Liza, I don't think Savio is saying there is no movement.  He is trying
to prod those progressive governments now in power (Brazil, Cuba, and
now Bolivia)
to start thinking about media structures that are people-powered.
\
Brazilians I know were very disappointed when Left govemenments won
power in Sao Paulo
and later in a number of Brazilian states.  Instead of strengthening
local communities by
empowering media centers, broadcast, etc, the "progressive" politicians
just used the media to broadcast
their speeches and give space for party hacks.  There used to be a
chant, something
like: Toda las armas al pueblo.  All arms to the people.  One of
Allende's problems in Chile
was that he didn't really allow the people to arm themselves.  The chant
has to be the airwaves
for the people now.  The article accurately describes the McBride report
which
did see media democracy as a sort of top down thing.  Obviously with the
internet and small
format radio transmitters and camcorders, it is a new age and one that
makes possible the cry:
toda las canales al pueblo!
DeeDee

Aliza Dichter wrote:

> (lo siento que es solo en ingles)
>
> I don't know why he would make this statement with no mention of CRIS,
> APC, AMARC and their many participating groups in Latin America-- or
> any of the hundreds of community media and media democracy activists.
> The reporter makes no effort to reference them either...
>
> Perhaps I am wrong here but it seems too often that important leaders
> and thinkers of progressive/left activism issue important "calls" for
> activism, saying that it's urgent and people need to take action but
> rarely mention the important organizing and activism and
> movement-building that is already happening on the ground.
>
>
> "Nobody in Latin America is discussing the democratisation of the
> media," Italian-Argentine journalist said Roberto Savio, the founder of
> the Inter Press Service (IPS) international news agency, durng the
> three-day seminar on Democracy in the Media: From the MacBride Report to
> the Summit on the Information Society".
>
>
> ===========================================
> From http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=31266
>
> Media Democracy Must Sprout From the Grassroots
> Daniela Estrada
>
> SANTIAGO, Dec 1 (IPS) - Civil society must lead the democratisation of
> the media, an issue that was barely touched on at the recent World
> Summit on the Information Society, said participants at an international
> meeting in the Chilean capital.
>
> "Nobody in Latin America is discussing the democratisation of the
> media," Italian-Argentine journalist said Roberto Savio, the founder of
> the Inter Press Service (IPS) international news agency, durng the
> three-day seminar on Democracy in the Media: From the MacBride Report to
> the Summit on the Information Society".
>
> "Nobody is taking up the subject, none of the governments, neither on
> the left or the right. Politicians tend to see the media as an
> information system through which they can talk at the people," he told
> IPS.
>
> The Wednesday through Friday seminar is organised by the Institute for
> Communication and Image (ICEI) of the University of Chile, which has
> under its aegis the School of Journalism and the Chilean Association of
> Schools of Journalism and Social Communication, and sponsored by the
> French Embassy and the Konrad Adenauer Foundation.
>
> The director of ICEI, Faride Zerán, underscored the importance of the
> report written 25 years ago by a special United Nations Educational,
> Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) commission presided over
> by an Irishman, Sean MacBride. She said there was an ethical imperative
> to re-examine the contents of the 1980 report because its call for a New
> World Information and Communication Order remains highly relevant in
> today's globalised world.
>
> "Roughly one billion people on this planet, the equivalent of one-fifth
> of the world's population, have access to the Internet, while a large
> proportion of the rest have never even made a telephone call," Zerán
> stated.
>
> "In Norway, more than 50 percent of the population are Internet users,
> whereas in Sierra Leone, the poorest country in the world, only two
> people out of every 1,000 have access to the 'information superhighway,'
> " she added.
>
> Savio, who was the principal media adviser to the MacBride Commission,
> recalled that the 1980 report particularly emphasised the concentration
> of the media in the hands of a few, the gap in technological development
> between the industrialised North and the developing South, the imbalance
> and distortion of the flow of news and information, and the erosion of
> cultural identity that goes hand-in-hand with a monopoly on information.
>
> The commission called for a communications policy for Third World
> countries, the creation of more news media outlets, the rejection of
> censorship, and a reduction in the degree of concentration and monopoly
> of the press.
>
> This last point, according to Savio, triggered a campaign against the
> New World Order proposals, led by then British prime minister Margaret
> Thatcher (1979-1990) and then U.S. president Ronald Reagan (1981-1989),
> "to the point that the United States, Britain and Singapore withdrew
> from Unesco."
>
> The United States withdrew from Unesco in 1984 and re-joined in 2003.
> Singapore and Britain left the organisation in 1985; the latter
> re-joined in 1997.
>
> Nearly "three decades went by without any discussion of the issue, until
> the World Summit on the Information Society, held in Geneva and Tunis,"
> Savio said. In his view, the language at the Summit was very similar to
> that of the MacBride Report, with regard to its view of the media as an
> essential tool which must be accessible to all in order to build a more
> just world.
>
> However, the Summit on the Information Society (the second phase of
> which was held in Tunis in November) did not deal with "the dangers of
> over-concentration of press ownership, the question of non-commercial
> media, and the issue of access to technological services," nor did it
> discuss any practical mechanism for reducing the digital gap, he said.
>
> According to the president of the Chilean association of journalists,
> Alejandro Guillier, also taking part in the seminar, technology opens up
> multiple new options, but well-educated, determined people are needed to
> develop alternative media projects.
>
> Guillier told IPS that it was also important to change the way in which
> democratisation of the media had traditionally been perceived.
>
> "It used to be thought that media democratisation was a process that
> would largely be carried out by international bodies, politicians and
> governments, but experience has shown that the expected results have not
> come from that quarter. Today, civil society is seen as fertile ground
> for those options to be put into practice," he stated.
>
> The speakers agreed on the fact that changes must be initiated from
> within civil society, so that they may eventually find political
> expression.
>
> The Internet explosion is contributing to the creation of a more active
> citizenry, which will definitely have an impact in the world of
> politics, said Savio.
>
> The challenge for the new generations of journalists is to use the
> advantages of new technology and develop their capacity to comprehend
> the new cultural realities, thus becoming persons who can facilitate
> more horizontal - rather than vertical - ways of doing things, said
> Guillier.
>
> Other speakers at the seminar include Argentine journalist and writer
> Mempo Giardinelli, French journalist and former diplomat Pierre Kalfon,
> University of Paris 3 - La Sorbonne professor Divina Frau-Meigs, and
> sociologist and political scientist Valeria Betancourt, a specialist in
> information technology and communication at the Association for
> Progressive Communications (APC). (END/2005)
>
> --
>