Alternative media training: Fiction as an emotional educational tool

We should examine how highly influential politicians compete with the media, vying for attention and prime-time coverage by generating their own content. They do so by appealing to powerful emotions and popular sentiment, replicating many of the patterns and rituals found in religious gatherings.

The dominance of white, Western, Judeo-Christian journalism is pervasive worldwide. We must reclaim our cultural sovereignty and promote genuine diversity. To achieve this, the debate cannot be about objective “realities” alone but about perceptions—those narratives that spark emotions and shape the public’s common sense.

Given the central role of emotions, affect, and performativity in mobilizing the masses, it is crucial to study how communication can be wielded to build counter-hegemony.

The Right has benefited from liberal democracies’ inability to resolve capitalism’s internal contradictions, allowing society to gravitate toward post-democratic figures who champion neoliberalism and individual security while dismantling collective structures in favor of work- and family-centered guarantees.

Cultural struggle should aim at transforming material conditions, not merely securing a seat at the table for debates—whether feminist demands or otherwise. To win deeper and broader support for material change, we need a far better understanding of how people actually consume culture.

Today, the Left remains overly fixated on political ideology as the sole framework for collective organizing toward alternative futures. This approach often feels alienating, overly theoretical, and too cold for many culture consumers, who want to be moved as well as informed.

One instructive example comes from Mexico’s current government, which ensures that media platforms echo its positions rather than those of capital interests or corporate media gatekeepers.

In Latin America, numerous telenovelas and series have managed to politicize mainstream audiences through storytelling that appeals directly to emotions. It’s striking, however, that most of this emotionally driven, mass-appeal communication is dominated by conservative forces—ensuring that “woke” and progressive movements remain marginal.

Here, I propose that progressive voices reclaim the art of emotional storytelling: harness basic antagonisms, strong feelings, and clear villains and heroes. By doing so, we can convey our ideas with far less mental friction. Rather than lecturing on objective truths, we should craft fluid, entertaining emotional spaces that invite mass engagement with our message.

Humor, festivals, and collective meet-ups are precisely the arenas where we must reestablish our presence—shedding the solemnity and academic tone that too often characterize contemporary progressive outreach. Progressivism should not only be morally sound but also appealing, fun, safe, and horizontal—more emotional and less overly formal or theoretical. High-quality content and a more fluid, emotionally resonant delivery are not mutually exclusive; together, they can propel our ideas into the cultural mainstream.

Let’s bring the popular back into our discourse and formats, embody our ideas in collective spaces, and infuse them with vibrant aesthetics. As Omar Rincón reminds us, “If you don’t know how to dance, you know little.”