"We conducted a meta-analytic study of recent (2009 to 2020) information and communication technologies for development (ICT4D) research in the field of development communication. Our aim was to explore the conceptualization of participation in the context of ICTs and globalization in contemporary s
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cholarly discourse. We found that most studies published during this period evinced a technological deterministic discourse regarding the process of social change, privileging modernization and neoliberal modes of development. In such contexts, participation has often been conceptualized in terms of invitations to ‘access’ (first-level of participation) and ‘empowerment’ (second-level of participation) at the local level. Despite increasing concern regarding global digital inequalities, research that approaches participation in terms of claims to ‘social justice’ (third-level of participation) associated with global forces has been limited. We found, however, that research emerging from the communication and media disciplines have shown skepticism regarding the dominant trends. The paper concludes with a discussion of future directions in ICT4D for scholars across disciplines." (Abstract)
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"Drawing on a content analysis of 263 news articles on US development assistance from 2011 to 2020 across three US media outlets, the study investigates the media's performance in covering and representing US development assistance to the public. The analysis reveals that the media focus their cover
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age of US development assistance based on geopolitical interests and high-profile stories of aid, and fail to critically and comprehensively follow up on them after their announcement. The media dominantly portrayed development assistance in terms of materialistic aid, uncritically justified as “doing good,” while attributing its de-legitimacy to the recipients’ inability and leaving the global North's dysfunctional aid system unquestioned. Such modernistic representation was further supported by the dominance of the Western voice in speaking about what development assistance is and why it matters. To promote better practices for “news about development,” the study suggests that journalism should pay critical attention to the political economy of development communication and adopt a postcolonial communication approach to decenter the hegemonic conventions of journalism grounded in Western experiences." (Abstract)
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"The Brazilian educator Paulo Freire (1921-1997) is one of the most important thinkers of the 21st century, figuring among the most quoted authors in the fields of education and social sciences all over the world. He is also a core reference to an infinite number of grassroots and activist initiativ
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es globally. This book celebrates his birth centennial with a collection of 19 contributions from both experienced and young media and communication scholars and activists working in 11 countries. They reflect and debate Freire’s principles and ideas, revisiting their origins and interrogating their relevance to current challenges and struggles. The result can be summarized as a claim for affect as the core feature of social change and a tool for yielding resistance." (Publisher description)
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"We offer a comprehensive analysis of media advocacy, pointing out its challenges and limitations and build towards an argument for proposing a holistic conception of ‘advocacy communication’ for achieving social justice. Media advocacy faces several challenges in practice, as it is often inhibi
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ted by political and economic contexts, and in theory, through a conceptualization of participatory governance as elitist. Critical analyses raise additional challenges to the potential for media advocacy as an approach for social justice, facing concerns with representational practices. Recognizing these challenges, we propose a more comprehensive, yet reflective approach that we call ‘advocacy communication’ for social justice, not limited to the categorical understanding of different communication for social change strategies. By examining different cases of advocacy communication and relying on Sen’s freedom-centered approach, we demonstrate how advocacy must articulate the connections across freedoms “to” and freedoms “from” in ways that privilege agency in inclusion and representation." (Abstract)
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"Development institutions communicate about development through mediated communication strategies. The advent of image-intensive digital spaces such as Instagram has facilitated communication for these institutions, making ‘development’ more accessible to the public. However, the representation
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of development in these institutional digital spaces remains largely unexamined. By conceptualising Instagram as an emerging context for the ‘public face of development’, we conducted a content analysis of 300 Instagram posts by three major bilateral development agencies (USAID, DFID, and SIDA) in order to address critical questions concerning how they communicated about development agendas, subjects, and processes of development to the public. The study reveals that these representations of development in digital space largely adhere to feminised and infantilised visions of ‘ideal victimhood’ when projecting ‘what’ and ‘who’ should receive attention. These representations thus served to justify the Western-centred, neoliberal modes of development. Overall, these agencies’ communicative patterns regarding ‘how development can be achieved’ articulate perspectives on development to ‘look-good’ at home and ‘do-good’ abroad that make social change seem readily achievable." (Abstract)
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