A social movement’s struggle to control media
In my doctoral dissertation “Voices from the margins – People, media, and the struggle for land in Brazil” I looked into communicative processes and media practices in a subaltern social movement, the Brazilian Landless Workers Movement (MST, Movimento Sem-Terra, in the Portuguese acronym). I wanted to question the views that media technologies alone can promote a democratic and inclusive public sphere and foster insurgent mobilization. My aim was also to offer a different perspective on the interplay between media an social mobilization by looking into how a movement formed by others than educated middle classes in the West relate to media – as institutions, artefacts, and content – in their practices.