Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-94fs2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-07T10:30:08.262Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The ‘emancipation of media’: Latin American advocacy for a New International Information Order in the 1970s

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 July 2019

Vanessa Freije*
Affiliation:
University of Washington, Box 353650, Seattle WA, 98195-3650, USA
*
Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]

Abstract

Throughout the 1970s, journalists and leaders in the Global South organized around the concept of a New International Information Order (NIIO), premised upon the self-determination of news access and production. Though largely forgotten today, the NIIO constituted a key platform of the ‘Third World’ solidarity movement. Latin America was a prominent site for NIIO activism, and this article examines the regional and local meetings that frequently brought together governing officials, reporters, and academics. Focusing on the shifting expectations of exiled Latin Americans living in Mexico City, the article explores the domestic political factors that eventually attenuated enthusiasm for the NIIO. By the late 1970s, Latin American advocates argued that repressive governments could not be trusted to safeguard socially responsible information initiatives, such as regional wire services. Moreover, they underscored that national democratization was necessary before global inequities could be resolved.

Type
Articles
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press 2019 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

Thank you to the many friends and colleagues who have read and improved this article, particularly Daniel Bessner, Dexter Fergie, Patrick Kelly, José Antonio Lucero, Christian Novetzke, and Corinna Zeltsman. Thank you also to the organizers of the Communicating International Organisations in the 19th and 20th Centuries Workshop, European University Institute, Florence, Italy, where I first received valuable feedback. Research for the article has been supported by the Dartmouth College Society of Fellows, the U.S.–Mexican Studies Center at the University of California San Diego, and the Fulbright-García Robles.

References

1 The term later evolved to be the ‘New World Information and Communication Order’ (NWICO), which is now the more commonly used of the two phrases. However, I employ the ‘New International Information Order’ to reflect the language utilized by advocates in the 1970s.

2 Notable exceptions include Cmiel, Kenneth, ‘Human rights, freedom of information, and the origins of Third-World solidarity’, in Bradley, Mark Philip and Petro, Patrice, eds., Truth claims: representation and human rights, New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2002, pp. 107–30Google Scholar; and Brendebach, Jonas, ‘The end of the new order: global policies on media and means of communication at UNESCO 1960s to 1980s’, PhD thesis, European University Institute, 2017 Google Scholar. Most work on the NIIO has been written by participants involved in the debates as they unfolded. See, for example, Righter, Rosemary, Whose news? Politics, the press and the Third World, London: Burnett Books, 1978 Google Scholar; and Gerbner, George, Mowlana, Hamid, and Nordenstreng, Kaarle, eds., The global media debate: its rise, fall, and renewal, Norwood, NJ: Ablex, 1993 Google Scholar.

3 See, for example, Golub, Philip S., ‘From the New International Economic Order to the G20: how the “Global South” is restructuring world capitalism from within’, Third World Quarterly, 34, 6, 2013, pp. 1000–15CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ogle, Vanessa, ‘State rights against private capital: the “New International Economic Order” and the struggle over aid, trade, and foreign investment, 1962–1981’, Humanity, 5, 2, Summer 2014, p. 219; and the recent special issue ‘Toward a history of the New International Economic Order’, Humanity, 6, 1, Spring 2015Google Scholar.

4 They were following the cue, for example, of Fanon, Frantz, The wretched of the earth, New York: Grove Press Inc, 1965, p. 162 Google Scholar.

5 Harley, William G., Creative compromise: the MacBride Commission, Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1993, p. 98 Google Scholar.

