Are the indigenous media community media? Experiences of native peoples’ media practices in Argentina

Introduction

The Argentinian Law 26.522 on Audiovisual Communication Services (commonly termed the ‘LSCA’), approved in 2009 and currently under reform, was pioneering in Latin America in recognising indigenous peoples’ media (henceforth: indigenous media). Indigenous communities can, on reporting their technical and cultural projects and demonstrating their media sustainability and programming coverage, obtain broadcasting authorisation as non-state public providers. They can also rely on dedicated AM, FM and TV frequencies in their own localities, are permitted to use indigenous languages in programming, and may be represented in different institutions created by the LSCA itself. Indigenous media can, moreover, access different forms of financing, including the Fund for Competitive Development (commonly termed ‘FOMECA’), of which they are beneficiaries along with community media, which are included by the LSCA among non-profit private providers and are beneficiaries of 33% of the radio spectrum.

This legal definition of indigenous media as non-state public providers was called for by a number of indigenous organisations during public discussion of the draft law, in accordance with the Argentinian Constitution (Art. 75) which recognises the pre-existence of indigenous peoples and assimilates them within any public entity. As Doyle (2015a) summarises, the ‘non-state public’ specification refers to the need of indigenous peoples to distinguish themselves from the state and to limit its intervention in the life of their communities, including in media management. Moreover, it seeks a distinction from private entities, including non-profit ones, as the organisational systems of these entities differ from indigenous ways of life, as reflected in media practices. The LSCA therefore enabled the exercise of the communication rights of indigenous peoples, responding to many claims of those indigenous organisations participating in the legislative process by proposing the inclusion of their right to ‘communication with identity’ (Doyle, 2015a).

Nevertheless, we consider that, overall the law’s application has been weak. Indeed, according to official data provided in April 2016, throughout the country only 64 communities have been authorised since LSCA approval and they are mostly concentrated in the Northwest. ¹ Moreover, up to December 2015, only 90 of the 1013 FOMECA awards went to indigenous media (Espada, 2016). ² Furthermore, we consider the legal definition of media to be questionable. In actual fact, the LSCA defines and regulates indigenous media and Catholic media as non-state public providers, although they are very different in terms of socio-economic conditions and purposes. On the other hand, the LSCA includes non-profit private broadcasters that fall outside the definition of community media, such as evangelical broadcasters, foundations, cooperatives and enterprises (Segura, 2013; Torres, 2011).

In such a context, we have hypothesised that indigenous media are in a contradiction between de jure public ownership and de facto communal belonging, with some consequences for the correct and effective application of the LSCA. This hypothesis is based firstly on a comparative analysis of the LSCA and similar reforms in the field of communications implemented throughout Latin America in recent years where both indigenous and community broadcasters are part of the community media sector, alongside private and public media. For instance, the Bolivian General Law on Telecommunications and Information and Communication Technologies (2011), as well as the Ecuadorian Organic Law on Communication (2013), define community media as broadcasters whose ownership and management depend on non-profit collectives or social organisations, communes, communities, indigenous peoples and nationalities pursuing social objectives and realising cultural, educational and development programming, which is needed for their communities’ social and political participation. In other words, community media are defined by their uses, functions and purposes and belong to actors who are defined by their ethnic and/or social class. The Chilean Law 20.433 on Citizen Community Broadcasting Services (2010) and the Mexican Federal Law on Telecommunications and Broadcasting (2014) also include indigenous media in the community media sector, although – it is worth pointing out – the former limits its coverage and power, while the latter reserves it only 10% of the spectrum.

The research hypothesis is, furthermore, based on a dialogue between international studies on community media and the existing literature on indigenous media; it is a dialogue which suggests that they share many defining features with respect to media uses, purposes and functions, and that these features are better ways of characterising them than by the ownership of frequencies or broadcasters.

Theoretical frameworks

The main studies on community, alternative and popular media (henceforth: community media) have considered them to be tools and spaces for political intervention and social change that mark an area of cultural production articulating communication and political struggle through autonomy and organisation (Vinelli, 2014). Specifically, the adjective ‘community’ defines these media with reference to those who hold them – i.e. a group of people sharing a territory, interests, practices or historical, economic and/or cultural ties (Scifo, 2015). That is to say, that it refers to the social and territorial integration of community media (Gumucio-Dagron, 2001a; Kejval, 2009; Segura, 2016), which, in turn, makes them ‘participatory’ by serving the communities where they are embedded and whose participation they promote (Carpentier, 2007). Community media generate autopoietic participation processes because they work with communities, not only for them (Gumucio-Dagron, 2001a; Magallanes-Blanco, 2016). In fact, they produce media content that is organic to their communities, respond to requirements for local information and involve audiences in the (post-)production and distribution-return processes (Carpentier and Scifo, 2010; Gumucio-Dagron, 2001b; Magallanes-Blanco, 2009; Scifo, 2015). This means that, although community media face the challenges of organising diversities, maintaining democratic internal mechanisms, surviving with scarce resources and preserving their critical attitude, they cannot be easily eradicated because they are rooted in their own territories, movements and struggles (Carpentier, 2007; Carpentier and Scifo, 2010). Therefore, although they are mythologised as being small or marginal, and, indeed, end up being so because the efficient, extensive and professionalised media system excludes them (Carpentier, 2007; Gumucio-Dagron, 2001b), community media are ‘radical’ and effective because their communicators are (medi)activists in their own territories and can rely on the critical experience of their users (Downing, 2001; Pasquinelli, 2002).

