Review: Citizens' Media Against Armed Conflict: Disrupting Violence in Colombia - by C. Rodríguez

Abstract

For nearly four decades, Colombian citizens have lived with violence between the military, paramilitary, and guerilla groups. Men go to work afraid of being stopped on the street, and women live in fear of their husbands or sons dying in the violence. Children attend school and learn in the violence that surrounds them. It is within the context of constant overt and sublevel violence that Clemencia Rodríguez positions her study of citizens' media. Rodríguez analyzes citizens' media in three cities within warring Colombia, and how citizen's media helps citizens to negotiate the mental and social effects of such sustained violence. Through a close analysis of the communities' response and involvement in citizens' media, Rodríguez is able to demonstrate that citizens' media—rather than media as government watchdog or news purveyor—is able to effectively combat the negative impacts of relentless violence such as mistrust, fear, and reclusiveness. It does so by creating a space for people to come together not as enemies or strangers, but rather as neighbors. Additionally, by focusing their media endeavors on the community rather than on the violence, citizens' media takes power away from the negative effects of violence and gives it to the community in the form of shared experience.