CFSC Quotations: The Dynamics of Citizens' Media
In her landmark study, Fissures in the Mediascape: An International Study of Citizens' Media (Hampton Press 2001), Professor Clemencia Rodriguez presents case studies of electronic media in the hands of ordinary people"”in Nicaragua, Catalonia, Colombia and USA Latino. The book calls for an approach to the study of citizens' media that recognizes that each community has a unique geographic, historic, cultural and socio-economic context. Following is an excerpt.Citizens' media emerge at the intersection of three elements: the citizens' will to reappropriate the media to satisfy their own needs and to seek their own information and communication goals; a historical, social and cultural context that poses unique obstacles while also offering specific options for the implementation of citizens' media; and citizens' enactment of creative strategies to exploit to exhaustion every fissure in the dominant media system. Citizens' media result from a complex interaction between people's attempts to democratize the mediascape and their contextual circumstances.
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