Moreover, these media are (self-)defined as ‘alternative’ through their antagonism to public and commercial media (Carpentier, 2007), from which they differ both in subject matter – representing, as they do, themes and perspectives otherwise absent in the mainstream media – and in the organisation and modus operandi – adopting a non-hiearchical internal organisation and horizontal processes (Atton, 2002; Rodríguez, 2009). Community media pursue a bottom-up agenda by reconstructing historical-cultural memory which makes civic claims visible; they also propose alternatives for and through collective action (Gumucio-Dagron, 2005). Although teams adopt different internal structures (ALER and AMARC-ALC, 2008), they attempt to collectivise both decision-making and media production processes, for the identity of a medium can also be located in how it is managed (Villamayor and Lamas, 1998). In fact, the adjective ‘alternative’ refers to the commitment of community media not only to transform hegemonic economic, social and cultural patterns but also to challenge hegemonic patterns in communication (Kejval, 2009; Vinelli, 2014). The ‘popular’ attribute characterises such media for their counter-hegemonic attitude; historically silenced masses (Beltrán and Reyes, 1993) dispute hegemonic media power by proposing narratives and worldviews that differ from the dominant ones (Mata, 2011) precisely because they originate in dominated sectors (Martín-Barbero, 1981). Thus, in community media, discursive practices of resistance are hosted and fostered (Carpentier, 2007), making of them ‘citizen media’ which empower communities. Marginalised sectors intervene and transform the existing mediascape by enacting their citizenship and protesting against social codes, legitimised identities and institutionalised social relations (Rodríguez, 2001).

Community media can thus be also considered as originating in Hardt and Negri’s commonwealth (2009); they are media spaces, processes and, at the same time, products generated through and among those interactions bringing together those who autonomously construct a bottom-up media counter-power (Cerbino and Belotti, 2018). Such communities are subject to economic and political contradictions (Gumucio-Dagron, 2001b; Howley, 2005), and so singularities commonly act by maintaining their differences. Participating in a broadcaster (or defending it) bonds the involved people, and in these relational spaces, the broadcaster is perceived and, hence, recognised as a common good. Moreover, this ‘commoning’ process makes the broadcaster a social and political subject which is ‘rhizomatic’ because of its internal contingency, fluidity and elusiveness (Carpentier, 2007). These qualities are also reflected in the networking and glocal attitudes of community media; they try to interconnect local struggles for and by intervening at a global level (Carpentier, 2007; Gumucio-Dagron, 2005; Howley, 2005; Scifo, 2015).

This set of features characterising community media also appears in much of the indigenous media investigated to date. However, indigeneity is a dimension specific to them, and it is therefore essential to approach and understand this phenomenon. As Wilson and Stewart (2008) examine, indigeneity is constitutively defined by the pre-existence of some people in a particular territory; the voluntary perpetuation of their cultural distinctiveness; their self-identification, as well as the recognition by other groups or by states that they form a distinct collectivity and a (past or current) experience of subjugation, marginalisation, dispossession, exclusion or discrimination. As a category of relational (self-)identification and as a product of the articulation of economic, political and cultural conditions (Doyle, 2013), indigeneity marks a colonial field of power relations where indigenous peoples dispute the dominant culture with regard to its representation of their own history, land and culture (Ginsburg, 1994). In this context, the (self-)ascribing of indigenous identity is shaped by and, in turn, shapes indigenous media practices (Doyle, 2013). This has been evident since their genealogy, ³ as indigenous media have been emerging and developing as forms of the political positioning and cultural activism of indigenous peoples (Salazar, 2009; Wortham, 2004) on the path towards self-determination, which implies recovering, developing and (re)inventing indigenous culture (de la Peña, 1995; Salazar, 2014; TuhiwaiSmith, 1999).

Indeed, indigenous communicators are (medi)activists in their communities because they use communication technologies tactically to revitalise struggles and traditions (Pasquinelli, 2002; Wortham, 2004). By making indigenous culture visible, they open spaces that feed an activist imaginary that, in turn, sustains the struggle for self-determination (Salazar, 2014). For this reason, indigenous mediatised communication is a vital political stance for the claims for autonomy of indigenous peoples; by showing their cultural difference through/in their own media, they reinforce their identity inwardly and defend it outwardly (Wortham, 2004, 2005). By breaking into mediatised public space, which is where debate over the construction of ‘common sense’ plays out, indigenous peoples challenge those ethnocentric, stigmatising and stereotypical discourses about themselves that have sustained cultural homogenisation and (neo- and post-)colonial domination (Castells-Talens, 2016; Himpele, 2008; Magallanes-Blanco et al., 2013a). Through/in their own media, indigenous peoples ‘shoot back’ and reverse the colonial gaze, as Wilson and Stewart (2008) state. They narrate their own history, their own ways of living, their own struggles so that they might be taken into account (Salazar, 2003, 2010, 2016) and control their public image (Cordova, 2011).

Indigenous media thereby enable the discursive and performative exercise of that ‘ethnic citizenship’ defined by de la Peña (1995) as the indigenous peoples’ need and capacity to be legal interlocutors and, in this way, to reconfigure the public sphere while participating in it. If we apply this definition to the mediatised public space, we can see that indigenous media allow their peoples to exercise what Mata (2006) defines as ‘communicative citizenship’: that is, they enact their capacity to be subjects of law in the field of public communication. This means that, through their own media, they gain access to the mediatised public sphere as Mapuche, Aymara, Zapotec, and others, and not as Chileans, Bolivians, Mexicans (Salazar, 2010), and thus are able to decolonise it.

