Closure of 29 radio stations in Venezuela means freedom of expression just moves to new media platforms

This past Friday in Venezuela, protesters marched against President Hugo Chavez's decision to continue to shut down radio and television stations, supposedly for breaches of contract and "violations relating to their broadcasting licenses". Whatever the claimed reasons for denying citizens access to an option of media sources may be, it seems as though this effort to silence the public and their opinions, whether they be pro- or anti-Chavez, won't really hinder their freedom of expression as much as they think. Case in point: one news station covering the story ran text messages sent in from viewers in a ticker along the bottom of the screen, messages that expressed their views and opinions on the radio and television station closures. It seems that the station wants to go out with a bang, refusing to back down even after threats of closure. And that takes guts -- albeit rather sneaky guts -- from a station being controlled by a government wishing to silence any anti-Chavez opinions.

Said television broadcasting station Globovision, which is a known critic of Chavez, is being investigated for "breaking a law on 'social responsibility'", allegedly because of their biases and opinions that go against Chavez and his policies. But instead of sitting still and allowing to be silenced, Venezuelan citizens moved their discussion of Chavez's choices on to another platform (the ticker aired on the older medium of television) by means of the new medium of mobile phone technology. I have yet to see this be a trend on Twitter and I haven't found a Cause for the incident on Facebook, but it wouldn't surprise me if these topics show up sooner or later (it's quite possible that maybe I'm having difficulty finding these groups because I haven't been searching Spanish).

In some ways, I'm incredibly grateful for the freedom of the press and access to information that we have here in America. I may find it difficult to completely support and agree with any of the major news providers or pundits in the media, but at least those who the majority of citizens do not agree with or who fall on the fringes of public opinion are not at risk of being silenced for their views and opinions. I'm not saying that Venezuela needs to adopt a freedom of speech model akin to ours in the US, because I do not think that our system is by any means flawless (one could argue that there is just too much media noise out there, or an unpalatable amount of "truthiness", i.e.); I'm simply stating that I think the opportunities for free speech awarded by unchecked new media outlets like text messaging, Twitter and Facebook make the possibility of silencing a public difficult. Without complete removal of these media from public access, which I don't think neither pro- nor anti-Chavez citizens would be particularly happy about (but which has happened recently in China), citizens and pundits will still be allowed to express their opinions without fear of repercussions. So while Chavez may be attempting to silence the public opinion via the radio and television platforms, I'm pretty sure he may not actually be targeting the right media.

Media as an Antidemocratic Force

The following is in response to a question based on McChesney's text Rich Media, Poor Democracy, a book that constantly refers to the state of the media at the turn of the 21st century. You can find a link here to excerpts from his book. Excuse the un-fanciness of the website.
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Why does McChesney say that media are an antidemocratic force?

McChesney’s 1999 book Rich Media, Poor Democracy basically has one dark, fatalistic conclusion: the more powerful the media is, the less democratic it is. The introduction to his text and the first chapter set out to prove his thesis that the more wealthy the current day media conglomerates become, “the poorer the prospects [are] for participatory democracy" (McChesney 1999, 2), something that McChesney dubs “the rich media/poor democracy paradox” (3). When referring to “democracy”, McChesney is taking a very literal definition of the term: “the many should and do make the core political decisions” (4). Although America claims to be a democracy, in reality the US is an oligarchy in which citizens, while encouraged to participate in the voting process, still do not have much authority over controlling the decisions made by the powers that be. And although the United States is built around a so-called democracy in which citizens have the ability to debate and protest, McChesney argues that since media, much like politics, are “governed” by the few (and not the many), there is no democratic debate taking place on the nature of our media.

McChesney states that it is in the best interests of media firms to become oligopolies to ensure their personal success in a competitive industry in which the new kids on the block, so to speak, are constantly trying to succeed among the big dogs in the most cutthroat of fields. Throughout his argument, McChesney frequently references Ben Bagdikian, who has published several books on the topic of the media monopoly, each new edition an update on the current trends and includes new media technologies. For example, the Telecommunications Act of 1996, Bagdikian writes, diminishes “the relationship or lack of it between the mass media and the American public” (Bagdikian 2004, 137-138), an act which McChesney believes to be antidemocratic, one which regulates communication, and is inherently corrupt. Not only is the Telecommunications Act a politically, governmentally-proposed law, but it also results in deregulation, killing the chances for small businesses and small media producers, especially the public-access and public-service media outlets. Basically, it is next to impossible to be a small or even mid-sized media firm any more.

In order to better understand his thesis, McChesney lays out Chapter One of his book into three current (as of 1999) trends in the US media, including: 1) concentration of corporations; 2) media conglomeration; and 3) hypercommercialism, all of which, he argues, leads to the decline and elimination of public service and therefore democracy or democratic tendencies and ideals in media culture. In these three sections, McChesney states the implications for each model/trend as being highly negative, touching on the collapse of journalism (a mode of expression that should be inherently democratic, seeing as voicing the truth or one’s opinion is one of the rights upheld by the First Amendment), the decline of creative freedom (another tenet and product free speech) that is instead traded in for commercial values, as well as the “quashing of public debate” (63) that should be alive and well in a democratic society.

Essentially, media have caused a nation founded on the principles of democracy to dwindle in its democratic forms of expression. A news story becomes a book becomes a movie becomes a soundtrack on a CD that you play on a CD player ALL owned by the same vertically and horizontally synergized corporations that leave you no other option besides participating in the system that they themselves have monopolized, kicking the little guys to the curb and leaving smaller, less synergized and successful companies in the wake of their dust.