Layered narrative sovereignty: communicative authority and hybrid infrastructures in Mexican Indigenous and community media
Journal
Frontiers in Communication
ISSN
2297-900X
Publisher
Frontiers Media SA
Date Issued
2026
Type
text::journal::journal article
Abstract
Indigenous and community media in Latin America increasingly circulate through digital environments that include externally governed platform infrastructures. This article examines how three Mexican media organizations—Radio Tosepan Limakxtum, Radio Tsinaka, and Ojo de Agua Comunicación—exercise narrative sovereignty under these conditions. Drawing on a comparative qualitative content analysis of 24 publicly accessible communication units, the study analyzes the articulation of Indigenous-language use, community voice, cultural identity, territory, memory, community knowledge, autonomy and rights, collective action, gender, environment/extractivism, collaboration, and translocal circulation. The analysis distinguishes three related but analytically separate dimensions: narrative authority, organizational media capacity, and infrastructural configuration. The findings show that the three organizations sustain distinct forms of communicative authority while operating through heterogeneous combinations of community radio, organizational websites, audiovisual archives, streaming services, collaborative networks, and external digital platforms. Rather than treating platform presence as equivalent to communicative dependence, the analysis shows that narrative sovereignty can operate across hybrid infrastructures that combine organizational, collaborative, and externally governed channels. The article argues that narrative sovereignty is therefore best understood as layered: communicative authority may remain substantial even when circulation occurs across infrastructures governed by different actors. ©The author. ©Frontiers Media.
License
Acceso Abierto
How to cite
Zamorano-Rojas, A. D. (2026). Layered narrative sovereignty: communicative authority and hybrid infrastructures in Mexican Indigenous and community media. Frontiers in Communication, 11. https://doi.org/10.3389/fcomm.2026.1995028