Ecuadornews:
The debate to reform the Communication Law also includes one of its articles, which refers to the obligation of the media to disseminate intercultural content.
The media, according to Article 36, have the duty to disseminate content that “expresses and reflects the worldview, culture, traditions, knowledge and knowledge of the indigenous, Afro-Ecuadorian and Montubian peoples and nationalities.” They must do it for a space of 5% of their daily schedule, otherwise they can be fined with 10% of the average turnover of the last three months.
This demand has generated all kinds of readings, from the same journalistic environment -which has raised the difficulty of facing the execution of daily content with space demands-, like the Academy, where there are voices that criticize the definition of interculturality in the law and the fact that putting figures of daily demand has not managed to generate contents that deepen in that interculturality and rather have generated a folklorization that deepens stereotypes.
Several approaches on this topic were analyzed yesterday in the forum Let’s talk about interculturality, organized by Cristina Reyes, Assembly member of the Social Christian Party (PSC), in which specialists and university professors met with journalists and assembly members.
The anthropologist Jorge Gómez Rendón, a professor at the Catholic University of Quito, one of the speakers, says that interculturality is an attitude, a position and that setting standards is difficult.
For him, rather the political proposal of understanding interculturality – which he understands as a process of coexistence, mixing, full knowledge – has taken him to a level of multiculturalism, a vision centered on the diverse, on the different.
Gómez states that when in the media, for example, habits, ways of acting or speaking of peoples, nationalities are reproduced, what is done is to create a difference, distinguish it from the other. “(It’s like saying) Those others are different from us,” he explains.
Carlos Tutivén, researcher and professor at the Casa Grande University, agrees that if there are no spaces of exchange there will be no interculturality, but something simulated and that it is necessary to open a dialogue between the media and the Academy.
Uriel Castillo, a professor at the Catholic University of Guayaquil, reflects on what he calls exaggerations and superficiality with which the theme of interculturality has been discussed. For him, it is necessary to open a debate in which these issues ask in-depth questions: What are we like Ecuador? How do we achieve consensus about who we are?
On the other hand, the archaeologist Gerardo Castro, teacher of the Flacso, assures that the Organic Law of Communication frames, creates a determined vision of the different peoples and nationalities.
“It is not the problem of a screen quota, but a certain quota so complex, so closed,” he says, referring to the mandatory 5% publication of intercultural content.
Castro aims to broaden the debate on what is considered intercultural, to integrate other concepts into this dialogue, such as, for example, youth cultures or updates in education or history.
Bill
Henry Cucalón, Social Christian Assemblyman, presented a bill of reform to the LOC. It eliminates the 5% requirement. The spirit of disseminating intercultural contents is maintained.
Consensus
According to Assemblywoman Cristina Reyes, there is consensus to eliminate the requirement as it is consistent with the vision of a non-punitive law. (I)
