"Uruguay tiene un sistema de medios de comunicación que está concentrado en unas pocas empresas y personas. Un oligopolio formado por tres grupos económicos controla el mercado de la TV abierta y de abonados, dominando la audiencia, la facturación de la publicidad e instalando una única agenda
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informativa en todo el país desde Montevideo. A menor escala, pero con fuerte poder de incidencia local, la concentración también se reproduce en los departamentos con empresarios y grupos familiares que concentran multimedios a través de autorizaciones para operar señales de TV abierta, brindar servicios de TV para abonados y contar con una o más radios. Garantizar que haya un sistema de medios plural y diverso, para que exista un pleno ejercicio de la libertad de expresión y de información es una recomendación central de todos los organismos internacionales de protección y promoción de la libertad de expresión. Sin democratizar los medios no se puede democratizar la sociedad, y es ésta una tarea aún pendiente en nuestro país. Y no hay mejor forma de comenzar a democratizar que mediante una reforma legal aprobada por un Parlamento elegido democráticamente. Con ese objetivo el Frente Amplio para el periodo 2010-2015 planteó claramente su compromiso con la «Democratización de los medios de comunicación y de la información fortaleciendo los medios de comunicación públicos, generando en el sector privado una efectiva libre competencia y participación de la sociedad civil en la definición de las políticas públicas de comunicación.» Para colaborar con el debate público y parlamentario se ha preparado esta breve guía con los temas claves de la iniciativa legal y sus fundamentos." (Presentación)
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"The Report builds upon two main directives: on the one hand, it tries to bring together the best practices at the international and comparative level, in an attempt to offer guidance on which policy and regulatory toolkits have already proved successful in achieving longterm goals of economic effic
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iency, sustainability and democratic governance of the media sphere and could therefore be considered by Somali lawmakers as positive and reliable examples. On the other hand, the Report has been drafted with a constant attention to the specificities of the Somali society, tradition and constitutional framework, in order to tailor the recommendations as closely as possible to the specific context of Somalia. For the same purpose, along with the best European and international standards, specific cases from postconflict countries that faced similar challenges have been selected and analysed. The recommendations provided in this Report are meant to accompany the process of law making in Somalia and the public consultation between the government and the local media stakeholders that will develop during the coming months and they aim to help achieve large popular consensus on the adoption of the new Communications Law. The recommendations therefore offer a broad overview on current best practices and are to be read as a useable, adaptable toolkit on general principles rather than as a detailed list of regulatory prescriptions." (Executive summary, page 2)
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"International law provides robust general protection for freedom of expression, including freedom of the media, and this has been subject to detailed elaboration by international human rights courts and other official bodies tasked with promoting human rights globally and regionally. For the media,
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some of the key implications of the right to freedom of expression are that the media should only be regulated where this is necessary to serve an overriding social interest and that such regulation should be undertaken only by bodies which are protected against political and commercial interference. Furthermore, an important goal of media regulation should be to foster and promote diversity in the media. International law also places clear limits on restrictions on what may be published or broadcast through the media, while also imposing a positive obligation on States to put in place systems to ensure that individuals can access information held by public bodies. All of the countries in the Arab world are in serious breach of all or most of these standards. While there has been some progress recently, particularly in terms of respect for freedom of expression in practice, the need for comprehensive media law reform in the region remains pressing and very substantial. Unless structural protection for media freedom is provided through law reform efforts, it is extremely unlikely that any gains in respect for freedom of expression will be lasting." (Conclusion, page 64)
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"Während sich die politischen Systeme Lateinamerikas seit den 1980er Jahren demokratisierten, nahm die Konzentration von Besitz und Macht im Mediensektor eher noch zu. Dieser Widerspruch schafft Spannungen, die sowohl gesellschaftliche Reformforderungen als auch staatliche Initiativen zur Neugestal
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tung des Rechtsrahmens für die Medien zur Folge haben. Traditionelle Eliten und neue Großkonzerne prägen bis heute die lateinamerikanische Medienlandschaft. Reforminitiativen aus der Zivilgesellschaft und von einer Reihe von Regierungen weisen auf die zentrale Rolle der Medien für den politischen Willensbildungsprozess hin und fordern ihre Anpassung an die Erfordernisse der Demokratie. In Argentinien, Bolivien, Ecuador, Uruguay und Venezuela setzten die Regierungen neue Mediengesetze durch. Die hiermit verbundenen Konflikte unterscheiden sich entsprechend der jeweils gegebenen Konstellation in Politik und Medien. Trotz der wachsenden Bedeutung neuer Medien und Informationstechnologien dominieren die traditionellen Medien, vor allem das Fernsehen, nach wie vor die öffentliche Meinungsbildung. Nicht das Internet, sondern die „alten“ Massenmedien stehen im Zentrum der politischen Auseinandersetzungen." (Seite 1)
