Recent history of the Mexican student movement of 1968 shows that this event has a central significance to understanding the existing political conditions of the country. The article analyzes the complex relations between the press and the political powers of that time and relevant examples are presented which centre around the way in which photography played a strategic role covering some of the most relevant episodes of that chapter of Mexican history. For example, the multitudinous street demonstrations, the army's violent seizure of the universities and the State's slaughter of the civil population in Tlatelolco. In all those events, a symbolic dispute between the students and the Mexican government arose for the appropriation of the images. At a distance of a little more than 40 years, it's possible to give a leading role to the political and cultural use of photographs by the different groups.
student movement; photojournalism; democracy
