Catherine Benamou

This book project explores how locally produced Spanish-language and bilingual media are responding to the needs of Latinx communities, with an emphasis on social justice. At its core, it focuses on the shaping of the producer-participant subject relationship in the crafting of media coverage and texts, including the vital role played by community organizations in media production. Drawing on mixed method research conducted mainly in the Los Angeles metropolitan area since 2023, this topic is explored in three modalities: 1) films by independent Latinx filmmakers who center the theme of migration and take the ethical and socially restorative dimensions of the production process seriously; 2) community media comprised of low-power Spanish-language radio stations serving multilingual audiences and nonprofit bilingual newsrooms publishing in print and on social media platforms; and 3) the working relationship between Latinx-serving community organizations and commercial Spanish-language TV and print outlets. Close attention is paid to the increasingly dynamic interaction among these media forms, and to how different social justice issues become prioritized. In the Introduction, a working definition of social justice in media is developed, informed by a careful review of major interventions on social justice in political philosophy and critical theory.