Honduras found its origin as part of Spain’s empire but was freed in 1821. It was annexed for two years to Mexico and finally declared independence. It is the second largest country in Central America and has the world’s highest homicide rate at 90.4 murders per 100,000 people which is almost twice as much as its runner up, Venezuela. Three of the five dailies in Honduras, El Haraldo, La Tribuna, and El Periodico, find their headquarters located in Tegucigalpa. The English-language newspaper, Honduras This Week, is also located there. San Pedro Sula is the city of the other two dailies, El Tiempo and La Prensa. La Gaceta is where the government publishes its decrees weekly.
More important that the writers and editors of the Honduran press, are the political figures. Rafael Leonardo Callejas, who is the Former President, is the primary stockholder in El Periodico. This particular paper is known for its conservative views. Jaime Rosenthal is another influential political figure who owns El Tiempo. Rosenthal is a Liberal Party leader who finished second in the Liberal Party of Honduras primary for the 1993 national election, and he leads the more liberal paper which is known to criticize the military and police. Manuel Gamero, the editor of the daily, has been jailed many times because of this.
We can see how easily the media in Honduras is manipulated. The significance of the implications carried out by the puppet masters of the press in Honduras isn’t so easily measured however. This should provoke thought in all viewers and audience of any sort of media, into analyzing the source and origin of said media, and whether or not secondary motives lie in the hearts and hands of the curators. La Prensa has many connections to a number ...
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...t, of the truth that hides in the shadow of it’s government’s web of lies. But every year, the window is closing and the truth it becoming much harder to reach. And this only pertains to newspapers and magazines. There is a lot more information being manipulated under the umbrella of media. There is still television, movies, internet, and other mediums of accessible information that is being censored and manipulated.
It’s sad really, because in theory, the rights of the press are generally respected, but in practice, they sometimes appear to be breached. The press and media altogether is subject to corruption and politicization, and there have been many times when journalists have committed to self-censorship or moments of allegations of intimidation by military authorities in power. Unfortunately, this is the current state of Honduras in our moderns times today.
In April of 2017, Jorge Ramos gave a TED talk titled, “Why Journalists Have an Obligation to Challenge Power.” Ramos is an immigrant and journalist who introduces the idea that the responsibility and purpose of journalism is to oppose those
Affairs 12.3/4 (1971): 378-415. Jstor.org. Center for Latin American Studies at the University of Miami. Web. 13 Apr. 2014.
Derby Lauren, The Dictator's Seduction: Gender and State Spectacle during the Trujillo Regime, Callaloo 23.3. Summer 2000, pp. 1112-1146.
...ch as the government’s hypocrisy, brainwashing of citizens, and the extinction of books are quite apparent in our society. If our society relies too much on the biased media, there will soon come a day when all citizens will be brainwashed, and the government will be able to achieve anything it wants to, regardless of the reason behind it. Sadly, there will not be much being done about this situation until we all realize our mistakes through a very rude and unexpected awakening.
Epstein, Edward J. News From Nowhere: Television and the News, Vintage, New York NY. 1973, pp. 16; Pearson, David. “The Media and Government Deception.” Propaganda Review. Spring 1989, pp. 6-11.
Harry E. Canden. , & Gary Prevost, (2012). Politics Latin America. (4th ed.). New York: Oxford University Press.
Panama is the southernmost country of Central America. It sits on the isthmus connecting north and South America. Panama remains bordered by Costa Rica to the west. Colombia is to the southeast. The Caribbean is to the north and the Pacific Ocean to the south. Panama City is the capital of Panama. Explored and settled by the Spanish in the 16th century, Panama broke with Spain in 1821.Panama has the third largest economy in Central America and it is the fastest growing economy and the largest per capita consumer in Central America. In 2013, Panama ranked fourth in Latin American countries in terms of the Human Development Index, and is ranked 59th in the world. Studies in 2010 show that Panama remains as the second most competitive economy in Latin America. Panama’s jungle is home to an abundance of tropical plants, animals, and birds and some of them found nowhere else in the world.
Another controlling method that is diffused through television, radio and written publications; is any reported information about world politics and news. Powerful political groups narrow people’s views of what is going on around them by tainting and twisting information to their own device. They decide what to say and when to say it, revealing as much or little information as desired, in ‘befitting’ instances; thus enabling them to hide information they consider deleterious to themselves, from the public. It also permits them to depict opponents in overly negative terms.
