Cuba's Digital Revolution: Citizen Innovation and State Policy
 A wide—ranging examination of the ways digital technologies are impacting Cuba’s Revolutionary project 

The triumph of the Cuban Revolution gave the Communist Party a monopoly over both politics and the mass media. However, with the subsequent global proliferation of new information and communication technologies, Cuban citizens have become active participants in the worldwide digital revolution. While the Cuban internet has long been characterized by censorship, high costs, slow speeds, and limited access, this volume argues that since 2013, technological developments have allowed for a fundamental reconfiguration of the cultural, economic, social, and political spheres of the Revolutionary project.



The essays in this volume cover various transformations within this new digital revolution, examining both government—enabled paid public web access and creative workarounds that Cubans have designed to independently produce, distribute, and access digital content. Contributors trace how media ventures, entrepreneurship, online marketing, journalism, and cultural e—zines have been developing on the island alongside global technological and geopolitical changes.



As Cuba continues to expand internet access and as citizens challenge state policies on the speed, breadth, and freedom of that access, Cuba’s Digital Revolution provides a fascinating example of the impact of technology in authoritarian states and transitional democracies. While the streets of Cuba may still belong to Castro’s Revolution, this volume argues that it is still unclear to whom Cuban cyberspace belongs.  



Contributors: Larry Press | Edel Lima Sarmiento | Olga Khrustaleva | Alexei Padilla Herrera | Eloy Viera Cañive | Marie Laure Geoffray | Ted A. Henken | Sara Garcia Santamaria | Anne Natvig | Carlos Manuel Rodríguez Arechavaleta | Mireya Márquez—Ramírez, Ph.D.| Abel Somohano Fernández | Rebecca Ogden | Jennifer Cearns | Walfrido Dorta | Paloma Duong



A volume in the series Reframing Media, Technology, and Culture in Latin/o America, edited by Héctor Fernández L’Hoeste and Juan Carlos Rodríguez



Publication of the paperback edition made possible by a Sustaining the Humanities through the American Rescue Plan grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

1137898141
Cuba's Digital Revolution: Citizen Innovation and State Policy
 A wide—ranging examination of the ways digital technologies are impacting Cuba’s Revolutionary project 

The triumph of the Cuban Revolution gave the Communist Party a monopoly over both politics and the mass media. However, with the subsequent global proliferation of new information and communication technologies, Cuban citizens have become active participants in the worldwide digital revolution. While the Cuban internet has long been characterized by censorship, high costs, slow speeds, and limited access, this volume argues that since 2013, technological developments have allowed for a fundamental reconfiguration of the cultural, economic, social, and political spheres of the Revolutionary project.



The essays in this volume cover various transformations within this new digital revolution, examining both government—enabled paid public web access and creative workarounds that Cubans have designed to independently produce, distribute, and access digital content. Contributors trace how media ventures, entrepreneurship, online marketing, journalism, and cultural e—zines have been developing on the island alongside global technological and geopolitical changes.



As Cuba continues to expand internet access and as citizens challenge state policies on the speed, breadth, and freedom of that access, Cuba’s Digital Revolution provides a fascinating example of the impact of technology in authoritarian states and transitional democracies. While the streets of Cuba may still belong to Castro’s Revolution, this volume argues that it is still unclear to whom Cuban cyberspace belongs.  



Contributors: Larry Press | Edel Lima Sarmiento | Olga Khrustaleva | Alexei Padilla Herrera | Eloy Viera Cañive | Marie Laure Geoffray | Ted A. Henken | Sara Garcia Santamaria | Anne Natvig | Carlos Manuel Rodríguez Arechavaleta | Mireya Márquez—Ramírez, Ph.D.| Abel Somohano Fernández | Rebecca Ogden | Jennifer Cearns | Walfrido Dorta | Paloma Duong



A volume in the series Reframing Media, Technology, and Culture in Latin/o America, edited by Héctor Fernández L’Hoeste and Juan Carlos Rodríguez



Publication of the paperback edition made possible by a Sustaining the Humanities through the American Rescue Plan grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

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Cuba's Digital Revolution: Citizen Innovation and State Policy

Cuba's Digital Revolution: Citizen Innovation and State Policy

Cuba's Digital Revolution: Citizen Innovation and State Policy

Cuba's Digital Revolution: Citizen Innovation and State Policy

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Overview

 A wide—ranging examination of the ways digital technologies are impacting Cuba’s Revolutionary project 

The triumph of the Cuban Revolution gave the Communist Party a monopoly over both politics and the mass media. However, with the subsequent global proliferation of new information and communication technologies, Cuban citizens have become active participants in the worldwide digital revolution. While the Cuban internet has long been characterized by censorship, high costs, slow speeds, and limited access, this volume argues that since 2013, technological developments have allowed for a fundamental reconfiguration of the cultural, economic, social, and political spheres of the Revolutionary project.



