerate obtained 78 percent of advertising capital. This was well beyond the 20 percent captured by Copesa. In 1998, El Mercurio and La 204
Tercera were the main beneficiaries of more than US$447 million in advertising. The three newspapers owned by the El Mercurio S.A. conglomerate, Las Ultimas Noticias, La Segunda and El Mercurio attracted 70 percent of the advertising. Well behind, the three newspapers controlled by Copesa ‐ La Tercera, La Cuarta and La Hora ‐ received 16.64 percent. The State controlled newspaper La Nación only obtained 1.41 percent (Sunkel and Geoffrey 2001, 22). These figures illustrate the way the main Chilean businesses distribute their advertising budget and they tend to confirm the high level of concentration of the advertising market enjoyed by El Mercurio conglomerate. For example, the five main companies and sources of print advertising in Chile, the superstores Falabella and Almacenes París; Comercial ECCSA, General Motors Chile and Automotores Gildemeisters, allocate between 60 and 70 percent of their advertising investment to media organisations that belong to El Mercurio S.A. The rest of the print advertising allocated by the same companies goes to newspapers under the control of Copesa (Sunkel and Geoffrey 2001, 46‐47). The highly concentrated advertising market is certainly a reflection of the level of concentration of newspaper readership enjoyed by El Mercurio S.A. and Copesa. The newspapers that belong to these media companies enjoy a substantial concentration of readership. During weekdays, the newspaper El Mercurio attracts 13.5 percent of national readership, while La Tercera is able to attract around 18.7 percent of readership. However, these figures rise substantially during the weekend when El Mercurio obtains 28.8 percent of readership in comparison to 14.2 percent attracted by La Tercera (Publicidad y Mercado 1999, 24). The main reason behind the supremacy of El Mercurio during the weekends is its wide range of special supplements. They include the highly influential Entrevistas (Interviews), a supplement of political interviews that sets the news agenda for the whole week. It also published a highly sought after employment classifieds, the only such section in the Chilean print media. 205
Radio Ownership and Audience Radio has traditionally been Chile’s most decentralised medium. 16 From 1990 to 1996 the number of radio stations more than doubled, from 326 to 864. Most of them, 802, were situated outside of Santiago, the capital city (Secretaría de Comunicación y Cultura 1997, 9). In contrast to the print media, radio has been – due to the extensive availability of frequencies and relatively low cost of operations – able to develop a quite competitive and diverse market. Another important issue to consider is the existence of a healthy local media market, provincial and regional, that enriches the radio spectrum. Having said this, it is important to stress the profusion of radio stations does not mean that Chileans are exposed to a diverse and pluralistic range of news and current affairs. Most radio stations programs are based on music and entertainment; it is the print media, especially El Mercurio and La Tercera that continues setting the news agenda on political, economic and social issues (Campos, Interview 2002). 17
The decentralisation and profusion of radio stations has been a central feature of the Chilean radio system since its emergence in the 1930s. By the middle of the 1930s Chile had one of the most dynamic radio systems in Latin America. It was privately owned and it was subject to “market regulation.” This means that from the early 1940s, with the arrival in Chile of the first advertising companies, radio stations were subject to the early forms of ratings measurement and competition (Lasagni, Edwards and Bonnefoy 1985, 11). They became highly dependant on advertising and also on foreign media corporations’ investment. The 1940s also saw the emergence of the main staples of Chilean radio programming: radio news, current affair and music. One of the first news and current affairs services that emerged was the Reportero Esso (The Esso Reporter), a program broadcast by Radio Cooperativa and whose main advertiser was the US oil company Esso. 206
State intervention in the radio system followed the US model. This means that the State, although it does not intervene in creating a kind of monopoly of transmission, exerts some level of regulation. For example, in 1925 the government created a special commission in charge of regulating the concessions for radio licences. Parallel to this, the government established some norms relating to censorship, contents and programming, including the obligatory broadcasting of government national addresses and regulations (Lasagni et al 1985, 8). In regards to radio regulation, Munizaga points out that “radio production is based upon individual freedom expressed as a free business regulated by the State that grants radio licences to competing parties. The State, however maintains its right to intervene in the medium to oversee its technological advances, broadcasting of local music and the enforcement of national broadcasting of official and presidential speeches” (Munizaga 1983, 7). The 1960s was the decade when radio became a media tool with a mass audience reach. The appearance of the portable, cheaper radio transistor was fundamental in this process. Lasagni points out: “the small and portable radio apparatus began accompanying the daily activities of people and changing, along the way, the pattern of group and family audiences created by the bigger and non‐portable radio equipment. In addition, the lower cost of the portable radio allowed its diffusion among popular sectors and young people” (1985, 16‐17). The 1960s and the 1970s saw the radio system expanding thanks to the emergence of regional and provincial radio stations throughout Chile (Wilson 1982). This period also saw the emergence of institutional owned and financed radio stations. Powerful and influential economic and industrial groups, especially involved in the mining and agricultural sector, established their own radio stations. The two most influential radio stations funded by these economic groups were Radio Minería owned by wealthy mining entrepreneurs; and Radio Agricultura, established by the National Agricultural Society, a representative body of the wealthiest and most influential Chilean landowners. Both radio stations became influential 207
ideological mouthpieces of the Chilean right‐wing movement and conservative political, economic and social elite. During the Government of Salvador Allende, left‐wing parties began establishing their own radio stations. In 1971, close members of the inner‐circle of President Allende bought Radio Portales, owned by a private businessman. Radio Portales became a key component of Allende’s government media apparatus. Throughout the short government of Allende, most left‐wing parties established their own radio stations. 18 The Socialist Party took over Radio Corporación while the Communist Party owned Radio Magallanes. Radio Nacional was controlled by the ultra left‐wing Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionario or MIR and the Movimiento Agrario Popular Unitario or MAPU established Radio Candelaria. The then powerful left‐wing workers’ union, the Central Unitaria de Trabajadores or CUT, was also involved in the media war of the period with the establishment of Radio Luis Emilio Recabarren. All these radio stations were dismantled, their journalists arrested or murdered and their equipment confiscated following the military coup of 1973 (González et al 1999; Baltra 1988). During the dictatorship, especially during the 1980s, the Chilean radio system experienced one of its major transformations: the introduction of the FM spectrum (Brunner, Barrios and Catalán 1989). Between 1977 and 1985, FM radio stations experienced 70 percent growth while AM radios had a small growth (ARCHI 1985). Despite the tight political control experienced by the media during the dictatorship, the radio system was able to maintain some level of plurality, diversity and competitiveness. This feature has continued during the transition and in the 1990s the Chilean radio system presented three clearly defined characteristics. Firstly, it was characterised by the profusion of national, regional and even city based radio stations. The largest number of radio stations is found in the VIII region (Concepción) with 66 FM and AM stations and the Metropolitan area (Santiago) with 55 FM and AM radio stations. 208
The smallest number of stations is found in the southern XII region that has only 25 FM and AM stations (ARCHI 1999). The second feature is the thriving market for FM radio stations that – since the 1980s – has tended to be far more lucrative than the AM radio stations. In the last 10 years, FM radio stations have also modified their programming, moving away from music to a more varied range of programs including news and current affairs. The third remarkable feature and this is in contrast to the print media, is that the local radio market in regional cities has been able to survive in the unregulated market place. Regional radio stations have been able to maintain their “local identity” (ARCHI 1999). In terms of control and ownership, the Chilean radio market has been characterised by the existence of a large number of radio stations throughout the country. During the first decade of the 1990s the Chilean radio system experienced important transformations that have tended to modify the ownership structure. These transformations have brought about a radio system characterised by four structures of ownership: radio stations under the financial and editorial control of international media companies; the presence of national media owners, the existence of radio stations owned by social, religious and political institutions and regional radio stations owned by regional independent entrepreneurs ((Egaña, Interview 2001). 19
The presence of international media companies in the radio market is indeed one of the most remarkable developments in the Chilean communication industry. Essentially there are two transnational companies that lead the radio system. They are Iberoamerican Radio Chile and Consorcio Radial de Chile (Baltra 2004, 14). Both consortiums have concentrated their interests in FM radio stations. Iberoamerican Radio Chile is the representative of the international holding company Iberoamerican Media Partners, a media group formed by the Hicks, Muse, Taste & Furst groups and by the Venezuelan Cisneros Group. This is the same group that controls Chilevisión (Egaña, Interview 2001). 20
209
Iberoamerican Radio Chile bought radio stations with an established position in the market and currently own 9 radio stations with national reach. The Consorcio Radial de Chile was founded in 1995 with the financial contribution of the Colombian media conglomerate Caracol Network. The Consorcio Radial de Chile controls three radio stations. Caracol belongs to the economic group Santo Domingo whose economic interests include brewing companies, terrestrial transport, mobile telephones, finance groups, insurance companies, retirement funds and television companies (Petros 1999, 5). The radio stations owned by international media groups have been able to attract the largest percentage of radio listeners. For example, the Iberoamerican Media Partners Group attracts 33.52 percent of the FM audience in Santiago, while the Caracol Group’s Consorcio Radial de Chile draws 13.4 percent. Together, these two foreign conglomerates obtain almost 47 percent of the radio audience in Santiago (Search Marketing 1999). The simultaneous expansion of Santiago‐based radio chains and the increasing role of transnational investors and owners have transformed many provincial and regional radio stations into mere repeaters of Santiago‐based programming (Baltra 2000, 2; Secretaría de Comunicación y Cultura 1995, 7‐ 8; Barahona 1998, 16). In terms of regional radio owners, there are three clearly distinguishable media entrepreneurs who have been able to exercise a strong control over the FM radio spectrum. They are: Ricardo Benzanilla, César Molfino and Urus Domic. Benzanilla and Molfino have concentrated their businesses in FM radio stations. Similarly to the approach taken by international media barons in terms of program content, Chilean radio proprietors have opted for music and entertainment (Egaña, Interview 2001). In terms of audience participation, radio stations owned by national entrepreneurs attract 17.06 percent of FM radio listeners in Santiago. 21 This figure is well below the audience attracted by the foreign radio owners (Search Marketing 1999). In regards to radio stations owned by regional media entrepreneurs the most significant case is Sociedad Bío‐Bío Comunicaciones, the owner of Radio Bío‐Bío. Based in the southern city 210
of Concepción, this regional media group is owned by businessman Nibaldo Mosciatti. In the second half of the 1990s, Radio Bío‐Bío began expanding its transmissions to the south and centre of Chile, including the capital city of Santiago (López, Interview 2002). 22 The radio station has integrated into its programming a mix of music, entertainment and a well designed news and current affairs service. It attracts 0.4 percent of audience (Search Maketing 1999). Radio stations owned, operated and editorially controlled by social, political and religious institutions tend to be ideologically oriented. Operating as AM radio stations, they constitute key institutions for social, political and religious dissemination, education and public opinion formation. They are radio stations with a strong news and current affairs component in their daily programs. The main radio stations identified with this sort of ownership and institutional arrangement are Radio Cooperativa which is owned by the Christian Democratic Party; Radio Chilena which belongs to the Catholic Church; Radio Agricultura owned by Agricultural National Society; Radio Armonía which belongs to the Evangelical Church and Radio Nuevo Mundo owned by the Chilean Communist Party (Egaña, Interview 2001). Radio Tierra is controlled by a non‐government feminist corporation called La Morada; and Radio El Canelo is owned by the non‐government organization El Canelo de Nos. 23 Despite having the potential to contribute to a more pluralistic and vibrant media system, these radio stations attract relatively few listeners. Put together Radio Cooperativa, Radio Agricultura and Radio Armonía only attract 4.57 percent of the ratings in the AM radio market in Santiago. Radio Cooperativa, with one of the most respected news and current affairs in the Chilean media system, draws a meagre 3.66 percent of the audience (Search Maketing 1999). One of the areas of the radio system that has suffered a profound decline is the community and alternative radio sector. Despite commercial radio has expanded since 1990, the 211
commercial nature of the Chilean media landscape has been “inhospitable for socially conscious radio” (Bresnahan 2002, 177). Traditionally linked to left‐wing grass‐roots organisations, the community radio sector has been subject to tight political control. In 1999 the potential of community radio stations was weakened by limiting licences to three years, reducing the maximum power from 20 watts to 1 watt and prohibiting advertising (Yañez and Aguilera 2000, 48). By 2000, approximately 100 licenses had been awarded, almost half to mayor’s offices, fundamentalist Christian churches, or other institutions rather than grassroots organisations (Yañez and Aguilera 2000, 13). It is possible to argue that this has been part of a concerted political effort by the ruling Concertación to weaken even further the political power of grassroots organisations and other politicised sectors of the civil society. The scenario explored above tends to suggest that the Chilean radio system is experiencing a process of media concentration and the establishment of a radio duopoly controlled by two large international media conglomerates, Channel 13 Radio Chile and the Consorcio Radial de Chile. The most important indicator of this process is concentration of audience share that favours these largest of media organisations operating in Chile. Both foreign conglomerates clearly dominate the ratings. The dominance by foreign‐owned radio stations is strengthened by their dominance in regional markets. The dominance of the radio system by Radio Chile and the Consorcio Radial de Chile has been a leading factor in the re‐structure of Chilean radio along the line of entertainment and music. This is in contrast to the original conceptual guidelines on the content of radio stations as a disseminator of news and educational programs. The impact of this transformation is clearly observable in the demise of the traditional institutional radio station which, even until the end of the military dictatorship, played a role in social promotion and civil participation. Indeed, this scenario resembles the destiny suffered by other pro‐democratic media in the post‐dictatorship period. In addition, this questions the role being played by these economic and media groups in the process of democratisation, freedom of expression and pluralism. It 212
is argued here that this scenario of media concentration and unchallenged dominance by large economic groups in the radio system does not guarantee equal access to information and participation in the media by a wider spectrum of civil society. Television Ownership, Audience and Advertising The private local and international ownership of television stations became a feature of the Chilean media scenario only at the end of the 1980s and early 1990s. Until then, television was under the control of the State and public universities, which had pioneered experimental television in the 1950s (Hurtado 1989). The university‐based model was designed to safeguard it from direct State influence while preventing purely commercial considerations from determining its development. To promote pluralism, the university channels had a board of directors who were representative of a wide range of political views. In addition all stations were funded by a mix of government subsidies and by a small percentage of advertising. Although television content offered a considerable amount of entertainment programming, much of it imported, public affairs were also given a high priority and political debate flourished. The aspiration of a television system not only based on commercial considerations was strengthened even further during the reformist government of the Christian Democrat President Eduardo Frei. In one of the few consensuses reached during that tumultuous period of Chilean history, the left, the right and the centre of the political spectrum agreed to maintain the non‐commercial nature of the television system. This consensus was legally endorsed in the 1970 first Ley General (General Law) established to regulate the operation of the television system. The Ley General established that the main objective of television was to foster culture and education and objectively informs the community. An important aspect of this law was the establishment of Televisión Nacional de Chile. The law allowed the channel to expand throughout the nation. The Ley General also established a State‐funding scheme designed to provide television channels with small advertising participation. Equally important was the creation of the Consejo Nacional de Television (National Television 213
Advisory Board) whose powers included the right to dictate norms regulating programs and advertising (Munizaga 1981). The military coup of 1973 had a profound and long‐lasting impact on the television system. Under the dictatorship, television was more strictly controlled than any other medium. Shortly after the coup of September 11, 1973, Televisión Nacional de Chile was taken over by the military, journalists were arrested and a significant part of its valuable visual material was burnt, including some of the earliest films and television programs broadcast in Chile. In one of the most far‐reaching measures taken by the dictatorship Televisión Nacional de Chile was transferred in 1974 from the Department of Education to the Government’s General Secretariat, an office under the directive of the infamous National Office of Social Communication, a propaganda and censorship apparatus created by the dictatorship. Although on a superficial level the university‐based television system, such as the Universidad Católica de Chile Televisión or Channel 13 and the Canal de la Universidad de Chile or Channel 9, was retained, its governing structure was changed, with delegate‐
directors appointed by the military assuming responsibility for its administration. Fuenzalida observes that government funding ended, forcing the television stations to become entirely dependent on advertising (1988, 52). The military regime abolished the scheme that allowed the State to provide funding to television. 24 It also abolished all the regulations and restrictions imposed by the General Law of 1970 affecting television advertising. This decision brought about a situation where the private sector had far more influence on the expansion and operation of the medium. It was a rather peculiar system where university channels were privately funded and advertising driven. During the so‐called “economic boom” of the 1980s, which produced a high level of consumerism and a significant expansion in advertising, private entrepreneurs took a firm grip of the television system and this process was wrapped up by the end of the military 214
dictatorship with the process of deregulation and privatisation of this medium. The opening of the television system to private media operators in 1989 has undoubtedly expanded the number of television channels and increased the level of competition for the advertising market, but not diversity. During the first half of the 1990s, 92 percent of Chilean households owned one or more television sets (Instituto Nacional de Estadística 1995). The transition deepened the process of transformation initiated by the dictatorship. The transition saw the introduction of privately owned commercial broadcasting and cable television. At the end of the 1990s, there were five national channels and nine regional channels with limited coverage in the free‐to‐air television system. In contrast to radio, television has tended to be part of a system of major companies operating nationally. In addition, unlike radio and print media, the television system is not subject to a holding system whereby a determined consortium exerts controls on several television stations. This is principally due to the highly regulated television ownership system, including a regulation that established that the State grants just one licence per operator. On the other hand, the legislation established that the licence could only be granted to private and public entities with residence in Chile. However, this does not prevent foreign capital attempting to invest in the Chilean media system. This explains how the explosion of private television channels was due to an aggressive penetration of foreign capital from Venezuela, Mexico, the US and Canada. It is interesting to note that in contrast to the previous decade the main media investors in Chilean television have not been Americans but investors from Venezuela and Mexico. 25
