Fostering a Television Culture in Ibero-America

Global Foundation for Democracy and Development (GFDD) and Fundación Global Democracia y Desarrollo (FUNGLODE) held the First Meeting on Ibero-American Television Culture at FUNGLODE Headquarters in Santo Domingo on December 4, 2007. The objective of the conference was to gather experts in the areas of communication, culture and education to discuss the development of an Ibero-American Television Culture and define a series of tasks that would be accomplished to
achieve the regional objective.

 

President Leonel Fernández participated in this conference which featured presentations by the following specialists: José Manuel Pérez Tornero, Professor and Director of the Department of Communications and Education at the Universidad
Autónoma de Barcelona and Advisor to UNESCO; Jorge da Cunha Lima, President of TV Futura, Brazil; María Eugenia Mosquera, Director and Founder of VALE TV; Peter Tinoco, President of Fundación Cisneros; Alberto García Ferrer, Secretary General of ATEI, Spain; Manuel Quintero, President of ILCE, Mexico; Eva Villareal, Vice Director of Production and Programming, Channel 22, Mexico; and Guenther Cyranek, Advisor in the Area of Comunication and
Information for UNESCO.

 

“We are in a moment of transition from old ways of making television to new ones,” said the Chief of State. “In this context, the challenge of the Dominican Republic is to discover new ways of improving the content of national television.” The President’s proposed solution was the establishment of a network that would promote television culture throughout the
island and Ibero-America.

 

Discussants confronted themes such as the challenges associated with defining cultural, educational, public and state television; technological innovation; co-production, buying and distribution; sustainability mechanisms for the development of cultural and educational television; citizen
participation; and differences in legal restrictions across the Region. They also discussed the possibility of establishing a school that would create audiovisual content.