Framing the Revolution: Circulation and Meaning of The Revolution Will Not Be Televised

Abstract

This article analyzes the circulation and contingent social production of meaning of The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, the documentary film that chronicles the 2002 coup d'état in Venezuela and its dramatic reversal. Drawing on interviews and observations with distributors and activists in New York City in 2004 and ethnographic fieldwork with community media producers in Caracas between 2003 and 2007, I explore how social actors contribute to the ongoing production of Revolution's impact. In this multisited account, I argue that the work of activists and distributors to frame the importance and authenticity of Revolution has been vital in molding debates and facilitating public discussion not only about Venezuelan politics but also about the role of media producers in shaping truth. This article draws attention to the ironies and complexities that filmmakers, distributors, and activists face when they use documentary film to challenge mediated depictions of the historical world.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The first section of this article was originally prepared as a master's thesis under the direction of Jeff Himpele and Faye Ginsburg. A second section is based on thirteen months of ethnographic research in Caracas between 2003 to 2007, which was generously funded by the National Science Foundation and the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, Inc. Special thanks to Patricia Aufderheide, Faye Ginsburg, Jeff Himpele, Matthew C. Nisbet, and three anonymous Mass Communication and Society reviewers for valuable comments and discussion of the ideas presented here.

Notes

¹This group of corporations continue (as of 2009) to have a major presence on radio and the national press, although the Chávez government has greatly expanded its communications capacity since 2002. The government did not renew the terrestrial broadcast license of RCTV in 2007, as I discuss next.

²For a wide range of perspectives and analyses of the events, see written accounts including Jones (2008), Nelson (2009), Stoneman (2008), Toro (2004), Wilpert (2007) and the documentaries X-ray of a Lie (2004) and Llaguna Bridge: Keys to a Massacre (2004).

³Venezuelan filmmakers affiliated with Chávez's opposition participated in the production of a counterfilm called X-Ray of a Lie (2004), which examines Revolution scene by scene to uncover the film's narrative strategies and use of artifice.

⁴With the exception of people who are readily identifiable, all names of activists and community media producers have been changed to protect my informants.

⁵See Hawkins and Hansen (2006) for an evaluation of the impacts and purposes of these groups in Venezuela.

⁶Elsewhere (Schiller, in press), I discuss Catia TV's relationship with state institutions and the staff's ongoing negotiation of notions of autonomy and objectivity.

⁷A closely related documentary, Keys to a Massacre (2004) by Venezuelan filmmaker Angel Palacios, focuses exclusively on analyzing the “visible evidence” to challenge the commercial media's assertion that an armed group of Chávez supporters were shooting at opposition demonstrators. Catia TV producers have also drawn liberally from Keys to a Massacre for their own video productions.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Naomi Schiller

Naomi Schiller (Ph.D., New York University, 2009) is an assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology at Temple University. Her research interests include the state, community media, and social movements in Latin America.