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Centuries of Silence The Story of Latin American Journalism

Leonardo Ferreira

Book Code: B8410

ISBN: 0-275-98410-9

ISBN-13: 978-0-275-98410-6

DOI:

344 pages

Praeger Paperback

Publication: 10/30/2006

List Price: $29.95 (UK Sterling Price: £16.95)

Availability: In Stock

Media Type: Paperback

Also Available: Hardcover

Trim Size: 6 1/8 x 9 1/4

Subjects:

Endorsement From Mike Kryzanek
Bridgewater State College: Ferreira has crafted a well researched and thorough study of Latin American journalism. This text fills a noticeable void in the literature on the role that journalism has played in the areas of democratization, good government and public opinion formation. Centuries of Silence is certain to be must reading for those interested in how journalism developed in Latin America and how it has changed over time.
Endorsement From Dr. Luis Ramiro Beltrán,
Latin American communication research pioneer and first recipient of the McLuhan Teleglobe Canada Award: The extraordinary work by researcher Leonardo Ferreira rescues the Pre-Columbian origins of news activity in Latin America. It brings into question the fallacy of "freedom of the press" in this continent and denounces that its contemporary journalism contributes to perpetuate both intranational domination and international dependency--which, by oppressing people and silencing their voices, impede the formation of true democracy. This book is also a timely and exemplary call to further investigate the journalistic production of Latin American liberators and their communication perspectives.

Description: The history of Latin American journalism is ultimately the story of a people who have been silenced over the centuries, primarily Native Americans, women, peasants, and the urban poor. This book seeks to correct the record propounded by most English-language surveys of Latin American journalism, which tend to neglect pre-Columbian forms of reporting, the ways in which technology has been used as a tool of colonization, and the Latin American conceptual foundations of a free press. Challenging the conventional notion of a free marketplace of ideas in a region plagued with serious problems of poverty, violence, propaganda, political intolerance, poor ethics, journalism education deficiencies, and media concentration in the hands of an elite, Ferreira debunks the myth of a free press in Latin America. The diffusion of colonial presses in the New World resulted in the imposition of a structural censorship with elements that remain to this day. They include ethnic and gender discrimination, technological elitism, state and religious authoritarianism, and ideological controls. Impoverished, afraid of crime and violence, and without access to an effective democracy, ordinary Latin Americans still live silenced by ruling actors that include a dominant and concentrated media. Thus, not only is the press not free in Latin America, but it is also itself an instrument of oppression.

Table of Contents:

Foreword
Introduction: When Good News Is Bad News
Chapter 1 Whose Truth on True Street
Chapter 2 A Taste of Freedom
Chapter 3 Taken by War and Censorship
Chapter 4 Modernization and the Press
Chapter 5 How Not to Start a Century
Chapter 6 Hot and Cold Wars, Warm Presses
Chapter 7 Dreaming a Fair World
Chapter 8 One Step Forward, Dozen Backwards
Bibliography
Index


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