It is this process of decolonising that ‘indigenises’ or ‘indianises’ the media (Salazar, 2002; Schiwy, 2009). Indigenous peoples appropriate and (re)shape technologies in order to reflect their own cultures, to contribute to the movement for autonomy and to construct their own unofficial narrative (Schiwy, 2002; Wilson and Stewart, 2008; Wortham, 2004). As Cordova (2011) argues, the media practices of indigenous peoples also contribute to their political participation by influencing linguistic, legal and cultural struggles – with a participatory attitude that evokes that of community media. They re-signify media as alternative forms of cultural mediation of discourses on their political self-determination and ethnic recognition (Salazar, 2002). In fact, by negotiating between Western conventions and logics and traditional forms of indigenous communication (Doyle, 2015b), indigenous communicators incorporate values, protocols and methodologies in media processes and products – ‘embedded aesthetics’ (Ginsburg, 1991, 1994) – without (or, at least, without always) incurring the risk of selling out or assimilating goals and content (Wilson and Stewart, 2008).

In concrete terms, they dispute the hegemonic logics of interaction in the mediatised public space by stressing the logics of information production and agenda setting, modes of entertainment and the format and rhythm of speaking by using indigenous languages, as well as by adopting their communities’ everyday dynamics and organisational forms (Doyle, 2015b). As Wilson and Stewart (2008) argue, indigenous communicators use technologies to craft culturally distinct forms of communication that speak to local aesthetics and needs while anticipating larger audiences, thus embracing the same glocal attitude of community media. Indeed, as the studies of Cordova (2011) and Soler (2017) show, good practices such as prior consultation with communities or the emphasis on indigenous peoples’ agency – even to the detriment of technical accuracy or compliance with specific production roles – detach indigenous media products from trade logic and industrial standards. They circulate rather through solidarity networks in a permanent production process that transforms the distribution-return moment into a further stage of the process itself, involving, as it does, audiences, as often is the case with community media (Carpentier and Scifo, 2010; Gumucio-Dagron, 2001b; Magallanes-Blanco, 2009; Scifo, 2015). In this sense, indigenous media can be considered as cultural and political platforms where indigenous peoples demonstrate both their creativity and their agency (Himpele, 2008; Wortham, 2005).

Methodology

A qualitative methodology was adopted because of the exploratory research objectives and the need to facilitate a flexible and interactive design (Miles and Huberman, 1994). Specifically, more than 30 semi-structured interviews were carried out with key informants from those communities who already had authorisation to broadcast at the start of the research. We considered that such authorisation, in establishing a medium, would constitute a sufficient milestone for exploring the research dimensions we were interested in. These are: the genesis and objectives of the communication projects; programming and agenda; external relationships; internal organisation (with a focus on the sustainability strategies adopted); the respondents’ definition of ‘community communication’, ‘indigenous communication’ and ‘communication with identity’ and their opinion about the application of the law and its definition of media.

A deliberate sampling strategy was adopted: we sought the largest number of communities integrating the different indigenous peoples in each Argentinian region in order to also control socio-cultural and territorial differences. We located and approached the communities through a snowball sampling procedure until we reached data saturation and information redundancy (Maxwell, 2005).

This paper presents the preliminary results of the research based on the first 14 interviews analysed. Only radio stations are included in this sample. These were selected according to their significance, by selecting one community from each indigenous people in each cultural region of the country. The results are presented and discussed in thematic areas corresponding to the research dimensions considered. Respondents are quoted by referring to the name of the broadcaster, the indigenous people and the region. This decision was agreed prior to the interview as it guaranteed anonymity and complete freedom of expression, while respecting their representativeness (that is, they spoke in the name of the whole community and/or radio team).

Results and discussion

All the indigenous radio stations we reached, which often came into existence after and through LSCA approval, pursue clear foundational objectives. Among those that look ‘outward’, the most important is ‘defence of the territory’ against the State or ‘businessmen [who] take you away like a goat’ (FM Monte, Lule Vilela, NOA). This is not an environmentalist stance, similar to that adopted by some community media; it rather refers to the pivotal community–Mother Earth relationship (Magallanes-Blanco, 2016). This is sometimes reflected in the broadcasters’ names, e.g. FM Viquen (Qom, Chaco), citing the name of the first elder who inhabited the village, or FM El Antigal (Tilián, Jujuy), referring to the ancestral archaeological site. Many indigenous radio stations were established to rescue indigenous knowledge; this knowledge has been historically subjugated (Salazar, 2015), as with those popular cultures where community media are embedded (Downing, 2001), but it is linked to the indigenous worldview, which is also often reflected in the broadcasters’ names. Examples include FM Whipala (Ocloya, NOA), which ‘appropriated the […] great calendar’ of the Andean peoples, and FM Pachakuti (Kolla, NOA), which means ‘the time to return to being ourselves’ and refers to the Kolla belief that ‘there are 500 bad years and 500 good ones’ and that ‘we are already in the second period’. Ethnic identity characterises this knowledge.

