Introduction

This article deals with the state of affairs in Argentina, Brazil and Chile’s journalism, during 2016-2018, from a comparative view based on the Political Economy of Journalism. Considering this as a starting point, we analyze a crisis that has press workers as protagonists in a scenario of audiovisual media concentration in these three countries, and the restrictions that this imposes on freedom of expression and the strengthening of democracies. It is addressed a multicausal issue that concerns journalism as a profession, including its continuity within traditional media, but that in particular has to do with the labor crisis in this field in relation to regressive political policies in terms of rights.

The journalistic activity has been experiencing a sustained crisis from several decades now that is linked with the reshaping of productive processes towards media digitalization, changes in consumption habits, and with deficient public policies in relation to workers’ rights protection. In this context, our main concern is to problematize the state of affairs of journalistic activity in the media systems of the three countries selected, which constitute the most relevant media markets of the Southern Cone.

Based on the Political Economy of Communication theory, it is thoroughly analyzed the crisis that journalism experiences in the middle of profound changes on traditional media, which challenge its business and content production models. On the other hand, discussions on the Right to Information and freedom of speech will allow us to interpret state interventions under governments of different political ideologies and their impact on journalism. In this respect, the analysis is based on the premise that there is a low level of institutionalization of governmental agencies that regulate media activity, as well as a lack of clear policies on government-sponsored advertising distribution, elements that are decisive for the journalist’s work.

This article also explores an interdisciplinary interpretation about media ownership and state media. In the analysis, a comparative study of the different national cases is made, to which end reports on media concentration and communication rights have been analyzed, based on specifics indicators: 1) shaping of radio and television media market’s actors; 2) current working conditions and precarious work; 3) direct or indirect censorship exerted by the political and economic power.

Considering the interpretation of this complex scenario which results from the reshaping of the sector and the traditional value chain in news production, we could conclude that from high levels of media system concentration in all countries and retraction of the state as content producer arouse a crisis whose main issue is the destruction of employment and, in consequence, the disciplinary effect that this has on press workers.

In front of state policies that are dissociated from the general interest and articulated with predatory market actors, the extreme vulnerability of press workers has, in some specific cases, a correlative with union organization and defense. In spite of this, the subjugation of labor rights keeps growing in the sector and it represents an affront to freedom of speech in a context of democratic government systems.

Theoretical Framework and Methodology

The Right to Information and Communication understood here as a right to all citizens (^{Uranga, 2007}) is the result of a long political and legal tradition and evolution that have taken place in the national and, especially, international sphere. This has to do with agreements, expressed in treaties that, in many cases, were incorporated into the positive right of the adherent countries, were biding in character and had constitutional status. The effective enforcement of this right would be reached through what ^{Loreti (1995)} refers to as a “tacit agreement,” according to which citizens delegate authority to fulfill the social mission of informing to journalists and media companies. The expansion of the public sphere due to a widespread use of Internet and social media in the last years has come to add, problematize, and coexist with journalism and media outlets which preserve a relevant role as agents producing and spreading information within contemporary societies; although, this new public sphere does not replace or impose upon them.

However, effective enforcement of this right is not free from interferences and threatens, and its protection, provided by the Inter-American Human Rights System, “points to build media systems that guarantee public’s right to receive the most diversified information possible being this protected from governmental intervention and commercial interest of media businesses” (^{De Charras et al., 2013, p. 22}). Likewise, ^{Fiss (1999)} adds the following:

Past debates assumed as premise that the State was a natural enemy of freedom. It was the State that was trying to silence the individual, and it was the State to whom limits should be imposed. There is a great dose of wisdom in this concept, but it is half-truth. Certainly, the State can be oppressor, but it can also be a source of freedom… This point of view -disturbing for some- rests on a series of premises. One of them refers to the impact that private concentrations of power can have on our freedom; sometimes the State is needed in order to counteract these forces… the State may be compelled to act as promoter of public debate: when non-governmental powers curtail freedom of opinion (pp. 12-14, own translation from Spanish).

The excessive concentration in media ownership, a market trend that is facilitated by action or omission of States neglecting its active role as regulators, can act as an indirect determinant of the exercise of journalistic activity, and is widely detrimental to plural and diversified opinions. Regarding this point, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has established that “monopolies or oligopolies in ownership and control of the communication media must be subject to anti-trust laws, as they conspire against democracy by limiting the plurality and diversity which ensure the full exercise of people’s right to information” (^{Inter-American Court on Human Rights [CIDH], 2000}).

In this context, the journalists’ work in the contemporary scene can be interpreted in a productive manner from the political economy of journalism approach (^{Dourado et al., 2016}). This particular branch of Political Economy of Information, Communication and Culture studies (EPICyC for its name in Spanish) allows us to examine the information service sector in a wider context of labour transformations within a capitalist system.

We define as general theoretical object of EPICyC the study of social relations and, particularly, power relations, which mutually constitute the relations of production, distribution and consumption of resources, including communication resources (^{Mosco, 2009}). From the author’s perspective, we take into consideration three general analytical dimensions that could be applied to the study of journalistic work processes: commodification, spatialization and structuration. For the scope and extent of this article, we will base our analysis on the first and last points.

