Regarding population and geographic extension, Chile is a small country with an estimated of 18 million people living in 291,930 sq. mi., located at the end of the world, in the Southern Cone, surrounded by Peru, Bolivia, Argentina, and the Ocean Pacific. However, it has been somehow relatively worldwide known due to the neoclassical policies applied since the mid-1970s, labeled also as neoliberal. Harvey explains neoliberalism as “a theory of political economy practices proposing that human well-being can best be advanced by the maximization of entrepreneurial freedoms within and institutional framework characterized by private property rights, individual liberty, unencumbered markets, and free trade. The role of the state is …show more content…
In fact, traditional public goods, as health, education, and retirement funds, have been privatized. Under this umbrella of broad social and economic shifts, the military dictatorship radically transformed the characteristics of the Chilean media system, as well, and particularly the broadcasting industry, its financial scheme, and the purposes of it.
So, what are the features of the Chilean broadcasting? What are the political and economic foundations of the current state of the television system in Chile? What kind of modernization –if any- characterizes the television industry in Chile? How is it connected to broader economic and political changes? In short, how has been possible that a sate and university-based broadcasting turned into a heavily commercialized one? In fact, what today’s “commercialized television industry” does it actually mean? And what are the milestones of this …show more content…
This is a key step in order to better understand the current status of the Chilean television industry. Particularly, the paper outlines the crucial political changes in the period, regarding the democratic transition from an authoritarian regime to uninterrupted democratic governments. Certainly, this epochal shift played a role in the reorganization of the media field. The solidification of a centered-market economy in the last 25 years is also at the core of the cultural field’s adjustments, including the media. Instead of a nostalgic account, the paper’s goal is to better understand the nature and extent of the radical changes in the Chilean television industry.
The article focuses on television and not radio. Despite that internationally there are several examples in which broadcasting regulation includes both television and radio –such the United Kingdom, Australia, Nordic countries, Spain, France, and the United States, for instance-, the Chilean experience diverges from it and radio was born as a commercial enterprise in the early 20th Century, while television adopted a public service regulatory