The recovery and revitalisation of indigenous culture are therefore tied into the struggles for resources and rights for indigenous peoples, precisely on the part of indigenous media as spaces and tools of cultural activism and political positioning (Salazar, 2009; Wortham, 2004). This tie is clearly reflected in a response about a cooking radio programme where speakers ‘work with different recipes done with the indigenous forest’s resources and, from there, fight to defend the mountain’, because such a defence ‘is rooted in [indigenous] culture, food sovereignty and [ancestral] medicine’ (FM Inti Puka, Comechingón Sanavirón, Center). This means that indigenous communicators, like popular ones (Martín-Barbero, 1981), conceive culture as a field of struggle in itself, where media play a key role because they have supported the colonisation and cultural homogenisation of Latin America (Magallanes-Blanco et al., 2013a). Indigenous radio stations aim at ‘decolonising the message, the word’ (FM Inti Puka, Comechingón Sanavirón, Center) in order to dismantle the domination patterns by (self-)representing the cultural and political identity of each indigenous people in the media (Doyle, 2015b; Salazar, 2002). For this reason, some radio stations, such as FM Identidad (Diaguita Calchaquí, Tucumán), have chosen names aimed at the (self-)ascribing of ethnic identity. And for the same reason, the revitalisation of indigenous languages becomes an objective in itself for many indigenous radio stations aiming ‘to rescue [indigenous] culture and to value [it]’ so that ‘people do not feel ashamed’ (FM Maimará, Maymaras, NOA). Indigenous peoples seek to establish a discourse on ethnic recognition (Salazar, 2002) in a process of (re)invention of the tradition that, as a practice of resistance (de la Peña, 1995), aims to achieve self-determination (TuhiwaiSmith, 1999) and ‘strengthen the indigenous movement, make its problems [and] activities visible’ (FM Pachakuti, Kolla, NOA). Thus, through their own radio stations, indigenous peoples can tell their own history, ways of life and struggles in order for them to be taken into consideration and to control their public image (Cordova, 2011; Salazar, 2016). As a respondent explains, there are ‘two instances: the struggle, which is part of our history; and then, looking forward to the generation of policies’, and both ‘must be communicated to both society and indigenous peoples themselves’ (FM Truwvliñ To Kom, Mapuche, Patagonia).

Concurrent with this ‘outward-looking’ stance, all indigenous radio stations we reached also pursue inward objectives, such as strengthening indigenous identity within communities (Schiwy, 2002; Wortham, 2005) by involving young people in the intergenerational transmission of traditional values (Ramos-Rodríguez, 2016). As one interviewee explains, the elderly think that ‘capturing young people who move away’ from the community via radio is an effective strategy to ‘meet them’ (S/N, Guaraní, NEA). On the other hand, indigenous radio stations play a service role in their communities. In some cases, as with community media (Cabral and Jaimes, 2009), they are places of aggregation and for the resolution of social problems – radio, for example, ‘is an alternative’ for those ‘teenagers sitting at the corner [and] drinking wine’ (FM Community, Guaraní, NOA). In other cases, as with community media (Belotti, 2016; Gumucio-Dagron, 2005), indigenous radio stations provide institutional reminders, such as ‘ads of the Police Officers’ (FM Whipala, Ocloya, NOA) or warnings when ‘animals go to the pasture and there are thieves around’ (FM El Puerto, Huarpe, Cuyo). Finally, there are broadcasters who ‘coordinate’ meetings and activities ‘with other communities [and] institutions’ (FM Maimará, Maymaras, NOA), similar to the mining radio stations described by Gumucio-Dagron (2005).

These purposes and functions are reflected in the choice of media type: radio prevails because it reaches remote families, thus expanding spatial limits and increasing cohesion (Ramos-Rodríguez, 2016). Moreover, objectives match with the foundational decision to reach not only indigenous or local audiences but ‘the whole society’ in order to make the reality of communities visible (FM Identidad, Diaguita Calchaquí, NOA). Finally, the objectives are translated into an agenda that prioritises urgent community issues, thereby turning indigenous radio into ‘imperfect media’ (Salazar and Córdova, 2008), like community media, in that they accompany struggles while being part of them (Schiwy, 2009) and take the microphone out of the studio to broadcast from the conflict arena (Gumucio-Dagron, 2005). As a respondent explains, indigenous media ‘are different’ from other media ‘for standing where the conflict develops, for staying alongside the people in the place and, from there, covering what happens’, even if it brings ‘court cases [or] beatings’ (FM Pachakuti, Kolla, NOA).

Territorial conflicts indeed ‘take a lot of [programming] because there are many’ (FM Truwvliñ To Kom, Mapuche, Patagonia); demands for ‘housing, water [and] forest’ (FM Viquen, Qom, NEA) or fundamental rights, such as ‘education and health’ (FM Whipala, Ocloya, NOA), are very visible. As with community media, juridical-political themes and cultural ones are linked (de la Peña, 1995; Wortham, 2004), although in indigenous media both are also usually influenced by an identity claim. One respondent explains this aspect clearly:

It is not a matter of being against capitalism or the Church, but rather knowing where we come from. So, if we perform the ceremony to the God of Rain who now has the name of a saint, we should know what we are doing! Such a conflicting part is what we should communicate. (FM El Puerto, Huarpe, Cuyo)

