Ted Henken

Rebellion in Havana’s Classrooms and Newsrooms: Two Eras of Frustrated Transition in Cuban Journalism, 1985-1990 and 2016-2021

Review: Literature and Arts of the Americas

This essay explores the professional trajectories of Cuban journalism students as they have passe... more This essay explores the professional trajectories of Cuban journalism students as they have passed from the theories and techniques of their chosen profession, as taught at the University of Havana’s School of Journalism (renamed the School of Communication in 1993), to the actual practice of journalism in a country where virtually all legal means of mass media are “official” mouthpieces of Party, state, or para-state entities. Given the long and storied history of the press under the Revolution, I narrowly focus my essay on a key era of “frustrated transition” within the Cuban media: the so-called “years of living dangerously” (1985-1990). I conclude by jumping forward a quarter century to highlight the ongoing struggles facing Cuban journalists of today, comparing them with those of the 1985-1990 period.While today’s journalists and journalism students struggle against many of the same past obstacles inherent in a system that explicitly subordinates the interests of the press to those of the Party and “Revolution,” they also practice their profession in a radically changed technological environment where the practical monopoly of the “official”media has largely disappeared—thanks to expanding Internet access—while its legal monopoly remains intact.

$Research paper thumbnail of Cuba\u27s Digital Revolution: Citizen Innovation and State Policy$

Cuba\u27s Digital Revolution: Citizen Innovation and State Policy

“An important contribution to the study of the Cuban media landscape. Cuba’s Digital Revolution e... more “An important contribution to the study of the Cuban media landscape. Cuba’s Digital Revolution examines changes brought about by recent expansion of Wi-Fi access points through attention to how independent journalism, media distribution, activism, entrepreneurship, and media culture are developing alongside local and global technological and political changes.”—Cristina Venegas, author of Digital Dilemmas: The State, the Individual, and Digital Media in Cuba The triumph of the Cuban Revolution gave the Communist Party a monopoly over both politics and the mass media. However, with the subsequent global proliferation of new information and communication technologies, Cuban citizens have become active participants in the worldwide digital revolution. While the Cuban internet has long been characterized by censorship, high costs, slow speeds, and limited access, this volume argues that since 2013, technological developments have allowed for a fundamental reconfiguration of the cultural, economic, social, and political spheres of the Revolutionary project. The essays in this volume cover various transformations within this new digital revolution, examining both government-enabled paid public web access and creative workarounds that Cubans have designed to independently produce, distribute, and access digital content. Contributors trace how media ventures, entrepreneurship, online marketing, journalism, and cultural e-zines have been developing on the island alongside global technological and geopolitical changes. As Cuba continues to expand internet access and as citizens challenge state policies on the speed, breadth, and freedom of that access, Cuba’s Digital Revolution provides a fascinating example of the impact of technology in authoritarian states and transitional democracies. While the streets of Cuba may still belong to Castro’s Revolution, this volume argues that it is still unclear to whom Cuban cyberspace belongs.https://scholarlycommons.susqu.edu/facultybooks/1090/thumbnail.jp

Entrepreneurial Cuba

Cuba's Digital Millennials: Independent Digital Media and Civil Society on the Island of the Disconnected

Social Research: An International Quarterly

The Internet and Emergent Blogosphere in Cuba: Downloading Democracy, Booting Up Development, or Planting the Virus of Dissidence and Destabilization?

Annual Proceedings, 2010

Self-Employment in Today's Cuba: Quantitative Expansion Amid Qualitative Limitation

Self-Employment in Today's Cuba: Quantitative Expansion Amid Qualitative Limitation is part o... more

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An Analysis of Decree-Law No . 171 on Private Home Rentals

The rental of rooms in private Cuban homes was not included among the original 1993 list of allow... more The rental of rooms in private Cuban homes was not included among the original 1993 list of allowed selfemployed occupations because such activity was already legal at the time under a previous 1988 law (General Housing Law No. 65, article 74). That law allowed Cubans to freely rent up to two rooms in their own homes tax free. Presumably because relatively few tourists were then visiting the island, the 1988 law failed to set specifications on renting to foreigners. Of course, like most other areas of self-employment, private rentals were already quite numerous throughout the island (especially in Havana and Varadero) when they finally came under state regulation in the summer of 1997. Also, like other “second economy” activities, private rentals originally began to expand as a strategic response to the economic crisis on the part of Cuban families. Moreover, prior to regulation, most Cubans who were renting rooms in their homes could make many times the average peso salary of a sta...

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Santiago vs. Havana: Cuba's Underground Economy in Comparative Perspective

Santiago vs. Havana: Cuba's Underground Economy in Comparative Perspective is part of the 200... more

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INTRODUCTION:: In Medias Res Who Will Control Cuba’s Digital Revolution?

Vitral Magazine and the Center for Civic and Religious Formation: Building a New Cuba Inside the Shell of the Old

Vitral Magazine and the Center for Civic and Religious Formation: Building a New Cuba Inside the ... more

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Balseros in Alabama : Refugee Resettlement Experiences and the Divided Fates of Cuban Rafters in the New South

In July of 1995, I began an assignment as a social worker for Catholic Social Services’ Refugee R... more In July of 1995, I began an assignment as a social worker for Catholic Social Services’ Refugee Resettlement Program in Mobile, Alabama. I was hired for the specific task of receiving and resettling Cuban refugees from the U.S. Naval Base at Guantánamo Bay in southeastern Cuba, where over 20,000 Cuban balseros (rafters) were still being held in indefinite detention. During the next nine months (July 1995 through March 1996), I worked with the Resettlement Program, personally helping to resettle over 125 Cubans. During this period, our agency resettled two distinct streams of Cuban immigrants: rafters who had been in detention in Guantánamo and former political prisoners who were arriving directly from Havana, usually accompanied by a number of immediate family members.

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From Nada to Nauta: Internet Access and Cyber-Activism in A Changing Cuba

From Nada to Nauta: Internet Access and Cyber-Activism in A Changing Cuba is part of the 2013 Ann... more

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Entrepreneurship, Informality, and the Second Economy: Cuba's Underground Economy in Comparative Perspective

Entrepreneurship, Informality, and the Second Economy: Cuba's Underground Economy in Comparat... more

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Overcoming Cuba's Internal Embargo

Current History, 2015

Relations with Washington are suddenly warmer—but if Cuba wants a vibrant economy, it must allow ... more

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Entrepreneurial Reform, Market Expansion, and Political Engagement: Risks and Opportunities for Cuba Today

A New Chapter in US-Cuba Relations, 2016

After consolidating his new government once becoming president in 2008, Raul Castro made a series... more After consolidating his new government once becoming president in 2008, Raul Castro made a series of unprecedented moves in late 2010 to encourage the re-emergence of private self-employment (known as trabajo por cuenta propia or cuentapropismo)—explicitly reversing Fidel Castro’s policy that, according to Raul’s own bold assessment, had “stigmatized” and even “demonized” it (Castro Ruz 2010b). Subsequently, the number of legally allowed private occupations grew from 178 to 201, and the number of Cuba’s cuentapropistas (self-employed workers or micro-entrepreneurs) more than tripled, from less than 150,000 in 2010 to more than a half-million by mid 2015. Additionally, hundreds of new nonagricultural cooperatives have been authorized to operate since their legalization in 2012. Moreover, on December 17, 2014, as part of a momentous diplomatic thaw between Washington and Havana, the Obama Administration announced a new policy of engagement targeted explicitly at “empowering” Cuba’s new class of private entrepreneurs by allowing US companies to trade with “the emerging Cuban private sector.”1