Venezuela's new model of communications media
is the path to follow for the Americas

Introduction: Fernando Buen Abad Domínguez, PhD, is a degree-holder in Communication Science and has a Master's degree in Political Philosophy. Currently he is vice-president of the Open University of Mexico (Universidad Abierta of Mexico), the country where he was born in December 1956. He is the author of "Communication Philosophy" (Filosofía de la Comunicación), which was published by the Venezuelan Ministry of Communication and Information and presented to the general public in Caracas past June 23, 2006. We have taken the opportunity of his visit to Venezuela to gain insights from his academically-informed understanding of new media experiences in the framework of the revolutionary process being under way in Venezuela. (See more about Dr. Dominguez from Aljazeera at the end of this article).

MMC/EC: What is your opinion of the behavior of the mass media in Venezuela?
 
Dr. Domínguez: From a worldwide analytical perspective, Venezuela does represent a special case. Together with the Mexican Institute of Image Research (I.R.I.) we've made a series of analyses of the changes taking place in Venezuela. We observed that this country is the product of a great phenomena of communication.
 
The events  of April 2002 (1), when an entire people took to the streets and millions of people managed within just a few hours to organize themselves in favor of a revolutionary transformation process, are a real watershed. We still do not know for certain how this occurred, people informing one another, they call it "Radio bemba"  here in Venezuela, a popular tool of communication just kept growing and it eventually snowballed. Motorbikes became the lifeblood of the process, people went up and down by motorbikes spreading essential information. It's a great communication experience that we need to study.
 
We need to learn what the Venezuelan people put into practice in the streets that day to organize themselves, to tell the President, the coup plotters, and the world what path the country has chosen, against the most authoritarian and most despicable forms of treason committed against a people.
 
For us, it's important to know that apart from the many things this transformation process is representing in Venezuela, a transformation of communication itself is taking place, but that's not all: we also note that against everything the privately owned mass media -- using slander and insults -- had done and said, the Venezuelan people did manage to resist intellectually, they did not fall into the trap in spite of the fact that 90% of the country's radio and TV broadcasting spectrum and the majority of the mass media are privately owned. In spite of all this, they were unable to defeat the emotional strength, the culture, the tradition and the free will of the Venezuelan people. We think this is what has to be studied in terms of a social phenomenon of mass communication. It's unprecedented in human history! And we had never seen, 'til then, a president return to power after a coup d'état, and the people come together so quickly to achieve this.
 
MMC/EC: Is Venezuela throwing monopoly media power off balance in both Venezuela and on the continent as a whole?
 
Dr. Domínguez: I would say that Venezuela is beginning to do so. I think the country is starting to feel that need every day more and more; Venezuela is reaching the conclusion that one cannot have an indulgent attitude towards media powers that are in the habit of lying, because this would mean tolerating a permanent process of criminal offense using the communications media.
 
I don't even think it's the state that needs to intervene, but there should exist something like juries, people's courts with conscious specialists participating at the side of the people and helping them understand that it's no laughing matter if a someone on morning television happens to shout at his guests, shaking his fist in their faces, but that it's an act of disrespect towards the free will of the people, towards the personality of a President who is a Latin American and world leader. We are aware of the fact that the ongoing process is a gradual one and that there's still a long way left to go.
 
The role of communities
 
MMC/EC: In your writings you state that a type of communication that is different from the one we are accustomed to needs to be built; this is quite a complex issue. Based on your own academic and personal experience, how could we advance in the building a communications model that is coherent with the revolutionary process?
 
Dr. Domínguez: One way to change the discourse is to change the actors in the discourse. One good way would be to ensure that it is not always the same people always saying the same things. What I mean by discourse isn't the words, but rather the media-generic sense, the aesthetic discourse, the kind of camera angles, the type of music, the modulation of voice, where some newscasters on commercial television speak in precisely the same way, one after the other, making vocal inflexions, exaggerations, accents, modes of speech, modernizations of the tone of voice.
 
In my opinion, by changing this kind of discourse we are already starting to think of other alternatives, because instead of having intermediaries explaining to us what reality is, we allow reality to speak for itself. In the Mexican media, what they do is to interpret for us what another person said; they are in a factory with workers, with the peasants, with the social organizations, and the reporter tells us they're saying this and that and goodness knows what else. The atmosphere is tense, they never allow the people themselves to say what why they have come, what they are doing, what they want to say, what they are thinking, what they are feeling, what's disturbing them, what concerns them, what inspires them, what enthuses them. We never find out! They're shown as some kind of decoration, as a background prop; this is nothing new, it's the format that is being applied on a global scale, and it can be transformed.
 