The essays in this volume cover various transformations within this new digital revolution, examining both government—enabled paid public web access and creative workarounds that Cubans have designed to independently produce, distribute, and access digital content. Contributors trace how media ventures, entrepreneurship, online marketing, journalism, and cultural e—zines have been developing on the island alongside global technological and geopolitical changes.



As Cuba continues to expand internet access and as citizens challenge state policies on the speed, breadth, and freedom of that access, Cuba’s Digital Revolution provides a fascinating example of the impact of technology in authoritarian states and transitional democracies. While the streets of Cuba may still belong to Castro’s Revolution, this volume argues that it is still unclear to whom Cuban cyberspace belongs.  



Contributors: Larry Press | Edel Lima Sarmiento | Olga Khrustaleva | Alexei Padilla Herrera | Eloy Viera Cañive | Marie Laure Geoffray | Ted A. Henken | Sara Garcia Santamaria | Anne Natvig | Carlos Manuel Rodríguez Arechavaleta | Mireya Márquez—Ramírez, Ph.D.| Abel Somohano Fernández | Rebecca Ogden | Jennifer Cearns | Walfrido Dorta | Paloma Duong



A volume in the series Reframing Media, Technology, and Culture in Latin/o America, edited by Héctor Fernández L’Hoeste and Juan Carlos Rodríguez



Publication of the paperback edition made possible by a Sustaining the Humanities through the American Rescue Plan grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781683403517
Publisher: University Press of Florida
Publication date: 09/20/2022
Series: Reframing Media, Technology, and Culture in Latin/o America
Pages: 348
Product dimensions: 6.13(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.78(d)

About the Author

Ted A. Henken, associate professor of sociology and Latin American studies at Baruch College, City University of New York, is coauthor of Entrepreneurial Cuba: The Changing Policy Landscape and the author of Cuba: A Global Studies Handbook. Sara Garcia Santamaria, associate professor of media and communication at Universitat Ramon Llull and Universitat Jaume I, is coeditor of Media and Governance in Latin America: Towards a Plurality of Voices.

Table of Contents

Contents

List of Figures

List of Tables

Introduction. In Medias Res: Who Will Control Cuba’s Digital Revolution?

Ted A. Henken

PART I. History, Media, and Technology

1. The Past, Present, and Future of the Cuban Internet

Larry Press

2. Historical Itineraries and Cyclic Trajectories: Alternative Media, Communication Technologies, and Social Change in Cuba

Edel Lima Sarmiento

PART II. Politics

3. ICT, State Power, and Civil Society: Cuban Internet Development in the Context of the Normalization of Relations with the United States

Olga Khrustaleva

4. Ghost in the Machine: The Incompatibility of Cuba’s State Media Monopoly with the Existence of Independent Digital Media and the Democratization of Communication

Alexei Padilla Herrera and Eloy Viera Cañive

5. The Press Model in Cuba: Between Ideological Hegemony and the Reinvention of Civic Journalism

Carlos Manuel Rodríguez Arechavaleta

6. Digital Critique in Cuba

Marie Laure Geoffray

PART III. Journalism

7. From Generación Y to 14ymedio: Beyond the Blog on Cuba’s Digital Frontier

Ted A. Henken

8. Independent Journalism in Cuba: Between Fantasy and the Ontological Rupture

Sara Garcia Santamaria

9. Perceptions of and Strategies for Autonomy among Journalists Working for Cuban State Media

Anne Natvig

10. Independent Media on the Margins: Two Cases of Journalistic Professionalization in Cuba’s Digital Media Ecosystem

Abel Somohano Fernández and Mireya Márquez—Ramírez

PART IV. Business and Economy

11. Online Marketing of Touristic Cuba: Branding a “Tech—Free” Destination

Rebecca Ogden

12. “A Una Cuba Alternativa”? Digital Millennials, Social Influencing, and Cuentapropismo in Havana

Jennifer Cearns

PART V. Culture and Society

13. Without Initiation Ceremonies: Cuban Literary and Cultural Ezines

Walfrido Dorta

14. Images of Ourselves: Cuban Mediascapes and the Postsocialist “Woman of Fashion”

Paloma Duong

Notes

List of Contributors

Index

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“An important contribution to the study of the Cuban media landscape. Cuba’s Digital Revolution examines changes brought about by recent expansion of Wi—Fi access points through attention to how independent journalism, media distribution, activism, entrepreneurship, and media culture are developing alongside local and global technological and political changes.”—Cristina Venegas, author of Digital Dilemmas: The State, the Individual, and Digital Media in Cuba

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