Television has become nearly universal. It is estimated it has 95 percent of penetration nationally and almost 99 percent in Santiago (Consejo Nacional de Televisión 2001, 1). It is estimated there is an average of one set per household (Sunkel 1997, 23). 26 Broadcast television is highly centralised, with five Santiago channels, including two privately owned channels established after the defeat of General Pinochet in the plebiscite of 1988, transmitting to the rest of the country. 215
During the transition to democracy there have been four categories of television ownership and structure: public television, commercial television with university backing, private channels and local regional channels. 27 The public television system in Chile is rather peculiar. It is owned by the State but is funded by private sources. The only example in Chile of semi‐public television is TVN This channel was founded in 1970 and was subject to the Ley General de Television (Television General Law) of that year. However, this regulatory framework was modified in 1992. This new regulation stated that Televisión Nacional de Chile is an autonomous public legal entity run by a board of directors who represent the State, the legal owner of Televisión Nacional de Chile. Essentially, Televisión Nacional de Chile is a semi‐public broadcaster administered as a private business and therefore most of its budget has to be obtained from advertising. The State does not provide any subsidy to Televisión Nacional de Chile leaving its operation subject to the rules of the market. The capacity of TVN to survive depends upon its ability to expand its audience and ratings. This certainly has a direct effect on the possibility of it fulfilling its role of social service. Channel 13, controlled by the Universidad Católica de Chile, is an example of a commercial media organization with university backing. Although it belongs entirely to the Universidad Católica, Channel 13 has complete autonomy to manage its financial and administrative affairs. Like Televisión Nacional de Chile, this television channel is also subject to the rules of the market and has to obtain its funding from private sources. Although the dictatorship took the initial steps to establish privately owned broadcast and cable television, the process of expansion and consolidation has been overseen by the Concertación. As was examined in a previous section, the first private commercial licence was awarded to the business magnate Ricardo Claro for Megavisión. This television channel went on the air in October 1990 and in 1991 the Mexican media giant Televisa 28 acquired 49 percent of the shares in this free‐to‐air television station (Fazio 2002, 323). 216
The second private operator was La Red television that went to air in May 1991. This channel belongs to Angel González, a Mexican businessman based in Miami who bought it from TV Azteca 29 and from Copesa (Fazio 2002, 323). The third private channel, Chilevision, was founded in 1993 and is controlled by Venezuela’s media giant Venevisión which belongs to the powerful Grupo Cisneros (Cisneros Group). In 2000 the US’s Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst investment retirement funds began its participation in the ownership of this channel. As Fazio observes the alliance of Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst and the Cisneros Group has a major financial objective, which is the expansion of their television and radio investments in the Spanish and Portuguese language markets (2002, 324). Regional or local channels constitute the third model of television ownership and structure. Their structure is a mix of private and institutionally owned systems. The most significant example of this third type of ownership and structure are the Televisión de la Universidad Católica de Valparaiso (Catholic University of Valparaiso Television Channel); the Red de Televisión Universidad del Norte (North University Television Network) and Channel 9 owned by the Sociedad Bío‐Bío Comunicaciones (Bío‐Bío Communication Society). Russell Dalton suggests that in most democratic societies today, television is the most widely used, credible, and trusted source of political information (1996,23). All around the world, people rely on television to get their daily diet of news and current affairs. This is also true in Chile. However the process of privatisation and deregulation of the Chilean television has been identified as one of the causes of a change in perception in the community. Apart from being considered as a medium that thrives on scandals, entertainment and low quality programs; it is also considered a medium that excludes from its programming a large section of the community, especially the poor, workers and indigenous people. In terms of audience, there is a strong concentration on the four largest television channels in Chile. During 1998 Televisión Nacional de Chile attracted 28.9 percent of the audience; Channel 13 of obtained 27.34 percent; Megavisión with 21.61 percent and Chilevisión grabbed 12.5 percent of the national audience. The rest of the private channels, La Red, Rock 217
and Pop and Gran Santiago Televisión were clearly marginal in terms of audience numbers (Time‐ibope 1998). The same four channels also have complete domination of the audience market in regional cities. In contrast to radio stations, regional television channels have not been able to build a solid audience base. 30
The audience concentration parallels the advertising market. With stations competing for the substantial annual advertising budget – which it is estimated at more than US$700 million – it is not surprising that Chilean television is criticised for its eminently commercial character, its interest in capturing large audiences with simplistic language, its lack of innovation, and its insufficient contribution to the education of children (Consejo Nacional de Televisión 1998 35‐36). Since 1980 television has been able to attract the largest slice of the Chilean advertising market and throughout the 1990s, this medium has consolidated its position as the main recipient of commercial advertising. At the end of the 1990s television attracted 56.3 percent of advertising, whereas the print media attracted 35.5 percent. The latter is a sharp decline from the figures that the print media attracted in the 1970s when newspapers attracted the largest slice of advertisements (Megatime 1999). 31 Similar to the situation in the print media, advertising is highly concentrated in television among the four major television channels, TVN, Channel 13, Megavisión and Chilevisión. Together, these four television stations secure nearly 90 percent of the advertising sector. In 1991, it accounted for 49.3 percent of television advertising revenue; TVN was a distant second with 32.8 percent (Buckman 1991, 16‐17, 32). However, in contrast to the print media where the dominant media conglomerates have maintained their dominance and they have hampered access to the market of other publications, the television system has expanded the access of private operators. The expansion of the television system is illustrated by the rise in the advertising investment in 218
television. For example, in 1978 the spending in television advertising was around US$6.63 million (Portales 1981, 158) and in 1998 this figure raised to more than US$700 million. Nevertheless, it is worth noting that although the expansion and growth of the television market in the last two decades has been substantial, the Chilean television system is still highly concentrated and maintains its nature as an oligopoly market. The highly concentrated audience market reinforces this situation. In 1998, the same four television channels that drew the largest slice of the advertising market attracted the largest percentage of viewers in Santiago and regions (Egaña, Interview 2001). The audience and advertising concentrations show that, although the television system opened to new operators, television has continued the pattern of a high media concentration. It is also important to note that the commercial structure of the television system and the domination of it by four television channels has not been the natural outcome of free competition in the media market. On the contrary, the privileged position taken by these television channels is due to the direct intervention of the State, which granted, during the deregulation of the television market, television licences and concessions exclusively to large businesses and conglomerates. This was accompanied by a State course of action that established a self‐funding system for the public and university television sector. This State policy made these two television structures highly dependent on advertising and ratings, and permitted only four major television stations to survive and establish their unchallenged presence in the television system. 32
The financial and ideological concentration of the Chilean media has brought about a decline of both media diversity and the level of access by the community to more democratic sources of information. The neoliberal economic model embraced by the Concertación of Partidos por la Democracia has facilitated the high level of concentration. It has been an economic model that has left the media to the “mercy” of the market and whose most visible result is the disappearance of the independent and pro‐democracy media that emerged during the dictatorship. The impact of the financial and ideological monopoly of the media has also 219
been felt on the news agenda and the way journalists carry out their work in the transition. This will be analysed in the next section. Notes 1 For an analysis of the economic policies implemented during the transition see: Weyland, Kurt. 2000. “La política económica en la nueva democracia chilena.” In Paul Drake and Iván Jaksic, eds., El Modelo Chileno: Democracia y Desarrollo en los Noventa. Santiago: LOM. 2 Vertical integration refers to a company that is able to control partially or completely the channels of production and commercialisation of media products, see: Sánchez‐Tabernero et al. 1993, 84. 3 The “multimedia integration refers to the control of various media outlets by one company and it requires the presence of a cross‐media ownership scenario where a company is in control of print and electronic media (especially newspapers and television channels)” (Sánchez‐Tabernero et al 1993, 109). 4 For an excellent account of the economic concentration of the Chilean media see Sunkel and Geoffroy (2001) Concentración Económica de los Medios de Comunicación. 5 Since Chilean newspapers have maintained their dominance in the market of ideas and their power to set the news agenda for the rest of the media, including radio and television, the financial concentration of the print media is not the only factor to be considered. 6 The process of monopolistic concentration began during the dictatorship and has been paradoxically consolidated during the transition to democracy. 7 This was a thriving, dynamic and profoundly confrontational media environment and the public sphere was enlivened by publication of a wide range of political views. 8 Guillermo Sunkel, is an academic and he is the author of several books on media studies, Universidad de Chile. Interview, Santiago 2002. 9 Both media conglomerates have endorsed the Concertación’s principle of non‐regulation of the media and the idea that the market is the best guarantor of media diversity. 10 The efficiency and performance of this market is measured through different variables. In the case of the print media, this is measured by circulation; in the case of television and radios it is measured by ratings. The second market where the media operates is in advertising. In this market, the media sells advertisers access to its audience in the form of 220
advertising space. Evidently not all the media take part in the advertising market. Some media rely only on the sale of their product. Obviously, they are in a weaker position in relation to media organisations with a strong advertising base. 11 El Mercurio S.A. has also been able to diversify its economic influence and interest in a wide range of economic activities, including agricultural and fruit exports, forestry and real estate. 12 In addition, this company designs and conducts public opinion studies and market research. 13 Hernán Cárdenas is a sociologist and he was the director of Radio Umbral. Interview, Concepción 2003. 14 La Nación is not a challenge to the duopoly and has had little impact on diversification of the highly concentrated print media system. 15 The new Press Law of 2001 failed to address this problem. 16 Thanks to the background information provided by journalist Alfredo Carreño. Interview, Santiago, 2001. 17 Sergio Campos is a journalist and radio presenter. He currently works for Radio Cooperativa. Interview, Santiago 2002. 18 They became one of the ideological battlegrounds that shaped Chilean society of that period. 19 Rodrigo Egaña is a media analyst. Interview, Santiago 2001. 20 Rodrigo Egaña is a media analyst. Interview, Santiago 2001. 21 For an analysis of FM radio station see Roberto Marchant Diaz, 2001. 22 This information was provided by Erik López Vera. He is a radio journalist, Radio Bio‐Bio. Interview, Santiago 2002. 23 For an examination of grass roots and community radio stations see: Luis Gallegos, 1991. “Situación actual de la radio popular en Chile y sus perspectives.” In La Radio Popular en Chile. Santiago: Ediciones Sonoradio Producciones, 40‐45. 24 Effectively, the military intervention in the television system and in the rest of the media responded to the traditional principle of political control of the media. 221
25 This can be explained by the production of entertainment programs, including musicals and telenovelas (soap operas) that have become even more popular than US television productions. 26 Although newspapers still are the most popular sources of news in Chile, television has regained substantial ground in terms of credibility (Sunkel 1997, 5‐7). 27 Although the first investors were drawn primarily from the ranks of Chile’s major economic groups, including individuals closely associated with the dictatorship, most have gradually been displaced by transnational media conglomerates based in other Latin American countries or the United States. 28 Televisa is the world largest Spanish speaking media conglomerate. 29 Azteca is the second largest media conglomerate in Mexico. 30 Considering the level of audience among the four leading television channels it is possible to argue that the institutional channel, Televisión Nacional de Chile, is the leader. This is an interesting development insofar as most of the public and non‐private television channels in Latin America have been unable to compete against privately owned television stations. 31 This shift of advertising from print to television is a clear demonstration of the centrality of this medium in Chilean society. 32 From a public sphere perspective, the Chilean television system with its expanded channel capacity could have become an important democratic resource. However the neoliberal model and the no‐policy approach taken by the Concertación have meant that commercialisation and the victory of the entertainment model have undermined its potential to invigorate the public sphere during the transition. 222
4.8 News Agenda and Ideological Monopoly ____________________________________________________________________ Setting the Agenda The Chilean transition to democracy has seen the emergence of a news agenda superficial in content, deeply disengaged from the democratization process and severely conditioned by commercial imperatives. It has become, as Munizaga observes, a news agenda greatly influenced by the commercialisation of the Chilean media and whose main characteristic is the absence of “meaningful information” (1993, 94‐95). In the context of a post‐dictatorship society, “meaningful information” is information, especially political news, able to underpin the process of democratisation by explaining and re‐socialising citizens with the new rules of the game. 1 Underpinning the notion of “meaningful agenda setting” rests the idea that the media contribute to the quality of democracy by gathering and presenting political information relevant to citizens, enabling them to make informed electoral and political decisions. The absence of a meaningful news agenda during the transition has indeed affected the media as a public sphere for democratic dialogue. In the context of the transition, Cárdenas points out that the Chilean media have a major responsibility to be a vehicle for “opinion and social change” (2002). Taking this into account, the objective of this section is to assess the role and contribution of the media to the process of democratization by analysing the news agenda of the transition. This is in the context of the assumption that the media have the potential power to improve the quality of representative democracy by providing a number of functions and services. Central to this view is the idea that widely available information supports democracy and media play the role of providing it. From this point of view it is possible to speculate that the news agenda of the post‐Chilean dictatorship period has failed to be a positive factor in the process of democratic consolidation. 223
Before assessing the content and nature of the pauta noticiosa (news agenda) let us make some important observations. The first observation to be made is that the media have the power to set the agenda in society. As McCombs and Shaw explain the media can influence which issues are salient in the public consciousness (1993). 2 This was an assumption demonstrated empirically by mass communication researchers in the early 1970s (Roberts 1991, 6). In the light of this, journalists play a central role in forming public opinion and the way that the public becomes aware of a given event by deciding the news agenda of any given day. The news agenda setting is a complex process that involves, among other issues, the selection of the actual event journalist will cover and how it will be covered. It is the journalist, for example, who decides the sources, the interviewees and the angle of the story. The basic principle in this process is that media might not tell the audience what to think, but they do tell them what to think about (Cohen 1963). Cohen observes that “the world will look different to different people, depending on the map that is drawn for them by writers, editors and publishers of the paper they read” (1963, 13). News can be regarded as a subjective construction guided by a set of informal and subjective rules followed by those who research, produce, and transmit the news (Lippman 1922; Davis 1995). 3
Associated with the construction of a news agenda is the concept of story framing. As Entman explains: “to frame is to select some aspects of a perceived reality and make them more salient in a communication text, in such a way as to promote a particular problem definition, casual interpretation and/or treatment recommendation for the item described (1989, 52). McCombs and Shaw observe that the media define certain social and political issues as important; creating a context that helps the audience to order and organize the political world (1972). It is in the light of these academic considerations that the Chilean news agenda of the transition will be examined. The lack of a meaningful news agenda is certainly one of the most regrettable aspects of the Chilean media in the transition to democracy. This is especially important insofar as the 224
development of a consequential news agenda that promotes dialogue across a diverse range of views, and motivates citizens to learn and participate, is one of the central contributions that the media and journalism can make to improve the quality of democracy (Gurevitch and Blumler 1990; Keane 1991 and Curran 1996). The trend in news coverage during the 1990s, and especially after the collapse of the independent and pro‐democracy media, shows a communication system that has lost the capacity to play an effective political intermediary role between the political elite and citizens (Rebolledo 2000). Paradoxically, and in contrast to the dictatorship period, the transition has provided the Chilean audience with a shallow coverage of political news, highlighting personalities rather than policies, and portraying political activity as a sporting contest. This shallow news agenda has tended to neglect some of the central, key social and political issues considered essential components of the democratization process. For example, politics – an activity central to the Chilean public sphere and debate ‐ has been displaced and moved to the margins of editorial decisions. Fittingly, Tironi observes that the dominant issue in the news agenda of the pre‐transition period – the “epic struggle for political power” – has been replaced by a news agenda far more concerned with the day‐to‐day demands and domestic problems of society (1993, 241). Tironi goes even further and suggests that those media organisations that were able to “adjust’ their news agenda to the new “domestic” demands have been able to financially survive, whereas those news outlets that persisted with the political theme as the main vector of editorial decisions experienced financial problems and eventually disappeared. 4
One of the recurrent features of the news agenda of this period is its ideological and conservative nature. Furthermore, the news stories that have been favoured by the mainstream media tend to reinforce themes that echo the right‐ wing and conservative views of media owners. Otano and Sunkel argue that the news agenda of the transition is characterised by an “overwhelming predominance of neo‐liberal, socially conservative media that in no way represent the full range of ideas and tendencies of the population as a whole” (1999, 1). Editorial decisions have been shaped by the internalisation, among journalists, of a 225
set of conservative values and by an excessive tendency to avoid conflicts with authorities. Ossa suggest that during the transition, the elimination of conflicts from the historical interpretation and the horizontality of the news agenda code are recurrent features of the communication activity (2001, 16). A democratic dialogue – within and outside the media sphere ‐ has not occurred because the news agenda has been narrowed down into what can be described as a “dialogue of elites.” During the endless Chilean transition, the news agenda has been framed around government spokespersons and political, economic, military and church officials. Stories have been constructed around the angle, the interests and the aspirations of the elite (Santa Cruz, Interview 2001) 5 Guillier and Rojas observe that the news agenda of the post‐dictatorship period has been developed and shaped by an excessive dependence on official sources and stories (1997, 28). Lagos, on the other hand, comments that the news agenda has identified and institutionalised a small segment, usually linked to the political and economic elite, of news sources able to construct social meaning (Lagos 2001, 108‐108). 6
