Abstract
This chapter situates events in Nicaragua within a broader Latin American context and in relation to changes that have been actively producing a new media environment in the region. We consider both changes in the nature of social movements in Latin America after decades of neoliberalism and a shift to left-wing authoritarian populism, and the emergence of new media geographies associated with digitalization and media convergence. We show that the contemporary Latin American media environment is a highly contradictory, paradoxical and multidiscursive one in which a plurality of voices can find and forge new forms and spaces of expression.
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Notes
- 1.
Daniel Ortega, now in his 70s, has been the leader of the FSLN without interruption since the triumph of the Revolution in 1979. He won the elections of 1984 and the last three in 2006, 2011 and 2016. He lost in 1990, 1996 and 2001.
- 2.
According to Alvarez Hidalgo (2016), a formal sector worker earned an average of 4,823.9 córdobas in 2006. By August 2015, average monthly wages had fallen to 4,358.4 córdobas.
- 3.
We use scare quotes here to emphasise the instability and contingency of these media formations and categories, as well as the ways in which they converge and overlap within the contemporary mediascape.
- 4.
We recognize that visibility in the media also puts activists’ lives at risk and that Central America continues to be a dangerous place for political activism, as demonstrated by the 2016 murders of environmental activists Berta Cáceres and Nelson GarcÃa in Honduras, and the 2009 assassination of Salvadoran environmental activist Marcelo Rivera.
- 5.
There is a large and growing literature on indigenous media. See, inter alia, Weatherford 1990; Ginsburg 1991; Turner 1992; Glynn and Tyson 2007; Himpele 2008; Wilson and Stewart 2008; Schiwy 2009; Wilson 2015. On indigenous media on the Caribbean Coast of Nicaragua, see Glynn and Cupples 2011 and Cupples and Glynn 2014a, 2014b.
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Cupples, J., Glynn, K. (2018). Decolonial Social Movements, Leftist Governments and the Media. In: Shifting Nicaraguan Mediascapes. SpringerBriefs in Latin American Studies. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-64319-9_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-64319-9_2
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