A further feature shared by indigenous radio stations and community media is the social and territorial insertion (Magallanes-Blanco, 2009; Schiwy, 2009; Segura, 2016) they cultivate by interacting with audiences both thorugh/in media and face-to-face (ALER and AMARC-ALC, 2008; Belotti, 2016). For example, ‘live calls’ and ‘SMS’ (FM La Voz de los Pueblos, Mocoví, Center) allow listeners ‘to ask for music’ (FM Pachakuti, Kolla, NOA), send ‘birthday greetings’ (FM La Voz de los Pueblos, Mocoví, Center) or remind listeners that ‘on Monday there is an exam’ (FM El Puerto, Huarpe, Cuyo). Mediatised interaction is usually reduced to requests and comments that make indigenous radio stations similar to community media in their service function (Gumucio-Dagron, 2005). The messages and announcements stimulate local communication systems and strengthen social cohesion through direct communicative flows between audiences and media (Ramos-Rodríguez, 2016). In this sense, also in indigenous radios the distribution-return moment becomes part of the media content production itself, as happens in other indigenous media (Cordova, 2011; Soler, 2017) and in much of community media (Carpentier and Scifo, 2010; Gumucio-Dagron, 2001b; Magallanes-Blanco, 2009; Scifo, 2015). There are even cases where audiences communicate solidarity and support for the radio stations, revealing an affective bond with the indigenous media and a sense of common belonging, analogous with community media (Belotti, 2016). As Soler (2017) demonstrates, audiovisual communication enables a space for socio-political, intercultural interaction.

However, returns from audiences are not always positive; as one of the respondents clarifies, there are three types of audience:

Those who love you, agree with your position and listen to you. Then, those who are neither for nor against, but listen to probe what you say. And the sector that does not love you, that already has a position. For example, when we were discussing an issue dealing with miners, they called us to insult us. (FM Pachakuti, Kolla, NOA)

At the level of internal organisation, indigenous radio stations resemble community media as they adopt different types of structure aiming at the horizontality and collectivisation of all processes (ALER and AMARC-ALC, 2008). Nevertheless, indigenous communicators also try to reflect the organisational practices of their own peoples (Magallanes-Blanco et al., 2013b) and incorporate in their stations’ management and media production their own ways of ‘bonding’ (Soler, 2017). As one of the respondents explains:

The radio has a commission [with] authorities of our people where [we thought about] what direction we have to take. This is for keeping [our own] axes: Mapuche people’s decision-making process always works this way. Finally, we grab each other by the hair, but it is something that identifies [us] as well! (FM Truwvliñ To Kom, Mapuche, Patagonia)

With respect to the ethnic composition of the teams, we point out that there are also non-indigenous members who are seen as allies in indigenous struggles. Overall, the principal recruitment criterion is adherence to the communication project’s identity – as it often is in community media (Villamayor and Lamas, 1998). New entrants are required to ‘respect the radio’s profile’ and contribute with ‘something social, communal’ (FM Pachakuti, Kolla, NOA). It is no wonder that the language is adjusted to the social environment where the media intervene, regardless of the technical precision that training imparts (Wortham, 2005), and favouring ‘regional words that common people can understand’ (FM Pachakuti, Kolla, NOA). Thus, indigenous and community media share the counter-hegemonic gesture of adopting communication strategies focused on the oppressed sectors and ordinary people (Kejval, 2009). Nevertheless, according to many interviewees, technical ‘training in broadcasting and speech’ (FM Qadhuoqte, Qom, Center) is pivotal in team selection, not only for operational needs but also because such training is supposed to ‘correct mistakes’, such as adapting the schedule to community time, and thereby ‘not respecting certain timetables’ (FM Community, Guaraní, NOA). Consequently, embedded aesthetics (Ginsburg, 1991, 1994) may disappear in negotiation with Western practices that end up prevailing by being incorporated (Wilson and Stewart, 2008; Wortham, 2005). This means there is no complete narrative freedom detected in other fieldwork (Soler, 2017) because there are still prejudices about how to do radio. This is mainly due to a stereotypical idea of the activist communicator (Downing, 2001), similar to the popular and indigenous one, who is conceived of as militant but non-professional (Escobar, 2011). In fact, in some cases, respondents implicitly suggest that the members of indigenous radio stations are not really communicators, but ‘they like to believe [so]’ (FM Inti Puka, Comechingón Sanavirón, Center) or say that ‘people working in the radio [will] do it voluntarily, regardless of whether there is [money] or not […] because it is a militant activity’ (FM El Puerto, Huarpe, Cuyo).

The voluntary nature of the work influences the numbers working in the teams and the duration of their commitment, as happens in community media (Magallanes-Blanco et al., 2010). Young people leave radio to study or seek better economic opportunities (Wortham, 2005). As one respondent clarifies, the radio ‘could not support the boys’ and ‘all those who were trained went to [work for] the police or some are studying’ (FM Community, Guaraní, NOA). The immaterial nature of working in communications also makes participation variable (Wortham, 2004): ‘if [the brothers] do not see things, they do not add up’ (FM Maimará, Maymaras, NOA), due to problems of ‘emotional sustainability’ (Magallanes-Blanco et al., 2010) that occur, for instance, when leaders have lost credibility ‘for not having fulfilled certain promises’ (FM Qadhuoqte, Qom, Center). This confirms the view that the communities are not pure and homogeneous but are influenced by economic and political issues that affect the sustainability and longevity of communication projects (Gumucio-Dagron, 2005; Howley, 2005), as well as the regularity of programming. As with much community media (Equipo Claves, 1998), indigenous radio stations cannot guarantee activities every day, all day long; most broadcast every day but with irregular schedules.

