DOI: 10.12688/f1000research.188762.1 ISSN: 2046-1402

Communication collectives in the Colombian Caribbean: A situated perspective from Barranquilla toward Latin America

Alvaro Acevedo Merlano, Margarita Quintero-León, Daniel Muñoz Llanos, María Del Mar Deulufeut Romero, Valeria Galvis Payares, Alicia Nayelis Silva España
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Background Communication collectives in Barranquilla, its metropolitan area, and several municipalities in the Department of Atlántico provide a situated context for examining contemporary expressions of alternative and participatory communication in the Colombian Caribbean and Latin America. Methods The study adopted a qualitative, document-based, and interpretive approach, combining the systematization of experiences with secondary analysis of academic materials produced between 2020 and 2025 within the framework of the course Communication for Social Development. The corpus consisted of academic directories, characterization records, and institutional and publicly accessible information. The units of analysis were the initiatives and their documentary records rather than individual participants. The materials were cleaned, compared, and organized into a matrix encompassing territorial, organizational, population-related, and communicative dimensions through inductive categories and reflexive thematic analysis. Results The findings identified 91 distinct communication initiatives characterized by organizational and communicative heterogeneity. The initiatives included community radio stations, digital media, cultural platforms, youth collectives, feminist and sexual-diversity organizations, Indigenous initiatives, social foundations, university groups, and institutionalized entities. Across the corpus, recurring features included connections between communication and territory, diverse forms of participation, rights-based practices, cultural and artistic production, education and memory, ethnic identity, environmental concerns, and digital platform appropriation. The initiatives differed in their organizational structures, levels of participation, institutional relationships, and sustainability conditions. Taken together, the findings show how communication practices intersect with territory and social action through the construction of social ties, production of memory, capacity building, and creation of situated representations. Conclusions The experiences analyzed constitute a plural socio communicative ecosystem that produces situated mediations, expressive capacities, and forms of citizenship. The study offers a situated account of the diversity of alternative and participatory communication practices documented in the Colombian Caribbean.

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