Liberation Technology in El Salvador: Re-appropriating Social Media among Alternative Media Projects

✍ Scribed by Summer Harlow (auth.)

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2017
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 224
• Edition: 1
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

This ethnographic study explores how four alternative media projects in El Salvador integrated digital technologies—particularly social media—into their practices, and whether incorporating these technologies affected citizen participation not only in the media production process, but in a broader discursive sphere of civic and political life as well. Summer Harlow investigates the factors that influence the extent to which alternative media producers are able to use digital tools in liberating ways for social change by opening a space for participation in technology (as content producers) and through technology (as engaged citizens). The book advances existing literature with two main contributions: extending our understanding of the digital divide to include inequalities of social media use, and including technology use—whether liberating or not—as a fundamental component of a mestizaje approach to the study of alternative media.

✦ Table of Contents

Front Matter....Pages i-xvii
Introduction....Pages 1-23
The Roots of El Salvador’s Alternative and Digital Media Environment....Pages 25-54
Diario CoLatino....Pages 55-78
Radio Victoria....Pages 79-104
Voces....Pages 105-126
Política Stereo....Pages 127-151
Common Threads: A Comparative Analysis....Pages 153-172
Conclusions: Toward an Understanding of Participation in and through Technology....Pages 173-194
Back Matter....Pages 195-214

✦ Subjects

Social Media;Latin American Culture;Culture and Technology;Latin American Politics