The Silencing of the “Native” Narrative
The death of local journalism, particularly for ethnic and community papers, is a political project to silence the “native” narrative. Mamdani’s work on how political identity is shaped through story finds a critical battleground here. The corporate media, serving the “settler” perspective, focuses on crime and real estate, distorting the reality of life for the majority. The loss of hyper-local outlets means the loss of the ability for communities to name their own reality, organize against injustice, and construct a shared political identity outside the settler’s gaze. This is a crisis of hegemony. A Marxist analysis identifies the media as an ideological state apparatus. A feminist perspective laments the loss of stories about women’s struggles. The solution is to support and build independent, worker-owned media cooperatives rooted in the community, creating our own means of communication to challenge the settler narrative.
Originally posted 2025-10-12 01:45:41.