Stories emerging from the civil society, especially from working class sectors, have been institutionally ignored or marginalised from the news agenda (Munizaga 1993, 94‐95). At its best, the marginalised sectors become part of the news agenda as either perpetrators or the target of urban violence (Ramos and Guzman de Luigi 2000). Civil society, especially the economically and socially disadvantaged segments of it, is ignored and marginalised from public debate and from the process of democratisation (Peña, Interview 2002). 7 The poor, the workers, the youth and women are sectors excluded from the process of media representation. In 1996 a national public opinion study demonstrated that these social groups “do not feel reflected” on television (Consultora Cruz y Souza 1995, 25). Rebolledo has demonstrated that among the poorest, most economically disadvantaged sectors of Chilean society there is a perception of marginalisation from the mainstream media. They perceive that the mass media only represents and echoes the aspirations of those with economic and political power (2000, 17). 226
The elitist nature of the news agenda is better exemplified by the presence of three main “news makers” and “news events” which are identified as government officials, the legislative power and the political elite (Munizaga 1993). An empirical study carried out by Munizaga in 1993 identified that around 40 percent of political news revolves around the government, 12 percent is allocated to stories and sources about members of the judiciary and 9 percent is dedicated to politicians. Stories framed around middle and upper class professionals, the armed forces and employers’ organisations constitute around 30 percent of the news agenda (Munizaga 1993). This researcher has established that the rest of the news, less than 10 percent, is allocated to the less socially and economically disadvantage sector of society, including the urban poor, working class and indigenous people. Incidentally, they form the largest proportion of Chilean society (Munizaga 1993). 8
There are striking differences between the news agenda of the transition and the news agenda developed during the military dictatorship. During the dictatorship, the news agenda was formulated to communicate a strong sense of nationalism, sporting achievements and images of a world in chaos contrasting with the “peaceful” image of Chile. In addition, the news agenda of the dictatorship attempted to “demonize” the democratic political activity (Portales et al 1989, 17). As Portales observes, during the military rule media politics was portrayed as an activity conducted by ambitious and selfish politicians who were eager to achieve power by any means (1989, 17). 9
The news agenda of the 1990s has tended to overemphasise the agreements and consensus negotiated by the former and new authorities. It has been a manufactured news agenda that has tended to ignore the deep contradictions affecting the post‐dictatorship period. As Bengoa rightly observes: “the media have brought into being nothing and have put a lid on conflicts” (1995, 24). In this news agenda of “non‐conflicts” and “agreements,” the post‐
dictatorship media have failed to disseminate key issues that should have been part of public debate and the political sphere. News stories have not represented, for example, the activities and the performance of the parliament as a fundamental institution in the process of 227
democratisation. The media representation and exposure of key laws and legislation have been poorly covered, leaving citizens poorly equipped to engage in public debate (Afani, Interview 2001). 10 Political activity and its function of representation and mediation has not been a priority in the news agenda of the post‐dictatorship period. Frequently political institutions and political actors have drawn the attention of the citizens insofar as they were part of a scandal or part of entertainment (Munizaga 2004, 177‐182). One of the most evident features of the media system in creating a meaningful news agenda in the transition has been the failure to incorporate and empower civil society. As was argued in a previous section of this work, the incorporation of civil society is one of the main factors in building a solid democratic process. The media have sidelined the problems and aspirations of civil society, demonstrating along the way Habermas’ critique of the contemporary way the media work. Habermas has argued that the media are no longer an agency of empowerment and rationality, and have become a further means by which the public are sidelined (1989, 160). This is especially crucial insofar as the role of civil society has been traditionally regarded as a key variable in the media and in democratic transition efforts. 11 While political debate has been conspicuously absent from the news agenda, economic activity has been given far more generous coverage. Issues such as macro‐economic achievements and the diversification of the export industry have been frequent stories in the print and electronic news media. A central objective of this expanded coverage is the attempt to validate and legitimise the economic model that was left in place by the dictatorship. Most of the economic stories have projected the image of a “winning country” that was able to overcome its economic underdevelopment. The media have constructed the image of Chile as the “Latin American economic tiger” equivalent to the 1990s economic achievement of some Asian countries. Chile has been portrayed as a society on the verge of becoming a first world economy. 12 228
The news agenda of the transition has been designed to fit into the negotiated nature of the Chilean political transition. 13 Therefore, it has become evident that the transition required a news agenda that downplays or even conceals the unresolved conflicts that exist within this society. Munizaga argues that the transition has seen a news agenda that works towards two objectives: to avoid or at least give minimal coverage to social and political disagreements and, on the other hand, to overemphasize the coverage of stories where agreements and consensus have been reached (1993, 96). 14 Most of the economic news agenda has been constructed around government spokespersons, members of the financial elite and those who have benefited from this economic model. There is a manifest absence of dissenting voices, those who have not benefited from the economic system. They are the poorest of society, workers, peasants and ethnic minorities. If the media have the capacity to frame events in order to interpret them in one‐way rather than another, as Iyengar has suggested (1991), the Chilean case is a good case in point. During the transition, the news agenda has created the image of a society centred on economic issues, on individual success achieved through the individual participation in the financial market and on a well‐being maximised by private consumption (Moulian 1998). Martínez observes that political opinion polls have been incorporated into the news agenda of the main Chilean news organisations and during the electoral period they have been constructed as major political stories (1999). This is neither a new, nor local trend. The Chilean media have also entered into this “international trend” that shows the tendency of political news to be framed in terms of game‐like events. This media trend tends to emphasise individual personalities instead of policies and politics becomes a “horse race.” Martínez’s analysis mirrors Levy’s view that this agenda‐setting approach constructs politics as a mere struggle for power instead of a matter of serious debate (1981). 15 The social hegemonic discourse of the transition has tended to muddy, instead of clarify for citizens the complexities and difficulties of the post‐dictatorship transition. The media have been unable to contribute to public enlightenment. Instead what has taken place in the 229
transition is a political discourse that represents a “consensus” reached about the political and economic model. This has become a very problematic issue insofar as the consensus has been imposed and promoted from the top down. A hegemonic media have portrayed consensus as fundamental for rebuilding democracy and healing the traumatic past (Zerán 2004, 117‐123). Apart from the “news agenda of consensus” the Chilean media have opted for news stories that favour sensationalism, scandal and lot of sport. Indeed, the excessive profusion of sport stories has become the best example of the existence of a non‐meaningful news agenda (Walder 2005, 2). Any observer of the news stories published in the main Chilean print and electronic media would agree with Héctor Vera who points out that the news agenda of the transition has been dominated by sport‐entertainment or sport‐scandal (1998, 21). Needless to say this is not unique to Chile. The presence of sport and entertainment is a response to the parameters of market logic and is driven by the search for ratings. It is also important to point out that the emphasis on entertainment is part of the effort to depoliticise society and disempower society. The transition has seen the abundance of a news agenda that tends to be dull, repetitive and superficial. Political news has been replaced by what has been labelled as scandalogy where a substantial part of the news agenda involves some sort of scandal, including the alleged homosexuality of prominent members of the judiciary and the consumption of drugs by members of parliament (Vera 1998). Issues that have been considered fundamental to consolidation of the transition and to the process of reconciliation have been excluded from the news agenda. One of those issues relates to human rights violations and the discovery of the bodies of hundreds of Chileans who disappeared during the dictatorship. One of the most notable examples in this regard was the media coverage given to the Rettig Report of 1991. The Rettig Report was a major institutional effort to document the human rights violations committed during the Pinochet government. Arguably it was a vital opportunity for Chileans to incorporate into their 230
collective memory the events of the past. However the media failed the test. Media organizations failed to incorporate this document into the news agenda thus losing the opportunity to become a mediator between a unique historical moment and Chilean citizens. The long anticipated public debate about the findings and outcomes of the Rettig Report never occurred (Cárdenas, Interview 2004). 16
There is no doubt that the incorporation of the findings of this report into the journalistic narrative was constrained by the consensus negotiated by the armed forces, the political right and the ruling Concertación. The pressure placed by the Concertación on media organisations and individual editors to avoid substantial coverage of the historic document revealed that the ruling political elite has been more concerned to avoid conflict with the armed forces and the judicial powers than to place memories of the past on the public agenda. Furthermore, the failure to cover the Rettig Report, as an issue that went to the heart of the process of reconciliation and justice, exposed the sterilized news agenda that has predominated during the transition. 17 Journalistic Collective Culture Inherently linked to this impoverished news agenda is the maintenance of a culture of censorship and a highly restrictive legal environment that has significantly affected the journalistic ethos and practices. The transition has been an historical context in which journalists have been viewed as undesirable witnesses, not beneficial to the “democracy by agreement.” They are perceived as annoying observers of the many shortcomings of the transition. The journalism practice in the transition has changed little from that during the dictatorship, when self‐censorship was rife (Castillo 1996). Chilean journalism is still embedded in an authoritarian culture and there is a great deal of conformity in the coverage of controversial issues. In this framework Chilean journalists have been unable to become what Lippman called “constitutive of governance and public life” (1919, 71). In a context where news stories are mainly produced around the official news angle and by the reliance on news sources that tend to represent the interests and the 231
aspirations of the elite, Chilean journalists have become mere channels and magnifiers of the official discourse. In addition government and industry have forced journalists to relinquish the role of watchdog. Journalists are becoming only “reporters” of the “what” of any given story instead of being narrators and instruments of enlightenment. It is significant to observe that the journalism ethos that has been manifested during the Chilean transition is not much different from the one that, in the last few decades, has characterised global journalism. 18 It has been repeatedly suggested that global and local conflicts demand journalists develop a role as moral disseminators and not just reporters of any given event. A careful reading of the media in Chile shows that the journalism of the transition has been precisely characterised by this absence of a narrative and engagement that could assist in explaining and negotiating the entrenched conflicts that have characterised the post‐dictatorship period. Within the profession itself, the emphasis is still very much on collecting information and less on directing the social flow of information and public debate (Bernedo, Interview 2001). 19
Schultz suggests that globally contemporary journalism has seen a sharp decline in analytical news coverage and a preference for factual and descriptive reporting (1992, 22). This is also true of Chilean journalism. In the last two decades Chilean investigative journalism has shown a dramatic decline in its ability to scrutinise public figures. This is a feature further accentuated by the constraints imposed by the Chilean democracy by agreement. The investigative journalism that paradoxically flourished during the dictatorship disappeared along with the alternative media. 20 The transition to democracy has lacked a truly inquisitive, analytical journalism capable of critically exposing and disseminating some of the main problems and conflicts in Chilean society (Faundes 2001). Indeed there has been no expression of journalism able, for example, to question issues such as the negative effect of the economic model upon the disastrous state of the health, education and pension systems. The obstacles to the development of more 232
inquisitive journalism, or investigative journalism, are many. An investigation cited by Faundes (2001) identifies that the main obstacles are the fear of confronting the political and economic powers; the fear of being subject to legal threats, pressure from the armed forces and the lack of access to information. Another important factor behind the lack of a more inquisitive kind of journalism is the constraints imposed by a highly concentrated media environment owned by entrepreneurs linked to the Chilean political Right. Sunkel and Otano argue this situation has led to an endemic culture of media authoritarianism and self‐censorship in the newsroom (2000). Indeed this is not unique to Chile. Globally there is an increasingly potent role played by institutional owners and investors in the direction of media organisations. This is not simply confined to the province of owners and investors choosing directors or the determination of executive share options, but potentially extends to influencing the selection of editors, program managers, news editors and ultimately editorial content itself (Ackland 2004, 11) Chilean journalists work in a highly authoritarian and hierarchical work environment. Although this is not a new reality, this hierarchical environment has been accentuated during the transition as a result of the extremely authoritarian cultural transformation experienced by Chilean society. The newsroom, the hub of newsgathering and production, along with the collective culture of the news desk, has been described by reporters as the fundo (the ranch). The fundo typifies a newsroom working culture that resembles the relationship of authoritarianism, dependency and hierarchy that has traditionally been characteristic of the peasant (journalist) and the landowner (editor) relationship (Acevedo, Interview 2001). 21 Otano and Sunkel argue that the result of this is a model of professional order, control and rigidity more appropriate to an industrial unit than a newsroom (1999). In this context, journalists have become complacent and at the same time highly dependent on the so‐called official sources and individuals in positions of power (Mosciatti 2001). In this controlled environment journalists are not able to develop their professional skills and knowledge. In a hierarchical chain of command, editors receive instructions from the media owners who then 233
instruct journalists about the news agenda, news framing and even the sources that they should consult. Additionally, the administrative style, the large number of journalism graduates and the lack of positions or legal protection, have brought about a competitive job market full of insecurity. 22 Santibañez observes that journalists able to find employment – not an easy task in the small media market – will perform their duties within the fundo syndrome and without a clear understanding of the role they should play in a democratic system (1994). The arrest of General Pinochet in London in 1998 was an example of the constraints imposed, or even self‐imposed, on the way this story was covered in Chile. While international journalists, including foreign correspondents based in Santiago, provided a context for the arrest of the former dictator, informing the community of his crimes, their Chilean counterparts wrote about Pinochet without mentioning his role in the breakdown of democracy and his responsibility for the thousands of Chileans who died or disappeared during his government. The language and the narrative used to cover the Pinochet case showed the endemic fear still existent in Chilean society in general, and in the press in particular. Chilean journalists were forced to master euphemisms in order to write about the arrest of the former dictator attempting to avoid upsetting media proprietors, the armed forces and even the government of the Concertación. Most of the stories of the period referred to Pinochet as “Senator‐for Life” while the international press referred to him as the “former dictator.” Macari suggests that when journalists referred to Pinochet as “Senator‐for‐Life” the story became situated in a present that is devoid of memory, conveniently forgotten by necessity” (1999, 34). During the transition, journalists have been forced to diminish the dramatic meaning of the dictatorship by referring to the period as an authoritarian regime. It is not just semantics. It is an attempt by media owners to manipulate the journalistic language and narrative to socialise the notion that General Pinochet was a legitimate ruler 234
and his crimes were “alleged human rights violations” and the institutionalised practice of torture has become “illegitimate judicial compulsion,” as the law defines it. The story of the arrest of General Pinochet was framed showing an ancient statesman arrested by a foreign power in violation of national sovereignty. The way the arrest of the former dictator was covered by the Chilean media illustrates the idea that new stories are not simple transcriptions of actuality but highly constructed treatments of reality. The way that the arrest of the former dictator was framed by most of the Chilean media, and the internalization of the arrest as an offence to all Chileans by a powerful foreign power, exposed the dominant ideological news monopoly exercised by the two most powerful media organisations in Chile, El Mercurio and La Tercera (Zerán 2000). Ideological News Monopoly The economic concentration of the media around El Mercurio S.A. and Copesa has powerfully influenced the news agenda of the transition. 23 As I examined in the previous section, these two conglomerates are the owners or powerful investors in the majority of print and electronic media organizations in Chile. The editorial line and agenda setting that shapes the way news are produced and disseminated in Chile is clearly influenced by the common financial and ideological interests of those who own the main media organizations and the financial elite that control most financial sectors in Chile. As Sunkel observes, Chilean media owners and also those who control the advertising market are deeply marked by an ideological vision associated with economic neo‐liberalism and moral conservatism (2002). Cabezas argues that the media concentration has assisted the formulation of a news agenda that is clearly pro‐business and pro‐right‐wing ideological views, and has not only defended the economic interests of the Chilean elite, but has also promoted conservative right‐wing social and religious values (2000, November 30). As has been argued earlier in this work, the highly monopolised media power block is a central channel of power for Chilean 235
conservative forces. During the transition they have exercised power not through direct political coercion but through indirect ideological and cultural control. In addition, as media organizations, they exercise an almost unchallenged role in shaping the daily news agenda and public debate. This has been accentuated due to the lack of an alternative, independent media. Cortés points out that without an alternative and pluralistic media apparatus able to counteract the ideological monopoly of the Chilean Right; these two media organisations have set the agenda and wielded a powerful influence on public opinion (1998, 557‐611). Chilean award winning journalist Patricia Verdugo observes that throughout the transition to democracy, the majority of the mass media have been dominated by a news pauta (news agenda) established by El Mercurio newspaper (2003, 43). Although most Chileans get their news and information from television, it is however El Mercurio that sets the pauta for the rest of the media, including radio and television. 24 The majority of the print and electronic media develop their own news agenda, including what is and is not published or broadcast, along the internalised guidelines established by El Mercurio. El Mercurio is the main mechanism used by the political and economic right‐wing elite to shape Chilean public opinion and construct a hegemonic discourse of the financial and economic elite (Nef 1999, 98). El Mercurio newspaper has constructed a news agenda that negates, or at least put in doubt, the crimes committed by the dictatorship. Elgueta observes that despite the well documented investigation into the murder and disappearance of thousands of dissidents during the dictatorship, El Mercurio has attempted to question the veracity of the findings and has kept alive the version that missing people could be alive and living a comfortable life in foreign countries (2000, 36). Human rights stories and the trials of those involved have either been ignored or published in less prominent places. For example, in a landmark decision on May 19, 2000, the Supreme Court ruled that the “disappearance” of a person while under arrest was equivalent to a 236
