Signs of Violence

Messaging, Media and Politics in Mexico’s ‘Drug War

Paul K. Eiss
Associate Professor of Anthropology and History
Director, Center for the Arts in Society

In this talk, I explore some of the linkages between violence, political representation, and the new media in contemporary Mexico.  I will consider the implications of a variety of new medial forms that have arisen in connection with drug- and drug-war related violence, which I term the “narcomedia.”  Debates over the narcomedia, and diverse attempts to control or censor them, quickly move from discussion of the drug traffickers or of the “war” against them to complicated discussions of the far-reaching implications of globalization in contemporary Mexico: of the beleaguered sovereignties of state and people; of rights and the rule of law; and of the tenuous claims of history and nation in the conflict’s wake. 

Adamson Wing, Baker Hall 136A
Wednesday, March 21, 2012, 4:30pm