Organisational problems of this nature result mainly from the economic unsustainability of media. Like community media, indigenous radios cannot rely on a system that would allow them to survive over time; broadcasters need to adopt mixed strategies of fundraising (Equipo Claves, 1998; Leavi and Iglesias, 2013). As with much community media (Belotti, 2016), these strategies combine advertising spots, social campaigns, cooperation projects or self-financing tools (ALER and AMARC-ALC, 2008). Indigenous radios often draw upon community funds made up of ‘membership fees’ (FM Maimará, Maymaras, NOA) and organise raffles or sales ‘in order to pay electricity, gas, telephone’ (FM Truwvliñ To Kom, Mapuche, Patagonia). Some radio stations charge a percentage to outsiders and ‘brothers making a programme’ (FM Viquen, Qom, NEA). Others charge for advertising space to ‘companies’ (S/N, Guaraní, NEA), to ‘local producers’ (FM Whipala, Ocloya, NOA) and to the ‘Doña Rosa kiosk’ (FM El Puerto, Huarpe, Cuyo) or even sell space for political broadcasts to ‘all politicians’ (FM Comunidad, Guaraní, NOA). At the same time, almost all the broadcasters we reached rely on public funds, as does much community media (Equipo Claves, 1998; Leavi and Iglesias, 2013), due to an expectation of ‘a state presence that contributes’ to their media activities (FM El Puerto, Huarpe, Cuyo). Nevertheless, such funds have provided only basic facilities, without covering the expenses that running a medium implies, such as equipment maintenance or the rental of a physical space. For instance, some communities have the equipment but do not have a ‘closed space’ where they can keep it and call upon people to ‘appropriate’ the medium (FM El Puerto, Huarpe, Cuyo). Finally, economic limitations mean that ‘there is no salary [for] the children’ working in the media (FM Comunidad, Guaraní, NOA) and that debts accumulate.

Apart from these economic issues, indigenous radio stations also share similar technological problems with community media (Carpentier, 2007). For example, some broadcasters cause interference ‘in neighbours’ TV’ (FM Community, Guaraní, NOA) or ‘problems with the antenna’ (FM Truwvliñ To Kom, Mapuche, Patagonia). There are also cases where ‘the transmitter has been burned by [an] electric storm’ (FM La Voz de los Pueblos, Mocoví, Centro) or connectivity problems and lack of a signal caused by being ‘sunken in the mountains’ (FM Maimará, Maymaras, NOA).

Finally, the difficulty of sustaining indigenous radios also results from administrative-bureaucratic issues. ‘Constituting [media as] the State requires to go on air’ (FM Maimará, Maymaras, NOA) is often a ‘trauma’ for communities (FM Truwvliñ To Kom, Mapuche, Patagonia). Many interviewees denounce the complexity of the procedures required for obtaining authorisation to broadcast, competing in the FOMECA and getting hold of the funds they eventually win. The set of requirements makes the creation of a radio station ‘rather bothersome’ (S/N, Guaraní, NEA), as it imposes forms that are typical of the state apparatus but not of the communities’ way of life. Something similar is claimed by community media which – being fluid, elusive and contingent – hardly comply with rigid bureaucratic requirements (Belotti, 2016; Carpentier, 2007). Moreover, indigenous communities must set up a project in order to ‘demonstrate to the State that they can sustain a radio’ (FM Pachakuti, Kolla, NOA), but, as with community media (Belotti, 2016), they complain about the lack of ‘training in the design of projects’ (FM Truwvliñ To Kom, Mapuche, Patagonia). Finally, FOMECA is ‘a bit complicated [because] it demands certain requirements’ (FM Whipala, Ocloya, NOA) that complicate the effective possibility of competing or receiving funds: filling out forms about the communication project; opening and maintaining a bank account and then accounting for the use of the money. This is the reason why some respondents consider that, since ‘indigenous peoples are the predecessors to all’, they ‘should have the possibility of accessing this tool directly’ (FM La Voz de los Pueblos, Mocoví, Center).

The last research dimension we explored deals with respondents’ definitions of ‘indigenous communication (or media)’, ‘community communication (or media)’ and ‘communication with identity’. This study’s interest lies in highlighting what characterises each type of medium, in the interviewees’ opinion, and in discovering whether, and how, indigeneity makes a difference.

The responses show that ‘indigenous communication’ appears linked to the (self-)recognition processes that media enable. In fact, these are conceived as tools that allow indigenous peoples to (self-)represent themselves, to survive culturally and, therefore, to develop ways in which they can ascribe identity (Doyle, 2013; Salazar, 2014). As a respondent clarifies, ‘communication leads to discovering that we do not walk in loincloth, with a bow and arrows, and it allows many people to recognise their own true identity’ (FM La Voz de los Pueblos, Mocoví, Center). In this sense, the self-identification process defines indigeneity in the respondents’ opinion, and media represent tools and spaces where they can express their wish to perpetuate their cultural distinctiveness (Wilson and Stewart, 2008). They are conceived as a ‘continuation of the communication that indigenous peoples have always had’, although ‘improved’ since they ‘communicated through smoke signals or by reading tracks’ (FM El Puerto, Huarpe, Cuyo). Such advances in communication also allow the freedom of expression that indigenous radios, similar to community media (Gumucio-Dagron, 2005; Belotti, 2016), guarantee. As a respondent explains, indigenous peoples conceive communication as ‘free’ because ‘the community has its own voice’ (FM El Puerto, Huarpe, Cuyo). Such an idea of ‘having one’s own space’ (FM Truwvliñ To Kom, Mapuche, Patagonia) to ‘make known that [indigenous peoples] resist’ (FM La Voz de los Pueblos, Mocoví, Centro) often recurs in the responses. Although the claim to communication rights may appear low among the priorities of communities, media are important as they allow indigenous people to tell their reality and, hence, be taken into account (Magallanes-Blanco and Medina, 2007; Salazar, 2016). They value communication technologies because, like water and other natural resources, they allow the exercise of fundamental rights (Cordova, 2011), such as the right to information rights or to truth. A respondent explains this clearly:

