Reconfiguring and Remediating Social Media as Alternative Media: Exploring Youth Activists’ Digital Media Ecology in El Salvador

Authors

  • Summer Harlow Author College of Communication & Information Florida State University

Keywords:

Activism, El Salvador, ethnography, media ecology, mediations, social media

Abstract

This ethnographic case study examined how the Salvadoran youth activistgroup Activista incorporated social media into its media ecology. Analysisrevealed four main themes: social media as alternative media; the relationship between Facebook and visibility, legitimacy, and community; a social mediadivide; and the challenges of the digital divide and a lack of a social mediastrategy. This study showed how, despite digital inequalities, Activista reconfiguredand remediated digital and analog tools and tactics, thus reconfiguringand remediating their relationship with journalists and social media users atlarge. Ultimately Activista managed to use social media as a mediated, hybridized, multi-dimensional mode of communication, contributing to our understanding of hyper-mediation and the way the digital and the analogwork together in a social movement’s media culture within a digitally dividedcountry.

doi: 10.5294/pacla.2016.19.4.3

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Published

2016-09-19

How to Cite

Harlow, S. (2016). Reconfiguring and Remediating Social Media as Alternative Media: Exploring Youth Activists’ Digital Media Ecology in El Salvador. Palabra Clave, 19(4), 997–1026. Retrieved from https://palabraclave.unisabana.edu.co/index.php/palabraclave/article/view/6940