6 Hartenian, Larry, Controlling information in US occupied Germany, 1945–1949: media manipulation and propaganda, New York: Edwin Mellen Press, 2003 Google Scholar; and Iber, Patrick, Neither peace nor freedom: the cultural Cold War in Latin America, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 Mazower, Mark, Governing the world: the history of an idea, 1815 to the present, New York: Penguin Books, 2012 Google Scholar; Ogle, ‘States rights against private capital’, p. 211; Gilman, Nils, ‘The New International Economic Order: a reintroduction’, Humanity, 6, 1, Spring 2015, pp. 78 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Dietrich, Christopher, Oil revolution: anticolonial elites, sovereign rights, and the economic culture of decolonization, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2017 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8 Two exceptions include O’Sullivan, Kevin, ‘The search for justice: NGOs in Britain and Ireland and the New International Economic Order, 1968–82’, Humanity, 6, 1, Spring 2015, pp. 173–87CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Byrne, Jeffrey James, Mecca of revolution: Algeria, decolonization, and the Third World order, New York: Oxford University Press, 2016 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Christy Thornton, ‘A Mexican international economic order? Tracing the hidden roots of the Charter of Economic Rights and Duties of States,’ Humanity 9, 3, Winter 2018, pp. 389–421.

9 This article thus departs from Stephen Krasner’s framing of the NIIO as dividing along ‘liberal’ and ‘authoritative’ lines. Krasner, Stephen D., Structural conflict: the Third World against global liberalism, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1985 Google Scholar.

10 Gilman, ‘New International Economic Order’, p. 11.

11 Rantanen, Terhi, ‘Foreign dependence and domestic monopoly: the European news cartel and US Associated Presses, 1861–1932’, Media History 12, 1, 2006, p. 26 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Tworek, Heidi, ‘Magic connections: German news agencies and global news networks, 1905–1945’, Enterprise and Society 15, 4, 2014, pp. 673–5Google Scholar.

12 Fenby, Jonathan, The international news service: a twentieth-century fund report, New York: Schocken Books, 1986, p. 7 Google Scholar.

13 Byrne, Mecca of revolution, pp. 97, 100–1.

14 Fenby, International news service, p. 89.

15 Guerra, Lillian, Visions of power in Cuba: revolution, redemption, and resistance, 1959–1971, Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2012, p. 113 Google Scholar.

16 Cullather, Nicholas, Secret history: the CIA’s classified account of its operations in Guatemala, 1952–1954, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1999, pp. 75, 82–3Google Scholar.

17 See, for example, Office of the Secretary of Defense, ‘Memorandum: review of Operation Mongoose’, 25 July 1962, http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/nsa/cuba_mis_cri/620725%20Review%20of%20Op.%20Mongoose.pdf (consulted 26 March 2017).

18 Keller, Renata, ‘Cuba’s Prensa Latina news agency and the Cold War contest over information’, Journal of Cold War Studies, forthcomingGoogle Scholar.

19 Barlow, William, ‘Rebel airways: radio and revolution in Latin America’, Howard Journal of Communications, 2, 2, Spring 1990, pp. 126–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

20 Byrne, Mecca of revolution, pp. 146, 151.

21 Keller, ‘Cuba’s Prensa Latina’.

22 Ibid.

23 Delarbre, Raúl Trejo, Las agencias de información en México, Mexico City: Editorial Trillas, 1989 Google Scholar; Keller, Renata, Mexico’s Cold War: Cuba, the United States, and the legacy of the Mexican Revolution, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015, p. 176CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

24 Archivo Particular Luis Javier Solana, Mexico City, Mexico (henceforth APLJS), Coordinación General de Comunicación Social, Bases estratégicas para la construcción de un sistema nacional de comunicación social, vol. 11, 1981, pp. 2100–4.

25 National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD, Central Intelligence Agency Records Search Tool Database (henceforth NARA, CREST), CIA director of intelligence weekly summary 0360/71, 5 March 1971, p. 22.

26 Benson, Devyn Spence, Antiracism in Cuba: the unfinished revolution, Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2016, pp. 231–2CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

27 Rangel, Eleazar Díaz, Pueblos subinformados, Caracas: Monte Avila Editores, 1976, p. 68 Google Scholar.

28 Major broadcasting networks did the same. See Cull, Nicholas J., The Cold War and the United States Information Agency: American propaganda and public diplomacy, 1945–1989, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008, pp. 14, 16, 40Google Scholar.

