"Violence and the Structuring of Public Anonymity in the Mexican Blogosphere"


 Film and Media Studies     Apr 14 2016 | 3:00 PM - 4:30 PM Humanities Gateway 1030

Please join us for a talk by Hector Amaya from the University of Virginia.

"Violence and the Structuring of Public Anonymity in the Mexican Blogosphere"

The rules of participating in the Mexican blogosphere have changed because of violence. To remain safe, bloggers, including the makers of El Blog del Narco, have resorted to anonymity. This presentation analyzes this celebrated anonymous Mexican blog in relation both to the uses and misuses of anonymity and the connections between anonymity, displacement, and technology. Anonymity enables participation in the Mexican public sphere. Yet, I show, a public sphere based on anonymity is fraught and often disintegrating.

Hector Amaya is Professor of Media Studies at University of Virginia. He writes on Latino media studies, transnationalism, the cultural production of political identities, and Latin American film/media. In addition to publishing roughly twenty articles, he has single-authored two books: Screening Cuba: Film Criticism as Political Performance During the Cold War (2010: U. of Illinois P.) and Citizenship Excess: Latinos/as, Media, and the Nation (2013: NYUP). His third book, a monograph on the violence in Mexico, is under review as is his fourth book, a co-edited collection on the drug wars in the Americas.