| Communication rights in action in Latin America |
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| Written by María Teresa Aveggio, Programme Manager |
| Wednesday, 15 July 2009 18:13 |
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Nowadays Latin American governments rarely exercise censorship in the media. However, many governments throughout the region are using taxpayers’ money and State power to exercise a form of ‘soft censorship’ in the media. These include withholding or withdrawing government advertising, granting favourable advertising public funds to friendly media, direct payments to journalists for favourable coverage, declining broadcasting licenses or obstructing access of information sources to certain media. This the argument of Fundar, a Mexican organisation dedicated to public advocacy and monitoring of public policies and institutions (www.fundar.org.mx ), in a Citizens’ Action Profile written for the Centro de Relaciones Programas las Américas (IRC) in Mexico. A partner of WACC, IRC (http://www.ircamericas.org) publishes and distributes materials and resources that help in the construction of citizen’s agendas in five areas of work including communication rights. In 2007 IRC received support from WACC to produce a number of citizen’s profiles, a format that systematizes different social action experiences in a way that allows other groups to learn from the experience and to replicate them in the context of their own struggles. WACC’s support was earmarked for profiles on communication rights in action. Below is a list of profiles that are available in Spanish and English.
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