The Making of the White Middle-Class Radical: A Discourse Analysis of the Public Relations of the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador between 1980 and 1990

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dc.contributor.advisorMartinez, Gabriela
dc.contributor.authorValencia, Ricardo
dc.date.accessioned2018-09-06T22:00:27Z
dc.date.available2018-09-06T22:00:27Z
dc.date.issued2018-09-06
dc.description.abstractThis study explores the role of public relations in the formation of a collective identity of the activists of the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES) between 1980 and 1990. CISPES was a radical U.S.-based organization comprised of a majority of white college-educated members. CISPES had two goals: 1) stop the U.S. military assistance to El Salvador, and 2) support the Salvadoran revolutionary movements that were fighting a U.S.-backed government. Through interviews, discourse analysis and historical research, this work shows that CISPES used as currency the whiteness of its activists, in conjunction with its educational background, to influence public opinion and policy-making in the U.S. The formation of CISPES as a white organization was partially achieved by continuous negotiations with Salvadoran radicals living in the U.S. Early in the 1990s, CISPES' collective identity as a white organization entered in crisis as internal debates on gender and race along with social changes in the national and international levels challenged dominant views and the status quo of whiteness and what this implies in political, social, and cultural spheres. This work proposes two models: the intersectional recruiting process and the ideological identity model of public relations. Both models were created using dialectical methodologies that understand public relations and social movements as processes of permanent contradictions between social conditions and ideology/discourse creation. This dissertation has real applications because it reveals how activist public relations can help the global struggle for social justice.en_US
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/1794/23792
dc.language.isoen_US
dc.publisherUniversity of Oregon
dc.rightsAll Rights Reserved.
dc.subjectActivismen_US
dc.subjectCISPESen_US
dc.subjectEl Salvadoren_US
dc.subjectIntersectionalityen_US
dc.subjectPublic relationsen_US
dc.subjectWhitenessen_US
dc.titleThe Making of the White Middle-Class Radical: A Discourse Analysis of the Public Relations of the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador between 1980 and 1990
dc.typeElectronic Thesis or Dissertation
thesis.degree.disciplineSchool of Journalism and Communication
thesis.degree.grantorUniversity of Oregon
thesis.degree.leveldoctoral
thesis.degree.namePh.D.

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