Clemencia Rodriguez

Clemencia Rodríguez Professor Departments: Media Studies and Production, Media & Communication Clemencia@temple.edu Office: 215-204-5752 Biography Clemencia Rodríguez has a PhD in International Telecommunication and a Master’s Degree in Communication and Development from Ohio University. She completed a BA in Communication at Universidad Javeriana in Bogotá, Colombia. Rodríguez is a Colombian US-based media and communication scholar recognized for her role in establishing and promoting the field of alternative and community media studies, notably through her work on 'citizens' media.' In her book titled Fissures in the Mediascape: An International Study of Citizens’ Media (2001), Rodríguez developed her "citizens' media theory," a ground-breaking approach to understanding the role of community/alternative media in our societies. Her research explores how communities that engage in their own media production revise understandings of self, re-name the world, and activate individual and collective processes of empowerment and social change. In 2011 Rodríguez published Citizens' Media Against Armed Conflict: Disrupting Violence in Colombia (University of Minnesota Press), where she documents how people living in the shadow of war use community radio, television, video, digital photography, and the Internet, to shield their communities from armed violence's negative impacts. This involved fieldwork in regions of Colombia where leftist guerillas, right-wing paramilitary groups, the army, and drug traffickers made their presence felt in the lives of unarmed civilians. She continues to teach in the areas of international communication, communication, development and social change, and gender.