Anita Isaacs focuses on the consequences the new democracy faces after the rule of former President Molina, “The Congress stripped him [Molina] of immunity, thus diverting attention from its own corruption cloud; in last week’s elections, half its deputies were re-elected, and the same three incumbent parties obtained the bulk share of seats.” This lack in alternation of political parties may maintain a similar form of government but the new President Morales expresses reformational interest towards the corruption of the country. Guatemala does not have a strong enough justice system to properly restrain governmental power, but the state justly accused higher governmental officials of customs fraud resulting in the imprisonment of former President, Otto Pérez Molina, and Vice President, Roxana Baldetti. The removal of the top two rulers of the country from office uncovered Guatemala’s legitimate, democratic stability through one of the most important factors of a strong democracy, the rule of
...e live seem to be too dangerous for them to fell happy. However, they are against the evil and violence, ignorance and lie. Corchado is quite unsure about the future of Mexico, but he also sees that these people are strong willed and they have chance to make some change in the way they live. He doesn’t pay attention to politics, instead of that he relies solely on people, their courage and strong will. We should all be so strong enough to change, what we want to change, and preserve what we need to preserve. Alfredo Corchado showed us the example of how brave hearted a person should be and how much we should all love our motherland. After reading this book, you won’t remain ignorant about Mexico and the journalism in general.
Filmmaker Oliver Stone embarked on a journey across the Latin American continent pursuant to the filling of gaps left by mainstream media about the social and political movements in the southern continent. Through a series of interviews he conducted with Presidents Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, Cristina Kirchner and former president Nėstor Kirchner of Argentina, Evo Morales of Bolivia, Fernando Lugo of Paraguay, Lula da Silva of Brazil, Rafael Correa of Ecuador and Raúl Castro of Cuba, Stone was able to compare firsthand information from the leaders themselves with that reported and published by the media (“Synopsis,” n.d.). It gives light to the measures these leaders had to take in order to initiate change in their respective countries, even if their public identities were at stake. Several instances in the film showed the mismatch between these two sources, pointing at the US government’s interests for greatly influencing the media for presenting biased, groundless views.
El Salvador (The republic of The Savior) is known to be the smallest and most densely populated country in Central America. San Salvador has been announced as the Capital City. It is considered to an important cultural and commercial center for the whole Central America. It borders with Guatemala, Honduras, The Pacific Ocean and the Gulf of Fonseca. It’s the only country in this region not on the Caribbean Sea.
Martinez, Ibsen. "Chaos, Chavismo and Telenovelas." The New York Times. The New York Times, 8 Apr. 2014. Web. 26 May 2014. .
Nevertheless, the movie undoubtedly mirrors many of the current socio-political time in which the film was made. The title itself refers to a famous quotation from the Nobel Prize-winning author Mario Vargas Llosa, who once referred to Mexico's ruling party, the PRI, as a "camouflaged dictatorship," thereby making it "the perfect dictatorship." In this way, the movie is directly acknowledging its relevance to modern Mexico and its politics and is clearly very self-aware. The plot itself was based on the real life perceived Televisa controversy during the 2012 Mexican presidential election, in which Mexican citizens believe that the media was unfairly showing a preference for the PRI candidate, Enrique Peña Nieto. While it could be argued that the movie takes this idea of favoring one candidate over another to extreme lengths (although perhaps it isn’t showing anything unduly unrealistic – there’s no real way to know) and hyperbolizes the effect of the media in Mexican politics, there is clearly a strong element of truth and reality there. The movie would not have had nearly the same effect if it was not at least somewhat grounded in reality. And I think that, while the media does not have absolute and final control over politics, they do to a very large and important extent and this extends far beyond the movie alone, especially in today’s age of fake
The first is the crisis of viability. The chance of success in the journalism in the mainstream is approaching a decline due to the transformations in technologies and new access to multiple sources of information. The second is a crisis in civic adequacy. The contributions of journalism to citizenship and democracy have begun to shift and this shift has caused a question of the relevancy of journalism to democratic processes. In a democratic society journalism plays the role of the government watchdog. The effectiveness of society’s watchdog is now being challenged and in turn alternating the structure of the current democratic society. Many critical theorists of the press during the beginning of the 20th century were concerned with finding appropriate forms of public regulation of the press and journalism to ensure that journalists are writing “news and information about public affairs which sustains and nurtures citizen information, understanding and engagement and thereby a democratic polity” (Cushion and Franklin, 2015: 75) (Dahlgren, Splichal 2016). Journalism is a political entity that influences and informs the public. It is meant to work as a source of public information that helps and does not hinder the general public specifically in political processes. The article