Introducing the latest policy analysis from IRC Americas Program
Community Television in Argentina:
Ágora TV, a Window for Liberation
By Marie Trigona
Never before in Latin America's history has media ownership been concentrated in the hands of so few. Despite legal challenges, over the past decades groups have emerged that produce alternative and independent media for television, radio, and video to counter mass media's misinformation.
A citizen-led TV station strengthens coordinating efforts, knowledge sharing, and improves the self-esteem of citizens. Ágora TV is doing just that—building a space for exhibition and interaction to motivate organizations and social movements to tell their own stories with video. Ágora TV is a community television production collective that currently broadcasts over the internet. The project reaches a global audience of grassroots activists and citizens tired of status quo media. The site features video productions from all over Latin America dealing with issues including labor conflicts, social movements, indigenous struggles, and experimental video art. The Buenos Aires-based video collective Grupo Alavío built the website (www.agoratv.org) in 2006 as an organizing tool and alternative media space for groups that would not otherwise have access to the airwaves.
This redefined space for independent media has three vital functions: disseminating alternative information, providing a space for popular voice, and building community. Alavío uses the camera as a political organ and as a tool to reflect the subjectivity of the working class, which the protagonists in the films adopt and use to organize.
Marie Trigona forms part of Grupo Alavío and writes regularly for the IRC Americas Program (online at americas.irc-online.org). She can be reached at mtrigona@msn.com.
See new IRC article online at:
http://americas.irc-online.org/amcit/4173
With printer-friendly pdf version at:
http://americas.irc-online.org/pdf/series/0704agoratv.pdf