29 APLJS, Coordinación General de Comunicación Social, Bases estratégicas para la construcción de un sistema nacional de comunicación social, vol. 3, 1981, p. 480.

30 Díaz Rangel, Pueblos subinformados, p. 68.

31 Delgado-Flores, Carlos, ‘Eleazar Díaz Rangel: entre realidad y percepción política. Dorian Grey (sin el retrato)’, in Delgado-Flores, Carlos, ed., Trincheras de papel: el periodismo venezolano del siglo XX en la voz de doce protagonistas, Caracas: Universidad Católica Andrés Bello and Los Libros de El Nacional, 2008, p. 166 Google Scholar.

32 Cardoso, Fernando Henrique and Faletto, Enzo, Dependencia y desarrollo en América Latina: ensayo de interpretación sociológica, Mexico City: Siglo Veintiuno Editores, 1969 Google Scholar. See also Walter Rodney, How Europe underdeveloped Africa, London: Bogle-L’Ouverture Publications, 1972.

33 Blomström, Magnus and Hettne, Björn, Development theory in transition: the dependency debate & beyond: Third World responses, London: Zed Books, 1984 Google Scholar; and Grosfoguel, Ramon, ‘Developmentalism, modernity, and dependency theory in Latin America’, Nepantla: Views from South, 1, 2, 2000, p. 360 Google Scholar.

34 Dorfman, Ariel and Mattelart, Armand, Para leer al pato Donald: comunicación de masas y colonialismo, 1st reprint, Mexico City: Siglo Ventiuno Editores, 2013 Google Scholar.

35 Ibid., pp. 82–3, 69.

36 Salwen, Michael B. and Garrison, Bruce, Latin American journalism, New York: Routledge, 1991, p. 76 Google Scholar.

37 Harmer, Tanya, Allende’s Chile and the inter-American Cold War, Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2011, pp. 272–3Google Scholar.

38 Fermandois, Joaquín and Falcoff, Mark, ‘The persistence of a myth: Chile in the eye of the Cold War hurricane’, World Affairs, 167, 3, Winter 2005, p. 104 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

39 See, for example, Gott, Richard, ‘“Repression” in Chile since the coup’, The Guardian, 13 February 1974, p. 3 Google Scholar; de Onis, Juan, ‘Chile study says torture goes on’, New York Times, 8 June 1976, p. 69 Google Scholar; Wicker, Tom, ‘Two-faced policy on Chile’, New York Times, 15 June 1976, p. 36 Google Scholar; ‘Human rights, Chilean wrongs’, Washington Post, 27 June 1976, p. 36.

40 McMillian, John, Smoking typewriters: the sixties underground press and the rise of alternative media in America, New York: Oxford University Press, 2011 Google Scholar.

41 ‘Progress on the magazine’, NACLA Newsletter, 1, 2, March 1967, p. 6.

42 On this point, see, Rosemblatt, Karin Alejandra, ‘Modernization, dependency, and the global in Mexican critiques of anthropology’, Journal of Global History, 9, 1, 2014, pp. 95–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

43 Schiller, Herbert, Mass communications and American empire, New York: Augustus Kelley Publishers, 1969 Google Scholar.

44 Ibid., pp. 97–101.

45 Lerner, Daniel, The passing of traditional society: modernizing the Middle East, Glencoe, IL: Free Press, 1958 Google Scholar.

46 See also Chomsky, Noam, ‘Indochina and the fourth estate’, in Towards a new Cold War: essays on the current crisis and how we got here, New York: Pantheon Books, 1982, pp. 115–33Google Scholar.

47 Schiller, Mass communications and American empire, pp. 121–3.

48 Dorfman, Ariel and Mattelart, Armand, How to read Donald Duck: imperialist ideology in the Disney comic, New York: International General, 1975 Google Scholar; Dorfman, Ariel and Mattelart, Armand, Donald l’imposteur ou l'impérialisme raconté aux enfants, trans. Mattelart, Michèle, Paris: A. Moreau, 1976 Google Scholar; and Dorfman, Ariel and Mattelart, Armand, Dritte Welt: Massenkommunikation und Kolonialismus bei Micky Maus und Donald Duck, trans. Richter, Gaston and Haas, Frowin, Berlin: Basis Verlag, 1977 Google Scholar.

