Chapter 5: Transmedia Mobilization in the Popular Association of the Oaxacan Peoples, Los Angeles

Abstract

Social movements are more effective when they adopt transmedia mobilization strategies as a means to challenge symbolic power in complex media environments. Transmedia mobilization involves engaging the social base of a movement in participatory media making practices across multiple platforms. Rich media texts produced through participatory practices can be pushed into wider circulation to produce multimodal narratives that reach and involve diverse audiences, strengthening cultural, mobilization and policy outcomes. This chapter develops the concept of transmedia mobilization based on interviews with immigrant rights movement activists conducted between 2006-2009 in Los Angeles. The focus is a case study of daily movement media practices within the Frente Indigena de Organizaciones Binacionales (Indigenous Front of Binational Organizations – FIOB) during the translocal protests of the Associación Popular de los Pueblos de Oaxaca, Los Angeles (The Popular Association of the Oaxacan Peoples, Los Angeles – APPO-LA).

Keywords: transmedia, media, activism, social movements, protest, Oaxaca, Los Angeles, immigration