I understand RCTV wasn't taken over by the state, as Charlie points out; but rather it had its licensed yanked.

That's a threat faced by any broadcaster using the public airwaves here in the states as well, if they violate the terms of their license. So on that score, it's threat implied in the states but never seriously pursued. It seems in Ven., that dynamic is clearly different.

But my question goes to what replaced RCTV's signal, or rather the process for re-assigning that signal and it's ongoing use, since it appears to be a major media beam in the country -- regardless of its call letters. And based on the mainstream coverage floating out there now, and please correct me if I'm wrong, the state-sponored TVES now commands that signal.

To that end, the question that I raised remains. TVES, as it is now controlled, under the current government, may well be a more democratic media entity  (as far as TV land) than is a corporate-controlled RCTV.

But it still is controlled by the state, which is subject to corrupt control by a few -- down the road, as is any government or corporation where power is concentrated, or has the potential to be concentrated, in an unresponsive elite.

A truely democractic media is a check on that concentration of power, it seems to me, only if itself is diverse, diffuse and accessable to the people in their communities (ideally controlled by those people through a process other than "ratings") and not subject -- even in future generations -- to monopolization and manipulation by an elite group of owners, whether they be corporate or state empowered.

I admit to being an absolutist about the First Amendment as it is worded in this country's Constitution. But I am a realist about the axiom that he who controls the presses (or TV signal or Internet pipeline) controls the mass media.

So this is, in fact, a global question I raise about the future democratization of the media and the path to a "free press."

How does Ven. accomplish this?

Maybe there is a larger plan in play that has been ignored by the corporate media front groups and government elites now pounding their chests at this moment over RCTV's loss of its signal. (And remember, many of these so-called "democratic" leaders now bristling at Chavez are the same people that fan the flames of censorship in this country over hip-hop lyrics and shock jocks -- a bit of complexity and irony not to be ignored.)

But the question remains. What is the plan, can it be articulated? What is the theory, what is the practice, what is unfolding, or to unfold, in the praxis?

If not in Ven., then where is this experiment in media praxis unfolding? If not in the halls of centralized government, or the board rooms of large corporations, then where?

Where does it start and will we know it when we see it?