Email Class Listserv

University of Florida

.

• Summary
• Bibliography

Contradictions and Controversy 

 Our second presentation will stem from the central concepts discussed in Robert L. Stevenson’s chapter nine entitled “Authoritarian Media” in his book Global Communication in the Twenty- First Century.  We will parallel the text in our discussion of history and background of authoritarian media. 
 We are going to give an overview of the authoritarian media as Stevenson sees it and other experts in the field see it.  We will discuss the reasons some nations establish authoritarian media systems and the history and theory behind it. 

The book highlights the countries of Brazil, Singapore and Mexico as examples of societies with authoritarian media structures. In our paper and our presentation, we are going to focus on Latin American countries, specifically Brazil, Mexico, and possibly Venezuela.  We have made a contact with a scholar from Brazil who vehemently denies that Brazil should be considered a country with an authoritarian slant to it’s media presentation and rule. 

 We will attempt to bring forth the controversy surrounding the definition of “Authoritarian Media.”  We will present personal statements from native Latin Americans.  They will illustrate the vast difference in opinions regarding their media structure. Some believe that their media should be considered authoritarian and some strongly disagree with that argument. Due to recent media changes, some have said that an authoritarian media system is a thing of the past. 

We hope to have a guest speaker from a Latin American country address the class and highlight the differences of opinions between typical Westerners and native Latin Americans regarding the status and structure of the media systems in their country.
 Paul has obtained governmental documents regarding Brazil. They provide broad overviews and statistics on broadcast media penetration in Brazil.  Paul spent a substantial amount of time in Brazil on a governmental trip with President William J. Clinton last year.   Paul worked on the logistics of the President’s visit to Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Brasilia, Brazil.  Although Paul will not be present during out actual presentation, we will present the information that he gathered and prepared, along with some analysis of the trip and how he was portrayed in the Brazilian media. 

 To conclude this summary, we will not merely cover the factual evidence, but expand on it, exploring  other facets of the issue that highlight the controversy and contradiction. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY