The relevance of public policies for the sustainability of community media: Lessons from Argentina

Abstract

Since 2004 and for the first time in the history of broadcasting in the region, a dozen Latin American countries have acknowledged community radio and television stations as legal providers of audiovisual communication services. In Argentina, a law passed in 2009 not only awarded legal recognition to the sector, it also provided a promotion mechanism for community media. In this respect, it was one of the most ambitious ones in the region. The driving question is: How relevant are public policies for the sustainability of community media in Argentina? The argument is: even though the sector of community media has developed and persisted for decades in illegal conditions imposed by the state, the legalization and promotion policies carried out by the state from the perspective of human rights in a context of extreme media ownership concentration have been critical to the growth and sustainability of non-profit media.

Los públicos de medios comunitarios, populares y alternativos en América Latina. El caso argentino

“…En primer lugar, la aparición de nuevos medios tras la aplicación de la LSCA. En segundo lugar, tras su aparición, estos espacios ampliaron la participación en las comunidades y en los barrios, acercando a zonas aledañas la posibilidad de no sólo escuchar una alternativa, sino también de producir programas, asistir a los estudios a participar de algún segmento y eventos culturales, y a utilizar las redes como espacios de intercambio y sociabilización de sus opiniones (Segura et al, 2018).…”

Transforming Crises Into Opportunities: Self-Managed Media in Argentina

“…Argentina is known for the creation and upkeep of SMM (Grohmann, 2020;Segura et al, 2019) in a country whose economic context poses daily challenges; in August 2023, the interannual inflation reached 124.4% (Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Censos, 2023) and it is expected that by the end of the year, inflation will reach between 140% and 190% (Escobar, 2023). The SMM have proven to have a high adaptive capacity to navigate economic crises through various strategies; since the mid-90s, cooperativism has been noted as a key agent in economic recovery and employment (Parnell, 2001), where the social and solidarity economy played a crucial role (Yunus et al, 2021) by prioritising the maintenance of activity and employment (Calderón & Calderón, 2012).…”