kidnapping therefore it was a crime not covered by the law of amnesty promulgated by Pinochet. The judgement opened the legal possibility of taking the former dictator to trial. A major story published in the international press received minor coverage by El Mercurio. It was buried on page 2 of section “C.” Délano, Luengo and Salazar Delano make a key point of this. They argue: “when Augustín Edwards [the owner of El Mercurio] decides not to publish a story that might be considered negative to his economic group or to his political or economic views, he leaves more than half of Chileans without access to this information” (1983, 13). Despite its participation in the military coup of 1973 and its undisputed support for the dictatorship, El Mercurio has maintained its hegemonic power of news agenda setting and its influence on the construction of public opinion. It has not lost “legitimacy” which is undoubtedly due to a process of internalisation of the idea that El Mercurio is a “serious” newspaper invested with a reputation of journalism objectivity. This idea has been even assimilated by the intellectuals and political leaders of the left. In 2001, during the celebration of 100 years of this newspaper, President Ricardo Lagos, a socialist and former leading official for President Allende, commented: “it is not possible to understand Chilean history without understanding the role played by El Mercurio” (Dermota 2002, 12). This comment illustrates that El Mercurio not only enjoys economic power and political influence, but it also enjoys what Gramsci calls a “cultural hegemony” (1978). 25
During the transition, El Mercurio has been able to introduce and establish a set of conservative principles and right‐wing ideological values within the public sphere. On key social issues, such as divorce, drugs, abortion and law and order, El Mercurio tends to rely on sources related to the Catholic Church, the armed forces, and judicial powers. Civil society has not been consulted on these matters. El Mercurio relies on its agenda setting power to channel the debate on social issues away from the civil society and straight to the political elite, including the government. In this way the civil society is marginalised and excluded from the public debate (Arancibia, Interview 2004). 26
237
In a previous section of this work it was mentioned that El Mercurio is one of the most effective and influential poderes fácticos (de‐facto non‐elected powers). In this non‐elected role, El Mercurio has been able to influence policy makers on a wide range of social and even moral issues. It was precisely this newspaper that lobbied to bring about one of the most important reforms to the university system. Public universities were practically dismantled and private universities flooded the educational system. Hundreds of new journalism schools emerged in the private sector. The majority of these academic institutions are under the control of financial conglomerates and individual entrepreneurs closely linked to El Mercurio, the armed forces and to the ultraconservative Catholic Opus‐Dei or Legionarios de Cristo movements (Lagos 2002, 7). El Mercurio has embraced the views and disseminated in its news agenda some of the most conservative views of the Catholic Church on social matters such as homosexuality, the use of contraceptives and divorce. Chile is among four other countries where divorce is still not legal and El Mercurio has been a leading voice in maintaining the status quo. Furthermore in 1999 the newspaper attempted to muscle legislators who were in favour of giving the same rights and status to children born outside marriage The agenda setting of El Mercurio has been constructed around the interests of the wealthy elite and has excluded the demands of workers. Essentially, the hegemonic media denies workers access to the news agenda. During the 1999 congressional debate on labour reforms, this broadsheet failed systematically to give coverage to the demands of workers. Throughout the whole period of negotiation, the newspaper did not mention the effect of the reforms on workers’ conditions. During the coverage of this crucial debate, union leaders were not given space to express their industrial demands or views about the negotiations in Congress. However, El Mercurio included the views of US investors who expressed their fears regarding new labour reforms designed to provide better salary conditions to blue collar workers. The only inclusion in the news agenda of workers’ points of view was the graphic representation of their demands expressed during street rallies. There was an obvious 238
attempt to construct workers’ demands as unreasonable and even violent. La Tercera repeated this media coverage. At the height of the negotiations, La Tercera published, in its edition of December 1, 1999, the photo of an injured policeman bleeding profusely alongside a story about a workers’ rally and an interview with the leaders of the Central Unitaria de Trabajadores or CUT, the main Chilean workers’ union. The coverage of this industrial action demonstrates the way these two powerful mediums, especially El Mercurio, exerts its hegemonic presence in the Chilean media landscape in order to manipulate events, news angles and sources. The traditional sources of El Mercurio are the high‐ranking members of the armed forces, the presidents of the main professional colleges and the government officials sympathetic to the current economic model. Unquestionably El Mercurio has constructed its news agenda by relying on traditional sources that promote the class and financial interests of the Chilean Right. Owned by the same proprietors of the profitable private health institutions, neither El Mercurio nor La Tercera, have published stories questioning a private health system that excludes the poorest sectors of Chilean society. A similar approach has been taken regarding stories on retirement funds, the housing industry and road tolls; activities controlled by private investors with financial links to the media system. These connections explain the frequent coverage given to stories about new housing and road investments. For example, La Tercera has given an extraordinary level of coverage to stories warning drivers of severe penalties for evading motorway tolls. The same newspaper has given wide coverage to local councils that have obstructed development applications. Needless to say, the main investors in the tollways and in the development industry include some of the main shareholders of Copesa, publisher of La Tercera (Canales 2000, 16). One of the major social conflicts witnessed during the transition to democracy, especially since the second half of the 1990s, has been the claim by the Mapuches, the largest indigenous group in Chile, to their ancestral land. Most of the lands claimed are located in the south of Chile and within the area of the lucrative logging industry. One of the largest 239
investors in the logging industry is El Mercurio S.A. conglomerate that has not hesitated to employ its flagship media apparatus, El Mercurio newspaper, to construct an anti‐indigenous news agenda that has been replicated by the rest of the Chilean media. Lagos argues this news agenda has been an openly biased coverage framed around business sources and positions of view held by the timber and logging industry (Lagos 1961, 140‐142). The so‐
called “indigenous conflict” has been profusely covered with very weak attempts to provide the views and aspirations of the indigenous people. The story has been spectacular‐ised and has been framed to give the impression that the conflict has reached a level of intensity only comparable to the Chiapas uprising in Mexico (Munizaga 1993, 94). The indigenous claims have been promoted as acts of violence perpetrated by left‐wing non‐
indigenous people, and as a threat to social stability and even to democracy. As Salazar observes, El Mercurio has stereotyped indigenous mobilisation by focussing solely on the violent features and civil disobedience of the Mapuche’s actions (2004, 6). Neither El Mercurio nor the rest of the Chilean mainstream media have made an effort to construct stories able to provide sufficient context to the indigenous demands. Mapuches are one of the most impoverished and dispossessed social and cultural groups in Chile. Their stories are rarely heard. On May 15, 2000, El Mercurio published several photos taken during one of the largest indigenous rallies ever seen in Chile. From a peaceful public demonstration along the central streets of Santiago, El Mercurio published several front‐page stories showing the activists attacking the police force. After a close examination of the pictorial representation and examination of the events by independent officials, El Mercurio was found to have doctored the photos; and the reality was that the police were attacking the protesters in an attempt to disperse the rally (Osorio 2000, 6). 27 El Mercurio and La Tercera do not publish photos of impoverished dwellers of shantytowns, except when they are involved in an act of delinquency or violence. Law and order has been a recurrent theme in the news agenda of El Mercurio and has been a personal theme 240
undertaken by the aging owner of this conglomerate, Agustín Edwards. His views are made public through his newspaper and by Paz Ciudadana (Peaceful Citizenship), a foundation established in 1992 to provide advice and information to the government on issues of law and order. This foundation has become the main source of information for crime stories published in El Mercurio and La Tercera (Ramos and Guzmám de Luigi 2000). Enrique Oviedo, in his study on urban law and order, identifies the media as the main source of public perceptions about the level of criminality (1994, 277‐312). This is an issue well understood by El Mercurio and La Tercera. The news agenda of these two newspapers tends to exaggerate the level of criminality and the image of a democracy “soft on crime.” This is an attempt to question the ability of democracy to provide a safe environment. The level of criminality has not increased significantly since the end of the dictatorship. This media manipulation has been internalised among Chileans who believe they live in a violent country. A 1998 United Nations study shows that 78 percent of Chileans believe that it is highly likely they will be victims of a street assault. The same study shows that only 17 percent of Chileans have ever been victims of a street assault and 82 percent mentioned they have never been assaulted (United Nations 1998, 130). It is especially El Mercurio that tends to remind readers of the security and tranquillity enjoyed during the dictatorship. Television, Political Communication and Consumption In an earlier section it was observed that, in most democratic societies, television is the main source of political information for citizens. It is a medium trusted by the people (Dalton 1996, 23). In some post‐dictatorship societies, such as post Franco‐Spain, television became the main channel of political communication (Gunther et al 2002, 72). This has not happened with the Chilean television system. The deregulation, commercialisation and privatisation of the television system are the major factors that have conspired to transform Chilean television into an ineffective channel of political communication. 241
Chilean television is very much part of the product of the 1980s global deregulation process, producing more and more commercial broadcasting channels. Dependence on commercial advertising as the medium’s only source of funding and income is a key factor in replacing a “meaningful news agenda” with entertainment. The objective of the media, therefore, is not to promote a free marketplace of ideas or to provide policy‐relevant information to viewers, but rather “to attract and hold a large audience for advertisers” (Jamieson and Campbell 1988, 4). Against this backdrop of television consumption and commercialisation, the Chilean television landscape tends to demonstrate what Viswanatah and Finnegan call the “knowledge gap” (1996). Essentially Viswanatah and Finnegan have revealed that the spread of television consumption to more and more people involving larger segments of their time – and this is exactly what has happened in Chile since the 1990s – does not equalise the stock of politically relevant knowledge among subgroups of society, but instead widens such gaps between them (1996). Accordingly, the chance of equal democratic participation has grown slimmer. While the “civic” knowledge gap has increased, especially after the process of deregulation and modernisation of the television system, television content has been dumbed down creating what Santa Cruz describes as “plebs‐isation” of the Chilean television (2000, 102). This has been brought about by the increasing presence of programs with heavy emphasis on simplistic and coarse language, especially in comedies and the pre‐eminence of presenters characterised by their irreverence and superficiality. Without criticising this model of television, Santa Cruz argues this process of vulgarisation of television responds to the construction of a discourse that represents the choice and taste of the public. The vulgarisation of Chilean television, a sub‐product of the process of modernisation, has been rightly criticised as an abandonment of the founding basis of the television system. 28 Cruz argues that Chilean television in the transition to democracy has developed into a neo‐
populist system administered from and by the market (2000, 104). 242
The market and the process of deregulation not only eroded the public‐service ethics of television but also brought about a communication system that provided citizens less policy‐
relevant information (Gunther 2002, 442). The Chilean erosion of the television as an educational system that was deeply committed to an ethos of public service debunks the wisdom that market forces and the minimisation of the state and public sector roles will enhance the quality of democracy and its media system. Chilean television echoes the international trend whereby the stronger the dominance of the commercial broadcast media, the less policy‐relevant information content on television broadcasts and the more “news” programs tend to focus on horse races, the game of politics, and the personalities, peccadillos, and pitfalls of politicians. The decline of political news in television is illustrated by industrial decisions taken by television stations. In September 2002, the news and current affairs section of the state run TVN suffered the loss of hundreds of employees, among them political reporters, producers and technicians. This has resulted in the decline of news and current affairs services and a lack of in‐depth investigative journalism (Fariña, Interview 2003). 29 The role of the market has become the central articulator of the cultural products produced by the television system. On the other hand, the conception of a self‐funding public television has produced television content described as vulgar and shoddy. It has proven that deregulation and the reliance on commercial advertising has become a powerful inducement to emphasise entertainment instead of serious political information (Carrasco 2001). In this context, television coverage of politics tends to reduce politicians to celebrities and “news” to a game of personalities. Indeed, the personalisation of political campaigns is now the main political strategy used around the world (Bowler and Farrell 1992; Butler and Ranney 1992; Swanson and Mancini 1996). As has been observed Chilean television coverage of the last three elections has followed the international pattern of providing little substance and a lot of entertainment. The general trend is toward simplification and personalisation of political news coverage. 30 243
The growing predominance of television as the principal medium of political communication in combination with “media logic” (Altheide and Snow 1979) has produced a tendency to “spectacularize” the events and themes of politics in order to attract mass audiences. This involves a degree of personalization of politics and an increasing tendency to regard the coverage of political news as entertainment rather than political communication per se. Ranney observes that this “media logic” tends to confirm that television is poorly suited to disseminating the complexity of political news; instead it is better suited to the projection of personal images of politicians (1983). As is true in the rest of Latin America, Chilean television has transformed the way political candidates are developed, marketed, and consolidated. It is also transforming the way in which politicians govern once they reach office. Writing about political transitions and the media, Skidmore suggest that the evolving relationship between the Latin American state and the media over the course of the twentieth century has enabled Latin American broadcasting industries to achieve this position of political strength and autonomy (1992). Chilean television news and current affairs have become shaped by the logic of entertainment emphasising the most dramatic aspects of human life. Television newscasts now include more human‐interest stories, shorter sound bites, and more dramatic visuals, while newspaper stories have become shorter, more conflict‐ridden, and more story‐like, a news formula that is believed to have more appeal to viewers and readers than alternative formats. Moreover, television has been instrumental in constructing news programming that has reinforced the deep social and class divisions in Chilean society. Programming has established a pattern of social discrimination by reinforcing a model of representation that privileges the image of young, middle class people with a European physical appearance. Rebolledo observes that the abuse of stereotypes that has portrayed the poorest citizens as grotesque human beings is a manifestation of a class‐oriented television news agenda and 244
general programming (2000, 39). Systematically the television system has ignored the problems and demands of indigenous people, workers and the urban poor. Television has also played the role of idealising a society full of contradictions, especially through the ever‐
popular telenovelas (soap operas). Chilean sociologist Tomás Moulián argues that soap operas tend to convey the idea of a society of the “rich and beautiful;” and poverty becomes sanitised (1998, 24). Finally, it is important to point out that the most popular cultural products with mass appeal are those that come from television and they have played a central role in the modernisation of the masses. This echoes Martín Barbero’s idea that in the twentieth century, the Latin American masses have been modernised far more from cultural industries and television than from books, schools or by the influence of the intellectual elite (1996). In this context and within the parameters of the transitional period, television programs attempt to make sense of the day‐to‐day culture and the construction of a national reality. As Ossa points out, this is done in a context of globalising the local experiences and nationalising the global (2000). In this modernising post dictatorship model, the market has become the axis that articulates the majority of social practices. Garcia Canclini argues television, to some extent, has become the space where the “public” functions and the audience becomes the “modern citizen” (1995). In the case of the Chilean context Rosana Alvarado observes that the television system has functioned as the “space of the public” and the vulgarisation of this space is no more than a populist mechanism of citizen’s engagement and cooption (1997). Instead of citizens, audiences have become profoundly de‐politicised consumers. The transition of democracy has been characterised by its crisis of representation. The reaction of the television system to this crisis has not been encouraging. Ortega Frei and Saffirio Suárez concludes – and this is particularly relevant to the Chilean reality – that the television news agenda has promoted political passivity and has opened spaces of non‐
critical and non‐argumentative public participation (1999, 25). 245
Notes 1 Meaningful information, or a meaningful news agenda, can also be understood as political communication that disseminates democratic values, norms of tolerance and a wide range of pluralistic views. 2 This is closely related to the assumption that the media can directly influence the public’s priorities. 3 The nature of the selection of news tends to demonstrate Mickelson’s observation about news: that it as a subjective construction of, instead of a mirror of, reality (1972). 4 The key reason for avoiding politics – or rather “party” politics in the news agenda – is the confrontational nature of Chilean political activity. 5 Eduardo Santa Cruz is an academic and teaches media studies, Universidad ARCIS and Universidad de Chile. He is the author of Modelos y estrategias de la prensa escrita en procesos de modernizacion: Chile siglo XX. Interview, Santiago 2001. 6 The nature of the news agenda of mainstream Chilean media organizations tends to confirm the argument of Erickson, Baranek and Chan who suggest that the traditional and most recurrent notion – or definition – of news as “representation of authority” (1989, 3). 7 Jorge Peña is a historian with a special interest on media and journalism history. Interview, La Serena 2002. 8 This scenario shows that in the day‐to‐ day journalism practice, the focus is on a few individuals, the politicians, rather than on the broader interests they represent and the broader political forces that shape their choices. 9 In the transition the news agenda has been marked by a simplification and a neglect of issues of fundamental importance to the recomposition of the democratic institutions. 10 Paula Afani, is a journalist. A reporter for newspaper La Tercera, Paula Afani faced a possible five‐year prison sentence for alleged offences under both laws (Article 19 (2) of the Law on Abuses of Publicity and Article 34 of the Law against Illegal Drug‐Trafficking), for including testimony in her reporting that the government claims was secret. Interview, Santiago 2001. 11 It is possible to argue that the absence of social experiences that correspond to the new terminology of democracy undermines the capacity of audiences to convert communication content into stable political identifications and beliefs. 246
