Don't Watch Television, Make It!: Community Media, the State, and Popular Politics in Caracas, Venezuela

Naomi Schiller
My research interests include the anthropology of media, the state, social movements, community media, ethnographic film, Venezuela, and Latin America. I am revising my manuscript "Televising the Revolution:Media and Everyday Statecraft in Venezuela," which draws on ethnographic fieldwork in Caracas, Venezuela among community television producers. Community producers from the poor neighborhoods of west Caracas use the tools of television production to gain entrance into official state arenas and barrio organizations where, I argue, they participate in the formation of ideas and representations about the state. I document and analyze how these media activists negotiate their alignment with the government and challenge binary understandings of autonomy and dependence central to liberal democracy.
Assistant Professor
Brooklyn College