Audiovisual cultural artifacts of protest in the Basque Country

Abstract

In this article we propose the emergence of a new kind of visual protest and alternative communication called the Audiovisual Cultural Artifact of Protest (ACAP). These will be studied in the context of the Basque Country, which currently combines structural and conjunctural characteristics that make it an outstanding laboratory for the study of these artifacts. A theoretical analysis of the complex relationships between power, communication and resistance will be carried out, and a reading is proposed that deals with the different planes on which these resistances and disputes are expressed. Based on this analysis, four kinds of audiovisual artifacts produced in the Basque Country are studied. For the empirical analysis, the methodological reflections of visual sociology are taken into consideration. The results provide an overview of these Audiovisual Cultural Artifacts of Protest and the theoretical discussion confirms the emergence of these new forms of visual protest, indicating the existence of a broad-based dynamic in which their proliferation and diversification is occurring. The analysis of the case of the Basque Country allows these tactical and communicative innovations to be contextualised and a discussion to take place about the importance of that context, the discourse’s construction and the possible trend towards spectacularisation of the resistances. Caption: #U12Bilbora: MobiLIPDUBzioa Durangon (2012).

Keywords

• ACAP
• alternative communication
• Basque Country
• protest
• mass media
• social justice