Towards Community and Non-Profit Media Legislation in South America: Challenging Media Power Through Citizen Participation

Abstract

A democratic system, according to late media scholar Edwin Baker, requires the ‘democratic distribution of communicative power’ (Baker 2006: 6). Media concentration — whether in the hands of government or business -assigns the power of interpreting our environment to a small group of actors and increases the risk that media align with the holders of political and social power. Thus, media reform involves the critical review (and, potentially, reduction) of monopolies and oligopolies in the newspaper, broadcast and telecommunications sector.