International Political Economy and Mass Communication in Chile National Intellectuals and Transnational Hegemony
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International Political Economy and Mass Communication in Chile National Intellectuals and Transnational Hegemony Matt Davies 85901/crc (mipes) 26/2/99 12:05 pm Page 1 INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL ECONOMY SERIES General Editor: Timothy M. Shaw, Professor of Political Science and International Development Studies, and Director of the Centre for Foreign Policy Studies, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia Recent titles include: Pradeep Agrawal, Subir V. Gokarn, Veena Mishra, Kirit S. Parikh and Kunal Sen ECONOMIC RESTRUCTURING IN EAST ASIA AND INDIA: Perspectives on Policy Reform Deborah Bräutigam CHINESE AID AND AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT: Exporting Green Revolution Steve Chan, Cal Clark and Danny Lam (editors) BEYOND THE DEVELOPMENTAL STATE: East Asia’s Political Economies Reconsidered Jennifer Clapp ADJUSTMENT AND AGRICULTURE IN AFRICA: Farmers, the State and the World Bank in Guinea Robert W. 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Customer Services Department, Macmillan Distribution Ltd Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS, England 85901/crc (mipes) 26/2/99 12:05 pm Page 3 International Political Economy and Mass Communication in Chile National Intellectuals and Transnational Hegemony Matt Davies Assistant Professor Department of Political Science Behrend College Pennsylvania State University–Erie Foreword by Stephen Gill 85901/crc (mipes) 26/2/99 12:05 pm Page 4 First published in Great Britain 1999 by MACMILLAN PRESS LTD Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and London Companies and representatives throughout the world A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN 0–333–73277–4 First published in the United States of America 1999 by ST. MARTIN’S PRESS, INC., Scholarly and Reference Division, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 ISBN 0–312–22001–4 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Davies, Matt, 1960– International political economy and mass communication in Chile : national intellectuals and transnational hegemony / Matt Davies. p. cm. — (International political economy series) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0–312–22001–4 (cloth) 1. Mass media—Research—Chile—History. 2. Mass media—Political aspects—Chile. 3. Communication—International cooperation. 4. Communication and culture. I. Title. II. Series. P91.5.C5D38 1999 302.23'0983—dc21 98–49906 CIP © Matt Davies 1999 Foreword © Stephen Gill 1999 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1P 9HE. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. 10987654321 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 00 99 Printed and bound in Great Britain by Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham, Wiltshire DAV-FM.QXD 2/23/99 5:39 PM Page v Contents Foreword: Hegemony, Culture and Imperialism by Stephen Gill vii Preface xiii List of Abbreviations and Acronyms xvi Map of Chile xvii 1 Introduction 1 Intellectuals in Transition in the Global Political Economy: How Donald Duck and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Won in Chile 1 Domination and Communication in International Relations 4 Transnational Hegemony 10 Cultural Imperialism 16 Culture and Hegemony 22 The Social Constitution of the Intellectuals 28 2 Origins of the Scientific Study of Mass Communications in Chile: 1958–67 36 Modernization and International Relations 36 US Goals and the ‘Alliance for Progress’ 38 Harmonizing Chilean Politics and US Goals 45 Mass Communications Scholarship in Chile 49 3 Challenges to the Chilean Regime and Critical Mass Communication Studies: 1967–73 61 The University Reform Movement 64 The New Institutional Spaces in the Intellectual Field 70 CEREN: Ideology and Dependency 73 Unidad Popular: Communication in the Struggle for Socialism 83 Reaction: The Right Reorganizes 90 International Dimensions of the Reaction 94 Popular Communication Initiatives under Unidad Popular 99 Another Form of Scholarship Under the UP: the EAC 104 v DAV-FM.QXD 2/23/99 5:39 PM Page vi vi Contents 4 Repression and Resistance: 1973–90 109 From National Security to Neoliberalism 111 The Creation of Private Research Centres 113 The Private Research Institutes and the Field of Communications 116 The Communications System under the Dictatorship 119 The Media in the Authoritarian Communication System 125 ‘Alternative’ and ‘Popular’ Communications 138 The Political and Professional Effects of Military Rule on Communications Scholarship 145 5 Conclusion: Present and Future in Chilean Communications Studies 150 The Role of the Media After the Transition 157 Political Agency in Chile After the Transition: Hegemony and the Possibility of Counter-hegemony 161 Notes 169 Bibliography 180 Index 200 DAV-FM.QXD 2/23/99 5:40 PM Page vii Foreword: Hegemony, Culture and Imperialism Problems of hegemony involve not only questions of power, authority, credibility and the prestige of a system of rule, they also involve the political economy and aesthetics of its repre- sentation in culture and its media. Systems of cultural mean- ing and signification are the complex products of the making of history, a process which also generates forms of state and civil society. In this context, any understanding of hegemony and indeed cultural imperialism also means consideration and analysis of the roles of education and other key cultural institutions, such as churches, political parties, trades unions, and of course, the activities of intellectuals, and artists, poets and entertainers. Cultural hegemony involves political strug- gles to constitute what Gramsci called the ‘common sense of an epoch’ and the identity of social forces in and across com- plexes of civilizations. This book focuses on specific aspects of these questions: the way in which Chilean-based media intellectuals, many of whom were working in leading universities, sought to make sense of national cultural development in the context of the global political economy. Often these intellectuals developed the concept of (American) cultural imperialism as a critical tool, and applied it in a series of studies of media texts and communication forms. These intellectuals of the left sought to find ways to extend a democratic-popular culture both horizontally across Chilean society, and vertically within the media industries or complexes. Some of these intellectuals were inspired by the way in which Gramsci consistently empha- sised that counter-hegemonic struggles involve cultural dimen- sions of social life. For Gramsci,