FREEDOM FROM ONE-SIDED EXPRESSION

..from Latin American Review

Justin Delacour said...


I think the proper strategy on the question of RCTV is to challenge the assumptions upon which the critics' arguments rest.

Rather than focusing on whether cases of real censorship are being ignored (in China, Pakistan, etc.), the more pertinent question is whether unfettered corporate control of the public airwaves constitutes "freedom of expression." It clearly does not.

In other words, we need to deconstruct the arguments of bourgeois analysts. What does "freedom of expression" mean to them? What's wrong with their underlying assumptions?

Those who rant and rave about the RCTV case have extreme difficulty contending with any questions about their underlying assumptions.

I'm gonna point you to three short articles that I think you should read. Each is written by a scholar, and each makes very cogent arguments about the problems with conventional bourgeois conceptions of the "freedom of expression."

The first short article, written by the communications scholar Christian Christiansen, is entitled "'Why Can't Foreign Lefties Learn to Be Objective Like Us?'"

The second short article, written by the communications scholar Robert McChesney and the economist Mark Weisbrot, is entitled "Venezuela and the Media: Fact and Fiction."

The third short article, written by the sociologist Greg Wilpert, is entitled "RCTV and Freedom of Speech in Venezuela."

MEDIA-LATIN AMERICA: Easy to See the Speck in the Other's Eye
By Diana Cariboni*