Never before in Latin America's history has media ownership been concentrated in the hands of so few. In Argentina, media concentration dates back to when the 1976-1983 military dictatorship censored most of the press and implemented harsh laws to prevent opposition from being publicly expressed. Media legislation from Argentina's dictatorship is still intact today. Despite legal challenges, over the past decades groups have emerged that produce alternative and independent media for television, radio, and video to counter mass media's misinformation.
Ágora TV is a community television production collective that currently broadcasts over the internet. The project reaches a global audience of grassroots activists and citizens tired of status quo media. The site features video productions from all over Latin America dealing with issues including labor conflicts, social movements, indigenous struggles, and experimental video art. The Buenos Aires-based video collective Grupo Alavío built the website (www.agoratv.org) in 2006 as an organizing tool and alternative media space for groups that would not otherwise have access to the airwaves.
Today's video activism has deep roots in the cinema and arts movements in Latin America during the 1960's and 1970's. Argentine groups like Cine de la Base and Cine Liberación began a legacy of political cinema in the Southern Cone that narrates working class and national liberation struggles. Pirate television or illegal broadcasting dates back to the dictatorship when groups would intercept a broadcast signal, interrupting regular television programming to televise information about clandestine resistance to the military government's forced disappearances of activists, workers, and students. The groups faced unrelenting persecution and violence—Raymundo Gleyzer, film director and founder of Cine de la Base, was disappeared in 1976 by a commando group, while many other filmmakers were forced into exile.
http://americas.irc-online.org/amcit/4173
Marie Trigona