Coordinated by Paulo Nasser, the debate touched on: the privatization of the means of communication – the media as empire, monopolizing the ownership of the means of communication and, therefore, of information; the roots and causes of society’s inability to build an open, democratic public opinion; the effective participation, in major networks, of segments of society that promote a different reality and seek a new language.
Critical text Ricardo de Carvalho
A descentralização da TV
It had all been set up. The equipment was being purchased for two years. After a few experiments, the inauguration date for the first television channel in the country, São Paulo’s TV Tupi, was finally scheduled for September 18th, 1950. By late August, someone remembered a minor detail: there were no television sets in the country for the first broadcast to be aired to. Assis Chateaubriand, already the owner of a journalistic empire, had someone rush to fetch a few receivers in the United States. And thus, on the scheduled time, Brazilian television was born, under two strong signs: improvisation and privatization.
Since then, of course, a lot has changed as the medium became increasingly professional, but the fundamental aspects have remained: the privatization of media, even if television channels are said to be ONLY a connection of the State. Once again, practice dumps law in the trash. The truth is that more and more, like small empires, the means of communication are passed on from father to son, as if society had nothing to do with the fact that only a a few retain ownership of the media, and therefore of information.
This is the crucial issue, the root and cause that prevents the effective participation of society in building an open, democratic public opinion. Only a wide debate on this fundamental point – and the upcoming Constituent Assembly is the stage for this debate – will allow for the effective participation, in the major networks, of segments of society that disseminate a different society, that seek a new language. It is paramount that we turn our attention to the radical change in legislation. Otherwise, the independent video production companies will always be panhandling for a space that really belongs to all society, and not only to an “elected few.”