Thursday, February 3, 2011

Background To A Beautiful Place

To get things started, Portugal is located in Western Europe and borders Spain and the Atlantic Ocean.  The territory of Portugal includes the Azores and Madeira islands.  The country, including the islands, is predominatly Catholic and holds very strong Catholic beliefs.  The news and social media is broadcasted or distributed by a wide variety of ways.  They are distributed through newspapers (print), online, radio, and movies.

The country is offically named as the Portuguese Republic and consists of a republic with one legislative house.  The head of government is the Prime Minsister, José Sócrates, and the Head of State consistst of a president, Aníbal António Cavaco Silva who was just re-elected January 23, 2011.  The official language of Portugal is Portuguese, including the islands of Azores and Madeira.  Even though Catholicism is prominent in the region, there is no official religion of the country.  The population of mainland Portugal is 10,643,000 (2010).  The Azores (seven islands) has a population of roughly 244,066 (2008).

The newspapers are heavily influenced by the Catholic Church mainly because of thier importance to the people that live there.  The Portuguese State and Roman Catholic Church are essential parts of the media in Portugal.  The Portuguese State controls Lusa news agency, two TV stations (which broadcast in the United States), and seven radio stations.  The Catholic Church on the other hand, owns the leading radio network in terms of auidence and influences radio stations and local/regional newspapers mainly in the Northern part of the country. 

Since we are on the topic of glocalization...there is a great example on how that works from Portugal from the United States.  The TV station RTP broadcasts news, soap operas, and talk shows; pretty much a multi-puropose station that shows a wide variety of shows.  They broadcast the show via satellite to the United States.  Also in the city of Artesia, CA they have a sub-broadcast called RTA.  Here is a link to what you would be seeing on RTP if you were watching it on TV.  Click here to view the live RTP broadcast, RTP Live

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