In the Spring of 2023, the D+M lab expanded into two main areas of research to provide an organizational framework for analyzing the relationship between democracy and media. The first of these areas is ‘Undoing Imperialism,’ and the second is ’Rethinking Democracy.’

 

The rationale for these two areas is that without an analysis and critique of how imperialism operates within the U.S. and in the hemisphere, we are otherwise working within a system that buries the underlying contradictions about what it means to democratize power and democratize media.

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We see imperialism as antithetical to a genuine democracy and therefore commit to undoing imperialism as necessary to the future of democracy.

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Media in various forms, whether the body or in representational film, images, or text, comes from this process to: dismantle that which harms our communities; to create a culturally rooted organizational ethic and method for reconstituting power; and, to create an inclusive future for the well being of all life and our planet.

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