Photo Credit: Flickr user Presidencia de la República del Ecuador
By: Natalie J. Kitroeff
In the aftermath of years of economic and political turmoil, some Latin American states find themselves entrenched in a new kind of battle: a no holds-barred media war. The recent surge in the number of left-populist governments in power in the region has deepened polarization, with economic elites strongly opposing the new leaders’ political and economic platforms. In some cases, the media has been the primary battleground on which these broader political disputes are fought. Ecuador and Argentina are two such countries; in each, the context of the rancorous press wars merits examination, including historical causes, the implications of increasing state influence in the media, and the fierce backlash that government action has engendered.
The circumstances surrounding the media in Ecuador and Argentina are microcosms of the power struggles that define their respective political realities. In Ecuador currently, and in Argentina before the passage of the 2009 Audiovisual Service Communication Law (SCA), antiquated laws established during periods of dictatorship governed the media landscape. In both countries, the dictatorship–era laws allowed for government censorship of the press, mandated broadcasts of official messages, and facilitated almost complete control over the media by a few economic elites. With the advent of democracy, enforcement of the laws became more lax, yet in each country the private media remains concentrated in the hands of a limited number of powerful companies.
Oligopolistic owners have generally been opposed to the leftist economic and social policies implemented by President Rafael Correa in Ecuador and the dual Argentine administrations of former president Nestor Kirchner and his wife, current president Cristina Fernandez. These policies, especially changes to the tax code and steps to expand the role of the state in the economy, tend to conflict with the business interests of the media conglomerates and their investors, which in part accounts for their harsh criticism of many government programs.
Like politicians everywhere, the Correa and Fernandez governments are acutely aware of the power of the media. Both governments are highly sensitive to criticism and disinclined to compromise with media outlets, who they view as the primary opposition force in political environments characterized by disorganized opposition parties. In response to the onslaught of criticism, particularly in the television and print sectors, Correa and the Kirchners have intervened in the media in distinct ways that international observers and human rights groups describe as occasionally repressive and in some cases undemocratic.
The most significant of the efforts to expand state influence in the press have been projects to enact new media laws. Both governments claim that the principal objective of their respective communications laws is to replace ineffective dictatorship–era legislation and break up monopolies held by media giants. While Ecuador’s proposed communications law approaches the issue by “explicitly prohibiting monopolies and oligopolies in media ownership,” Argentina’s SCA seeks to diversify ownership of the press through less direct means, mainly by reforming the process by which media licenses are distributed. In mandating more frequent renewal of licenses for all media outlets and allowing a broader range of groups access to such licenses, the law promises to democratize the highly concentrated private media. While many civil society actors consider these goals to be legitimate—even opposition groups recognize the importance of revising old media regulations—the legitimacy of various provisions in the laws are disputed.
Of most concern in Argentina is the implementation of new licensing requirements established in the SCA. The opposition contends that tasking the distribution of licenses to a broadcast regulatory body whose members are appointed by a process that “ensure[s] ruling party control”, promises to tighten the government’s grip on the media and limit press freedom. Opposition to the Ecuadorian communications law has been serious enough to stall debate and a final reading in the National Assembly for months. Opposition forces and international human rights groups’ critique has centered around the vague wording of stipulations that critics say pave the way for the regulation of information disseminated by news outlets by a communications council that, like the SCA’s regulatory committee, will have close links to the incumbent government. Press freedom advocates also call for the revision of articles that require high educational qualifications in order to work in journalism.
Less concretely, criticism of both laws essentially amounts to a fear that their implementation could result in too much state control over the press. Given the constant attacks on the private media by both the Correa government and both Kirchner administrations, these suspicions are not entirely unfounded. Since 2008, both Kirchner and Fernandez have been engaged in what has become a vicious personal battle with the media conglomerate Grupo Clarin, which owns 73% of all broadcast licenses in Argentina as well as the nation’s most prominent newspaper. The government has subjected the company to an onslaught of tax audits, accused its owner of adopting babies stolen during the dictatorship, and attempted to limit the circulation of its newspapers by intervening in the directorate of Prensa Papel, the newsprint paper company of which Clarín is the largest shareholder.
The Correa government’s response to critical coverage is similarly hostile, and arguably more aggressively interventionist. Since his election in 2006, Correa has brought under state ownership three national TV stations, two prominent newspapers, and one radio broadcaster. While the state-owned outlets affirm their independence, recent firings and resignations over journalists’ disagreement with a government program in the state-run paper El Telegrafo casts some doubt on the impartiality of the media under government control. A ferocious ad campaign designed by the regime to discredit the private media that ran during the World Cup this July only exacerbated tensions between the government and the private press.
The raging media wars in Argentina and Ecuador should be understood, therefore, as products of both structural and politically contingent elements of democracy in these countries. Rather than merely the power grab the opposition portrays them as, the contests are manifestations of longstanding political clashes between left-populist governments and the traditional economic elite. However, as citizens of almost any Latin American country can testify, governments in the region tend to use power aggressively for political ends. The heightened sensitivity of both Correa and Fernandez toward critical media coverage compounds tensions between progressive populists and the ever-powerful, right-leaning elite deeply rooted in the countries’ political and economic pasts. With the media playing such an active political role in so many countries, this combustible mix is likely to plague political systems across Latin America for years to come.