In relation to commodification, it can be observed similar processes operating in other sectors and branches linked to staff cutback, in which mechanical systems are substituted by electronic systems. Digital economy -in which the migration from traditional media to digital variants or even convergence processes that open new windows and means are based- provides new scenarios of disrupted working schedules. This does not imply that working time is reduced; on the contrary, it is parcelled according to the diversification of media and projects. In effect, news companies depend less on well-known journalists’ full-time and are more prone to part-time jobs, freelance jobs, low incomes and a few or none additional benefits (^{Mosco & McKercher, 2008}). Concomitantly with this, it can be observed that in all branches of the communication sector there is a reduction of job positions and a resulting consolidation of part-time work. Likewise, audiences producing information content out of new modes of interaction appear as part of this new productive model. In critical terms, it can be pointed out that these commodification processes reduce the status of journalism as that of public interest, at the time that emphasize its more profitable entertainment side (^{Mosco, 2016}).

On the other part, structuration implies a more comprehensive concept of social class and, therefore, it includes a combination of controversies centered on the working class such as gender or race. Moreover, it allows an interpretation about the class relations between media workers and owners in terms of inequality. Thus, it is a relational construct of social class. The normative conception of social class regards workers as producers of its own identity in relation to capital and independent of it. In this way, it can be observed that press workers respond to the changes and crisis that arise in the sector by calling for meetings, organizing themselves, unionizing, and also by drawing up alternative or self-managed projects. Following our object of analysis, we can say that this line falls within the emergence of new forms of popular, feminist or self-managed² journalism articulated with communitarian, popular and alternative sectors, whose experiences rest upon power struggles against the major media outlets but also against the State itself.

On the other hand, it is worth noting that political economy of journalism is also linked to the analysis of processes related to state capture. ^{Golding and Murdock’s (1996)} research based on the tradition of the Frankfurt School and ^{Williams’ works (1974}, ¹⁹⁸⁰⁾ document the integration of communication institutions primarily with authorities linked to public policies and business owners within a capitalist economy. Likewise, some authors (^{Bizberge, 2019}; ^{Guerrero, 2014}) point out that in Latin America it has prevailed a historical pattern of policy captured by political and business elites. They named it “captured-liberal” model, which refers to its predominantly commercial character and because, in a certain way, the model is held captive by interests whose loyalties are biased in favour of the actors in power. The effect of these processes upon media workers is crucial when it comes to analyze their working conditions.

The high degree of media ownership concentration, the crisis in traditional news companies and the new regressive role of national states in matters of regulation and production of content are the main three dimensions that make up the landscape in which the problematic can be witnessed. At a methodological level, this work firstly aims at an exploratory and panoramic approach to three national cases. Later we will adopt a comparative approach focused on determining points of contact and contrast between them³ based on the observation of the three indicators herein presented, by which it can be considered convergent and divergent aspects of journalistic work situation. The cases and time frame chosen for the analysis allow us to illustrate the situation under governments of different political ideologies, and in media markets of different dimensions.

In relation to the sources, this work is based on systematized researches into audiovisual industry concentration (^{Becerra & Mastrini, 2017}; ^{Vassallo de Lopes & Lemos, 2019}); different reports on the economic situation of the aforesaid media sectors (^{Comisión Nacional de Televisión de Chile [CNTV], 2016}; ^{Media Ownership Monitor [MOM], 2018}, ²⁰¹⁹), as well as the main rates of press workers’ employment (^{Consejo Nacional del Ministerio Público [CNMP], 2019}; ^{Reporteros Sin Fronteras, 2019}; ^{Sindicato de Prensa de Buenos Aires [SiPreBa], 2019a}, ^2019b).

Description of National Cases

Analysis and Debate

From the comparative analysis of the three cases described above, the crisis of journalism is mainly interpreted as: a) regressive state policies in matter of communication; and b) the growing media concentration and the resulting exclusion of other players and precarious work. As regards the first analytical point, we observe that national states adopt regressive policies, which are directly or indirectly related to work variable and press workers. One significant component is violence against journalists when their claims are made public or when they cover political events held by opponents to the official government.

Considering the context of violence that journalists face in their everyday work, it is important to highlight the seriousness of the Brazilian case, in which attacks and assassinations of press workers have placed Brazil among the most dangerous countries on earth to be a journalist. More recently, journalists were the target of attacks by security forces while covering the social uprising in Chile in October, 2019.

Likewise, these attacks and threats against journalists also transcend to virtual environments where there are an exponential growth of trolls and bots working systematically, among other functions, to counteract opposing voices or criticism, especially in Brazil and Argentina (^{International Amnesty, 2018}).

Regarding public politics, a regressive policy shaping that we can categorize as indirect censorship has to do with discretional distribution of government-sponsored advertisement. In Argentina, for instance, it has not been passed yet a specific legislation aimed at regulating this issue; the same happens in Brazil where pre-established rules are non-existent. Partial regulations in this matter leave a grey zone full of uncertainties in regards to allocation of official budget according to the type of media and levels of audience by means of equal and transparent criteria (^{Marino & Espada, 2019}). This clientelism has generated both fanatic and opposing media in relation to agenda setting and treatment of conflicts, especially that involving press work. Likewise, there have been reported acts of direct censorship in TV Pública Argentina; for instance, when the personnel spoke out about the prohibition of covering some events, which were detrimental to the government. In the same way, workers of Empresa Brasileña de Comunicación (EBC) also reported several times interferences from current government in their journalistic work.

