A Brief History of Media Education in Chile

This chapter offers a historical review of media education in Chile, highlighting the main milestones occurring over the past 50 years. It provides an evaluation of the current status of media education in Chile. More significant to the growth of media education in Chile was the arrival of Paulo Freire in 1964, under whose influence Chilean media education began to take roots. Freire’s concept of conscientization suggests that the subject is socially constructed and can only be developed through critical consciousness. The 1970s in Chile are marked by the brutal repression of Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship, which only began to falter by the mid-1980s. Throughout the decade, education and communication studies were mainly carried out by the Center for Cultural and Artistic Inquiry and Expression (CENECA), where the notion of active reception was advanced, only later receiving international recognition.