Essay #3 ? Will Long ? Radio Martí: American Media Bringing Democracy to Cuba

Essay #3 ? Will Long ? Radio/TV Martí: American Media Bringing Democracy to Cuba

Since Fidel Castro came to power in 1959, Cuban-American relations have been uneasy. Due to the Trading with the Enemy Act, United States? companies are banned from doing business in Cuba.  This has helped the Cuban government slow Americanization, seen by Schiller, Tunstall and others as engulfing the world, despite being located so close to the United States.  Although there are many factors that effect globalization, media has become one of the most important because of their ability to travel with great speed and reach.  The Cuban government has been relatively successful in blocking American media from being accessed by its citizens (Maggs, 2000, p. 1356). CNN does have a bureau in Havana; in fact it is the only American television network with a bureau in Havana. But to many Cuban Americans, who called the network the ?Castro News Network?, CNN is an ?organization that lends legitimacy to a corrupt regime and sneers at the exile community in Miami.? (Miller, 2003, p. 1). According to Miller a report by the Media Research Center concluded, ?CNN has allowed itself to become just another component of Fidel Castro's propaganda machine.? (2003).

            In order to ?provide uncensored news to the island and to promote the U.S. goal of a democratic Cuba?, President Ronald Reagan created Radio Martí in 1985. (Maggs, 2000, p. 543). The radio station, since joined by sister television station TV Martí, was strategically named after José Martí, a leader in Cuban independence, and is supported by the U.S. government. The government mainly relies on two of Appadurai?s five dimensions of global flows to reach the people of Cuba. Mediascapes, ?the repertoires of? information, the flows produced and distributed? by media and Ideoscapes, ?flows of images which are associated with? counter-state movement ideologies which are comprised of? images of democracy, freedom? [and] rights,? work together to sway the opinion of the Cuban people (Featherstone, 1990, p.7). The stations are ?meant to beam into Cuba irresistible images of the American way of life.? (Off the Screen, 1993, p. 28). Cuban leaders insist that Radio Martí is ?an ?explicit violation? of a 1987 accord aimed at preventing each nation from interfering with each other's broadcast signals? and consider it as ?propaganda outlets meant to stir dissent against Fidel Castro's government.? (Quill, 1998, p. 7).  While TV Martí is blocked by the Catro government, in 1998 Radio Martí was listened to by three-fourths of Cubans (Maggs, 2000, p. 543).

            However by 2001, the number of Cubans listening to Radio Martí dropped significantly to just 8 percent and nine of ten Cubans didn?t know TV Martí existed (Hickey, 2001, p. 13).  Many attribute the loss of listeners to the stations? move to Miami, ?where it fell completely under the influence of activist exiles.? (Hickey, 2001, p. 13). The drop condemns the hypodermic model theory of Shiller and Tunstall that assumes ?media products have direct and necessary cultural ?effects? on those who consume them.? (Morely & Robins, 1995, p.126). The study by Katz and Liebes shows that ?audiences are more active and critical, their responses more complex and reflective, and their cultural values more resistant to manipulation and ?invasion? that many critical theorists have assumed.? (Tomlinson, 2003, p. 125) Cubans seem to be unaffected by the programs that ?even some critics of Fidel Castro have labeled ?pathological propaganda?.? (Walker, 1999, p. 17); they simply turned off their radios. 

         While still on the air, a debate of whether or not to cancel Radio and TV Martí has been going on for several years. If the United States is outwardly attempting to affect the culture of a country so close, then hypodermic model of media effects would have to be completely rejected. As Katz and Liebes find, the message of media has different meanings in different cultural contexts (Tomlinson, 2003, p. 126). The radio and television created by Cubans in Miami who escaped the oppressive regime of the Cuban government, is not of interest to those Cubans who are still in Cuba.

Sources:

Featherstone, M. (1990). Global Culture: Nationalism, Globalization, and Modernity. London: Newbury Park.

          Hickey, N. (2001). TV Marti: Time To Go? Columbia Journalism Review, 40(1), 13.

Maggs, J. (2005). Air War Over Cuba Escalates. National Journal, 37(8), 543.

Maggs, J. (2000). Weakening Signal From Radio Marti. National Journal, 32(18), 1356.

Miller, J. (2003). The Castro News Network. National Review, 55(10), 19-20.

Morely, D., & Robins, K. (1995). Spaces of Identity: Global Media, Electronic Landscapes, and Cultural Boundaries. London: Routledge.

Off the Screen. (1993). Economist, 328(7818), 28.

TV Marti. (1998). Quill, 86(1), 7.

Walker, J. (1999). Hack Radio. Reason, 31(4), 17.

Posted at 01:14AM Jun 08, 2007 by William Long in General  |  Comments[1]