Centuries of silence : the story of Latin American journalism
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, deficiencies in journalism education, 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, he argues, resulted in the imposition of a structural censorship with elements that remain to this day. These 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 in a silence imposed by ruling actors, including a dominant and concentrated media. Ferreira makes a strong case not only that the Latin American press is not free, but that it is in itself an instrument of oppression
Print Book, English, 2006
Praeger, Westport, Conn., 2006