Page 190 - Comparing Political Communication Theories, Cases, and Challenge

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Sabine Lang

optimistic version, paid print media might face up to the existing chal-
lengebyinvestingmoreinthestrengthsthattheyhave:buildingcloserties
with their established readers, investing more resources into reporting
on community issues and raising the quality of production on the whole.
Yetwhat seems somewhat more likely is a “race-to-the-bottom.” The fact
that local media depend heavily on advertising revenues gives free media
with broad distributive networks a strong leverage that might force paid
dailies into down-scaling that most likely will have negative affects on
journalistic production quality.

Local Media and Democratization in Less
Developed Countries
We know little about local media in less developed countries and,
more specifically, about its function in organizing democratic processes
and providing voice for nongovernmental groups. While local media in
the metropolitan centers of less developed countries often follow the fa-
miliar path of economic concentration, umbrella diversification, and
government-oriented reporting, there is also evidence of media giv-
ing voice to oppositional politics and marginalized actors. The most
cited historic example is the establishment of local radio stations by
Bolivian mineworkers, starting in 1952. Over the course of twelve years,
twenty-seven stations were established and financed by unionized mine
laborers (Valle 1995, 210). In Latin America and Africa, local stations
are increasingly taken as a means to protect cultural and linguistic di-
versity of ethnic or regional groups. Video communication is employed
to bridge the communication void due to illiteracy, enabling citizens
to communicate with regional and national officials in the absence of
written testimony. One example for such functional use of video is
the “Association for Video Use by Popular Organizations” in several
Latin American countries, that uses video communication as an em-
powerment strategy and has trained rural workers in Chile and Peru
to document and relate their problems to a wider audience and to
government (Valle 1995, 211; also Media Development issue 1989/4).
In India and Nepal we have similar evidence of popular use of video
communication to counteract illiteracy (Okunna 1995, 618–19; Stuart
1989). In Nepal, illiterate village women have produced “‘video letters,’
aimed at improving communication with development organizations
and the central government, and developing educational materials for
village use, with the women recording their problems, sending the tapes

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