12 The growing poverty and the scandalous gap between the haves and have nots, produced by this economic system, has not found a place in the news agenda of the transition. 13 Undoubtedly, the government and the opposition regarded a news agenda with less emphasis on the news value of conflict as less threatening to democracy by agreement. 14 One of the central agreements between the new rulers and the former regime is about the maintenance of the neo‐liberal economy model. There has been an evident hegemonic objective by the economic and political elite, which is to construct a perception of an undisputed agreement about the market economy model. 15 This has not only created a profound disenchantment about political activity but it has also tarnished the democratization process. 16 Juan Pablo Cárdenas is a journalist and he was the editor of Revista Análisis. He is the current director of Radio Universidad de Chile. Interview, Santiago 2004. 17 As Walder observers, the mainstream media have established an “irrelevant news agenda” that has made political information irrelevant (2005, 2). Rightly, Walder points out that political information has been relegated to a dialogue held between the elite and enclosed in the hermetic space of the four walls occupied by the Chilean political, military and economic powers. 18 Described by Ignatieff as an “absence of narratives of explanation,” this practice of journalism is eroding the ability of establishing a journalism of engagement (1997, 98). 19 Patricio Bernedo is an academic and teaches media studies at the Universidad Católica. Interview, Santiago 2001. 20 For example, Revista Cauce (Cauce Magazine) was the most outstanding investigative publication. It disappeared during the transition. 21 Paulina Acevedo is the Coordinator of the Department of Communications and Public Relations, Universidad Diego Portales. Interview, Santiago 2001. 22 Around 6,000 journalism university graduates compete each year in a small job market. Less than half of them will be able to get a job. 23 El Mercurio S.A. and Copesa have financial interests beyond the media. They include interests in the profitable retirement funds, private health institutions, and in mining and forestry. 247
24 This echoes the historical tradition of the Chilean media where newspapers have been the main agents of socialization and public opinion formation. 25 The economic media monopoly and the lack of a media policy able to promote media plurality have indeed reinforced this Gramscian cultural hegemony. 26 Juan Pablo Arancibia is an academic and teaches media studies at the Universidad Arcis and Universidad de Chile. Interview, Santiago 2004. 27 It was a return to the old Cold War techniques of media manipulation used by El Mercurio during 1970‐1973 against the government of Salvador Allende. 28 As mentioned earlier in this thesis, the television system emerged as an instrument of social promotion and education. Santa 29 Ricardo Fariña is a radio journalist. Interview, Santiago 2003. 30 Chilean politicians have learned the international lesson – analysed by Kaid and Holtz‐
Bacha – of investing considerable amounts of money in perfecting their skill in using television as the main conduit of their electoral message (1995). 248
4.9 Criminalizing Freedom of Expression and Freedom of the Press Principles and Fundamental Rights For Chilean journalists, especially those who carried out their work in the alternative, pro democracy and independent media during the dictatorship, the transition to democracy was a promise of better times. It was a promise of freedom of expression, freedom of information and the guarantee of protection. However, this promise was not been fulfilled. After more than a decade of the endless transition, the progress in expanding freedom of expression and information was inadequate and incomplete. As Sunkel and Geoffroy comment, the democratically elected governments of the post‐dictatorship period have not guaranteed the right to freedom of expression (2001, 21). 1
The setbacks and lack of progress in terms of freedom of expression and freedom of the press have brought about an unflattering assessment by the international observer, the Human Rights Watch. In several documents made public throughout the 1990s and in early 2000, Human Rights Watch declared that the level of freedom of expression and information in Chile is well below that of any western democracy (Brett 1998). Lenisset Toro observes that that during the transition to democracy the newly elected authorities and the legal system have continued applying deeply authoritarian, archaic and undemocratic legislation, contravening citizens rights to freedom of expression and access of information (1999, 79). According to journalist Pablo Sepulveda “the slow pace of democratic reforms of the political and constitutional structures has been reflected in the sluggish progress towards the establishment of a legal environment that encourages, promotes and safeguards of freedom expression and freedom of the press” (Interview 2002). 2 The entrenched cultural and legal 249
authoritarianism 3 that permeates society – remnants of the lengthy dictatorship –have succeeded in stifling freedom of expression, public debate and have discouraged a robust and pluralistic media landscape. The deficiency in this area has not only contributed to the impoverishment of freedom of expression and resulted in a low quality of Chilean journalism 4 but it has also been a factor behind the establishment of what Carlos Peña describes as the presence of a “timorous media” (2005, D21). Due to the harsh media laws in place, journalists tend to operate in an environment of self‐censorship. In this chapter, it will be argued that the Chilean authoritarian culture internalised by the Chilean political elite and the anachronistic legal system have also been major stumbling blocks to the development of a more free media environment, a central factor in the consolidation of a democratic process. 5 During the dark days of the military dictatorship, journalists were stigmatized as “undesirable witnesses.” Although the transition certainly has provided some advances in terms of physical security, journalists are still considered undesirable witnesses to a political process full of uncertainties and flaws. This was clearly announced during the first years of the transition to democracy. Under the governments of presidents Patricio Aylwin and Eduardo Frei 24 Chilean journalists were put on trial allegedly for breaching the authoritarian Chilean legal system and two others were forced to leave the country to avoid certain imprisonment. 6 Central obstacles to freedom of expression and freedom of the press have been the inability and political unwillingness of new authorities to dismantle some of the most regressive laws refined and introduced during the dictatorship. Assessing the progress in revising the repressive media legislation, Human Rights Watch argued that the slow pace of reforms has been due to the government’s inclination to maintain “its political capital intact on behalf of political objectives it considers more important” (1998, 51). This assessment is coherent with 250
the nature of the political transition where freedom of expression and a robust media environment have been discouraged by the new authorities. The internalised fear of a possible political regression has been a fundamental factor in establishing a limited and sedated sphere of public debate, political expression and media freedom. The development of a political context able to guarantee the free expression of ideas, access to information, opinions and critique on matters of public interest is essential to the existence of a truly consolidated democratic system. Freedom of expression and freedom of the press are perhaps two of the most powerful instruments that contribute to the success of a post‐
dictatorship democratic transition. As principles, freedom of expression and freedom of the press validate and confirm the consolidation of the democratisation process. Historically freedom of the press has been defined as the sovereignty to establish, print and circulate newspapers, magazines and leaflets. Contemporarily and following the development of the ʺnew mediaʺ television, radio and the Internet, this principle was extended to any mass communication media created to obtain and disseminate communication products such as news, and entertainment. In addition the principle of the free press also involves the right to determine the way and the format in which the communication product will be disseminated. These are the basic principles. In the context of a truly consolidated democratic system, freedom of the press plays a social and political role. This includes informing citizens about the opinions, objectives, policies and even the attitudes of those in charge of governing and administering the state. A free press and an expanded sphere of freedom of expression, allows citizens to have an informed opinion about their politicians and their policies. On the other hand, political leaders rely on the press to reflect on matters of public opinion. Political leaders and policy makers rely on a free and pluralistic press to disseminate their programs and social aspirations. 7 The notion that the freedom of expression is closely attached to the concept of democracy is applicable to political debate. Fundamental to the principle of freedom of expression, 251
freedom of the press and democracy is the right to participate in public debate, to formulate political ideas without fear of repression and the right to scrutinise the work and performance of the democratically elected authorities. It is within this principle that the press is called upon to be the magnifier of freedom of expression, public debate and public figure scrutiny. It is widely believed that social and constitutional contexts that guarantee freedom of expression, combined with the protection of a free press, provide a firm defence against censorship, political control and persecution of journalists. It is also an environment that consecrates the rights of all citizens to receive uncensored news, ideas and opinions. In addition it provides an ideal context of newsgathering by establishing legal mechanisms used by journalists to have access to public and government information. Furthermore, a guaranteed freedom of expression scenario widens the scope of operation of a free press, even to situations that may not be ideal but are still essential to the role the media play in society. In a society that guarantees freedom of expression, the notion of a free press goes even further to the point of justifying defamation and breaches of privacy. This is, as McQuail points out, “a small price to be paid for keeping the rich and powerful under the gaze of society” (1994, 130 ‐131). McQuail ‘s view echoes the long held observation of Alex de Tocqueville, who observed that in order to enjoy the invaluable benefits of a free press, individuals and society have to tolerate excesses that might occur during the exercise of these freedoms. Freedom of expression and freedom of the press have been matters of legislation at an international and regional level. The legislation confirms that this principle, as an essential component of a democratic society, is a human right that has to be protected and promoted. It allows all citizens regardless of their beliefs, socio‐economic status and race to actively participate in open political debate (European Court 1992). 252
The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) ratified the human rights value of freedom of expression and freedom of the press. A central document for the international media, Article 19(2) of the ICCPR states that “every person shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontier, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of his choice” (Armstrong et al 1995, 4). The majority of the international and regional legislation regarding freedom of expression, freedom of the press and access to information dates back to the conceptual, philosophical and ethical values found in the modern European and American thoughts on democracy and citizens rights. The eighteenth century European Enlightenment, that inspired the liberal revolutions of the time, conceptualised some of the basic tenets about freedom of expression. In doing so, it gave to freedom of the press a special consideration as a fundamental mechanism in the dissemination and promotion of new ideas about liberal democracy. A free press was regarded as a tool of social enlightenment and political awareness. In addition, a free press was considered a central channel of communication and articulation of the aspirations of an educated society. Clauses about freedom of expression and the press were clearly guaranteed in the First Amendment of the United States Constitution and also under the French 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man. In these documents freedom of expression and freedom of the press were considered “fundamental” principles. However it was in the French document that freedom of the press and freedom of opinion were judged as basic human rights. In Article 11 it provides a special status and value to freedom of the press and information by stating that the free communication of thoughts and opinions is one of the most precious rights of human beings. In the following centuries these two declarations enriched many international, regional and national documents promulgated to promote and protect freedom of expression and freedom of the press. An important development of these principles happened during the 1900s when freedom of expression and freedom of the press were considered not only as an individual human right but also as a collective right. 253
The post 1940s Human Rights Declaration, International Human Rights and the Rights of Refugees included special provisions about freedom of information and freedom of the press. Moreover, diverse international organisations have reinforced the central importance of freedom of expression as a fundamental factor in the existence and maintenance of a truly representative democratic regime. For example the December 14, 1946 resolution 59 (I) of the United Nations General Assembly declared that freedom of information was a fundamental human right and the cornerstone of all human rights (Freedom of Expression Handbook 1993). The current international jurisprudence in democratic societies has tended to place a strong emphasis on freedom of the press and has warned that the suppression of this freedom can only be exercised in “very extraordinary circumstances” (International Centre Against Censorship 1993). It has also specified that, apart from the right to disseminate information, citizens have also the right to receive information. For instance, the European Court has reiterated in several decisions that the press has not only the duty to distribute and publish ideas and information but also citizens have the right to receive them (Freedom of Expression Handbook 1993, 65). In December 14, 1994, the United Nations Observer for the Protection and Promotion of Freedom of Opinion and Expression pointed out that freedom of opinion and expression are fundamental rights in the International Pact. Along the same lines was the elaboration of the 1998 Human Rights Act. The Act came into effect on October 2, 2000, and reinforced the notion of freedom of expression and freedom of the press found in international legislation, including the European Convention on Human Rights. A number of these rights, including the right to freedom of expression (Article 10) is of particular importance for the media (Tomlinson 2003, 269). In several cases, the European Court has emphasised that the press has the responsibility to impart information and circulate ideas and the public has the right to receive them (1986). 254
At a regional level in Latin America, the Corte Interamericana (Interamerican Court) has written several documents that consecrate the mutual and complementary relationship between a free press and a consolidated democracy. The Court has clearly stated that the open practice of journalism is the primary expression of freedom of expression and opinion (Corte Interamericana 1992). In addition the Convención Americana (American Convention) established that all citizens have the right to freedom of thought and expression. This also includes the right to seek, receive and distribute information and ideas of any nature by oral, print and artistic means (Freedom of Expression Handbook 1993). Furthermore the Convención Americana stipulated that freedom of the press also includes the right of journalists to protect their sources of information. In Article 13(3) the Convención Americana established that freedom of expression could not be restricted by government measures or indirect channels such as the control of the basic hardware used in newsgathering, production and dissemination of news and other kinds of information. The Convención Americana has also warned against unfair control by government officials or private citizens over radio and television frequencies. Freedom of Expression and the Press The Constitution of 1980 is still in place and constitutional reforms have been few and difficult to achieve. The transition has coexisted with the majority of the legal restrictions on freedom of expression and the press installed by the military regime and consecrated by the Constitution of 1980. In terms of the political process the Constitution is the cornerstone of the principle of a “protected democracy”, conceived and consolidated by the dictatorship (Centro de Estudios Sociales y Culturales 1984, 7). Vivanco Martínez argues that in terms of freedom of expression and press freedom, the Constitution of 1980 has established a “clearly repressive” system that has stifled not only press freedom but it has also posed major obstacles to public debate (1992, 327). Following the historical tradition of Chilean constitutions, whereby freedom of expression is guaranteed but rigorously limited and suppressed, the Constitution of 1980 establishes the 255
protection of freedom of expression but also contains numerous restrictive laws. While Article 19 (12) of the Constitution of 1980 protects the “freedom to express opinions and to inform,” it also establishes numerous laws that critically restrict public debate, freedom of expression and the work of the media. Article 19 establishes harsh judicial penalties against news stories that allegedly criticise the performance and even the behaviour of government officials. The law also establishes severe punishment against those individuals, especially journalists, who engage in allegedly derogatory comments impugning, the “character” of the government or the armed forces. The lack of a more democratic media landscape is also due to the negative role performed by the Chilean judicial system. 8 While during the dictatorship the main source of threats to freedom of expression came from the state, in the transition this has originated from decisions taken by the judiciary. The judiciary has maintained its highly repressive and authoritarian nature. 9 Correa argues it is a judicial system strongly influenced by the authoritarian and conservative structure of the Supreme Court (1993). During the transition to democracy the press has been operating within an array of legal restrictions unprecedented in a democratic society and the judicial power has played a central role in maintaining this status quo. The ideological proximity of the judiciary to the former regime has been reflected in key favourable decisions involving members of the armed forces in regards to violations of political and civil rights. Also the majority of the legal decisions taken by the judiciary have tended to support the maintenance of the legal and constitutional framework designed by the dictatorship. In regards to the media, most of the judicial decisions against individual journalists in the 1990s tended to reflect a favourable view of social control to the detriment of individual liberties.. 10 Although the Chilean transition has been presented as an example of political and economic stability, it has been disappointing in the sphere of freedom of expression and freedom of the press. The democratisation of key institutional and constitutional structures, including the 256
judicial and legislative powers has been a central impediment to the expansion of freedom of expression. The restrictions form part of a long history of authoritarianism in Chile that reached its peak during the military regime and has continued during the transition to democracy (Human Rights Watch 1998, 49). Progress in the area of freedom of expression and the press during the transition, especially under the administration of presidents Patricio Aylwin and Eduardo Frei, has been patchy, incomplete and at times contradictory. A clear example of this was the promulgation on February 14, 1991 of Law No.19.047 that established civilian court responsibility for cases involving journalists, previously the domain of military courts (Amnesty International 1992, 89). It was indeed a welcome decision. However this did not mean the end of the jurisdiction of military courts over civilians. Despite the decision by President Aylwin, the military courts still enjoy jurisdiction and the prerogative to judge civilians who have allegedly insulted the armed forces. Furthermore, the Military Courts still enjoy the power to judge non‐military citizens for the crime of sedition. Sedition has remained an offence in the Code of Military Justice and has been applied to journalists who allegedly have made derogatory remarks against members of the armed forces or the police force. Accusations against journalists for sedition were raised throughout the 1990s. 11
This was the case for journalists, Alberto Luengo and Abraham Santibañez. In 1993 Luengo and Santibañez published a story in the State controlled newspaper La Nación disclosing new information about the involvement of members of the army in cases of torture and murder. The military courts, unable to rely on defamation, accused both journalists of sedition (Comité de Defensa de los Derechos del Pueblo, 1994, 23). Similarly, journalist Manuel Cabieses, the director of the left‐wing magazine Punto Final, was arrested in September 1996 by order of the military tribunal on a charge of sedition. In April 1998, a military judged prosecuted a group of journalists from Televisión Nacional de Chile for sedition, following a news and current affairs program that exposed the meagre working conditions, low salaries 257
