Ideology, Media Ethics, and Audiovisual Regulation in Spain

Posted on Sep 15, 2024 in Law & Jurisprudence

Ideology and Thinkers

1. Marx

2. Adorno & Horkheimer

– Institute of Cultural Research at Frankfurt University – Reinterpret Marx.

– Critical Theory needed to build a true democracy.

– The role of “Culture” and “Mass Culture”:

  • Cultural industry is capitalist because mass culture is imbued with the capitalistic ideology of the upper class.
  • Cultural commodities are sold, inferior to high art.
  • High art disturbs, contradicts, is a conflict/Low art is totalizing mastication, hides conflict.
  • Systematic repetition numbs the mind and destroys the ability to think critically.

3. Althusser

4. Gramsci

– Prevailing cultural norms of society (“the way things are”) are imposed by the ruling class and accepted as the cultural norms by subordinate classes.

  • “Struggle for meaning”.

– Hegemony: (totalizing discourse) justifies the status quo of the dominant ideology and its economic, political, cultural, and social situation as inevitable/natural/normal.

– Through consent and not through coercive power only (agency)!

5. Hall

6. Foucault

7. Ideological Hegemony

Ideological hegemony is the process by which certain ways of understanding the world appear so self-evident and/or naturalized as to render alternatives as nonsense/unthinkable.

8. Foucault

– Science and its “truths”.

– Power circulates among us: ideology is enacted by it.

– The power in words and “discourses”.

– Biopower.

9. Stuart Hall

– Dominant Ideology is negotiated in the media.

– Not reproduction, but construction of meanings in representation.

– Encoding / Decoding

Deontological Codes

7. Brief History of the Codes

– First codes emerge in the US at the beginning of the 20th century.

  • First in Europe, 1918: Carte des devoirs professionnels des journalistes français.
  • 1920s and 1930s: Scandinavian countries (Sweden 1923, Finland 1924, and Norway 1936).

– After WWII, these documents multiply:

  • Some reach a supranational level like the International Federation of Journalists or the International Organization of Journalists (1954).
  • The Declaration of Human Rights (with the recognition of information as a fundamental right in article 19) had a great role in this process.

– 1980s/90s: a boom for codes (all members of the EU finally had one):

  • 1983: UNESCO approves the International Principles of Professional Ethics of Journalism.
  • 1993: European Council passes the Resolution 1003 about Journalists Ethics:
    • Importance of journalist ethics for European institutions.
    • Puts the debate in the forefront.
    • Ethical issues are not only for journalists but also companies.

8. Codes in Spain

– Spain, differently to other European countries, has a historical delay in its self-regulation.

  • After the dictatorship, self-regulation was seen as yet another form of censorship.

– 1992: Journalists Charter of Catalonia as the pioneer and encourages the emergence of new codes.

  • FAPE (Federation of Spanish Press Associations) did it in 1993.
  • Also in 1993: Convenio sobre principios de autorregulación de las cadenas de televisión en relación a los determinados contenidos de su programación referidos a la protección de la infancia y la juventud (Ministry of Science and Education).
  • It results in the Self-Regulatory Code for Television Contents and Infancy, which was supported by all national TV channels and radios.

9. Other Issues

– Telebasura.

– Press groups and other media have made their own deontological codes.

– Codes on particular topics such as domestic violence, immigration, infancy, or disability.

– Proposition of a Law for professional journalists by the Forum of Journalist Organizations (2004):

  • Still pending approval.
  • Common ethical code.
  • Sanctioning institution.

Audiovisual Council

2. Tasks of the Council

– Advising the courts and the government regarding legislation and regulation of audiovisuals.

– Issue reports for renewal or revoking licenses.

– Yearly report about audiovisual media and the opinion of the public.

– Study topics that are alarming: education, infancy, new mentalities.

– Work with “Tribunal de Defensa de la Competencia” to avoid monopoly.

– Encourage the abiding by the rules, laws, and codes regarding deontology, and denouncing those who don’t follow them to the competent authority.

– Protect the rights of minorities, in programs and advertising.

– Mediate in issues of counter-programming and promoting those produced by the local media.

– Ask advertisers and audiovisual companies to stop or rectify illicit advertising.

– Encourage plural and objective information.

– Listen to the complaints of viewers and maintain good relationships with civil society.

– 1997: Consell Audiovisual de Catalunya (CAC)

  • 2000: Specific laws for CAC, covering issues on advertising minors protection, personal rights, informative honesty, and the public service of the council.
  • “Oficina de Defensa de L´Áudiència”
  • Reports and recommendations.

– More recently, also in Navarra, Madrid, Galicia, and Andalucía.