Communication Is Culture: Comuniteca Is Born

Communication is culture in all its dimensions, including those used and reproduced by neoliberal structures. We observe a hybridization process between resistance and the mainstream, resulting in a globalized vision of sociocultural processes of communication. Today—in 2025—power continues to be in the hands of those who control production media. It is interesting to see how alternative media have learned to use the strategies of the ruling conglomerate to free their own voices and democratize significant information regarding sociocultural processes and their importance for posterity. It is here where podcasts have positioned themselves. A cultural programming resides within the podcasting community, which is then spread across digital platforms and social media, the streaming that feeds the mobilization of cultural activism. 

Rivadeneira Prada (1997), from his experience in the fields of editing and journalism, maintains that communication and culture are two universes embedded in a macrocosm, which he calls human life. In the decade in which the editor suggested this idea, technology had taken a big step with the arrival of the World Wide Web (WWW). However, in the 2000s, Google also debuted as an online search engine, the iPhone revolutionized mobile telephony, and social media emerged. These innovations have put forth new approaches within communications and have gradually transformed the cultural lens.

Thanks to this, alternative media, such as the hypermediated podcast in platforms like Youtube, Instagram, Tik Tok, Facebook, Whatsapp, among others, have established an accelerated rhythm of information sharing. While quarantining during the pandemic, we were practically forced to connect with others through digital devices—cellphones, computers, tablets—which has been revealed in the collected data regarding virtual consumption. The radio has ventured into the world of podcasting, creating content to manage these hypermediations. The television, for its part, has focused on creating content that diversifies the distribution of news, on the one hand, and sports and shows programming, on the other. Within the business conglomerate of media, competition for ratings continues to grow, the aggressive offers of digital advertising. It is a career intensified by who manages to reproduce the most, who gathers the most viewers or listeners, and who shares the most information that can be monetized. 

In order to develop different concepts as alternative media, we must position ourselves clearly in what we want to produce. ChangeMaker Foundation is dedicated to educommunication. For four years, we recorded the podcast Pivot-ES, which comprises more than 170 episodes, all of which reside in an online digital library and are accessible to the public. As our foundation learns and pivots, we continue to stand firm in our commitment to sociocultural activities, which is why we will soon be launching a new podcast by the name of Comuniteca.

Our power lies in placing education at the service of communities and in creating content that tells the stories of the citizens, community leaders, artists, designers, educators, and investigators who are leading vibrant enterprises in both Puerto Rico and the diaspora.

Our goal with Comuniteca is not to monetize. Its purpose is to educate the public and highlight the work and endeavors that illustrate educommunicative practices. Our main challenge is to transform algorithms stemming from the mainstream into useful resources that support and contribute to the wellbeing of society. As such, social commitments can be ensured, refined, and amplified, making better use of strategies to communicate for the common good. According to Scolari (2024), these are evolutionary processes, considering the incredible number of artefacts created by human beings over the last 2,5 million years and the growing complexity of our technology, comparable only to the variety and intricacy found in the biological world.

Join Comuniteca, a new podcast in which resistance and the mainstream come together to assert that communication is culture.

Rivadeneira Prada, Raúl. (1997). Comunicación y cultura. Revista Ciencia y Cultura, (2), 98-105.

Scolari, C. A. (2024). Sobre la evolución de los medios: Emergencia, adaptación y supervivencia. Ampersand.

The author has a published book and various reviewed scientific articles. She is currently finishing her doctoral thesis in communications, virtual communities, the political economy of communications, cultural consumption, and the socio-semiotics of mediatization.

Translated by Valeria González-Calero (calerotranslations@gmail.com)