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"Digitization has had profound effects in Brazil. In journalism, information flows faster than ever, and from a greater number of sources; journalists have to adapt to an environment that demands immediate coverage of events, sometimes privileging speed over content. The internet has become the seco
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nd main source of news, and the number of people reading newspapers online has nearly tripled over four years. Brazilians are heavy users of social media and user-generated content platforms, with Facebook and YouTube being the second and fourth most accessed URLs in September 2013. Access to mobile telecommunications is widespread, and there are more SIM cards circulating in Brazil than there are Brazilians. However, serious gaps in internet regulation topics such as net neutrality, ISP liability, privacy, and user rights still have not been addressed by legislation. In an attempt to fill these gaps, the Civil Rights Framework for the Internet (Marco Civil da Internet), a draft bill produced through a process of public online debate carried out by the Ministry of Justice, was sent to the National Congress in 2011. The text faced strong opposition from some quarters, and the bill has not yet been introduced in Congress." (Publisher description)
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"The current UIS Questionnaire on Media Statistics provides information for three UNESCO frameworks, namely the Media and Information Literacy Framework, the Media Development Indicators Framework and the Framework for Cultural Statistics. The questionnaire collects data for reporting global progres
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s on Action Lines C2, C3, C8 and C9 of the World Summit on Information Society (WSIS) in UNESCO’s fields of competencies. In particular, Action Line C9 recommends appropriate policies to foster and sustain media and information development. This document provides country profiles for each of the countries that participated in the two pilot surveys conducted in 2011 and 2012." (Background, page 3)
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"The research for this report was developed and undertaken between June 2012 and April 2013 across 14 Pacific Island nations: Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Kiribati, Republic of the Marshall Islands, Republic of Nauru, Niue, Republic of Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon I
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slands, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu. The report provides a regional overview of the PACMAS key components (Media Policy, Media Systems, Media Capacity Building and Media Content) as they emerged through 212 interviews focused upon the six PACMAS strategic areas. It also provides basic background information, an overview of the media and communications landscape and discusses in detail media and communications technicians; emergency broadcast systems, Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVETs), media associations, climate change and non-communicable diseases (NCDs). For this reason, observations on the four PACMAS components should be understood to represent changes in the media and communication environment based upon an investigation focused on the PACMAS strategic activities." (www.pacmas.org)
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"Pakistan has long suffered from high inflation, led by soaring food prices, which has increased poverty levels. According to the United Nations’ 2011 Human Development Report, half the population suffers deprivations of all types. Only half is literate. Even then there are only 12 million televis
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ion sets (surely a desirable medium for those who cannot read)—one for every 14 people. This means a lot of communal watching of mostly state-owned channels of the Pakistan Television Corporation (PTV). At present, the only other terrestrial television channel is the privately owned ATV, in which PTV and the Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation are majority (80 percent) shareholders. The sameness is deafening. However, urban Pakistanis are getting richer and spending money on alternatives. Thus PTV has ceded ground to more than 20 privately owned broadcasters with 89 domestic and 26 foreign channels, with national television viewing split evenly between terrestrial on the one hand, and cable and satellite on the other. This proliferation of channels has enabled Pakistani media to wield more influence over politics and public discourse than ever before. With this growing influence comes, however, a corresponding increase in attempts by the government to control media outlets. Indeed, state coercion and increasing censorship are among the greatest pressures on the media industry." (Website Open Society Foundations)
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"Estonians have demonstrated a keen appetite for digital media uptake. More than three-quarters of the population accesses the internet regularly, and more than half of those are active on social networking platforms. Recent surveys suggest that nearly a quarter of internet users now connect via sma
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rtphones. As for traditional media, newspaper circulations have experienced a steady rather than dramatic decline over recent years, while television and radio audiences remain relatively stable. The press and news organizations remain in general relatively free of political influence, and although there is significant cross-media ownership and little opportunity for new entrants, digitization does not appear to have exacerbated this situation, and there remains a degree of competition and pluralism within all sectors. This report calls for the development of media policy that will incentivize television service providers to introduce the additional digital television services that were promoted during switch-over. They also call for long-term predictable funding mechanisms to ensure that public service media, Estonian Public Broadcasting (Eesti Rahvusringhääling, ERR) above all, provide quality output." (Open Society Foundations website)
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