Hecho con ganas : Latin@ alternative and activist media

The proliferation of independently produced Latin@ media has only intensified with the rise of new media technologies and saliency of online user-generated content in our present media culture. As online platforms become more open and new media technologies and devices make the creation and accessing of information easier, Latin@s and other minorities who have traditionally been marginalized within mainstream media culture and largely excluded from participating in media industries, are turning to the web to launch their own media projects. In more recent years, Latin@s have utilized new media to resist and challenge the mainstream. As a result, we have witnessed the appearance of Latin@-produced, non-commercial and/or activist oriented websites, videos, audio, and blogs that this thesis argues act as alternative and activist media. Latin@ alternative and activist media may be understood as typically small-scale projects that posses little to no budget and that generally critique the marginalization and exclusion of Latin@s in mainstream media and U.S. society. In addition to contesting the mainstream, Latin@ alternative and activist media express and question in-group identity and enact varying degrees of in-group civic participation and empowerment, resulting is the constitution of a multitude of Latinidades and the formation of Latin@ online communities and social media groups. Using Latino Rebels and Dreamers Adrift as case studies, this thesis examines the ways in which these particular examples of Latin@ alternative and activist media express divergent and/or radical perspectives of society through their processes and content while also connecting these media texts to the current social and political realities of Latin@s.