Rogelio Alejandro Lopez

Recent blog posts by Rogelio Alejandro Lopez

Social Movement Media Strategies - Immigrants' Rights Movements

One of the central projects that I have been involved with during the fall semester examines the role of media and technology in immigrants' rights movements. I have been able to conduct several interviews with student organizers and community members, which have been very insightful into media strategies. The three most significant findings thus-far are: 1) The need for low cost and sustainable media and technology in order to facilitate organizing efforts 2) The centrality of social networking sites, such as Facebook and Twitter to reach communities at large and 3) The important role that national alliances and networks play in organizing efforts, especially in conversation with state level and federal level legislative measures. The goal for this project is to provide a comparative study of media strategies amongst immigrants' rights movements on a national level, in order to understand effective uses and also challenges posed. More interviews are yet to come, mostly from Eastern states, as much work on the subject has already been gathered on the South West.

Why fight against social injustices and disparities using civic engagement media?/ ¿Porque combatir contra las injusticias y disparidades sociales usando medios de participacion civica?

First Blog (English): Why fight against social injustices and disparities using civic engagement media?

During my first semester as a student of Comparative Media Studies at MIT, a masters program that takes a comparative approach to studying different forms of media and their impact on society, among many other things, I have had the opportunity to participate in the discussion regarding civic engagement and social justice media, and how to effectively widen the reach of these topics.

To start off, since this is my first blog post, I’ll dedicate a small part to talking about my past, and how I came to be a researcher of civic engagement and social justice media. (If these terms don’t make sense, please bear with me and we’ll try to examine them together. Also, this blog will probably be a bit longer than normal).