Los medios, el espectador y la narración: Poderes sutiles.

Since the proliferation of the mass media, society has experienced drastical changes, one of them in regards of power. In this essay I analize the power relationships between the mass media and their spectators, as well as their mechanisms and consecuences. I sustain that this mechanism is the narrative understood as a way of deliberately choosing information with the purpose to provide aesthetic feelings to the events on the world. This manipulation of reality generates a power relation as far as the citizen lacks alternative ways of knowing complex social realities, generating an information monopoly, information that can be manipulated both in its content (facts) and in its form (narrative) to show the spectator something that is not always the case. This would generate changes in public opinion which could be easily instrumentalized.

Los medios, el espectador y la narración: Poderes sutiles.

Since the proliferation of the mass media, society has experienced drastical changes, one of them in regards of power. In this essay I analize the power relationships between the mass media and their spectators, as well as their mechanisms and consecuences. I sustain that this mechanism is the narrative understood as a way of deliberately choosing information with the purpose to provide aesthetic feelings to the events on the world. This manipulation of reality generates a power relation as far as the citizen lacks alternative ways of knowing complex social realities, generating an information monopoly, information that can be manipulated both in its content (facts) and in its form (narrative) to show the spectator something that is not always the case. This would generate changes in public opinion which could be easily instrumentalized.

The Changing Landscape of Local Information Space in the Czech Republic: Consequences for Local Political Communication

Due to the emergence of Internet-based media channels the character of local information spaces in the Czech Republic has undergone a remarkable change. Traditionally, dominant information sources: daily newspapers and municipally-owned media have become challenged by a variety of online sources run by groups of active citizens. Based on a systemic analysis of the local media sector and interviews conducted with representatives of local activist groups this paper discusses the consequences of these processes for local political communication. From the activists’ perspective, the new communication environment has significantly influenced the character of the mutual relationship between different participants in local political communication. Trust between journalists and activists: the basis for their cooperative relationship, faces decline, whereas the self-confidence of activists in negotiations with politicians has increased. Online media also allow the activists to break the existing information monopoly and engage citizens in public affairs. These changes have resulted in the professionalisation of communication skills for the activists, who are thus able to become more important participants in political communication.

Bank information monopolies: Evidence from Tunisia

The purpose of this paper is to examine the problem of bank information monopoly using detailed information on the debt structure of 47 Tunisian non-financial firms over the 1998-2003 period. We find that bank debt is negatively related to agency costs of moral hazard and adverse selection. We argue that there is a potential hold-up problem leading firms that are exposed to information asymmetry to limit bank financing in order to avoid rent extraction from banks. Further, our results suggest that this hold-up problem can be resolved either by issuing public debt or by bank equity participation.

Western Cold War Broadcasting

In the 1940s and 1950s, Western governments turned to radio as the most effective means of countering the Soviet information monopoly. U.S. and West European radio stations attempted to provide listeners with the kind of programs they might expect from their own radio stations if the latter were free of censorship. For most of these listeners in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, the broadcasts were their only contact with the outside world. The importance of the foreign radio programs was confirmed not only by audience estimates, but also by the considerable efforts the Communist regimes made to jam the transmissions. Given the importance of foreign broadcasting for the political life of the Soviet bloc, it is remarkable that these broadcasts have received scant scholarly attention in the Western countries that sponsored them. The three books reviewed here help to fill that gap.