While we are only dis­cussing (here and there) in our White Paper a way to guar­an­tee media plu­ral­ity. A new law in Argentina is already fur­ther steps ahead with its new Law on Audio­vi­sual Media Ser­vices.

On 10 Octo­ber 2009, a new law on audio­vi­sual com­mu­ni­ca­tion was pro­mul­gated in Argentina. This “Ley de ser­vi­cios de comu­ni­cación audio­vi­sual” changed the face of the media’s treat­ment of infor­ma­tion after two mil­i­tary dic­ta­tor­ships. The for­mer dic­ta­tor­ships’ main goal was to have a com­mu­ni­ca­tion sys­tem con­trolled by the army accord­ing to the National Secu­rity Doctrine.

The new law lim­its the cre­ation of an oli­gop­oly and a piece of the media util­i­sa­tion is brought to the natives thanks to asso­cia­tive medias. The full media offer is divided in three dif­fer­ent spaces, the first one is ded­i­cated to pub­lic medias, the sec­ond one is for pri­vate medias and the last one is allo­cated to asso­cia­tive medias. Each sec­tor has one third of the offer.

While peo­ple could think that this new leg­is­la­tion is a step for­ward in media democ­ra­ti­za­tion and a way to ensure infor­ma­tion diver­sity; some peo­ple are against it because it would be a way of restrict­ing polit­i­cal opposition’s power. Indeed, the “Ley de ser­vi­cios de comu­ni­cación audio­vi­sual” lim­its trusts’ num­ber of radios and tele­vi­sions, what is mis­in­ter­preted by big media groups who do not want to loose any of their chan­nels and their influ­ence on people.

Other coun­tries in South-America also tries to make asso­cia­tive medias more impor­tant and influ­ent like in Venezuela for instance, which “is one of the coun­try the most advanced on free­dom of speech” explains Bel­gian jour­nal­ist liv­ing in Cara­cas Thierry Deronne. But in Venezuela there is (so far) no num­ber restric­tion like in Argentina in the way that pub­lic, pri­vate, and asso­cia­tive medias do not have to each share a third of the offer.

As a jour­nal­ist I believe this kind of law on audio­vi­sual media ser­vices is a step in the right direc­tion and will pro­mote a bet­ter infor­ma­tion treat­ment and a new pos­si­bil­ity of ensur­ing media plurality.

Related posts:

1. Cre­ate a bal­ance between pub­lic ser­vice media, com­mer­cial media and community-based media
2. Guar­an­tee­ing media plu­ral­ism: bet­ter the devil you know?
3. Should media plu­ral­ism be legally guaranteed?
4. Should Community-Based Media be sup­ported by Mem­ber States?
5. Cit­i­zen ini­tia­tive for Media Plu­ral­ism: from Brus­sels to Bologna