Entertainment in control of our realities
Freedom of expression and information as a guarantee of democracy was a gain of 20th century democracy. So much so that society bought that “to greater freedom of information, greater democracy.” Even more, it was bought that freedom of information belonged to the media and that the State had to respect the free exercise of journalism and freedom of media enterprise. But the 21st century came and everything changed: the internet, the cell phone and social networks.
Latin America is a region that faces several issues of many kinds (social, economic, educational and so on). These conditions make it a very vulnerable region. Media and entertainment have taken advantage of this situation, so much that entertainment has Latin American population slumbered. The programs Latin American television transmits is a proof of this.
An average Latin American works 8 hours per day and sometimes even more, so the media takes advantage of the tiring routine. Yes, we have news, we have other kind of programs, however, and being honest they are not as frequent as other T.V. programs are. In Latin America the soap operas and the entertainment section are the last thing we watch on T.V letting us convinced everything is going fine when it isn’t.
When it comes to young people, social networks and technology have totally taken away our capacity to consciously criticize and question what is happening around us.
Of course, the rest of the world does also have television programs, entertainment sections, technology and social networks, nonetheless, we seem to be the most alienated by this kind information that hits us daily, because, Latin America might be falling but the Latin American doesn’t realize or maybe he just prefers to stay quiet.