and physical and personal abuses suffered by low‐ranking members of the police force (La Tercera 1998, 3). The disappointing state of freedom of expression in Chile has not only impacted on the press but also on films, books and artistic expressions (Olave and De la Parra 2001). 12 Chile is the only democratic country in Latin America where the censorship of films exists. One of the most well known cases was the on screening in public the film by Martin Scorsese The Last Temptation of Christ. The ban of this film was in violation of international freedom of expression standards, in particular Article 13(2) of the American Convention on Human Rights (Secretary General of the Organisation of American States Annual Report on Human Rights 1994, 210‐223). Furthermore several books have been subject to censorship, including Los Secretos del Fra Fra, a 1992 exposé of business corruption committed by the former presidential candidate Francisco Javier Errazuriz and written by journalist María Irene Soto; in 1993 Francisco Martorell’s Impunidad Diplomática (Diplomatic Impunity) and in 1999 Alejandra Matus’s El Libro Negro de la Justicia Chilena (The Black Book of Chilean Justice). The case of these last two books will be examined in more detail a bit later in this chapter. In 2000, as a demonstration that censorship against books has continued throughout the transition, the judicial power imposed a circulation ban against Cristobal Peña’s Cecilia, la Vida en Llamas (Cecilia, a life in flames). An unauthorised biography of an aging Chilean pop singer, the book was impounded after an injunction lodged by the lawyers for the artist. 13
In the same year that Cristobal Peña’s book was banned, an original piece of street art called the Nautilus Project, known as well as the casa de vidrio (glass house), was also banned. The street art project, erected in one of the main streets in downtown Santiago, showed the daily life of a young woman living in a fully transparent “glass house.” The controversy erupted after the girl was shown in full view naked taking a shower. A private citizen lodged a libel suit against the artist and the organizers under the criminal charge of escándalo público contra la modestia y las buenas costumbres (public outrage against modesty and good customs). In the 258
Chilean legal system, this offence can lead to a three‐year jail sentence. These judicial decisions were harshly criticised by regional multilateral bodies, including the Human Rights Commission of the American State Organization (OEA). 14
These cases have indeed reinstalled in Chile the theme of censorship. Censorship, a concrete manifestation of the limited freedom of expression exercised in Chile, has also been the mechanism used by the government to stop the publication and broadcast of news programs considered too controversial for the fragile transition. The main target of this has been the State controlled La Nación newspaper and Televisión Nacional de Chile. At the beginning of the transition, on August 24, 1990, President Aylwin provided guidelines for the work of the media. Addressing the Asociación Nacional de la Prensa (The National Press Association) he pointed out that the role of the media was to create “unity and not dissension” in the community (Sunkel 1992, 26). In order to pursue this objective, President Aylwin developed close, daily contact with the editors and journalists of these two media organisations. Tironi and Sunkel suggest that the objective of this contact was to bring into line the editorial policy of these media organisations with the political, social and economic objectives of the government (1993). During the first years of the transition, the director and senior editors of La Nación were subject to almost daily complaints from government officials about articles considered too critical of the government. Frequently high‐ranking members of the government attempted to force the director of La Nación to sack journalists whose stories were unflattering to the government and its officials (Santibañez 2003). Equally frequent was the pressure exercised by the government to suppress stories about criticising the armed forces in cases of corruption and human rights abuses (Krohne, Interview 2004). 15 Cases abound, however one of the most symbolic incidents was the so‐called pinocheques. On May 28, 1993, La Nación published a front‐page story covering a case of fraudulent use of cheques involving one of the sons of General Pinochet. The armed forces considered the story 259
highly confrontational and offensive to the armed forces. In an incident that threatened to destabilise the whole democratic process, General Pinochet forced the government to prevent the publication by La Nación of the sensational case. The armed forces went even further in forcing the newspaper to run a front‐page story asserting that the story was false. Courageously, the director of La Nación was able to resist the initial pressure by the government. Amid intense financial pressure the newspaper was finally forced to publish a front‐page communiqué from the army discrediting the story. Televisión Nacional de Chile has experienced similar levels of government censorship and editorial interference. Throughout the transition the government has attempted to prevent the broadcast of news stories considered a threat to the fragile democracy by agreements. On August 5, 1993, President Aylwin intervened directly to stop the broadcast of an extensive and exclusive interview with Michael Townley, the US agent who was part of the Chilean political police and was involved in the murder the former minister of defence under the government of President Allende, Orlando Letelier. According to newspaper La Epoca the decision taken by President Aylwin was motivated by fear of offending the armed forces (1993, 4). During the government of Eduardo Frei, the leader of the second government in the transition, official censorship and editorial interference increased. Chilean journalist Fernando Paulsen wrote that in 1994 President Frei attempted to stop the broadcast of a television program allegedly highly critical of the Indonesian government under the former dictator Suharto. Despite government pressure, the program was eventually broadcasted on the eve of the visit by Frei to Indonesia (1993, 2). The reaction of the government was swift. The director of the television channel, Jorge Navarrete, was sacked. In 1995, the government appointed the Christian democrat and former minister of President Aylwin, René Cortazar as the new director. Under his direction the level of government editorial interference not only increased but the television channel became far more cooperative regarding the aspirations of the administrators of the transition. The incidents experienced by La Nación and Televisión 260
Nacional de Chile have tended to reflect the tension between censorship, editorial independence, freedom of expression and the objectives of the democracy by agreements. 16
The tension between a weak democratic process and the media is also reflected in the inability of political leaders to handle the inquisitive journalism that is needed in any consolidated democracy. One of the most remarkable aspects in this regard is the penalisation of expressions of public criticism of the performance of public figures. Castellón and Jaramillo observe that historically the Chilean political elite has been particularly sensitive and reluctant to accept public criticism regarding its performance in the public sphere (2003, 94). Legal actions taken by politicians against the media have been an unwelcome development during the transition and some of them have been taken by political leaders of the ruling Coalición. In 1999 controversial Chilean Catholic priest and television commentator Raúl Hasbún made a vitriolic public comment against socialism and members of the Chilean Socialist Party. He characterised socialism and socialists as “inherently unpatriotic” and “bloodsucking.” In the tradition of oversensitivity to public criticism, the Chilean Socialist Party lodged a defamation action against the priest. The action was criticised by Chilean libertarians who considered that the suit against the priest was a set back to freedom of expression and a dangerous trend towards an increasing level of self‐censorship and an obstacle to a citizen’s right to express an opinion in public (Westphal 1999, 5). The same year, in 1999, the Human Rights Watch, an international watchdog organisation assessing the state of freedom of expression and the press around the world, published the unflattering assessment that freedom of expression and freedom of the press in Chile was marginally better than in Cuba (Brett 1999, 4). The fundamental principle behind this assessment was the permanence of a string of laws, related to defamatory matters, privacy and contempt of authority, which ban and discourage political criticism. These laws, which carry jail penalties, also establish a special judicial procedure that guarantees the protection of authorities subject to public and media criticism. 17
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Despite the highly repressive legal and constitutional system that exists in Chile, some sectors of society, especially those progressive sectors linked to the left social movement, have attempted to reinstate the theme of freedom of expression and freedom of the press in the public sphere. These are sectors that were at the forefront of the struggle for democracy and have maintained an independent, critical view of the way the transition has been conducted. Defamation and Contempt of Authority The Chilean defamation and contempt of authority laws, the latter known as desacato, provide an unprecedented protection for public figures against public scrutiny and criticism. Criticism of public figures, their performance and behavior, has been criminalized by the Chilean legal system. Furthermore, defamation and contempt of authority laws provide few defences for journalists and media organizations that may be subject to lawsuits. Cavallo argues that these norms are part of a series of laws that affected freedom of expression and information during the regime of General Pinochet (1995). The current legislation establishes that a media report that breaches the “honour, prestige and good reputation of a citizen” can be subject to severe legal punishment, including imprisonment (Cea 1981, 188). In contrast to most western democratic societies, including Australia where defamation is a civil case, in Chile it is considered a criminal matter and therefore punishable by imprisonment. The notion of “honour” is deeply engraved in the Chilean constitutional and legal system and tends to override well‐recognised defences, including whether the offending material was a matter of public interest. This overzealous protection of the “honour” of public figures has been regarded as an obstacle to freedom of the press and freedom of expression (Centro de Estudios Sociales y Culturales 1984, 139). This is even more contentious when the protection of honour under Chilean legislation is exclusively the right of a select group of citizens, namely members of the political and military elite. 262
Several cases of defamation and contempt of authority, some of which will be examined a bit later, have proven that the legal system tends to give the benefit of the doubt to the allegedly defamed person. Journalists accused of publishing defamatory stories have to prove the allegation was true and it was also a matter of public interest. However this is very difficult if not impossible to achieve. 18 In comparative terms, the Chilean defamation and contempt laws are closer to the Australian than the United States system. Australia has one of the harshest defamation laws in any democratic society and they do not establish a difference between private and public figures (Pearson 1996). In contrast, the United States legal system distinguishes “defamation of a public figure from defamation of a private person.” This gives the press more room to go wrong in its work. In essence this approach encourages press coverage of government and other powerful institutions (Abramson et al 1988, 240). The Chilean legal system does not make this distinction bringing about excessively cautious news coverage on the actions of public figures. The difficulty in relying on the defence of truth and public interest has introduced what Chilean journalists refer to as the “chilling effect.” Around the world, legal and media commentators frequently argue that defamation law “chills” media speech (Dent and Kenyon 2004, 1). Dent and Kenyon observe that the quality of public debate about and political public interest matters is thought to be limited by the media’s fear of lengthy, complex and expensive defamation litigation. 19 In the Chilean context this has led to a deeply engraved culture of self‐censorship. The use of these laws, that attract criminal penalties, has been a central factor in limiting freedom of expression and restricting public debate. The toll on Chilean media professionals is high. Between 1998 and 2001 alone twelve journalists were convicted or faced accusations of contempt of authority (Giordano, Interview 2001). 20
The majority of these contempt law suits have been judged under the State Security Law. The State Security Law was promulgated in 1958 but was strengthened during the dictatorship. 263
Like many other laws inherited from the dictatorship, the transition has seen the State Security Law being used frequently as a key instrument in prosecuting alleged acts of defamation and contempt against public figures. This law, although repealed by the introduction of the new Press Law of 2001, was widely used during the 1990s by members of the armed forces, the Congress and members of the government. In practice the objective of this law was to discourage public criticism of the performance and conducts of public official. The culture of media self‐censorship has become a way of self‐preservation, especially when journalists can be sued and tried in military courts for making defamatory statements against the armed forces. During the first years of the transition and in the context of the attempt by journalists to tackle the thorny issue of human rights, the State Security Law was frequently used by the military courts to discourage media coverage of human rights violations. In September 1990, for example, the Military Court ordered the arrest of several journalists, including Juan Pablo Cárdenas, the director of Análisis magazine, for making apparently defamatory statements about the armed forces. The offences were news stories linking the armed forces to human rights violations (Análisis 1999, 4). The Chilean law of contempt of authority or desacato is particularly worrisome. Known in international jurisdiction as “insult” laws, they provide special, additional legal protection specifically and exclusively for public officials. Walden points out that ‐ considered as a threat to freedom of the press ‐ “insult” laws are “frequently called upon to explicitly safeguard the dignity of high‐ranking members of a society” (2000, 7). In Chile, “insult” laws go back to a pre‐democratic period where criticism of public authorities was regarded as an act of insubordination and act of public disorder (González Morales 2000). Chile is the only country in Latin America in which contempt of authority is regarded as a crime against state security and an act of sedition. Dispositions regarding contempt of authority are found throughout the Chilean legal system, including in Article 263 and 264 of the Penal Code; Article 284 of the Military Justice Code and until 2001 also in Article 6(b) of the State Security Law. In essence contempt of authority 264
provides special protection to a selected group of high‐ranking members of the armed forces, politicians and judges. In addition any comment that is considered as threatening the honour of key public figures can be considered as contempt. The crime is codified as an assault to “public order.” Currently there are more than 300 individuals who, due their public roles, are entitled by law to resort to legal means to sue any person involved in contempt. Fundamentally, contempt of authority is an anachronistic law based upon the principle that public authorities, because of their authority and role, deserve and expect more respect than ordinary citizens. The principle behind this law is the notion that citizens, including the media, should show respect to those who are in positions of authority. As Traslaviña points out: “this anachronistic principle illustrates not only the conservative nature of the Chilean legal system but also the perception of individuals as subjects instead of citizens (1998, 13). Throughout the existence of Article 6(b) of the State Security Law, contempt of authority provided special protection to a selected group of public officers against criticism. It punishes anybody who defames the president, ministers, parliamentarians and top members of the judiciary and the commanders of the armed forces. The law also prescribed that to publicly insult the national flag, the coat of arms or national anthem were also actions against public order; therefore they constituted contempt of authority. Although contempt of authority disappeared from the abolished State Security Law, it is still found in the Penal Code and in the Military Code. The Military Code contains a provision, Article 284, dealing with cases of contempt involving civilians who might offend members of the armed forces. During the first decade of the transition Article 284 of the Military Code was mainly used against journalists (Colegio de Abogados 1995, 199). The presence of contempt of authority in the Military Code and its jurisdiction over civilians is not only a legal anomaly in western democratic systems but it also reflects the level of influence enjoyed by the armed forces in Chilean society. 21 The Comisión Andina de Juristas (Commission of Andean Jurists) considered that the power of the military justice system to judge civilians was one of the most serious obstacles to the complete restoration of human 265
rights in Chile (1995, 55). Furthermore, the Comisión Interamericana de Derechos Humanos (Interamerican Commission for Human Rights) pointed out that the trial of civilians by the military is not compatible with a democratic system (1985, 139‐140, 143). Cases of defamation and contempt of authority proliferated in 1990‐2000. During this period Chilean society witnessed some of worst attacks on freedom of expression and freedom of the press. One of the best‐known cases in this regard included a defamation and contempt of authority suit against a prominent Chilean investigative journalist Francisco Martorell. His book Impunidad Diplomática (Diplomatic Impunity) was not only impounded and banned from circulation but he was also forced to live overseas for fear of imminent imprisonment in Chile. Published in Argentina in 1993, Impunidad Diplomática was an investigation into the fraudulent operations of an Argentinean diplomat in Chile and his dealings with prominent members of the Chilean political and business elite. One of those mentioned in the book was Andrónico Luksic, the wealthiest and most powerful businessman in Chile. Prior to the circulation of the book in Chile, the lawyers of Andrónico Luksic lodged a defamation suit against Francisco Martorell and a court injunction to prevent the circulation of the book in Chile. On April 23, 1993, the Supreme Court upheld both demands. It went even further and prohibited comment and review of the book by the media (Rodriguez 1993, 3). The judge argued Impunidad Diplomática breached Article 20 of the Constitution, confirming that the right to privacy overrides freedom of expression. The Supreme Court agreed and confirmed this decision (Hilbink 2002, 329). Cecilia Medina points out that most analysis of this case has concluded that the restrictions imposed by the Chilean courts on the book’s circulation were unjustified and it was a case that weakened freedom of expression in Chile (1996, 175). Cases of this type were not limited to the early 1990s. As recently as July 1998 a Court of Appeal in Santiago upheld a demand to prevent the publication in the glossy magazine Caras of a feature story on the alleged suicide in 1996 of a 266
well‐known Chilean businessman. Families of the victim succeeded in their request to the Supreme Court to prevent the publication of the story (La Tercera 1998, 4). The same year, in 1998 the Chilean media was hit by another setback when controversial Chief Justice Servando Jordán sued journalists Paula Coddou and Rafael Gumucio for defamation and contempt of authority. Chief Justice Servando Jordán is a well‐known, high‐
ranking member of the Chilean judiciary. 22 Coddou and Gumucio, reporters for Cosas magazine and the now defunct Rock & Pop television channel, respectively, were both sentenced to jail on charges of contempt of authority. In their stories both journalists described him as an “ugly old man with a murky past.” Their indictment stemmed from a complaint filed under the State Security Law that made such comments defamatory and contemptuous. As the comment was addressed to a member of the Supreme Court the offence of the journalists was typified as a criminal offence. The edition of the magazine Cosas, containing the allegedly libellous articles, was impounded and the two reporters were jailed overnight. Judge Servando Jordán withdrew his charges against the journalists following a wave of public criticism (Jalilie 1998, 4). In another prominent case involving the same judge, journalists José Ale and Fernando Paulsen were jailed on September 16, 1998, on charges of defamation and contempt of authority. They had written articles criticising the performance of Jordán during his two‐year tenure as Chief Justice and considered that “the prestige of Chile’s judiciary fell to one of its lowest levels ever.” The two journalists were released on bail the next day and the newspaper appealed to the Supreme Court. However after a lengthy legal battle, the Supreme Court found the two journalists guilty. The ruling, based on a re‐interpretation of the Law 12.927 of the State Security Law, argued that defamation or slander against any authority constitutes a threat to public order. This decision was widely condemned by the government, some members of the judicial power and certainly by the media. A newspaper editorial commented that only in “a country with backward civil rights laws was it possible to come across a judicial power that considers as defamation a journalistic analysis of the performance of duties carried out by state officials” (La Tercera 1998, 2). 23 267
