Centuries of Silence: The Story of Latin American Journalism

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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.

Reviews

Probably the most detailed account of the Latin American mass media ever published in English, this well-annotated book presents a history of Latin American mass communication from precolonial times to the present. Covering the development of journalism education in Latin America and reviewing some of the arguments critical of the current globalization of media technologies, Ferreira provides less a discussion of news organizations than an overview of Latin American media and social policy and cultural and social development. He cuts across borders from Mexico to Chile and is mindful to include historical comparisons of how media trends in Latin America differed from those in the US and western Europe.The book will be a valuable resource for those interested in international mass media. Recommended. Graduate students, researchers, faculty, and professionals. * Choice *
The greatest strength of Ferreira's work lies in his successful synthesis of an increasing body of secondary material on the region and the subject. His book provides a useful reference for historians and students who desire a compendium of the major developments and struggles that journalists have endured over the past 200 years in Latin America.[I]t is clear that Ferreira went to great lengths to synthesize the existing body of scholarship. His efforts are commendable and his work provides a useful took for instructors interested in a survey of the literature of the history of the news media in Latin America. * Journalism History *
Centuries of Silence: The Story of Latin American Journalism by Leonardo Ferreira takes on a huge taskto review and summarize the story of Latin American newspapers and broadcast journalism. A member of the communication faculty at the University of Miami as well as a consultant to the Inter American Press Association, the author grew up in Colombia before attending college and grad school in the United States. His history is critical, in almost every sense of that term, as he finds the press too much under the thumb of various national elites, and rarely sticking up for the common person or criticizing government personnel or policies. * Communication Booknotes Quarterly *
Ferreira begins by asking whether there was a nascent or proto-journalism in pre-Columbian America. Then he looks at such stages of Latin American journalism as the idealism surrounding liberation from Spain; war, censorship, and propaganda during the 19th century; revolution and the Cold War; and tension between globalization and a fair and humane world. * Reference & Research Book News *
[L]eonardo Ferreira combines a trilingual review of the literature with his own original research to produce a book that challenges conventional theories about how the region's news media came to be what they are today and, indeed, what exactly they are.Besides providing a base for further work in the field, this book will complement standard interpretations of Latin American media scholars as well as researchers who want to understand the background that has shaped an expanding segment of the potential U.S. media audience.Centuries of Silence makes an important contribution to that understanding. * American Journalism *

Author Bio

LEONARDO FERREIRA is Associate Dean and Director of Graduate Studies at the University of Miami and a consultant to the Inter-American Press Association, the Grupo de Diarios America, and BBC Latin America.