Silencing the sound : informal censorship and the politics of rock in Mexico, 1971-1986

From September 11-12, 1971, Mexico held one of its largest rock music festivals to date: The Festival de Rock y Ruedas Avándaro. Set against a backdrop of political and social tension between the counterculture youth, government officials, and conservative society, the festival faced intense backlash and critiques, widely interpreted as a symbol of youth moral decay. In its aftermath, Mexican rock musicians and fans experienced nearly two decades of censorship, navigating a landscape where either they adapted their image and music to gain visibility, or retreated to underground alternative spaces. Despite some scholarship having been written around this subject, there has been a crucial misunderstanding on the way the censorship around rock operated: rock was never banned, nor formally outlawed from the public sphere – as current scholarship describes. No documents exist to prove the government ever took legal and formal action against banning rock. Instead, this thesis argues that the government implemented an informal censorship regime, operating through self-censorship, selective programming, social conformity, and repression of non-conforming artists and visible subcultures like punk. By examining archival sources—government reports, fanzines, newspaper and magazine articles—this thesis challenges the misconception of outright prohibition. Through a Foucauldian lens and New Censorship theory, this thesis demonstrates that informal censorship can wield power as effectively as formal bans, profoundly shaping the post-Avándaro rock scene and controlling youth in ways that were often invisible but deeply felt.