However it was the 1999 case of journalist Alejandra Matus and her investigation El Libro Negro de la Justicia Chilena (The Black Book of Chilean Justice) that became a turning point in the relationship between Chilean journalists, the judiciary and the transition to democracy. This landmark case in Chilean journalism was essential in the promulgation in 2001, after almost a decade of debate, of the long awaited new Press Law. In April 1999, Chief Justice Servando Jordán ordered the arrest of Alejandra Matus for the allegedly defamatory content of her book El Libro Negro de la Justicia Chilena. The book is an investigative account of major cases of nepotism, corruption and abuses of power committed by members of the judiciary during and after the dictatorship. In the book, Alejandra Matus discloses the judges’ ties to drug trafficking, as well as paedophilic tendencies of certain court magistrates. Chief Justice Servando Jordán is singled out and he is described as a frequent visitor to some of the many brothels found in downtown Santiago. The defence for Alejandra Matus argued that the book, as an exploration of the work of the Chilean judiciary was a matter of public interest. The Supreme Court rejected this defence (MacHale 1999, 4). The case of Alejandra Matus and her book became an international embarrassment to the Chilean transition. Fearing certain imprisonment for breaching the law of defamation and contempt of authority, the journalist was forced to escape from Chile to the United States. She became the first political exile of the Chilean transition to democracy. The Libro Negro de la Justicia Chilena was not only a case of defamation, but also it had a major impact upon freedom of expression by confirming the high level of censorship still in place in the Chilean society. Felipe González explains this case exposed the inability of Chilean judicial system to accept the international legal principle that establishes a link between the right to express opinions and the right of access to information (2000, 20). Chile is a country deeply divided by social classes and status and it does not come as a surprise that the main instigators of defamation and contempt suits against journalists are the richest, most powerful Chileans. The reasons for defamation are, at times, vague and 268
imprecise (Peralta, Interview 2002). 24 The Chilean political, social and economic elite are particularly keen to protect their honour in court. This was, for example, the case of wealthy right‐wing politician and entrepreneur, Francisco Javier Herrázuriz, who sued investigative journalist Maria Irene Soto for her book, Los Secretos del Fra‐Fra (The Secrets of Fra‐Fra). In her investigation, the journalist exposed some dubious business dealings of Francisco Javier Herrázuriz. The wealthy, influential politician was able to obtain from the courts an order to impound the publication. The author spent five unsuccessful years in tribunals trying to defend her right to write and circulate the book. In 1998 the Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression of the Organization of American States (OAS), Santiago Catón, called on all countries, members of this regional grouping, to revoke their contempt of authority laws. The appeal was based on modern jurisprudence that establishes that the penalization of offensive expressions directed against public officials violates Article 13 of the American Convention on Human Rights (Organizations of American States 1998, 3). Despite this recommendation the Chilean Congress failed to accept the demand to repeal Articles 263, 264 and 265 of the Criminal Code, which cover defamation and contempt of authorities. This is very similar to the clause found in Article 6(b) of the abolished State Security Law. Essentially this means that although public authorities can no longer rely on Article 6(b) of the State Security Law, they are still able to use the contempt of authority laws found in the Criminal Code. The Chilean defamation law and the law of contempt of authority increase the protection for right of privacy enjoyed by certain groups of Chileans. The criminal penalties imposed for publishing matters about the private life of a public citizen, regardless of whether it was done under the public interest principle, are not only excessively harsh but also tend to go against modern legislature where some aspects of “public figures” may be considered in the public domain. 25
Fernández Segado observes that the general idea that freedom of expression should not breach the rights to privacy, honour and reputation has to be interpreted within the right that 269
a society has to scrutinise political figures (1996, 382). The right to scrutinise the work and the performance of public figures has been traditionally given to the press; and a prerequisite to be able to perform this task is the existence of a free press. This is for example the case of the “public figure” principle found in the United States legal system. As mentioned earlier, the US courts apply a “public figure” test to defamation cases to determine whether the subject of the defamation was a person whose public role was such that they deserve scrutiny (Pearson 2000, 307). This is unthinkable in the Chilean legal system where a breach of privacy is considered a criminal act. Defences available against journalists who are accused of breaching privacy are few and are highly unsuccessful in court. Truth is one of the defences available. However it is constrained by the fact that the journalist has to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the allegations were true. The Press Law of 2001 failed to incorporate a special defence against breach of privacy. Journalists are deprived of the public interest defence, which is a cornerstone of defamation defences in other western democracies. Therefore, according to Article 161(a) of the Criminal Code, introduced in 1995, anyone who reveals any details of the private life of politicians, government officials and other public figures is punishable with imprisonment and a fine. The excessive protection of public figures from media invasion of privacy has been examined by international jurisprudence. As Mendel observes, most of international jurisprudence has concluded that in a democratic society restrictions on freedom of expression to protect privacy must take into account social needs and the public right to know (1999). Reporting Bans and Access to Public Information Along with the defamation and contempt laws, freedom of expression and freedom of the press have been severely hindered by the presence in the legal system of the so‐called reporting bans and by the lack of legal venues to access public information. Journalists newsgathering and coverage of major criminal investigations, including investigations into human rights violations, has been severely damaged by a legal system that grants judges 270
discretionary powers to silence the media by the so called reporting bans. In this case journalists are bound by the secreto del sumario (secrecy of the investigation). In contrast to many democracies, the right of Chilean journalists to cover and report matters of public interests are not protected. The entitlement given to judges to impose a prohibition to inform is not only arbitrary but is also an obstacle to citizens’ right to access information (Soto, Interview 2001). 26 Without the need to provide a substantial argument, judges are able to apply this prohibition at any stage of the legal procedure and they can rely upon the vague notion that news reporting may obstruct the course of justice. In comparative terms, the prohibition to inform in Chile does not offer the same avenues used by Australian journalists in the coverage of court cases. 27 Furthermore, the Chilean legislation does not provide ways to protect the confidentiality of journalistic sources. Prohibition to inform, frequently used by judges during the transition to democracy, has not undergone any substantial reform. During 1990 and 1994 the prohibition to inform or the reporting ban was enforced in 23 cases (Comité de Defensa de los Derechos del Pueblo 1994, 21). Most of them were related to stories covering human rights violations committed during the dictatorship and a few of them related to non‐political criminal acts. During this period several newspapers were the targets of legal proceedings for breaching the law. In November 1994, the Supreme Court ordered an injunction against an issue of the newspaper La Epoca for breaching a prohibition to inform about a high profile human rights trial (Comité de Defensa de los Derechos del Pueblo 1994, 23). Cases abound and illustrate the level of infringement experienced by journalists while covering criminal cases. One of the most illustrative cases of prohibition to inform was the murder of journalist José Carrasco Tapia in 1986 at the hands of members of the political police of the dictatorship. Despite being a case of clear public interest in Chile and internationally, the Supreme Court imposed a total reporting ban on the case. 28 271
One year after the ban to inform about the case of José Carrasco was lifted; judge Beatriz Pedrals forced, on June 1997, a prohibition to inform order about a massive case of drug trafficking involving members of the judiciary. The case involved a well‐known Chilean businessman, Mario Silva Leiva who was accused of leading a multi‐million dollar drug trafficking and money‐laundering ring. It was the biggest blow to date against the drug trade in Chile. Although it was a story with a high level of public interest, Judge Beatriz Pedrals imposed a controversial news blackout three months after Silva’s arrest. Newspapers and politicians condemned the judge’s gagging order, accusing her of imposing it only after top court officials had been implicated in the case. The prohibition lasted three months (La Epoca 1997; El Mercurio 1997). During the three months and in order to by‐pass this gag order, the newspaper La Tercera created, through an intermediary in New York a web site to cover the story and bypass the legal tangle. 29 Cases involving reporting bans have been a norm instead of an exception. Breaching a prohibition to inform order or the violation of the secreto de sumario can be costly under the Chilean legal system. In 1998 investigative journalist Paula Afani was jailed after publishing a series of stories in La Tercera and La Segunda newspapers about the legal investigation into a drug‐trafficking network known as Operación Oceano (Operation Ocean). The story exposed the close links between a Chilean shipping magnate, Manuel Losada, and international drug barons operating in Chile. In order to stop Afani’s coverage, the lawyers for Losada requested a “prohibition to inform” on the basis that journalists breached his client’s right to privacy and the secreto de sumario. The Criminal Court of Valparaiso endorsed the request and imposed a four‐month reporting ban (El Mercurio 1998). In one of the latest cases a reporting ban was imposed in 2000 in the southern city of Concepción by the local judge Flora Sepúlveda. The magistrate imposed a reporting ban on the investigation into the disappearance of young university student Jorge Matutes Jones. The reporting ban was maintained until 2003 when the body of the unfortunate student was accidentally found on the outskirts of Concepción. 272
Chilean jurists and media commentators have recognised that reporting bans far exceed what is reasonable to protect confidentiality in police investigations. Quilodrán argues that among Chilean journalists there is a perception that this law has been repeatedly used by judges to cover up errors committed during the investigation, or to hide poor results during the judicial process (2002, 11). In this context Chilean judges have shown an extreme sensibility to criticism and this is certainly incompatible with a robust democratic society (El Mercurio 2002, A3). Limitations to freedom of expression are also expressed in terms of access to public information. The conservative and secretive nature of Chilean public institutions has confirmed the lack of legal instruments available to the media to access to government information. This is in contrast to the reality in contemporary democracies, which have recognised the right of individual citizens and the media in particular to access public information (Council of Europe 1995, 44‐45). In the case of the Australia legal system, journalists can, at least in theory, rely upon the Freedom of Information Acts passed federally in 1982 and in most Australian States and Territories (Pearson 2004, 10). 30 This provision does not exist in the Chilean legal system. Jurist and legal expert Cea Egaña concludes that the right of individuals, including journalists, to access public information is not guaranteed in the Chilean Constitution (1981, 8). The lack of a formal provision to protect the right to obtain information from government institutions has been considered as one of the central obstacles to making public servants and governments accountable. Laws that forbid the disclosure of public information are numerous and they can be found in the Chilean Penal Code and in the Code of Military Justice. Indeed, this confirms that historically a veil of secrecy has surrounded the Chilean public administration. The lack of access to public and government information is not only an obstacle to making the political elite accountable, but it is also another indicator of the narrow view of the government regarding freedom of expression and freedom of the press. The Chilean legal 273
system has systematically failed to establish an appropriate legal instrument to facilitate the access to public information by the general public and by journalists. Catalán and Dupret point out that the request by journalists to access information has been frequently rejected for arbitrary reasons (1998, 7). The lack of access to public information has been a major obstacle to the development of a truly inquisitive and investigative journalism. In August 1994 the defunct newspaper La Epoca was forced to publish a retraction for publishing an investigative story about a case of fraud involving the Military Hospital of Santiago. The investigation described the enquiries being carried out by the military justice about alleged irregular acquisitions done by high‐
ranking members of this institution. La Epoca was unable to access judicial records of the military tribunals and was threatened by the army with a defamation action (Matus 1994, 6). In 1998 a military investigation proved that the allegations of the newspaper were correct. During four years the media, including La Epoca, was aware of the investigation but they were unable to publish or broadcast the story. Chilean journalist Cristián Bofill argued that Chilean authorities tend to consider that it is a “special dispensation” to provide information about their performance in administering public policy and budgets (1998, 13). The election of the Socialist Ricardo Lagos, as the third president of the transitional period, was seen as good news for journalists trying to get access to information. When Lagos took over power he made a symbolic gesture of “openness”. He ordered the gates of La Moneda, the government house be opened. It was a symbolic act that conveyed the idea of an open government able to provide access to information. The symbolic gesture was followed by the establishment of the Ley de Integridad (Law of Integrity). 31 The aim of the Ley de Integridad was to facilitate access to government information. The law has lofty aims. The preamble states that all government documents are public. However, as is tradition in Chilean legislature, the preamble and the lofty aims are quickly eroded by the dispositions that follow. Bernedo and Ramírez observe that in the case of the Ley de Integridad, the access to government documents depends on the willingness of the party to 274
have the information in the public arena (1999). Public institutions, such as the State Bank can refuse to provide information on the basis that the information is “private.” This for example has made it impossible for journalists to investigate some of the financial arrangements done at the end of the dictatorship. One of these financial arrangements is the controversial financial assistance given to the newspaper El Mercurio. Millions of US dollars were granted to this newspaper by the Chilean State Bank to resolve its economic problems. To this day, journalists attempting to investigate this major scandal have faced the insurmountable culture of public secrecy (Araya, Interview 2000). 32 The slow progress in dismantling the restrictive laws affecting freedom of expression and freedom of the press is another symptom of the weaknesses of the Chilean transition to democracy. The existing laws and the willingness to apply them by the ruling elite has confirmed once again that Chile lacks a tradition that defends freedom of expression. Freedom of expression, a central feature of a consolidated democratic system, has been marginalised from democratic discussion and has stifled public debate. The transition to democracy has been developed on the basis of the so‐called “politics by consensus.” Important sectors of the independent media critical of this process have been forced by legal means to tone down their criticism. In the worst‐case scenario they have been forced to close down their operations. It seems the slow progress in reforming restrictive laws has to do with an entrenched fear of public debate and freedom of expression. As prominent Chilean journalist and academic Faride Zerán has commented: “the political elite is not interested in strengthening one of the pillars of democracy, the watchdog role of journalism” (2001, 4). Notes 1 For an analysis of the judiciary in Latin America, see Jorge Correa, ed., 1994, Situación y politicas judiciales en América Latina (Santiago: Escuela de Derecho, Universidad Diego Portales). 275
2 Pablo Sepulveda is a journalist, Revista de El Canelo. Interview, Santiago 2002. 3 See Carlos Peña, 1992, “Poder judicial y sistema politico. Las políticas de modernización,” in El Poder Judicial en la encrucijada. Estudios acerca de la política judicial en Chile, Carlos Peña et al. (Santiago: Escuela de Derecho, Universidad Diego Portales). 4 Chilean journalism is well below the quality shown by journalism in countries such as Mexico, Argentina and Colombia. This is a comment shared by many Chilean journalists. 5 For a good assessment see Khrone (2004). 6 These cases have not been isolated or confined to a limited phase of the transition. They have been frequent features of the on‐going Chilean transition to democracy. 7 It is indeed a two‐way flow of communication that flourishes in a context where guaranteed freedom of expression and freedom of the press is protected and promoted. 8 See Jorge Correa, 1992, “Formación y perfeccionamiento de juices.” In in El Poder Judicial en la encrucijada. Estudios acerca de la política judicial en Chile, Carlos Peña et al. (Santiago: Escuela de Derecho, Universidad Diego Portales). 9 It has supported non‐liberal political principles and provided symbolic support to authoritarian institutions left in place by the dictatorship (Hilbink 2002, 317). 10 In a social context still dominated by the fear of political regression, the governments of the transition have opted for maintaining a constrained and minimum level of public debate. It has been a self‐serving objective inserted into the realm of political pragmatism. This is the reason that the relative centrality given, during the struggle for democracy, to the theme of freedom of the media faded quickly in the first few months of the transition. From the outset, the democratically elected authorities have been neither able nor willing to bring about an institutional and constitutional 11 It is interesting to note that Australia tightened its sedition laws in 2005 12 For a detailed analysis on film censorship in Chile, see Olave, Daniel, and Marco Antonio de la Parra. 2001. Pantalla Prohibida, la censura cinematográfica en Chile. Santiago: Grijalbo. 13 However, as I experienced, this book was widely sold (illegal copies) in the streets of Santiago. 14 As mentioned earlier, the case of the “glass house” or Nautilus Project was dismissed by the judge. 276
15 Krohne is a journalist and academic. I interview him in several occasions during my field trips to Chile. He was a permanent source of information. 16 Frequently the objectives of the government for a non‐confrontational democracy have collided with the social demands for a more plural, freer media system, especially for the media organisations controlled by the State. 17 By the end of the first decade of the transition, the Chilean political class had failed to introduce constitutional and legal reforms to protect freedom of expression. This failure has meant that Chilean journalists have been operating in an environment that places serious limitations on their ability to cover matters of public interest. A series of archaic laws mean that Chilean journalists have remained at risk of criminal action and even imprisonment. Although the 2001 new Press Law introduced some clauses that protect journalists and provide advances in freedom of the press, it has not gone far enough to completely abolish some of the authoritarian provisions found in the Chilean legal and constitutional system. This will be examined further at the end of this chapter. 18 This is also a problem in Australia that has one of the harshest defamation laws in the world. 19 As Pearson argues: “the ‘chilling effect’ deters “journalists from pursuing stories to minimise the risk of being sued” (1997, 99). 20 This information was provided by Jaime Giordano, journalist and academic, School of Journalism, Universidad de Concepción. Interview 2001. 21 Aside from the issue of the relationship of military to civilian authority, this situation has frequently raised the question of the true meaning of the Chilean democracy as long as such laws continue in force (Oppenheim, 202). 22 The judge is also a controversial figure whose frequent conflicts with the Chilean media have become examples of the thorny relationship between freedom of expression and the authoritarian and archaic legal system. 23 This verdict demonstrates that Chilean people do not enjoy equal legal treatment and even worse, they may be subject to harsh legal penalties if they dare to criticise any authority. 24 Sergio Peralta is a lawyer and journalist. Interview, La Serena 2002. 25 This is for example the case of the US legal defamation laws. 26 Maria Irene Soto is a journalist. In 1992, her book Los Secretos de Fra Fra, was impounded (article 7, Code of Criminal Procedures). Interview, Santiago 2001. 277
27 In the Australian legal system a criminal case can be covered as long as it is a fair and accurate report of what has been said in open court or when there is some overriding public interest (Pearson 2004, 8). 28 The ban on media reporting about this case was maintained until 1996. 29 Personal Interview with Eduardo Alvarez, Editor La Tercera, December 2002. Santiago. 30 However the FoI in Australia has become so hard to use that it has been described as “freedom from information.” 31 President Ricardo Lagos created a presidential commission on ethical conduct within the public administration as a response to possible cases of corruption within the public service and decision makers. 32 Rodrigo Araya is a journalist and teaches at the School of Journalism, Universidad Católica de Valparaiso. Interview, Valparaiso 2000. 278
Summary and Conclusion Summary and Conclusion Central Propositions The dynamic of the Chilean transition to democracy, a process that began in 1990, has had a deep effect on many sectors of Chilean society, especially the media, traditionally one of the key spheres of public debate. Despite the end of the dictatorship, the Chilean media continue operating within a highly repressive and authoritarian legal and constitutional system, and within an economic model that has left it subject to the rules of the market. This thesis examines, from a multidisciplinary perspective, the context, the process and development of the media during the first decade of the transition to democracy (1990‐