Communities themselves can now grab hold of the microphone. And the cameras too, let's hope they learn how. Because taking the microphone isn't enough, there are numerous elements and conditions to be taken in consideration so as to achieve a fairly sensible, orderly handling of the means of communication; it's not easy, it's a vocation that needs its due time, time to mature, that demands a learning process like with any other new set of tools.
 
Communities can start to find their own languages, with their own accent, their own emphasis, their own priorities and their own interests. We're not used to watching this kind of television, we are not accustomed to listening to this kind of radio, we are not used to reading this new press, we are learning anew. We have not yet seen the best kind of communication, up till now we've seen commercialized communication, which has turned time into a commodity, turned women into a commodity, turned the family into a commodity, the kind of television that turns the entire world into an object of consumerism. As soon as we can to surpass all this conceptually, philosophically and poetically, the moment we take this qualitative leap and raise the quality of the discourse and the narrative quality then we'll see another type of television, a different type of journalism. We'll need to learn new principles, including narrative ones.
 
MMC/EC: The mass media can serve as an instrument of peace; they also can be employed as a tool to fan the flames of confrontation as in Venezuela in April 2002 during the coup d'état: they called government supporters "Chavista hordes" and those who supported the opposition the "civil society in struggle ".(2) What is your interpretation of this handling of the news?
 
Dr. Domínguez: I think that's a disloyal use of communication. A use which is not faithful to what the people themselves are saying. You can't have that sort of chicanery in the mass media! If we look around and see how people who have been excluded for decades are now developing both individually and collectively, because they are living in a country that is engaged in a process of transformation aimed at improving the quality of life of each one of its inhabitants, then there is nothing else to do but to support this and take the side of human progress.
 
Nobody must obstruct the development of a society, and if someone does so with the help of a means of communication, then it is even worse. I think that sort of thing is absolutely malicious, I think this should be discussed in terms of a lack of ethics, as a lack of human solidarity. The truth is that Venezuela, for years now, has set a good example to many countries in diplomatic tact, even though some countries, like Mexico, have been utterly rude. We are also dealing with a problem that's political and ideological in nature; this country is waging a fantastic battle, that is, the battle of ideas, where people are becoming aware of their right to think freely, and hardly anyone likes that.
 
Coming back the mass media, you have an immense challenge because in addition you have a President who is an exceptional talent when it comes to communication. President Chávez is a rebel in every respect, I wrote some articles about this, on the program Aló Presidente ("Hello Mr. President") (3). The program has become the most impressive school of political education ever seen on a worldwide scale, here's an instance of powerful communication. Through this program many people have learned to analyze international oil problems, become acquainted with the nation's economic structure, amongst other important issues.
 
MMC/EC: Is the program Aló Presidente communication for social development?
 
Dr. Domínguez: Without a doubt. It goes without saying that this does not suffice, because if we stick exclusively to this form of communication, then we would saturate the audience with a single source. Therefore, we would propose "Hello Communities", "Hello Workers", "Hello Students" and "Hello Peasants," so there would be discursive and narrative vigor. 
 
MMC/EC: In your opinion, what sort of communications strategy would be coherent with the transformation process we are living in Venezuela?
 
Dr. Domínguez: Before replying directly to your question I'd like to mention that a couple of months back I was at the TV station Al Jazeera in the Middle East, and we were starting to talk to a group, and they asked us where in the world could you find a space where people could take to the microphone and speak freely, immediately, and we thought of Venezuela and communicational experiences like Vive TV and TeleSUR created by the Bolivarian process.
 
Vive TV is a new project but it's already on the cutting edge, and TeleSUR is a project in full flight. TeleSUR is a tool for integration and communication that should come into its own, given that its guiding principles are both the south and socialism. These are two children of revolutionary communication in this country, these are the spaces where revolutionary ideas have to be tested, and nobody else has this possibility. It's worth its weight in gold, believe me! It's an extraordinary opportunity.

If I had to say what the guidelines should be, I'd say that we should follow this example, although this isn't enough. For example, we're proposing the organization of an international current of thinkers, of communicators who would work in cooperation with process under way in Venezuela, because it is the most advanced one. We must push it ahead. I've been helping where I could, we are trying to get everyone who's working in these media to commit to training themselves and improving the quality of their programs, so that they can surprise and entice even more.
 
One important aspect of strategy is the policy of studying, of generating a major current of political and economic solidarity with the revolution, but moreover, to have ethics. It is an unavoidable task, and then we would have to have a meeting of delegates from all the Latin American grassroots media movements and sit down to discuss how best to work together on this experience of Venezuelan communication. We now have a model of communication, it only needs to grow and mature.
 
MMC/EC: The law on Social Responsibility in Radio and Television (Ley de Responsabilidad Social en Radio y Televisión (Ley Resorte)) in Venezuela has been attacked repeatedly based on the argument that it imposes absolute control by the government. The most recent attack has to do with the distribution of the airwaves. What do you think of this law?
 
