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Cyberspace And The Defense Of The Revolution: Cuban Bloggers, Civic Participation, And State Discourse, Renee Naomi Timberlake

Master's Theses

In this thesis I address how Cuban bloggers are contesting state sanctioned modes of civic participation and censorship. I begin to address this question with a discussion of the creation and perpetuation of a state sponsored hegemonic discourse, followed by the alternative, counterhegemonic discourses which appear in the blogs of Cuban writers Yoani Sanchez and Claudia Cadelo. The two authors are tapping into the internet, overcoming state imposed, island-wide bans on their websites, and voicing their dissent against and frustration with a government that professes a discourse of solidarity and socialism while enacting a reality of inequality and market-based economics.