ADRIANA CEDILLO
Marshall McLuhan, Canadian philosopher and scholar, in the early '70s coined the term global village to describe the human interface to a global scale, from the media and the powerful role they play in mass persuasion, as an instrument of social control.
Today in Chile, as elsewhere in the world, "alternative media", could show another side of the coin, in which new channels of information are more opportunities to give to society, a space for cultural events.
Antonio Méndez Rubio, English poet and essayist in 2004 spoke in the text invisible Bet on "subcultures" such as communication practices cross-popular, where the street, the neighborhood pub or experienced as meeting places and expression of new styles and new practices in the world.
The main Chilean newspaper Holdings
In Chile, the major media holdings are concentrated in the newspaper El Mercurio SAP Copesa and who control about 90 percent of the national press.
Copesa SA meets the daily La Tercera, Time, The Fourth, The Journal of Concepción, Que Pasa, Paula, Duna radio frequencies 89.7, 99.3 Carolina, Beethoven 96.5, 97.7 Zero, Paula FM 106.9, and the web site The Tercera.com. While El Mercurio has the Santiago daily El Mercurio and the latest news, afternoon La Segunda, and 21 regional newspapers in the country. Also, Intercom Cable TV set (the first cable operator in the country) also has the Digital FM radio, FM and Positive NRG FM, as well as commercial printers and publishers such as El Mercurio-Aguilar and El Diario Sur SA
El Mercurio SAP is currently Ivan Augustine property Edmundo Edwards Eastman Chilean businessman and journalist, who has been identified by some as the main asset of the CIA in Chile, being part of their Operation Mockingbird (campaign secret Central Intelligence Agency to influence the mass media began in the 1950s).
In 2005, the American journalist, Alexander Cockburn in his article entitled How the CIA paid the articles of Judy Miller, noted how the manipulation of the press has always been a paramount concern of the CIA and the Pentagon.
"In his Secret History of the CIA, published in 2001, Joe Trento described how in 1948, the CIA man Frank Wisner was appointed director of the Office of Special Projects, soon renamed the Office of Policy Coordination (OPC) . It became the espionage and counterintelligence branch of the CIA and first on the list of official duties was "propaganda." Later that same year, Wisner established an operation code-named "Mockingbird" for influence inside the American press, "says the article.
Other
Chilean daily La Nación, is in a different dynamic to Mercury and Copesa, now owned by the government of President Sebastián Piñera, who is currently reviewing various proposals for privatization, after established as part of his government program, the privatization of this medium for journalism.
Separately is the newspaper "The Citizen" of a more critical, which this year celebrated its five years of circulation, "the Citizen is a publication that seeks to raise from local demands of the Chilean social organization as well as encouraging direct action citizenship for their right to self-determination, "explains their website.
Moreover, "El Clarin" newspaper that carried the slogan sign next to the village was marked by strong criticism to the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, who lived in the Southern country for 27 years after the coup of 1973, which ended the government Socialist Salvador Allende.
This last fact, described by some "the most formidable political exercise that would never have arisen in the history of Chile, which also discussed a process of social unrest, economic chaos and almost ungovernable, promoted by the opposition and agencies United States, under the leadership of its then president, Richard Nixon, "says Felipe Agüero in his book, Historical Evaluation and prospects for the new democracy.
The TV in Chile
In the field of Chilean TV, the media are distributed as follows: CVH is owned by president Piñera, belongs to the family MEGA course, Channel 13, responds to an editorial in the Catholic church, the state channel TNV-owned.
latter (TVN) has 21 years on the air, 10 million 500 thousand households worldwide have access to their contents, with the help of seven satellites broadcasts 24 hours to five continents, reaching its signal to 25 countries in America Australia, Europe, Middle East and North Africa. This television
worth noting that currently witnessing a public debate due to the dissatisfaction of the opposition parties, which aroused the April 8, appointment made La Moneda, the economist and engineer Leonidas Montes as head of this company.
also on the TV, is this another debate: the sale of Chilevisión chain, owned by President Sebastián Piñera, of which, and three businessmen have made known their interest in the purchase, which include the Mexican Angel Gonzalez, who already owns in Chile, Television Network.
Alternative Media, a look at popular communication
Despite the apparent concentration of information in information monopolies have been a number of alternative media, as part of some of the resources and expressions of popular culture. Example
thereof is informative as well positioned in the Chilean population, "The Clinic", published by the Publishing Society and Bobby Publications SA, founded 10 years ago by Patricio Fernandez.
The weekly described himself as "half a bitter enemy of the big media companies in Chile (El Mercurio, Copesa, Condorito), although its members gladly accept work for them." Its general editor is Paul Vergara (Best Heading 1999, Universal Press Association, Comayagüela, Honduras) and the Internet edition is headed by Alvaro Díaz González (Information Disclosure Award 1982, Tucumán, Argentina).
Media Network Chilean people (RMP) is another leading media expression. This news site is described as "a civic organization formed by a plurality of print media, radio, television and the Internet from all over the country. Communication Under the slogan of the third sector to break the information blockade, the struggle for right to information and seeks the democratization of communications. "
"Our intention: strongest overall sound, making massive demands for rights that the organization has social areas and in Santiago, raising important topics for public discussion for the sovereignty of the working citizens, such as the right to water and free access to education at all levels, among others, "said the statement signed in May 2009, in Valparaiso.
Other means have also been consolidated as part of this alternative culture is Think Chile, Chile Live, People Alternative, Chilean Popular and Indigenous Network, Indymedia and Chile, which have been room for some movements emerged in the southern nation, among these, some advocates of the Mapuche people.
"alternative is to have ideal people, defend and be consistent with them. Being alternative is wanting a better world for all and not stand still thinking it is a utopia. Alternatively people free people. Only you can choose what you want to be and you want to. Do not let others think and decide for yourself. To be free is to be yourself, not what others expect of you. Live and let live, "the portal of the same name.
Thus, these demonstrations have been positioned through the Internet and in the case of "The Clinic" in print, to join the media that the popular, have managed to build spaces where people can express , feel included while be participants in processes of cultural production, which some Latin American thinkers as Paulo Freire and Alberto Mendez, once described as the possibility of democratizing communication.
