Democracy, journalism, and Latin American populism

Abstract

Contemporary populism in Latin America suggests that normative arguments about the relation between journalism and democracy are premised on contrasting models of media democracy. There is no single model of media ethics to offer a single foundation for media democracy. The model represented by the Anglo-American tradition of the liberal press assigns the market a central role, and envisions limited participation of civil society and the state. Instead, models of citizen-based media democracy place civic society at the center, and grant limited and regulated participation to the market and the state. Populism, I argue, fits none of these options. Instead, it offers a model that places the state at the center of media systems and approaches market and civil society as opposed or subjected to the designs of the government. It sees journalism as inevitably divided between ‘popular-national’ and ‘foreign-oligarchic’ interests, and views the state as a necessary instrument to redress imbalances in democracies and press systems. The case of populism confirms that answers to questions about journalism and democracy are embedded in contrasting visions about the necessary relations between the state, market, and civil society in democratic life.