Dr. Domínguez: The so-called Ley Resorte is a great tool for social construction in communication. It seems to me that it needs to be studied, it's a great achievement, we should learn from it and improve it; I think that we need to base ourselves on the law and the legitimacy of a process of transformation in the realm of communication. In addition, we should not only debate in Venezuela but on a worldwide scale the issue of the airwaves, and we should take part in that debate, because it's urgent for Mexico to discuss this issue as well.
 
Moreover, we need to change both the forms of making communication and the consciousness of the mass media. In short, we must place all our scientific knowledge at the disposal of a country's process of transformation, because science is not a privilege granted to a handful of people who make a living of this knowledge; in fact, universities generate the least knowledge in society. Knowledge is not necessarily to be found in universities, although some people swear by it. 
 
MMC/EC: Professor, do you plan to carry forth any academic projects here in Venezuela? 
 
Dr. Domínguez: Yes, I do. We're currently conducting a research project, an applied seminar to teach at the Universidad Bolivariana de Venezuela (UBV, Bolivarian University of Venezuela), and we're also trying to finalize an agreement with the Ministry of Communication and Information to have more seminars in Caracas and elsewhere in the country, where there are many people who are interested in these projects.
 
Aside from that, we'd like to create a space for scientific research in communication; we are extremely interested in participating in this process, and I've collected material from different experiences for use in the spaces that we are creating.

Notes:

(1) T.n.: Fernando Buen Abad Domínguez is referring to the events of April 11-13, 2002, the failed, US-backed coup d'état against Venezuelan President Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías. The 2002 documentary The Revolution Will Not Be Televised (also: Chávez: Inside the Coup), directed and photographed by Kim Bartley and Donnacha O'Brian, Ireland, is a must-see that shows events before and leading up to the coup, the coup itself and the rise of peoples resistance to regain their democratically elected President. For groundbreaking evidence on the extent to which the Bush administration illegally aided the opposition, influenced the Venezuelan military, and directly and indirectly supported the coup of April 2002, see Eva Golinger's outstanding investigation: The Chávez Code: Cracking U.S. Intervention in Venezuela. Havana, Cuban Book Institute, 2005. Available also in Spanish, Italian, and German language via http://www.venezuelafoia.info/english.html.

(2) T.n.: In this particular context we highly recommend watching the documentary Llaguno Bridge Keys to a Massacre by the Cuban filmmaker Angel Palacios who reveals in stunning detail how the Venezuelan media twisted facts and news to blame the massacre on President Chávez and the Bolivarians defending themselves against the shock troops of the Caracas Metropolitan Police. Quite telling footage on the information and psychological warfare carried out before, during, and after the April 2002 coup by the Venezuelan private media -- which have therefore been commonly referred to as the "Storm Troopers of the Apocalypse" (Jineteras del Apocalipsis), particularly the four major, privately-owned TV-stations Globovisión (CEO Alberto Federico Ravell), Venevisión (Gustavo Cisneros), RCTV (Marcel Granier), and Televen (Omar Camero Zamora) -- is also found in The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.

Editor's Note: These film documentaries: The Revolution Will Not Be Televised and ... Llaguna Bridge: Keys to a Massacre - can be obtained from Axis of Logic - LMB

(3) T.n.: Fernando Buen Abad Domínguez is referring to an unparalleled program that is being conducted on Sundays by President Chávez himself, who is carrying forth exceptional battle at the internal communication and information front by using this space to personally inform and also to talk directly with the people about a vast range of topics of political, economic, and social interest. Aló Presidente starts at 11 AM Venezuela local time, and can easily last up to 8 hours ("very much to the annoyance of some Chávez opponents"); it is a live live broadcast by the government TV that can be accessed on-line: Channel VTV (Venezoalana de Televisión) and RNV (Radio Nacional de Venezuela) and can be accessed on-line.

Original Source in Spanish: Universidad Abierta: Instituto de Investigaciones sobre la Imagen

Copyright 2007 by AxisofLogic.com (Translation copyright)

Iris Buehler and revised by James Hollander. Both are members of Tlaxcala, the network of translators for linguistic diversity. This translation can be freely reproduced provided its author, its translator, its revisor and the source are mentioned.

More on Dr. Dominguez: Fernando Buen Abad Dominguez, 50, has an impressive background in Image, Communication and Culture, as well as film and television production, having written and directed 19 audio-visual and cinematographic works in Mexico, Houston, New York and Argentina. He has also been part of the jury at many international film and documentary festivals. An acclaimed professor, he has taught Semiotics, Cinema, Audio-visual Production, Journalism, Radio, Linguistics, and Integral Professional Communication. - Aljazeera