Social Communication Law in force since today in Cuba

HAVANA, Cuba, Oct 4 (ACN) Law 162/2023 on Social Communication and its complementary normative provisions have been in force since today, 120 days after its publication in the Official Gazette of the Republic of Cuba.

This normative text is the most comprehensive on the subject in question, pioneer in Cuba and in many other latitudes in terms of scope, highlights the Institute of Information and Social Communication (ICS) on its website.
It regulates 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, and in public spaces, whether physical or digital.

It also establishes the principles of organization and operation for all social communication media in the country and applies to the bodies, agencies and entities of the State, mass and social organizations, media organizations and other natural and legal persons, Cuban and foreign, residing permanently or temporarily or transiting through the national territory.

The ICS stresses that it has in its genesis the spirit of dialogue, the political will to make a better nation from the communicational processes and the consolidation of debates, aspirations, dissatisfactions and dreams of professional and academic sectors that for a long time raised the need to transform the social communication system in Cuba.

In its stipulations it addresses the importance and necessity of crisis communication management, political communication, visual and industrial communication design, image and use of the country brand, advertising and sponsorship, communication on public roads, registration of websites and serial publications in the national registries authorized for this purpose, in addition to containing chapters dedicated to research, development and innovation, training, preparation and improvement in social communication and the role of professional organizations, according to the text.

Law 162/2023 “On Social Communication”, it added, is solid, transparent and clear, democratic in its creation and projection, which not only orders and provides for, but also defends freedom of expression and the right of citizens to receive and request information, and it sets out the obligations of public servants in the management of communication and the exercise of the foreign press in Cuba.

It is also considered a modern, theoretically and conceptually based norm that is based on Cuban communicational practice and enters into force now, in a complex economic and social moment, aggravated by an unprecedented political and media aggression against the country.

Regarding its implementation, the ICS emphasizes that it requires above all permanent coordination and training, and with it Cuba enters into a broad, deep and necessary process of Education for Communication, of cultural transformation that will have human beings at the center, as it corresponds to the principles and values of a socialist society and the rights and duties enshrined in our Constitution.

It is not, then, a question of a starting point, but a destination point. It will be a long road, but we will all be able to travel it together, because this is a Law for the whole of society, to which we must contribute to make it increasingly more open to dialogue, participatory, fair, democratic and sustainable, the text concluded.