This is an excellent collection of scholarly essays on media theory and the relationship of media to social activism. It is global in scope, which I found very useful for a graduate course that I teach called Media Advocacy and Social Marketing, as my students increasingly want to study media throughout the world, not just in the big, industrialized nations.
This is an excellent collection of scholarly essays on media theory and the relationship of media to social activism. It is global in scope, which I found very useful for a graduate course that I teach called Media Advocacy and Social Marketing, as my students increasingly want to study media throughout the world, not just in the big, industrialized nations.
The book opens with several essays that define and explain the concept of the “public sphere” as conceived by Jurgen Habermas, then extend the concept to the global level. Subsequent chapters address the many ways that activists can shape their content for external media outlets in order to more effectively communicate their messages of social change to a wider audience. There are also sections that examine how advocates can develop their own media outlets and/or work with local community media not just to communicate their messages but to mobilize support for their ideas.
This is an important book that helps students not majoring in media studies, such as those who plan to become professionals in NGOs or to go on to law school, to understand the key concepts of media theory and see how they can use those ideas in daily practice. My students enjoyed the book and recommended I continue to use it in future courses. This is no small praise for a course text, many of which students view as boring and deliberately dated in order to justify frequent new editions at higher prices.