2000). Its fundamental objective is to understand the relationship between journalism, the media and the democratic political processes in a post‐dictatorship society. The central proposition of this work is that the Chilean transition to democracy has failed to provide a political, economic and legal context conducive to the establishment of a mass communication media able to make a positive contribution to the process of democratization. This thesis also suggests that, in the context of a highly authoritarian legal and constitutional structure, the communication media, and journalists in particular, continue operating in an environment of self‐censorship and professional timidity. Finally, this work points to the financial and ideological consolidation of the media system that has severely hindered media diversity and the plurality of ideas. It is the view of this author that during the transition, the Chilean media have been unable to play a role as disseminators of political information and democratic values. And secondly, the media system has been unable to serve as a forum for political dialogue, which is essential for democratic consolidation. 279
The Transition Although this work has covered mainly the first decade of the transition, in 1990‐2000, the transition to democracy in Chile is not over yet. The transition to democracy has become a stubbornly endless political process. It is a process beset by the problems of a transition that has been achieved through negotiation and a series of agreements between the democratically elected government and the former dictatorship. The Chilean transition is a process marred by the political and economic remnants of the military dictatorship, by a highly restrictive and authoritarian legal and constitutional system, and by a weak, captive political class. As was argued in this work, it has become a case of political frustration. However the Chilean experience is not unique in Latin America. Most of the post‐dictatorship countries in the region still struggle with institutional and constitutional legacies left in place by former rulers. With a great deal of wit, the Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano has described Latin American post‐
dictatorship transitions to democracy as democraduras, democracies mortgaged to military power. It is within this historical backdrop that the relationship between the media and the transition to democracy has been examined. This work is an attempt to examine and assess the reasons behind the failure of the Chilean transition to rekindle a more pluralistic media and more open public debate. This work has examined the relationship between the media and the transition by looking at the historical Chilean political structure; the social and cultural transformations experienced in the last three decades; the media and government institutions; the media regulatory (or no‐regulatory) environment, the legal and political norms governing the relationship between journalists and politics, and the economic model used to democratise the media system. From a wider perspective – especially from an historical perspective – this work endeavours to provide some clues conducive to understanding the relationship between the media and the democratic political processes in a post‐dictatorship society. 280
Paraphrasing the wonderfully enlightening Eric Hobsbawn (1990), this thesis is an attempt to understand and explain why, in Chile, things turned out the way they did and how they hang together. This work is also an effort to set free the historical memory of Chile’s traumatic past. The traumas of the past have shed a veil of historical silence between Chileans. I have tried to lift this veil by looking back to the political dilemmas, the unresolved social issues and the economic problems that have shaped recent Chilean history and, indeed, the way they have shaped the media. In many ways the contemporary transition to democracy is a history that began 30 years ago. The Chilean transition to democracy has been a fragile process where the media and journalism have been marginalised from this process of achieving a so‐called “democracy by agreements” or “democracy by consensus.” One of the central arguments I have tried to develop is that the media have been deeply affected by the dynamic of the Chilean transition to democracy. The restrictions and obstacles experienced by the Chilean media during the transition have many causes, the lack of an effective government media policy, a highly authoritarian legal system, and the persistence of a culture of fear and self‐censorship. In the last decade, the Chilean media system has operated within a highly repressive and authoritarian legal and constitutional system, and within an economic model that has left it subject to the rules of the market. The Chilean experience has proven once again the assessment of Elizabeth Fox who observes that democratic authorities “came to power without any new scheme to reorganise the mass media” (1988, 29). In this context, the media have been transformed into a mainly commercially driven sector with a substantially diminished social (and public) service role. Transition and Media The Chilean transition to democracy fits the classic definition of a “post‐authoritarian crisis”, identified by Maravall and Santamaria as commonly occurring in societies after an extended period of authoritarian rule (1988, 114). It is an interval between a dictatorship and a consolidated democracy that, as has been seen in the Chilean case, 281
involves a great amount of uncertainty (O’Donell & Schmitter 1988, 15‐18) and a high level of compromise between the former and the newly elected authorities (Di Palma 1990, 138). Within Leonardo Morlino’s classification of post‐authoritarian democracies (1987, 58) the nature of the Chilean democracy is both ʺlimitedʺ and ʺprotected.ʺ In a limited democracy, as has been the case in Chile during the decade covered by this work, the ability of a government to rule is conditioned by the constitutional and legal norms left in place by the former rulers or by agreements reached with those who previously held power. The protected nature of Chilean democracy is reflected in the active presence of former agents of the military government in the constitutional and institutional structures of society. Central to this protected democracy is the presence of what have been identified as authoritarian enclaves. These undemocratic enclaves have institutionalised the participation of the armed forces in political deliberation through the constitutionally created State Security Council, and the establishment of non‐elected senators who, in practice, provide the pro‐dictatorship forces with a veto power over legislative and constitutional reform. In more than a decade of transition, the ruling Concertación de Partidos por la Democracia has been unable to obtain the political majority in the Congress that is required by law to dismantle the anti‐democratic obstacles imposed by the Constitution. The Chilean transition to democracy has been accurately described as a democracy by agreements. Essentially, this is a democratic model achieved by a process of constitutional negotiations within a social and political context that is highly authoritarian. In this process there are social compromises and political agreements where key issues, such as the prosecution of human rights abusers and the establishment of a more equitable economic system, are subject to negotiation. This negotiation is based on a strategy of political accommodation that is convenient to both the former and new authorities (Garretón 1993). Part of this accommodation has been the acceptance by the new authorities of the constitutional and legal framework and the neoliberal economic model left in place by the dictatorship. In exchange, the dictator allowed a political “apertura” (opening) that paved the way toward a process of democratic transition. 282
This accommodation also involves the government’s commitment to restrain the demands of the civil society, discourage the action of the independent and alternative media and to stifle public debate. The constitutional and authoritarian legal systems left in place have imposed severe restrictions on the work of Chilean journalists. One the key deterrents for the development of a robust media mediated public debate have been the presence of legal restrictions considered the harshest among western democracies. A number of highly restrictive legal rules, including defamation and contempt of authority laws, have remained effective. In addition, the permanence of laws that restrict access to information has resulted in the inability of journalists to make accountable the political elite and to question the way in which the transition has been conducted. So, while during the military dictatorship threats to the media emerged from the use of the military government’s executive power, during the transition to democracy threats to the work of the media have emerged mainly from the judiciary. The government of the Concertación de Partidos por la Democracia has attempted, by political and administrative means, to tone down the media coverage of some of the more delicate aspects of the transition, including the investigation of human rights issues. As Tironi observes, the Concertación has the notion that the media and public debate should be conditioned (and controlled) so as to achieve the elusive goal of “national reconciliation” (1993, 237). This role hides less lofty aims. From the early years of the transition, the government of the Coalition has attempted to subdue the coverage of controversial issues, especially those dealing with human rights and with the increasing level of poverty resulting from the neoliberal economic system, while at the same time, attempting to use the media as a promoter of “less controversial issues.” As a result, “national reconciliation” has become a euphemism for social disempowerment and political lethargy and a narrow news agenda has been used to these ends. The news agenda of the transition has been used as a standard to assess the contribution of the media to the “political quality” of the Chilean transition. This is in accordance with the notion that the media can improve the quality of representative democracy if they provide a number of functions and services within the political system. One of those services includes the provision of a “meaningful agenda‐setting that incentives citizen to 283
learn, choose and become involved” (Gurevitch and Blumler 1990, 270; Keane 1991 and Curran 1996). Cárdenas has concluded that the social and political demobilisation that has characterised the transition is, in a large part, due to the highly conservative and shallow news agenda found in the majority of the Chilean media (2000). The news agenda of the transition has tended to privilege stories disassociated with conflicts, especially possible disagreements between the new authorities and the former dictatorship. The transition period has witnessed the emergence of a news agenda hijacked by the ʺlogic of consensusʺ underpinning the so‐called “democracy by agreements.” It is a news agenda characterised by a tendency to downplay or conceal the many conflicts that exist in Chilean society and, at the same time, to emphasise events where agreement and consensus have been reached. As Escalona suggests it is a press profoundly limited by its attempts not to offend the former rulers and to be useful to a government that is attempting to demonstrate that the Chilean transition is a model free from major conflicts and dilemmas (2000, 11). Furthermore the civil society demobilisation has been achieved with the help of the media, narrowing the news agenda and excluding the civil society from news coverage. While the leaders, and actions, by civil society are ignored, government officials, personalities, and government acts are disproportionably represented in the daily news. Parallel to this, it is the development of an historical context where there has been a conspicuous absence of “big social issues” from the media and from the public sphere. In addition, the traditionally vigorous political debate that characterised Chilean society until 1973 – exercised in public spaces and in the media – has become nearly imperceptible. Resorting to the questionable argument that democracy could be at risk and needs to be consolidated, the coalition governments have made systematic efforts to discourage public debate on the “big social issues” affecting Chilean society (Moulián 1997; Jocelyn‐Holt 1997; Zerán 1997). In addition to the deficient and non‐pluralistic news agenda, the concentration of media ownership and the absence of an effective State media policy have taken their toll. 284
The Chilean post‐dictatorship authorities have been unwilling to bring the media into the process of democratisation. The role played by the media has been to diminish the historical centrality of politics in Chilean society and to replace it with chronicles of daily life such as consumerism, family and security. Financial and Ideological Monopoly It is not possible to explain the reality of the Chilean communication media without understanding the impact of the economic neoliberal model inherited and embraced by the Coalition during the transition. In this context, the media system has been left open to the control of national and international, private and profit oriented economic interests. The neoliberal concept of media democratisation has paved the way for private, national and international, corporate control of the principal means of public expression. This has assisted in the consolidation of a media model based on consumerism and entertainment, incompatible with the democratic need for a plural, diverse and robust public sphere. The embrace of the neoliberal model is also consistent with the political interest to curtail or eliminate, as has happened, the independent and alternative media that could have served as a monitor of the flaws in the transition. It may also have served as a voice for human rights advocates, opponents of the neoliberal economic model, and other progressive sectors marginalised by the transition. The Chilean case has demonstrated that the neoliberal approach when applied to the media has reduced citizens to consumers. Throughout the 1990s the communication media became instrumental in the expansion of market choice while generating a passive and depoliticised society. Essentially, with deregulation, the general trend in the Chilean media – especially on television – has been a decline in the substantive informational content of political communications. In line with the neoliberal economic model the government has preferred to adopt a model based on the premise that the best policy is not having a policy (Sunkel & Geoffrey 2001, 21). In this no‐media policy approach, the regulatory role of the State becomes non‐
existent and the media are left subject to the “regulatory mechanism” of the market. The outcome of this approach was twofold. On the one hand it tended to exacerbate media 285
concentration, consolidating the monopolistic media dominance of the two largest Chilean media conglomerates, El Mercurio S.A. and Copesa. On the other hand, in the context of “market regulation,” most of the independent and alternative publications that emerged during the dictatorship as instruments of struggle for democracy were unable to survive. The closure of the alternative and independent media symbolised the dramatic failure of the new politico‐economic environment to sustain a pluralist press and was a devastating blow to Chile’s media diversity. Left without a major independent media, the duopoly once again dominated the national daily press as it had for most of the dictatorship. The result of this unregulated scenario suggests that although media liberalisation, understood as a relaxation of state control, is essential for the consolidation of a democracy, it does not necessarily mean that the freer the media are from government regulation, the stronger their contribution to the quality of democracy. The Chilean case has failed to substantiate the theory that a relaxation of state regulation contributes to the development of a more diverse and pluralistic media system. The neoliberal system has not only brought about a media financial monopoly but it has produced an unchallenged ideological monopoly. Therefore the main problem with media concentration lies in the content of the political messages communicated. Throughout the transition, these two print media conglomerates have had the power to set the news agenda of the majority of the Chilean media, including television and radio. It has been an ideologically conservative and financially market oriented news agenda set within the class interests of those who own the main media organizations and the financial elite in Chile. As Cabeza argues it has been a news agenda that has not only defended the economic interests of the Chilean elite, but also has promoted conservative social and religious values (2000, 30). The highly monopolised media power block is a central channel of the power of Chilean conservative forces. During the transition they have exercised power, not through direct political coercion, but via indirect ideological and cultural control. The lack of a post‐dictatorship program to reorganise the media for the “new times” reflects the unresolved issues of media regulation, control and ownership. On the other 286
hand and from an economic perspective, the transition to democracy has exposed the limitations of the neoliberal economic model in terms of media diversity. It is clear that during the first decade of the transition to democracy, the adoption by the Concertación of the market model for the media influenced a series of policy choices that have contributed significantly to a weaker public sphere. The decline of both media diversity and social mobilisation during the 1990s are interrelated manifestations of the limitations of neoliberal democracy. Subject to the rules of the market, Chilean journalism has experienced a major set back in terms of quality and in terms of its role as an agent of democratisation. In addition, the lack of a coherent media policy has tended to marginalise the role of journalists in reintroducing Chileans to a culture of plurality and democratic coexistence. The Chilean experience has put a question mark over the popular belief that the greater liberties inherent in free‐market economies, especially when accompanied by the emergence of new media technologies, facilitate the development of pluralism in the media that can pave the way to a fully‐fledged democratic consolidation. A bill to enforce media freedom and pluralism was, in fact, presented to Congress in 1993, but it was forcefully opposed by media owners and pronounced unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. The Chilean State has shown, so far, little commitment in terms of implementing effective measures to diversify and democratise the media system. Several regional and international bodies have confirmed that the state has an important responsibility in avoiding media concentration and promoting media plurality. Epilogue The development of a more inclusive, pluralistic and open media has been severely threatened by the persistence of a highly restrictive and anachronistic legal system. Although the transition to democracy has been a far more favorable environment for the work of journalists, some important aspects of the former dictatorship still constitute key obstacles for journalists, with some of the harshest legal penalties for the media in Latin America. The relationship between the media and the transition has also been framed around the harsh legislation used to suppress and penalize individual journalists and media organizations. 287
Despite the transition’s promise of a free and secure context for the work of the media, this period has been characterized by the presence of severe legal restrictions that affect the work of journalists. These restrictions are considered the harshest among Western democracies. Considering this – and as Oppenheim suggests that unfettered political discourse cannot take place when one side is under the threat of punishment for speaking out openly and in a way that offends opponents (1999, 207) – it is easy to see how the traditionally vigorous political debate that characterized Chilean society has become nearly imperceptible. While during the military dictatorship threats to the media emerged from the military government’s executive powers, in the transition to democracy threats to the work of the media have emerged mainly from the judiciary. A number of highly restrictive laws have remained effective, leaving the media without a guaranteed freedom of expression. Some of these laws, such as defamation and contempt of authority, are anachronistic and have played a central role in stifling public debate. Chile has the dubious reputation of having the most numerous contempt provisions protecting authorities from criticism and scrutiny. These provisions invoke harsh and repressive punishment and tend to be used with extraordinary frequency. Any person charged with contempt against anyone in authority risks a jail term. Defamation and contempt of authority laws makes Chile the only democracy in Latin America to have a legal system that penalizes offensive language against authorities as a state security crime and as an attack on public order. Throughout the 1990s the protection of “public order” was one the most common justifications used by the government to curb and suppress freedom of expression and prosecute journalists. There are serious legal threats to freedom of information through a series of provisions and articles. It is in essence a list of “freedom of expression abuses” that journalists may contravene, and that encourages an undesirable culture of secrecy and censorship. The law penalizes any journalist who publishes information about the private life of government officials even when the publication is considered a matter of public interest. The anachronistic Chilean legal system tends to put the “private honour” of its 288
authorities well above the public right to know, creating a significant hurdle for the development of a modern democracy. The process of consolidating the protected democracy and the neoliberal economic model has also created a less democratic media ownership structure, leaving the majority of society without media expression. Finally, it is possible to argue that the Chilean transition to democracy will not be completed until media freedom, plurality, and a forum for broad public debate have been achieved. However, and although the forecast might sound pessimistic, the transition to democracy and its relationship with the media has proven once again that the attempts to democratise the media in Chile and in the rest of Latin America have been an historical failure. 289
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