1. Social and Political Communications in Mexico
The case of: (Indigenous) Community Radio and Communications

2. Theories Communication and language Excommunication (Mattelart)
Dialog (Habermas)
Language and the shaping of beliefs (De landa)
Language is a human technique that reduces the open possibilities of reality (N. Luhmann)

3. Main issues Content issues Political economy issues
Penetration of technology
Access to technology
Appropriation of technology
Those who owns transmissions, owns the message

4. Telecommunications in Mexico
1920´s first regulations electromagnetic spectrum
1960´s Government control over concessions and permissions. -State time- implemented
1969 Government sets -Fiscal time-
1970 First community radio – Radio Teocelo-
1980´s IMER, IMEVISION, AMARC, APC
1990´s Privatization policies

5. Telecommunications in Mexico
2002 Reduction –Fiscal time- under the context of democratization
2006 Reform Legal telecommunications framework. Technological convergence and media monopolies. Analog to digital migration
Complete reform to legal telecommunication framework

6. General composition of Telecommunications in Mexico
TV, Telephony and Internet
Duopoly
Carlos Slim Helú
Radio

7. Radio in Mexico
Commercial – 15 families control almost all of the of the stations.
Public – IMER 18 stations and 25 indigenous radio stations CDI (Comisión Nacional para el Desarrollo de los Pueblos Indígenas)
Community/social – well above 100 stations. 40 with permission to operate. Many of them with an indigenous profile.

8. Cons 2014 Legislation Main problems
Legal ambiguity for small media organizations
Criminalization, dependency and lack of plurality, freedom of expression and economic viability

9. What is Indigenous? Original inhabitants of a territory
It is a legal term not a group
5000 ethnic groups in the world. About 350 to 400 million people today
Territories where cultural and natural diversity can be found
Groups and cultures that exist and persist before colonial times, during the colonial period and after colonial regimes ended
Poverty and discrimination

10. Who is Indigenous
People characterized by their special relation with nature. Groups and cultures that –passionately- love nature. Mother Nature, Mother Earth
People who self-identify as indigenous
People and groups that share and/or practice non western ontological-epistemic principles (an example of a different ontology in relation to death and life)
People who actively abide to indigenous rights and prerogatives for specific purposes (a note on African countries)

11. Brief history of indigenous movements
The colonial experience: domination, exploitation and control of the forms of knowledge
The end of the colonial period in XIX and XX centuries and struggles for recognition inside Nation States
Alta controversy end in1982
ILO Convention No.169 in 1989
Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in 2006
FREE, PRIOR, INFORMED CONSENT (art. 10 UNDRIP)

12. UNDRIP and MEDIA Indigenous as a legal term that unify struggles
Article 16 1.
Indigenous peoples have the right to establish their own media in their own languages and to have access to all forms of non-indigenous media without discrimination. 2.
States shall take effective measures to ensure that State-owned media duly reflect indigenous cultural diversity. States, without prejudice to ensuring full freedom of expression, should encourage privately owned media to adequately reflect indigenous cultural diversity.

14. Last comments
Implications of legal frameworks for community –indigenous or not- radio stations in Mexico
The role of Internet –potential and limitations-
The right to communicate and international frameworks in relation to community radios in Mexico

15. Thank you!