Alternative media Training: Part 1

The media is a structure of power that should be studied just like political parties, civil society, and other institutions. Media education allows us to understand how this element operates and functions, just as we study the others.

One of the first areas of study is the structure of media ownership, and we should also analyze the editorial line of a media platform. Another important focus is the analysis of media platforms and how they shape democratic institutions.

Democracy is evaluated by the extent to which the masses can administer and control the different structures of power. In many cases, democracy is accepted merely as the process of elite selection, but we would rather express it as the crystallization of multiple forces. Democracy is the result of political conflict, the outcome of a series of struggles aimed at distributing power and decision-making.

For example, we can understand labor law as the legal translation of the struggles of the working class. Institutions of power are not neutral; throughout the state, they are spaces of struggle for power and ideological conflicts. A perfect example is the case of the government of Allende in Chile. His legitimate government was attacked by the opposition and by the U.S. government, which crushed it because it challenged capitalist power and did not accept a true progressive goverment. We have seen such experiences also in Greece and in Spain with Podemos.

The left has historically held, wrongly, the notion of a liberal democracy where the multiple structures of power are neutral and not in ideological tension. The least neutral of these spaces is the media, and the right has understood this very well, securing a strong presence across most television networks, newspapers, and social media platforms. The far right has been particularly effective at occupying and expanding its influence on the shoulders of platforms owned by private capital.

During the course we will discuss the strategies to be able to gain spaces in all the media outlets, from traditional channels like tv and newspaper to social media and podcasts.