Media concentration, News simplification and Disinformation

Porto Alegre, Brazil, 4 Feb 2002 (IPS/Gustavo Gonzalez) - Ignacio Ramonet, editor of Le Monde Diplomatique, proposed, at the second World Social Forum in this southern Brazilian city, an “ecology of communications” for confronting the contamination of the media by the globalizing powers, which through the force of repetition often turn the truth into lies, and lies into truth.

Ramonet, a panellist at the World Social Forum (WSF) seminar on “Democratising Communications and the Media”, said yesterday that counter-information from independent sources and civil society contributes towards “decontamination”, but that it must be rigorous and precise in order to avoid falling into the same manipulation of the news as “the Establishment”.

“With the truth, we shall overcome,” declared the French journalist, who spoke in flawless Spanish before an audience that rewarded him with enthusiastic applause every time he had something to contribute to the panel discussion.

Communication based on citizens’ values must take precedence over news that is governed by the principles of globalization, such as profit, efficiency and competition, said Argentine-Italian journalist Roberto Savio, president emeritus of Inter Press Service (IPS).

Ramonet and Savio shared Sunday’s panel with Joelie Palmiere, of the international feminist press agency, Les Penelopes, based in France, Bolivar Osvaldo Leon, of the Agencia Latinoamericana de Informacion, in Ecuador, and Jeff Cohen, of the US-based Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting.

Moderating the debate was Anriette Esterhuysen, of the Association of Progressive Communicators.

The panellists’ diagnosis was unanimous: in the globalized world, information rapidly multiplies thanks to new technologies and the increasing number of media outlets, but ownership is concentrated in the hands of the few, while the content is simplified for mass consumption. The result is disinformation.

In the US, five major consortiums control nearly all the television and radio networks, said Cohen. With dozens of cable television channels, one would think that viewers would have plenty of choices, but that is not the case, he added, citing the lyrics of a Bruce Springsteen song, “57 channels and nothing on.”

To determine whether a media structure is democratic, it is not the number of channels or media outlets that matter, but the diversity of sources and owners, said the US expert.

Laws on freedom of the press were conceived to defend the media from attacks by the State, but now the threat comes from the major transnational corporations in a scenario in which this right is increasingly being confused with entrepreneurial freedom, Leon said.

Palmiere pointed out that the current media structure contaminates social relations, a process that is being fought by civil society leaders and groups, including women’s organisations. Stronger linkages are needed at the grassroots level, he said. “This interaction is not a matter of specialists, but of solidarity and public interest.”

In the context of globalization, information is a commodity that circulates according to the market’s laws of supply and demand. The media corporations reckon that news items will be in high demand if they are brief, simple and entertaining, said Ramonet.

The growing trend is to produce free news, through broadcast television, radio and even free newspapers, but in reality, “it is not that the companies are selling information to the citizens, but that they are selling the citizens to the advertisers,” said the Le Monde Diplomatique editor.

Through the force of repetition, the transnational media create caricatures in which, for example, the nations of the South appear either as heaven - in ads focussing on their tourist attractions - or as hell, as TV news only covers them when there is a natural disaster, genocide, civil wars or military coups, Ramonet said.

After 11 September, the transnational media adopted the uniform discourse that there were Chechens among the Taliban, without even bothering to investigate in Afghanistan. This “truth” was a big lie: there are no Chechens detained in Afghanistan and none have been sent to the US prison in Guantanamo, Cuba, he pointed out.

But the rumours spread from the counter-information side must not be accepted either, said Ramonet, citing the examples of stories disseminated on the Internet that no Israelis were among the victims at the World Trade Centre, or that the CNN coverage of Palestinians celebrating the attacks was really from 1992.

“Counter-information must be rigorous,” stressed Ramonet.

“Shared participation is ultimately the strongest counter-information,” said Savio. According to the IPS founder, grassroots communication cannot be based on disseminating rumours, but on asserting ideas, which create spaces for exchange and participation.

Savio, who described himself as “archaeological” for his struggle dating back to the 1960s to create “a new communications order,” said that the path to follow is organisation at all levels to put communication and its instruments in the service of civil society. This approach has been proven by the WSF, which would be impossible without the Internet, stated the journalist.

More than the markets, what matters are the citizens, the conscious agents of society, he said.

The World Social Forum emerged as a counterweight to the World Economic Forum, the annual gathering of the corporate world’s who’s who, held this year in New York instead of Davos, Switzerland. – SUNS5054

[c] 2002, SUNS - All rights reserved. May not be reproduced, reprinted or posted to any system or service without specific permission from SUNS. This limitation includes incorporation into a database, distribution via Usenet News, bulletin board systems, mailing lists, print media or broadcast. For information about reproduction or multi-user subscriptions please contact: suns@igc.org