BY FREI BETTO
In the era of globalized communciation, collective transmitters, with defined interests and ideologies, pack media content within an aura of neutrality, assailing the receiver with visual, mental and emotional stimuli, which it is increasingly hard to resist, assimilate or evaluate. This poses the challenge of constituting collective receivers and developing procedures that contribute to critical reading of the messages. The media, and in particular television, are too serious and powerful to depend only on the transmitters. It is necessary to generate a dialogue between transmitter and receiver, thus contributing to democratization of society.
Serving truth and the promotion of human values such as self- esteem, solidarity, justice and hope, should be the guidelines for media work; but also, the receiver, avoiding the traps of scepticism, fanatism or indifference, should become actively involved in communicational processes. "Making the media become the muse of true democracy is the great challenge of the end of this century".
