‘Yo Te AMLO’: sentimentalism, threat and affective flows in political campaign song videos in Mexico

Green, A. (2021) ‘Yo Te AMLO’: sentimentalism, threat and affective flows in political campaign song videos in Mexico. Media, Culture and Society, 43(3), pp. 411-427. (doi: 10.1177/0163443720974248)

Abstract

Campaign song created as part of Mexico’s 2018 national election, usually circulated as part of music videos, produced citizenship as intimate, sentimental, affectionate and partial. In music videos published online, often anonymously, musicians sought to develop affective links with political candidates, negotiating intimate pathways for the construction of democratic subjectivities. Such videos pose difficult questions for the notion of the rational, information-driven voter. In this article I take a partly ethnographic, partly analytical approach to explore the rich set of affordances these videos present for the construction of political coalitions within emerging democracies. Exploring Brian Massumi’s theory of ‘ontopower’, I show how overlaps between threat and love served to heighten political indeterminacy, and demonstrate some of the perverse effects of this affective entanglement on the musicians involved. These videos, I highlight, raise questions about the power relations between political campaigns and audiovisual creativity in an increasingly rich media landscape.

• Item Type: Articles
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Green, Dr Andrew
• Authors: Green, A.
• College/School: College of Arts & Humanities > School of Culture and Creative Arts > Music
• Journal Name: Media, Culture and Society
• Publisher: SAGE Publications
• ISSN: 0163-4437
• ISSN (Online): 1460-3675
• Published Online: 27 November 2020
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2020 The Author
• First Published: First published in Media, Culture and Society 43(3): 411-427
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced under a Creative Commons License

Project Code	Award No	Project Name	Principal Investigator	Funder's Name	Funder Ref	Lead Dept
300054		Sonic Trajectories of Censorship in Mexico (STCM)	Andrew Green	Leverhulme Trust (LEVERHUL)	ECF-2017-159	Arts - Music