Media, Politics, and Democratization in Latin America

Abstract

This issue has a predecessor from decades ago: Culture in the Age of MassMedia (Burton and Franco, 1978). Forty years may have gone by, but someproblems and major concepts remain: resistance, ideological manipulation(though today we use the term "hegemonic cultural influence"), mass communication,and new media technologies. Latin America was then ruled bysome of history's bloodiest military dictatorships, while today the return ofright-wing governments after a decade of popular governments is disconcerting.The hopeful ending of Burton and Franco's introduction ("This repressionhas been unable to destroy the people's culture, which continues to findavenues to express resistance" [1978: 10]) has led to a fruitful harvest in recentyears, quickly provoking a backlash (often violent). Today we are witnessinga substantial investment in the militarization of police forces and electronicsurveillance systems in particular, the social networks used by young cyberactivistswho have grown up with the Internet and, as Linda Herrera (2014:23) points out regarding the riots in Egypt (the "Twitter revolution"), areaccustomed to defending their political agendas online.