The Radio is Mightier Than the Sword: An Honors Thesis on the Perceptions of Efficacy and the Use of Social Media by Members of Community Radios in Argentina

This paper investigates the perception of efficiency of community radios in visibilizing the fight against institutional violence. In particular, it examines the perceptions that members of the organization Familiares y Amigos de Luciano Arruga have about their organization’s community radio, Radio Zona Libre. Through semi-structured interviews and archival research, I discovered how the goals of the organization and the radio have changed over time, and with those changes came a subsequent change in the types of visibility they wanted to achieve and their perceptions on how successful they had been in obtaining that visibility. Ultimately, although the members of the organization believe they have had success in publicizing Luciano’s case and taking back the police department where he was tortured, they recognize that financial problems have hampered their success in making their radio visible in their community so that it can empower young people and families of victims of institutional violence. This paper also investigates Familiares y Amigos de Luciano Arruga’s use of social media and how it differs from an allied organization, La Retaguardia’a, use of social media. Through archival research and quantitative analysis of likes/shares on posts, I found that Familiares y Amigos de Luciano Arruga prioritizes mobilizing the local community while La Retaguardia emphasizes educating the regional community. These differing priorities affect the strength of the communal ties the organizations are able to build with their followers, as a focus on local mobilization strengthen ties. Overall, this paper finds that community radios are a powerful political force, when they have sufficient resources and focus on mobilizing marginalized communities.