Popularizing media: The politics of video in the Nicaraguan revolution.

摘要

This dissertation examines the role of popular video during the Nicaraguan revolution, from the Sandinista-led popular insurrection in 1979 through their electoral defeat in 1990. I focus on the work of three video groups associated with Sandinista-affiliated institutions and organizations: the Taller Popular, Communications MIDINRA, and the Ministry of Interior. My contention is that the videos of these groups formed part of the overall project of Sandinista hegemony by popularizing and making more accessible the policies and programs of the Sandinista government. While working in concert with the government, the work can also be seen as examples of popular video representing not only official Sandinista positions, but popular voices, perspectives, and an alternative communications in working practice and visual style.;Chapters 1 and 2 examine concepts of "the popular" as a political construct in a number of theorists and movements ranging from Antonio Gramsci and British cultural studies, to Jesus Martin-Barbero and filmmakers associated with the New Latin American cinema. Using this multi-faceted optic of the popular, I then examine video production as a form of negotiation between Sandinista social and political policies and alternative communications by groups working in three different areas: mass organizations representing labor (Taller Popular), agrarian reform (Communications MIDINRA), and state security (the audiovisual division of the Ministry of the Interior). As popular media, we can see not only the validation of the popular classes in the sense of Gramsci's "national popular" culture, but also the contested meanings of the term popular itself: Does popular only refer to programs produced by the people, or of the people as subjects? How does the popularity associated with box office returns or Nielsen ratings relate to popular media in a political environment? In terms of political education, popular video provided an alternative to didactic propaganda and replaced it with programs which, appropriate to the Nicaraguan revolutionary context, elicited popular participation on various levels. The Nicaraguan experience shows the radical potential for popular video in the struggle for social change and, in doing so, advances our understanding of the politics of the popular.