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29 / 05 / 2004
Moussa Keita: “Cultural diversity is a european concept, we don’t have the means to finance culture”
The parallel session, “Old Media, New Media”, part of “Global Audiovisual Communication, Cultural Diversity and Regulation,” has brought together experts to analyze the media and its future
Moussa Keita, president of the Conseil Superieur de la Communication in Mali, explained that “cultural diversity is a European concept that escapes us, we don’t have the means to finance culture.” Keita said that in Mali “75% of the population live below the poverty line and the majority are illiterate.” Due to this, Keita explained that the appearance of new technologies and internet does not only not help them, it sets them back even further.
In order to avoid this situation, Keita called for European aid since “denying us visas doesn’t help because it forces us to go to the United States, meaning our children are Americanized, French language and culture will disappear, Europeans should open their doors to the weakest.” According to Keita, local production is unthinkable in her country because there are other needs that cannot be covered because the salaries are so low. Keita said “film is dead in our countries, in Mali there are longer movie theaters.” Moussa Keita called for European aid in order to foster the local content of the media.
Josep Mª Torrent, executive officer of the Local and County Television (Consorci local i comarcal de Televisió) spoke about local television specifically in Catalonia, where there are over 100 local channels. Torrent exalted local television as television that is close to the people, dealing with what interest them, and , for example, serving as a reference for immigrants. He believes that local television is a point of social cohesion and of community, and that “it is important to spread global messages but local ones cannot be left behind.”
Josep MªTorrent warned against falling into the trap of thinking that because something is local it lacks quality and therefore the local model must have values based on programming, entertainment and education. “The local television cannot sidestep globalization just as no society can stay on the edge of new technologies and we must find new formulas for implementing them in under-developed countries.
Carlos Santiago, Uruguayan journalist and writer spoke about the “apocalyptic” situation television is going through in his country since “the stations are given to friends’ of people in the government creating a monopoly and a concentration of content.” Santiago requested “greater implication and the creation of ethical norms for a more equitable circulation of content,” from Unesco. Santiago explained that the only regulation that exist in state television in his country is protection for minors, while cable channels and violence are not monitored.
Vicenç Partal director of Vilaweb, explained that “there is new and old media but the difference is not their funding but the attitude of the viewer or reader.” According to Partal “the media is becoming more and more active since the receiver has the possibility of participating, a clear example is the internet where the user creates his information which he can’t do in a newspaper or with television.” Parlat explained that an ideal situation is the equilibrium between the two.
“New technologies,” explained Parlat, “have changed the relation between the journalist and the reader, news doesn’t just circulate in the journalistic world but in other spaces as well that end up becoming new media.” These pseudomedia that Partal calls “no-media” have appeared due to the credibility crisis traditional media is going through, and because these new resources have very low production cost. The problem with “no-media” “is the lack of criteria and ethics, which only professionals have.” Partal added that “we need to make more of an effort to fine tune self-regulation, and education, in order to form a critical reader, is essential.”
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