[Before] everyone was talking about communication [but] I thought there were a lot of things more important to talk about: e.g. animals die because of drought. [But, then] I discovered [that] if I do not sit down to speak, if we, the indigenous peoples, cannot transmit our reality with our own voices, no one does it. (FM Truwvliñ To Kom, Mapuche, Patagonia)

In many responses on the meaning of ‘community communication (or media)’ and what elements possibly differentiate it from indigenous communication (or media), we find very similar opinions expressed. According to some interviewees, community media play a service function for/in the communities just like their own indigenous radio stations, and they pursue the same objective of making subjugated cultures visible. Moreover, according to many respondents, community media and indigenous radios share a certain level of freedom of expression that distinguishes them both from commercial and governmental broadcasters (Belotti, 2016; Gumucio-Dagron, 2005). Both kinds of media also rely on the same social and territorial insertion; they share a ‘community radio–community’ relationship (FM Maimará, Maymaras, NOA) that exists not in terms of ownership but rather of belonging (Belotti, 2016; Gumucio-Dagron, 2001b; Segura, 2016). So much so that a Tilián respondent explains that the radio is not only part of the indigenous community ‘but also of the general community living in the [whole] jurisdiction […] because everyone has the right to communicate’ (FM El Antigal, Tilián, NOA).

Many respondents, however, point out that ‘identity’ does differentiate indigenous radio stations from community media, mainly when they conceive community media as all being ‘alternative, non-commercial’ broadcasters (FM Inti Puka, Comechingón Sanaviron, Center) – that is, if they focus on the collective subjects managing media. As an interviewee explains, ‘there are collectives, [and these] are on several sides; but an indigenous community is a separate issue [due to] identity’ (FM Identidad, Diaguita Calchaquí, NOA). This identity, according to some respondents, arises from a specific form of expression; indigenous communicators use ‘their own language, like [when] they are in [their] home’ (FM Viquen, El Colchón Community, Chaco, NEA). It is the ‘accentuation, tonality, use of words that make you realise’ that ‘an indigenous speaker’ is speaking (FM The Voice of the People, Mocoví, Center). Nevertheless, this concept tends to refer to a locally – and not ethnically – identifiable speech that, indeed, belongs to both indigenous and community media and does not distinguish them from each other (Mata, 2011; Segura, 2016). What does seem to mark ethnic identity is rather the media foundation objective: to transmit the ‘culture, [the] roots’ (FM Identidad, Diaguita Calchaquí, NOA), ‘to tell others how each [people] lived’ (FM Inti Puka, Comechingón Sanavirón Centro) and that ‘the indigenous peoples are here and have a history’ (FM Truwvliñ To Kom, Mapuche, Patagonia). In other words, identity is found in the historical continuity of the indigenous culture around which a project of resistance and revitalisation is shaped and organised (Castells-Talens, 2016; Magallanes-Blanco et al., 2013b; Schiwy, 2002).

With such a characterisation, the interviewees were asked their opinion about the LSCA definition of indigenous media, with reference to their (public non-state) ownership, while the characteristics highlighted by the interviewees themselves tended to deal with media uses, purposes and functions (Schiwy, 2009). However, there were no complaints about the legal ownership criterion; instead, general opinions about the legal definition itself were expressed. For instance, some respondents said that the adjective ‘public’ is a negative reminder of the ‘obstacles’ imposed by the state apparatus (S/N, Guaraní, NEA) or ‘it is so public that it belongs to everyone and nobody, but actually it belongs to the [indigenous] community’ (FM Inti Puka, Comechingón Sanavirón, Center). Conversely, according to other responses, this adjective positively opens up indigenous broadcasters [non-indigenous] society’ (FM Community, Guaraní, NOA), and it is a benefit to have access to the radio spectrum through a direct authorisation, while community broadcasters have to compete as private non-profit media. Indeed, as some respondents who participated in the LSCA discussion say, the ‘public’ definition was promoted because of both the constitutional recognition of indigenous peoples as public entities and the advantages that the law would have established for public broadcasters – i.e. direct authorisation instead of the competition to which community broadcasters are required to submit; different forms of financing. Nonetheless, the most valued aspect of the legal definition is the ‘non-state’ descriptor, being an explicit recognition that indigenous radio stations are different from the state media. That is to say, it emphasises that indigenous peoples are ‘independent’ and are fighting for ‘self-government and self-determination’ (FM Inti Puka, Comechingón Sanavirón, Center) also through their media activities.

Conclusions

The analysis of the results shows that the indigenous radio stations we reached share many defining characteristics with community media; it places them among those communicative practices for social change anchored in language, territory and cultural identity (Valencia and Magallanes-Blanco, 2015). Indigenous media are forms of resistance and activism (de la Peña, 1995; Downing, 2001; Magallanes-Blanco and Ramos-Rodríguez, 2016; Salazar, 2009; Wortham, 2004) independently in both the cultural and the political fields (de la Peña, 1995; Wortham, 2004). The militancy of indigenous communicators (Downing, 2001) makes it possible to refer the broadcasters under consideration to that field of cultural production articulating communication and political struggle that Vinelli (2014) mentions when defining community media. Indigenous radios strengthen local culture and the movements to which they belong in the same way as community media (Gumucio-Dagron, 2005).