49 Argentina, Cuba, and Peru were the only Latin American countries to send delegates. However, Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, Mexico, Panama, Uruguay, and Venezuela sent observers.

50 James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies NAM Disarmament Database (henceforth CNS), Documents of the Fourth Conference of Heads of State or Government of Non-Aligned Countries, Algiers, 5–9 September 1973, p. 88, http://cns.miis.edu/nam/#&panel1-1 (consulted 4 September 2016).

51 Rakove, Robert B., Kennedy, Johnson, and the nonaligned world, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012, pp. xxv, 136 Google Scholar.

52 Fergie, Dexter, ‘Satellite state: power, networks, and “the paradox of pax Americana”’, unpublished paper, 2018, pp. 22–4Google Scholar.

53 Universidad Autónoma de la Ciudad de México, Mexico City, Mexico, Centro Académico de la Memoria de Nuestra América, Archivo Gregorio y Marta Selser (henceforth UACM, CAMENA, AGMS), fondo A, O AL10, ‘Informe final: la emancipación de los medios de comunicación de masa en los países no alineados’, 24–28 May 1976, pp. 12–14.

54 Crain, Matthew, ‘The non-aligned news agencies pool’, in Downing, John D. H., ed., Encyclopedia of social movement media, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2011, p. 368 Google Scholar.

55 ‘UNESCO and news agency development’, UNESCO Courier, April 1977, p. 6.

56 Cholmondeley, Hugh N. J., ‘CANA: an independent news agency for the Caribbean’, UNESCO Courier, April 1977, p. 11 Google Scholar.

57 The term has been attributed to both the Tunisian Secretary of State, Mustapha Masmoudi, who became the international figurehead of NIIO advocacy, and the meeting’s rapporteur, the Peruvian German Roque Carnero. Gerbner, Mowlana, and Nordenstreng, Global media debate, pp. 4, 64.

58 Schiller, Herbert, Comunicación de masas e imperialismo yanqui, trans. Phipps, Caroline, Barcelona: Editorial Gustavo Gili, 1976 Google Scholar.

59 UACM, CAMENA, AGMS, fondo A, O AL10, ‘Informe final’, p. 5.

60 Harley, Creative compromise, p. 3.

61 UACM, CAMENA, AGMS, fondo A, O AL10, ‘Informe final’, p. 7.

62 Ibid., p. 10.

63 Kelly, Patrick William, ‘The 1973 Chilean coup and the origins of transnational human rights activism’, Journal of Global History, 8, 1, March 2013, pp. 182–3CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

64 He did gloss this issue one year later. See Juan Somavia, La información en el Nuevo Orden Internacional, Mexico City: ILET, 1977, p. 8.

65 UACM, CAMENA, AGMS, Fondo A, O AL13, Juan Somavia, ‘Elementos para la definición de políticas frente a las agencias transnacionales de noticias’, 24–28 May 1976, p. 12.

66 UACM, CAMENA, AGMS, Fondo A, O AL11, Fernando Reyes Matta, ‘El encandilamiento informativo de América Latina: derivaciones de un estudio de la prensa internacional en la región’, 24 May 1976.

67 Jambeiro, O., A TV no Brasil do século XX, Salvador: Editora da Universidade Federal da Bahia: 2001 Google Scholar; Ferreira, Leonardo, Centuries of silence: the story of Latin American journalism, Westport, CT: Praeger, 2006, pp. 180, 244 Google Scholar.

