ABSTRACT
In 1980, the Argentine military government loosened its grip on censorship. Military authorities believed that easing restrictions on free expression might help them manage a slow, controlled return to democracy while suppressing what they saw as Marxist or extremist foes. Over the following twelve months, censorship became less an authoritarian government imposition than a negotiated and contested process. This chapter takes issue with a key political binary—dictatorship versus democracy. In 1980, Argentines began to press back against the hundreds of censorship offices. At first, they did so without directly challenging military rule or military narratives of the nation. But by late 1980, popular challenges to military restrictions on what people could watch, read, and hear became bolder and more menacing to military rule. Censorship became a battle for how different sectors of society had begun to imagine a new nation and in anticipation of the end of military rule. In challenging the authority of the armed forces, Argentines introduced multiple and often contradictory visions of the nation to come.
