Abstract

*Winner of the AEJMC-Knudson Latin America Prize 2017*

Social movements throughout contemporary Latin America are successfully influencing and shaping media policy. In this highly original, detailed, and in-depth study, Silvio Waisbord and María Soledad Segura scrutinize the goals, tactics, and impact of civic media movements across the region, demonstrating the full extent of media activism on domestic policy and politics.

Media Movements goes beyond simple conceptions of 'the national' versus 'the global' to reveal the complicated process of media policy-making, and to evaluate the significance of local political elites and citizens, global actors, and legal frameworks.

With success rates varying across the region, the authors offer an assessment of the impact of citizens' mobilization on policy-making, as well as the effects of legislation on ownership, funding, community media, non-profit media, and public media.

María Soledad Segura is professor at Facultad de Ciencias Sociales and Facultad de Ciencias de la Comunicación of Universidad Nacional de Córdoba and is a researcher at Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas of Argentina. She edited Los medios sin fines de lucro entre la Ley Audiovisual y los decretos. Estrategias, desafíos y debates en el escenario 2009–2015 (2016) and Agitar la palabra. Participación social y democratización de las comunicaciones (2014).

Silvio Waisbord is professor of media and public affairs at George Washington University. His most recent books are Reinventing Professionalism: Journalism and News in Global Perspective (2013), Media Sociology: A Reappraisal (editor, 2014), and Vox populista: Medios, periodismo, democracia (2013).

‘A hugely important, unusually accessible and beautifully written book. It provides perhaps the most comprehensive and robust account that I have come across of the impact of civil society actions on media policy environments and is of interest to readers well beyond Latin America.’
Des Freedman, author of The Contradictions of Media Power

‘This analysis of media reform movements in Latin America provides an essential one-volume introduction to media policy on the continent; a must-read for anyone interested in media policy and power anywhere in the world.’
Sandra Braman, Texas A&M University 

‘An important book for those interested not only in the role of the media in civic life, but also for those concerned with the role of social movement activists in contesting power and in fostering the democratic process both in Latin America and beyond.’
Tristan Anne Borer, author of Media, Mobilization, and Human Rights

‘A well-researched, richly explained and lively presentation of the landscape of media activism in Latin America. Going far beyond arcane policy issues, Media Movements brilliantly demonstrates why media activism is foundational to the vitality and success of all democratic social movements.’
Andrew Calabrese, University of Colorado