Why media is evil ...

Fabian Kern 01.11.2007 04:33
Bernard Cassen, director of Le Monde Diplomatique, talks about "The International Media System: ideological vector of the globalizacion and actor against social transformacion" in San Jose, Costa Rica.
Today a congres organized by the french embassy and the Universidad de Costa Rica about globalization and integration take part in San Jose, Costa Rica. It s kind of silly that the french embassy is involved in the organization of such an event if you remember the riots in France 2005. Anyway, the introducing words of the french ambassador prooved the sceptic impression from the current french government.
The main act of this conference was another french guest: Bernard Cassen.
Today he spoke about "The International Media System: ideological vector of the globalizacion and actor against social transformacion". He described the "Free Media" as a dictatorship of the Media Companies who don t care about information of citizens but about profit and their power.

He quoted the CEO of the private french TV Channel TF1:

"There are many ways to speak about TV, but in a business perspective, let's be realistic: at the basis, TF1's job is helping Coca-Cola, for example, to sell its product. What we sell to Coca-Cola is available human brain time. Nothing is more difficult than obtaining this availability. This is where permanent change is located. We must always look out for popular programs, follow trends, surf on tendencies, in a context in which information is speeding up, getting manifold and trivialized."

So what he describes is a viciouse circle. With our consumption we pay the companies to influence our desires.
As an example of bad Media influence he describes what Hugo Chavez actually did when he closed RCTV in 2006 actually "closed" a TV Channel who was involved in an attempt to coup in 2002 and an oil strike in 2002-03. Additionally this channel had a record of 600 pages of violation of laws. Another big issues for the European Media was that Chavez wants to change the constitution so he can run for president again. Whats the deal? In Germany, France, etc. the president can candidate as often as he wants for presidentship. Almost all the Media in Venezuela is against Chavez because he really reforms a country and distribute wealth and power to the people. Organizations who has been powerfull all the time, like media companies, don t like that and fight against him. Thats not just like that in Venezuela. The same happens in Germany with the Axel Springer Verlag and his widely distributed paper BILD.

Later Cassen asks for a strong support of public media and a parallel liberation from these public media institutions from the governments to minimize their influence. Additionally he demands a strong enforcement of the alternative media. He recommends everyone to switch off the TV sets and get information through exchange of information in the real life.

This leads immediatelly to the concept of BeWelcome where people from all over the world are encouraged to make intercultural exchange reality. This project invites everyone to meet people from all over the world in order to get an impression of whats going on in real life instead of wachting TV.
Direct information exchange from people involved in the issue is the best source of information.
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