On Cuba’s Social Communication Law (II).

Social communication media are those that share contents of public interest through different formats, channels, supports, technological platforms and networks.

The purpose of the Social Communication Law of Cuba is to regulate the Social Communication System for the strategic and integrated management of social communication processes in the organizational, media and community spheres, for political, public good, organizational and commercial purposes, in public spaces whether physical or digital, and to establish the principles of organization and operation for the social communication media in the country.

The regulations of this Law are applicable to the organs, agencies and entities of the State, mass, social and media organizations and other natural and legal persons, Cuban and foreign, residing permanently or temporarily or transiting through the national territory.

That is why this legal norm defines that social communication is the socio-cultural process that constitutes the basis of human relations, based on the exchange and interpretation of data, information, knowledge, ideas, opinions, messages and meanings between people, between them and groups and organizations, between organizations and within them, and between them and society, which contributes to social interaction, the production of meanings, the shaping of individual and collective identity, dialogue, debate, consensus, participation and popular control.

Social communication processes, also called communicational processes, are social practices that materialize in the creation, production, distribution, circulation and exchange of content, through channels, media, technological platforms and networks, in historical, political, economic, social and cultural contexts.

This is possible because social media are those that share content of public interest through different formats, channels, supports, technological platforms and networks.

A review of the articles of the Law shows that on five occasions the word «consensus» is used, together with the words «construction», «promotion» or «related to popular control». This evokes the substratum of the Gramscian thought of hegemony with consensus, of leadership and not of domination.

Written by Dr Osvaldo Manuel Álvarez Torres.