68 Fenby, International news service, p. 207.

69 Gleijeses, Piero, ‘“Moscow’s proxy?” Cuba and Africa 1975–1988’, Journal of Cold War Studies, 8, 4, Fall 2006, pp. 98, 103 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

70 NARA, CREST, CIA Staff Notes, ‘Latin American trends’, 1984, p. 23.

71 NARA, CREST, CIA Staff Notes, ‘Latin American trends’, 24 September 1975, p. 11.

72 See, for example, Riding, Alan, ‘Paper in Mexico ends liberal tone: conservative view appears after ouster of editor and 200 on staff’, New York Times, 10 July 1976, p. 10A Google Scholar; and Gott, Richard, ‘Editor is regime’s first victim’, The Guardian, 15 July 1976, p. 3 Google Scholar.

73 Gastil, Raymond, ‘The Comparative survey of freedom: experiences and suggestions’, Studies in Comparative International Development, 25, 1, 1990, pp. 25–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bradley, Christopher, ‘International organizations and the production of indicators: the case of Freedom House’, in Merry, Sally Engle, Davis, Kevin E., and Kingsbury, Benedict, eds., The quiet power of indicators: measuring governance, corruption, and rule of law, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015, pp. 28, 35 Google Scholar.

74 Bush, Sarah Sunn, ‘The politics of rating freedom: ideological affinity, private authority, and the Freedom in the World ratings’, Perspectives on Politics, 15, 3, 2017, p. 719 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

75 Zerndt, Emily A., ‘The house that propaganda built: historicizing the democracy promotion efforts and measurement tools of Freedom House’, PhD thesis, Western Michigan University, 2016, p. 194Google Scholar.

76 Ibid., pp. 196–7.

77 Kihss, Peter, ‘UNESCO is accused on freedom of press’, New York Times, 1 July 1976, p. 3A Google Scholar.

78 United Nations Archive, New York City, New York (henceforth UNA), S-0446-0507-0011, ‘Draft agenda for UNESCO Meeting of Experts on Communication Policies and Planning in Latin America’, Bogotá, Colombia, COM-74/CONF 617/1, 14 December 1973; and UNA, S-0446-0507-0011, Luis Beltrán, ‘Working paper prepared for the UNESCO Meeting of Experts Communications Policies and Planning in Latin America’, COM-74/CONF 617/2.

79 Kihss, ‘UNESCO is accused on freedom of press’.

80 Gardner, Mary A., ‘The Inter-American Press Association: a brief history’, Journalism Quarterly, 42, 4, 1965, pp. 547, 551, 556 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

81 Trento, Joe and Roman, Dave, ‘The spies who came in from the newsroom’, Penthouse, August 1977, pp. 44–6, 50Google Scholar; and LeGrande, William, Our own backyard: the United States in Central America, 1977–1992, Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1998, p. 592, note 79 Google Scholar.

82 UNA, AG-025-003, S-0446-051-0013, Final report, Intergovernmental Conference on Communication Polices in Latin America and the Caribbean, San José, Costa Rica, 12–21 July 1976, pp. 23, 29, 31.

83 Solé, Luis Alberto, ‘AIR lucha por la libertad de información y opinión’, El Día (Montevideo), 26 October 1975 Google Scholar; ‘Informe destinado a marxistas e fascistas’, O Globo (Rio de Janeiro), 16 September 1975.

84 de Lima, Venicio, ‘The state, television, and political power in Brazil’, Critical Studies in Mass Communication, 5, June 1988, p. 109 Google Scholar.

85 UACM, CAMENA, AGMS, Fondo A, O AL10, ‘International communications and Third World participation: seminar report draft’, 5–8 September 1977, p. 3. The Dutch government provided 150,000 dollars for the meeting. See NARA, Central Foreign Policy Files (hereafter CFPF), American Embassy at the Hague to Secretary of State, 19 August 1977, https://aad.archives.gov/aad/ (consulted 13 August 2016).

86 UACM, CAMENA, AGMS, Fondo A, O AL10, ‘International communications and Third World participation’, 5–8 September 1977, p. 20–1.

