Brazil after the elections: a new course for the democratization of the media?

According to what Brazilian Workers Party’s Chairman Raul Falcao recently announced, the re-elected government of Brazil will propose a new law to regulate the broadcasting media. At a press conference in Sao Paulo, he said that the broadcasting media, which are by now public concessions, need to go through a process of democratization. Before the elections, twice President of the country Dilma Rousseff also declared that, if she returned for a second term, she would seek to ‘prevent oligopolistic relationship’ in the media financial system.

According to the Press Freedom Index 2014, Brazil keeps ranking worse year by year (currently 111th, minus 3 compared with 2013, minus 12 compared with 2012). Specifically, one of the main problems seems to be the Brazilian media system itself, which didn’t change a lot after the military dictatorship. Only ten families control the broadcasting media and, also, the country is affected by the phenomenon of the so-called ‘colonels’ politicians, governors or parliamentarians who own the state they represent. They own or control local radio stations and newspapers and they frequently apply to courts for censorship orders against news media and journalists.  

Former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva planned to regulate the media system, but since the Press Secretary Franklin Martins was replaced by Paulo Bernardo in 2011, the reform was repeatedly postponed. The problem escalated during the 2013 and 2014 protests: around 100 journalists became victims of violence, most of which came from police officers. Also, lack of pluralism in the media was one of the demonstrators’ main complaints. As Rousseff herself said, there are "asymmetrical relationships" in the system. Therefore, the plan of the new government is to control economical aspects of the media in order to ‘boost pluralism without influencing editorial content’.