Ginsburg (1991), indeed, defines indigenous media by their militancy and cultural stance against unequal power structures, a stance similar to that of community media. For this reason, Salazar (2010) includes indigenous media among the ‘alternative media’, and Gumucio-Dagron (2001b) and Salazar and Córdova (2008) consider them as ‘imperfect media’; just like community broadcasters, they incorporate an ideology of struggle that backs social change to overthrow the hegemonic structure of media production, distribution and consumption, and they call for active participation on the part of audiences. For this reason, Magallanes-Blanco et al. (2010) and Ramos-Rodríguez (2016) also consider indigenous media as ‘citizen media’ in the sense proposed by Rodríguez (2001, 2009): they are spaces and tools that allow indigenous peoples to designate and express the world through their own languages, codes, ways of life and identities, thus breaking the social and cultural order, questioning power relations and fostering participation and new meanings. Moreover, according to Castells-Talens (2016), the use and appropriation of media by indigenous communities allow them to be considered as ‘community media’, while the collective processes of organisation, production and diffusion characterise them as ‘participatory media’ (Magallanes-Blanco, 2009, 2016; Schiwy, 2002).

Nevertheless, there is an essential difference between indigenous and community media: namely, the ethnic identity of the former. It is recognisable in the programming of the broadcasters we reached – as it is linked to the ancestral practices and traditions of indigenous peoples – and in their media organisation and management – as they reflect the way of life of indigenous communities. In other words, there is a ‘poetic’ (Salazar and Córdova, 2008) specified within the radio agenda and production, and an indigenisation/indianisation that is manifested in radio organisation and management (Doyle, 2015b; Salazar, 2002). Both attempt to decolonise the mediatised public space (Schiwy, 2009) by disputing its current functioning mechanisms and by making themes and perspectives visible that are otherwise absent in the mainstream media. These different ways of working, together with marginalised themes and perspectives, are not only alternative, like those of community media, but are also typical of indigenous ways of living and worldviews, and they deal with their need to tell their own version of history and the daily life of their communities (Salazar, 2014, 2016). In this sense, indigenous radio stations support the construction and exercise of a communicative citizenship (Mata, 2006) that, nonetheless, is an ethnic citizenship (de la Peña, 1995), insofar as it is infused with an identity claim that has been shaped along social, cultural, linguistic, political and economic lines (Doyle, 2013; Magallanes-Blanco and Ramos-Rodríguez, 2016) in the political terrain of autonomy and self-determination (Wortham, 2004).

Therefore, indigenous media are like community media ontically, while they are different ontologically because indigenous media are infused with a claim to ethnic identity. The reference to the ontic–ontological concepts draws on the Heideggerian distinction between considering an entity by its presence (ontically) and by its essence (ontologically). The indigenous radio stations are ontically like community media because the decolonisation at which the former aims coincides with the counter-hegemonic gesture exercised by the latter through their presence in the mediatised public space – i.e. challenging the dominant narratives and organisational logics underlying the hegemonic media by contributing different contents and work methods for social change. Nevertheless, indigenous radio stations are ontologically different from community media because of the different nature of the subjects and contents. The indigenous peoples’ history of invisibilisation and the abduction of ancestral knowledge, traditions and practices shape the claims to ethnic identity concretised in media practices. Such a trajectory specifies the counter-hegemonic attitude of community media in media content and management that, in the indigenous media, aim at decolonisation and reflect indigenous ways of life – for example, the pivotal role of territories and indigenous worldviews in the programming, the communities’ structure as reflected in their internal organisation and the indigeneity of some external allies.

Indigenous radios resemble community media in questioning and rethinking the functioning mechanisms of cultural industries and in incorporating a model of community-based media (Salazar, 2010), although according to a conception of community that refers to ancestral ways of living. Like community media, indigenous radios are an autonomous and independent field of cultural production where media are intimately anchored in struggles (Vinelli, 2014). Nevertheless, unlike community media, indigenous media stake a claim for political self-determination, cultural and linguistic autonomy and legal recognition (Salazar and Córdova, 2008). The difference between indigenous and community media can be therefore located in the specificity of these identity claims, a difference that is ontological because it deals with the indigenous peoples’ (self-)representation – that is, who they are – and with the decolonising use and purpose that communities give to media (Schiwy, 2002, 2009). Conversely, indigenous radios and community media share a way of conceiving media content production and circulation as a collective process that includes the communities where they are inserted whilst challenging hegemonic patterns (Carpentier and Scifo, 2010; Ginsburg, 1994). Moreover, both kinds of media suffer from a lack of infrastructure and equipment, shortages of funding and, therefore, discontinuities in production. For this reason, indigenous and community media collude on the ontic plane of claims around why and how they stay in the mediatised public space – that is, around the legal regimes enabling their presence there.

The regulatory framework could therefore overcome the ‘public vs. private’ ownership logic and re-classify media according to their socio-economic functions, uses and purposes, since these parameters of definition mainly arose from the responses and can better characterise media. From there, a legal category of ‘community media’ could be identified in order to encompass both indigenous and community media – since they share the same conditions, needs and attitudes – and regulate this media sector by respecting the specific identities and demands of both types of media. In other terms, the current media classification refers to a criterion – ownership – that does not reflect indigenous holistic ways of life, which derive instead from a sense of belonging. Nonetheless, following respondents’ opinions and suggestions, we consider that the LSCA should be reformed only for a better regulatory framework. Indeed, the undergoing reform does not seem to go in this direction, but rather towards a short-sighted trust in the market regulation that marginalises even more indigenous peoples and social organisations. Therefore, the current legal framework should be saved and, actually, improved according to a more ‘anatomic’ and respectful regulation.