87 Blomström and Hettne, Development theory in transition, pp. 82–3; Ernesto Laclau, ‘Feudalism and capitalism in Latin America’, New Left Review, 1, 67, May–June 1971, pp. 19–38; Aníbal Quijano, Dominación y cultura: lo cholo y el conflicto cultural en el Perú, Lima: Mosca azul editors, 1980, pp. 17–45. See also Fernando Henrique Cardoso and Enzo Faletto, ‘Post scriptum a “Dependencia y desarrollo en América Latina”’, Desarrollo Económico, 17, 66, July 1977, pp. 273–99.

88 UACM, CAMENA, AGMS, Fondo A, O AL5, Mario Arrieta Abdalla, ‘Comentario a la ponencia “El Nuevo Orden Informativo Internacional y el concepto de la partición social”’, February 1978. See also Rafael Roncagliolo, Libre flujo internacional de noticias y libertad de prensa, Mexico City: ILET, 1979, pp. 17–18.

89 Casanova, Pablo González, ‘Sociedad plural, colonialismo: el caso de México’, América Latina, 5, 4, 1962 Google Scholar.

90 de Bustamante, Celeste González, Muy buenas noches: Mexico, television, and the Cold War, Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2013, p. 22.Google Scholar

91 Arrieta Abdalla, ‘Comentario a la ponencia’, p. 9.

92 Ibid., pp. 3–4, citing the prologue of the 1976 edition of Díaz Rangel, Pueblos subinformados, p. 20.

93 Archivo General de la Nación, Dirección Federal de Seguridad, Versión Pública FELAP, legajo 1, ‘Federación Latinoamericana de Periodistas’, 28 November 1978; and UACM, CAMENA, AGMS, Fondo A, O AL8, ‘Alocución del presidente del CNP en el Primer Encuentro de Periodistas del Área Andina’, 30 March 1978, pp. 5–6.

94 Gerbner, Mowlana and Nordenstreng, Global media debate, pp. 173–8.

95 McPhail, Thomas L., Electronic colonialism: the future of international broadcasting and communication, Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications, 1987, p. 99 Google Scholar.

96 NARA, CFPF, ‘Cable from US UN mission to Secretary of State’, 21 November 1978, p. 2, https://aad.archives.gov/aad/ (consulted 13 August 2016).

97 UACM, CAMENA, AGMS, Fondo A, O AL12, ‘Informe de la reunión de trabajo de periodistas latinoamericanos sobre el Nuevo Orden Informativo Internacional’, 10–12 May 1979, pp. 4, 6.

98 Mattelart, Armand, Communicating in popular Nicaragua, New York: International General, 1986 Google Scholar; and Barlow, ‘Rebel airways’, p. 133.

99 Archivo Particular Miguel Ángel Granados Chapa, Mexico City, Mexico, ASIN Informativo, 3, 1 December 1980, p. 11.

100 Markarian, Vania, ‘Uruguayan exiles and human rights: from transnational activism to transitional politics, 1981–1984’, in Roniger, Luis and Yankelevich, Pablo, eds., Exile and the politics of exclusion in the Americas, Brighton: Sussex Academic Press, 2012, pp. 266–7Google Scholar.

101 Henrich-Franke, Christian, ‘Cross-curtain radio cooperation and new international alignments during the Cold War’, Journal of Cold War Studies, 16, 4, Fall 2014, p. 127 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

102 Harley, Creative compromise, pp. 44, 62, 64.

103 Many voices, one world: toward a new more just and more efficient world information and communication order, New York: UNESCO, 1980.

104 Ibid., p. 260.

105 Harley, Creative compromise, pp. 5, 142, 156.

106 See, for example, Alexandra Hall, ‘South America: a panorama of media democratization’, NACLA, 45, 3, Fall 2012, p. 53.

107 Ibid., p. 54. In 2009 and 2011, respectively, Argentina and Bolivia passed laws that banned media monopolies and reserved a certain share of broadcasting concessions for community news outlets and underrepresented groups, including indigenous peoples.