Control of Public Media as a Social Justice Issue: Lessons from Latin America and the U.S.

People’s movements can shape media systems! Democratic communities in Oaxaca, Honduras, Columbia, Venezuela and elsewhere continue to self-organize to create and control media outlets. By claiming the right to create and receive communication of their choice, these movements contest with the ideological and physical powers of state and corporate actors. In the U.S. too, a struggle is underway for control of the next version of the U.S. public media system but largely without representatives from communities of color, the poor, or social justice movements.
This workshop explores struggles for just media systems in the U.S. and Latin America. Through analysis of historical and current contests, and relevant video, organizers identify cultures of direct action and resistance as liberating alternatives to the culture of professionalism so dominant in mainstream media. This workshop offers a space to build understanding and solidarity with media struggles in the global south and to collaborate new strategies for direct community control of public media in the U.S.