Media and Democracy: How Communication Policies in Seven Countries Protect the System From Authoritarianism

Resumo

This article offers the results of a comparative analysis of public communication policies in Brazil, South Africa, Argentina, Australia, Japan, Mexico and Portugal from the perspective of studies on media hegemony and democratisation. It analyses, based on the legislation of each of the countries, the normative instruments to combat monopolies, the rules for granting broadcasting concessions and the confrontation with political and economic parallelism. It starts by observing the deregulation of markets, the existence of private monopolies and power struggles in the field of communication as a global trend, until reaching the conclusion that some countries have legal mechanisms in place that are seeking to promote democracy in the media, while others still need to create or implement policies in this area.