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Use of Video for Political Consciousness Raising in Mexico. An Analysis of Independent Videos About the Zapatistas

Author: 
Year:
Pages:304
ISBN:0-7734-5100-5
978-0-7734-5100-1
Price:$219.95
This study examines the use of video technology as an alternative communication medium within a dialogic framework. It draws on Mikhail Bakhtin’s theory of dialogism and employs a dialogic method that emphasizes diversity. The work takes as its focus the lives and work of a sample of significant independent video-makers on the indigenous Zapatista rebellion. By analysing dialogues within and around video technology it argues these encounters with contemporary events in Mexican history are contributing to an ongoing process of transformation in Mexican consciousness.

Reviews

“The merits of this book rest firmly on its empirical foundations. It builds a fine, complex, multifaceted theoretical argument on this basis, and the empirical work could hardly exist except as it rises out of the author’s political and media theories and concerns, yet ultimately it is the archive it assembles that is likely to ensure its continuing value for anyone who wishes to understand an especially vital and turbulent moment in Mexico’s history, and how media technologies can play a role in so major a transformation.” – Professor Bob Hodge, Fellow of the Australian Academy of Humanities, Foundation Professor of Humanities, researcher, Centre for Cultural Studies, University of Western Sydney, Australia

“Academics and researchers working on alternative media and on the political reality of Mexico shaped since the Zapatista rebellion will benefit from her work. The theoretical and methodological approaches of the research open a space for inquiry that promises new developments applicable to other contexts and circumstances.” – Dr. José Manuel Ramos Rodríguez, Profesor Investigador, Sistema Nacional de Investigadores, nivel I, Facultad de Ciencias de la Comunicación, Benemérita Universidad Autonóma de Puebla

“[The author] writes with impressive authority and clarity, building her account with conviction and enthusiasm on the basis of solid and detailed documentation of fact. There are no facile generalizations here, so the work will be of genuine interest to a specialized audience.” – Rodney Williamson, Ph. D., Full professor of Spanish, Department of Modern Languages, University of Ottawa

Table of Contents

Preface
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1. Theoretical and Methodological considerations in conducting a dialogic analysis
2. Dialogic interactions, catalytic effects: The interplay of media and politics in Mexico
3. The catalytic effect of video
4. Dialogue and experience
5. Dialogism and the Zapatista Rebellion on video
6. Independent video-makers as catalysts for consciousness-raising
7. The Journey Back Home
Bibliography
Index