"This edited book aims at bringing together a range of contemporary expertise that can shed light on the relationship between media pluralism in Latin America and processes of democratization and social justice. In doing so, the authors of the book provide empirically grounded theoretical insight in
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to the extent to which questions about media pluralism-broadly understood as the striving for diverse and inclusive media spheres-are an essential part of scholarly debates on democratic governance. The rise in recent years of authoritarianism, populism and nationalism, both in fragile and stable democratic systems, makes media pluralism an intellectual and empirical cornerstone of any debate about the future of democratic governance around the world." (Publisher description)
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"This collection presents 14 concepts from a multi-disciplinary collection of internationally leading and emerging scholars, from 13 countries on 5 continents. They come together around three meta-topics: citizenship and justice, critiques of development, and renewing thought (from and for the margi
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ns). The short chapter format ensures that authors get straight to the nub of their ideas, providing readers - students, scholars and practitioners alike - with accessible, engaging and innovative ways to think critically about communication and social change, in new ways." (Publisher description)
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"Communication for and about development are significant components of international development cooperation, interlinked in practice though separated in research. This article examines their interaction in donor-driven aid through the lens of journalism. How is bilateral development cooperation com
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municated about in the news? How does a donor agency communicate for and about development? And what are the links between one and the other? In 2016, a prime-time exposé aired by the Swedish public TV reported on alleged corruption in aid to Zambia, depicting events as the double failure of donor and recipient. Our analysis clarifies how (a) how the news media in a top donor country covers public development aid for its citizen audiences; and (b) how a bilateral donor agency understands and practices communication as it interacts with the news media on the one hand, and with partners and beneficiaries on the ground on the other. We focus on the news media as mediator of the donor’s communication with its tax-paying citizen audiences, demonstrating the potential of an integrated conceptual approach to communication for and about development, and raising questions for future research." (Abstract)
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"International development stakeholders harness communication with two broad purposes: to do good, via communication for development and media assistance, and to communicate do-gooding, via public relations and information. This book unpacks various ways in which different efforts to do good are com
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bined with attempts to look good, be it in the eyes of donor constituencies at large, or among more specific audiences, such as journalists or intra-agency decision-makers. Development communication studies have tended to focus primarily on interventions aimed at doing good among recipients, at the expense of examining the extent to which promotion and reputation management are elements of those practices. This book establishes the importance of interrogating the tensions generated by overlapping uses of communication to do good and to look good within international development cooperation." (Publisher description)
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"Since their origins in the late 1950s, Latin American communication studies have become increasingly institutionalized and thematically diverse. This evolution, however, has circulated to a limited extent beyond borders, as noted by North American scholars in the 1990s. Attentive to this problem, t
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his article reviews how Latin America has featured in Communication Theory’s archive since 1992 and introduces a Special Issue that incorporates recent contributions from the region into the journal’s corpus. The analysis shows the extremely limited presence of Latin America in Communication Theory both in terms of substantial contributions to theory-building arising from the region, and of Latin American authorship. We argue that this state of affairs evidences the need for explicit editorial policies aimed at addressing the gap, and for increased cross-border interaction among scholars. The Special Issue hereby introduced contributes to resituating Latin America in international communication theory by foregrounding situated approaches generated in the region." (Abstract)
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"It is a paradox of communication and media studies that while media are widely seen as key institutions in the “project of time, space and life management” (Silverstone, 2005), not enough attention is given to the ways in which mediation is socially produced and becomes politically effective. A
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lthough rarely taken into account as an analytical variable in studies of international development communication, mediation is implicit in donor-driven practice. In the act of framing a problem and favouring a solution, and of communicating about a problem and solution in particular ways, donors seek to mediate their complex relationships with recipient countries and with citizens at both ends of the donor-recipient equation. But which forms of media engagement do they propose to these ends? How is mediated communication aimed at doing good for the citizens of recipient countries? How is it used to communicate do-gooding to the citizens of donor countries? Which media technologies are foregrounded and which media-driven practices are favoured to promote one and the other? Which perceptions of media engagement influence donors’ strategic choices, and how are citizens understood in those choices? Based on a qualitative study of a large-scale mediated communication intervention mandated by the British Foreign Commonwealth Office and the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs to promote reconciliation and democratize media systems in the successor states to the former Yugoslavia in 2005 (Enghel, 2014), this paper examines forms of media engagement at work in donor-driven international development communication and considers their uses as components of a politics of mediation." (Abstract)
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"In the development communication equation, whether more theoretical, empirical and analytical attention is given to ‘development’ or to ‘communication’ makes a difference: where the emphasis is on development, it is at the expense of communication. Since communication and media arguably pla
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y an increasingly pervasive role in the everyday life of citizens and in the politics, economies and governance of most societies, the characteristics and role of specific forms of applied communication strategies in the context of the neoliberal project merit critical scrutiny. Given a complex global scenario, what can a political economy approach bring into an agenda for the future of development communication as a field of study, a practice and an institutional project? This article outlines ways in which a focus on political economy dimensions may contribute to understanding the obstacles and limits to a transformative practice of international development communication." (Abstract)
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"To a certain extent the field's shortcomings could be the consequence of academic work increasingly trapped in the normativity of the development industry and out of touch with the variety of agents concerned with social injustice worldwide, who are deploying communication and media strategies to a
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dvance their struggles." (Page 134)
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"This study focuses on the institutional practice of international development communication. Through a qualitative study of the Videoletters project, it examines a situated process of intervention in its complexity and analyzes how the specifics of mediation illuminate issues of proximity and dista
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nce in the relationship between bilateral funders, the citizens of the countries that their intervention claims to assist, and the governance structures of the countries intervened. Videoletters was a media-driven intervention aimed at reconnecting ordinary people affected by ethno-political divisions across the former Yugoslavia between 2000 and 2005. Adopted by European bilateral funders for large-scale implementation, the project was categorized as a “tool for reconciliation”. The study explores how this specific intervention was initiated, implemented, circulated and evaluated in practice. Issues of ethics and accountability at stake in the process are analyzed in relation to a framework of global justice. Findings indicate that mediated communication intervention may be embraced by bilateral funders for its potential to make them look good in the eyes of Western audiences beyond discourses about its potential to do good for the citizens of troubled countries. By linking international development communication to a framework of justice, the study contributes to a critical agenda for theorization and research that takes accountability into consideration and puts citizens at the center." (Back cover)
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"The Yearbook 2009 focuses on youth as a generation of actors and citizens who are increasingly exposed to and making use of media/ICT for entertainment and informational purposes, for social networking and mobilization, and for knowledge sharing. At the core of this creativity and these innovative
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practices is media and information literacy. Young people’s competence in using media, their ability to produce, understand and interact with the multiplicity of both new and old media formats and technologies have been instrumental in the manifestation of social processes of change. This book seeks to explore theoretical assumptions as well as empirical evidence of media and information literacy in action. But it also gathers examples of how youth in developing countries have used their skills to bring about change." (Publisher description)
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