Latin America, Media, and Revolution: Communication in Modern Mesoamerica (The Palgrave Macmillan Series in International Political Communication)

This book compares rebel media use in three Mesoamerican rebellions: the Nicaraguan Revolution, the Salvadoran civil war and the Zapatista uprising in Chiapas, Mexico. Directly comparing media use in all three rebellions provides a richer understanding of the role of media in social change, particularly violent change. In this book, Darling chronicles how revolutionaries in three Latin American conflicts took control of their own message by publishing a newspaper, broadcasting on radio, and posting messages to the early internet This project compares rebel media use in three Mesoamerican rebellions: the Nicaraguan Revolution, the Salvadoran civil war and the Zapatista uprising in Chiapas, Mexico. The three conflicts were waged under similar conditions over a twenty-year period, but with notably different types of media from which the rebels could choose as the primary focus of their communication strategy. In the three cases, the insurgents utilized a variety of media, but one of those became the official or dominant medium. The project explains how each rebel group used its respective primary communication medium and the possibilities and limitations that the choice offered as well as the demands it made. Directly comparing media use in all three rebellions provides a richer understanding of the role of media in social change, particularly violent change Front Matter....Pages i-ix Media and Revolution....Pages 1-28 A Mesoamerican Media Backgrounder....Pages 29-54 Newspapers and Citizenship in Revolutionary Nicaragua....Pages 55-82 The Antenna in the Arsenal....Pages 83-119 Zapatismo in Mexico and Cyberspace....Pages 121-144 Refuting the Revolution....Pages 145-155 Why Media Matter in Revolution....Pages 157-168 Back Matter....Pages 169-226