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World Report - Chile

• Area: 756,630 sq. km.
• Population: 16,900,000
• Language: Spanish
• Head of state: Sebastián Piñera, since March 2010

The Chilean media are exposed to fewer security problems than other countries in the region but ownership is concentrated in very few hands. Certain issues such as the situation of Chile's indigenous Mapuche minority, environmental projects or human rights during the 1973-90 military dictatorship continue to be extremely sensitive

The Chilean media suffer from an extraordinary concentration of ownership, in fact, most of them are owned by just two companies, Copesa, which publishes the daily newspaper La Tercera, and El Mercurio, which publishes the daily of the same name. The state provides them with 5 million dollars in subsidies each year, to the detriment of the independent media. Established during Gen. Pinochet's dictatorship, this subsidy system has not been changed since the return to democracy. Worse still, the half-dozen opposition magazines such as Fortín Mapocho, Causa and Análisis, which were tolerated during the latter years of the dictatorship, have all had to close for lack of funding and assistance.

There is little space for community radio stations in a radio landscape of which more than 60 per cent is owned by the Spanish media group Prisa. A media law adopted in 1994 underwent some minor changes in 2007, under Michelle Bachelet's presidency. In theory, it increases the maximum transmitting power of community radio stations from one to 25 watts and allows them to carry advertising for companies that are physically present in the areas they cover. This belated amendment has not however been promulgated by the current president, Sebastián Piñera, also known as the "Chilean Berlusconi," who has no interest in any changes because of his links with the mainstream media.

The major demonstrations in the course of 2011 by students and opponents of the HydroAysén plans for five hydro-electric dams in Patagonia were partially fuelled by public disenchantment with the lack of real media pluralism and the perception that the mainstream media are too supportive of the government. Marcela Rodríguez, a young woman photographer for the Mapuexpress website, was arrested in a heavy-handed fashion along with 10 other people during a protest against the HydroAysén project in the southern city of Temuco in May 2011. She was facing a fine and 300-day jail sentence on a charge of disturbing public order until she was acquitted eight days later.

Other subjects, such as the situation of the indigenous Mapuche in the south of the country continue to be highly sensitive. From 2008 to 2010, there were cases of Chilean and European journalists and documentary filmmakers encountering problems while working on this subject. They were prosecuted or jailed on trumped-up charges of "links with a terrorist group," criminal association or violating private property. Elena Varela was arrested and held for three months in 2008 while making her documentary Newen Mapuche, for which she had received state assistance, and was not acquitted until 2010. The film was then denied access to national distribution in April 2011 on the grounds that it "attacked the image" of the southern Araucanía region, creating the impression that it was being censored.

Updated in August 2011

Topics: Mapuche, Freedom of information, Freedom of expression,