Other hindrance to democratic debate and journalism has to do with a recession on labor market, primarily as the result of redundancies and other ways of ending working relations with press laborers in the three countries. These mass redundancies that are registered in all the markets analyzed have a disciplinary effect on the group of employees that manage to keep their jobs or get another one but in worse working conditions. In short, the concentration generates a general labor impoverishment in media outlets, which have less and less employers. In this point, it is worth noting that in Argentina there is a union tradition more organized and willing to defend workers against attempts to attack labor rights.

Part of that rearrangement, which results from objective transformations in real conditions of production, distribution and consumption, is based on the “technological convergence theory”, of which one imperative maxim is to reduce work structures. The arguments in favor of this technological replacement and the need for getting rid of obsolete structures are reaffirmed by media business men as well as office holders. In countries like Argentina and Brazil, this common ground of politic and economic elites gives room to policies biased in favor of the major players of the info-communicational sector.

Chile, the smaller market analyzed, reports the clearest example of job losses in the whole media system and rise of precarious work, especially in television; besides, there have been reported numerous closures of regional and printed media outlets. The pressures and censorship imposed on journalism is subtler in comparison to the other countries, except for specific cases deemed as political sensitive, such as the Mapuche conflict or, more recently and outside the time frame here analyzed, the attacks against press workers by security forces during the uprising in October, 2019. As regards to public television, there is a definitive break from its foundational ethos which was originally conceived after the transition to democracy in 1990 and which held independence from its editorial guideline, nowadays more pressured by political power. Likewise, it is observed a reduction of diversity which consists in including representatives of both official and chief opposing sides in informative segments in equal parts measured by screen time, without considering “newsworthiness” criteria, hierarchy of themes or testimonies, nor incorporations of other voices outside the bipartisan system, in process of dissolution.

Conclusion

Considering the interpretations based on the Political Economy of Journalism, we draw a comparative analysis about press working conditions in the three media markets of the Southern Cone. As result, in the first place, we observed the continuous destruction of employment in different segments, especially in radio, TV and printed media. Likewise, it have been confirmed precarious working conditions connected to different factors which combine concentration and convergent processes, global crisis in traditional media industry, changes in audience consumption habits, and a State that is permissive with business interests and concomitantly reluctant to take side for journalists, to the point of violent repression in a context of legitimate complaints about press workers’ rights.

In relation to audiovisual branches, even with nuances in the case of Brazil, during the time frame analyzed, there is a decline of open-to-air and pay TV. In Chile, television channels are not profitable and not even the leading media outlet of the market (Mega) is exempt from this. Historical “national champions” such as Televisa in Mexico, Globo in Brazil or Clarín in Argentina witness the crisis of a model which, during some decades, allows them to have a leading and dominant position by capturing the highest rates of audience and advertising investment, now more diversified since new players such as Facebook and Google hit the market.

This situation resulted in higher levels of concentration as a survival mechanism -in part because it was also a market tendency- which was endorsed by the states in all cases. In the markets analyzed, it is observed high levels of ownership, geographical and audience concentration - both convergent and conglomerate- which compromises diversity of informative offer and has an impact on freedom of expression, in a double dimension both individual and collective. A phenomenon that tends towards the integration of editorials and different changes in the routine of journalism activity, materialized in the emergence of hybrid profiles, which often collide with labor laws and agreements resulting after decades of negotiations between workers and companies.

All in all, as we have confirmed in the analysis of the three countries, there is a common denominator in technological changes that have a negative effect on the journalist’s task; also, in the high concentration levels of media systems that are experiencing at the same time a profound economic crisis; and in the retraction of the state as content producer, all translated into a crisis whose main issue is the destruction of employment and, consequently, the effects of this on press workers.

The problematization of journalism as an intellectual work within a capitalist system entails a series of questions about assessment processes implied by work variable in a context of transformation processes of productive models. Following ^{Bolaño (2009)}, we can affirm that this produces a “complex movement of convergence that cause instability in consolidated markets, refuting hegemonic standings, not necessarily in a sense of greater democratization of the media but, on the contrary, in the promotion of a tendency towards increasingly multimedia concentration” (p. 71).

This paradigmatic change cut across geographies and political projects, and constitutes a contemporary dilemma of a highly automatic, increasingly asymmetrical and selective world in which job positions become just an adjustment variable in many fields. In their modes of resistance, union and self-managed groups address this complex issue by pointing out the regression in labor and information rights -diversity and pluralism- that is generalized. Furthermore, they demand from States laws that observe these inequalities and differences among journalistic companies and actions on government-sponsored advertising redistribution systems, as well as policies aiming at supporting journalists. In spite of this, even in front of labor restructuring processes, the loss of employment is more and more significant.