About Me
Dr. Arcelia Gutiérrez is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Film and Media Studies at the University of California, Irvine. As an interdisciplinary scholar, she specializes in Latinx studies, media studies, media activism, and media industries. Her current book manuscript, tentatively titled Deploying Latinidad: The Politics of Contemporary Media Activism, traces how Latinx media activists have navigated processes of deregulation and neo-liberalization and the strategies they’ve used to push for the inclusion of Latinxs in television, film, and radio. Relying on archival materials, in-depth interviews, participant observation, and textual analysis, her project offers a genealogy of the efforts made by major media advocacy organizations over the decades: from protests against stereotypes in film and the threat of filing a “petition to deny” based on Equal Employment Opportunity rules violations in the 80s, consumer boycotts in the 90s, the creation of professionalization and funding entities in the early 2000s, to digital activism in the last decade. In exploring these strategies, Dr. Gutiérrez also outlines the ways in which media activists have weaponized Latinidad as a discursive device for leverage in their fight for inclusion in the media industries.