Monográfico 1 (2024): Communication, social justice and media reform

 

Communication, social justice and media reform

In the current context of planetary crisis and inequality, communication and media are strategic spaces from which to work for fairer, more representative and socially and ecologically responsible societies. Hence the importance of generating debates and reflections on all those media or discursive processes, platforms, networks and practices that help improve the redistribution of resources and the cultural recognition of the majority.

Since the publication of milestones such as the Hutchins Report (1947) in the US or the McBride Report (1980) by UNESCO, several journalism and communications schools and perspectives have aimed to recover the social function of news and information production and to connect communication with processes of social and political justice and ecosocial transition. In the English-speaking context, debates such as public or civic journalism, peace journalism, intercultural communication, and, in recent times, solutions journalism, feminist, human-rights, decolonial and anti-racist communications, have stood out. In Latin American and in the Global South context, approaches have been frequent from perspectives such as popular and community communication, educommunication, or communication for development and social change, lastly from a critical decolonial perspective.

In recent years, these objectives have been connected with the theoretical proposals of "media reform" (Davis et al., 2020; Freedman, 2014; Hackett & Carroll, 2006; McChesney, 2009; Napoli, 2007; Obar et al., 2016; Park, 2021; Barranquero, 2019), a notion which claims the need to build broad alliances between different sectors – public, private and community – in order to improve the functioning of the media and engage them in the promotion of values such as responsible and informative journalism in the pursuit of justice, public welfare and democracy.

Strengthening these networks also implies taking into consideration the role that different actors have historically played in the democratization of the media system, among others: social movements, NGOs and NGDOs; academics and universities; trade unions and professional associations; press and media consumer associations; observatories and media watchdogs; community and citizen media, hacker groups and technopolitical organizations; etc.

Finally, the construction of media reform networks involves moving from fragmented and specialized approaches towards a consideration of the increasingly evident links between the local and the global; the social and the environmental; the intersectional (eg connections and reinforcement between gender, class and race/ethnicity) and broad frameworks such as Human Rights and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).

Thematic lines:

Situated on these axes, this monograph invites the academic community to ascribe conceptual, methodological or empirical works to one of the following research lines:

- Projects undertaken by social movements, NGOs, universities, etc. with the specific objective of supervising the journalistic work carried out by the media, for example, analyzing their ownership structure; the political and economic determinants and their implications; their staff composition, hiring and promotion practices, media coverage of different issues; and their reporting abusive or unethical practices, etc.

- Campaigns, audiovisual and cinematographic productions or cultural or artistic works built from the participation of different actors (eg community and social movements, academia) that critically address media-related issues.

- Citizen mobilizations, and political or legal initiatives arising from civil society focused on proposing concrete democratization reforms in the media system.

- Critical edu-communicative processes with, from or about the media.

- Journalistic projects aimed at media literacy, awareness, denunciation of unethical media practices, and combating disinformation and hate speech.

- Organizational models, citizen participation and sustainability of communication projects promoted by civil society organizations.

As part of these axes, the academic community is invited to think about theoretical or empirical works that link the processes of transformation and eco-social justice with communication and the democratization of the media, examining, for example, the contributions of media and media workers, social justice movements, NGOs, universities and other groups to encourage social debate on the public service function of journalism and news and information production; the defense of plurality and freedom of information; or the promotion of a deliberative perspective of democracy.

NOTE: This monograph is part of the research project "Sustainability of the Third Communication Sector. Design and Application of Indicators" (SOSCom) [PID2020-113011RB-I00 funded by MCIN/ AEI/ 10.13039/501100011033], and is connected to the research an action lines of the Research Network on Community, Alternative and Participatory Communication (RICCAP).

Keywords: Media reform, Third Sector of Communication, Community media, Educommunication, Social movements, NGO, Social responsibility.

Deadline: March 20, 2023.

 

Coordinators

Alejandro Barranquero

Lecturer in the Department of Communication at the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid.

Associate Professor at the Communication and Media Studies Department at Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M). Doctor in Journalism and Bachelor of Journalism and Audiovisual Communication at the University of Malaga, he completed his studies at the Complutense University of Madrid, where he specializes in Historical Materialism and Critical Theory, Communication and Political Management, and Communication and Arts. He is the author and co-author of different writings about: communication for development and social change, community and citizen media, educommunication, environmental communication and human-rights journalism. He is director of the Thematic Group “Communication and Citizenship” of the Spanish Association for Communication Research (AE-IC); founder and director of RICCAP and of the Communication, Politics and Citizenship (CPyP) research group at UC3M; and member of the MDCS research group at UCM. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9264-9389

Dorothy Kidd

D. in communication from the School of Communications at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, specialising in international development.

PhD in communication from the School of Communications at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, specializing in international development. Her research agenda is broadly related to the role of grassroots communication and social movements in the promotion of social and environmental justice. She has worked as a popular communicator, trainer, consultant and advocate in community radio, documentary film and video, and solidarity communication projects. Her research has been circulated in academic and non-academic publications, including Popular Communication, Information, Communication & Society, Mediaciones, the Journal of Alternative and Community Media, Project Censored and Peace Review. She teaches media studies at the University of San Francisco in California. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3813-2549

 

José Candón-Mena

Lecturer in the Department of Audiovisual Communication and Advertising at the University of Seville.

 

Associate Professor at the Department of Audiovisual Communication and Advertising at the University of Sevilla. Doctor in Communication Sciences and Sociology and Extraordinary Doctorate Award from Universidad Complutense de Madrid; Bachelor of Advertising and Public Relations from the University of Malaga, Master in Communication of Public and Political Institutions from the UCM, and Master in Teaching and Research for Higher Education by the UNED. Researcher of the Interdisciplinary Group of Studies in Communication, Politics and Social Change (COMPOLÍTICAS). Founding member of RICCAP and the Ibero-American Research Network on Urban Policies, Conflicts and Movements. His research lines comprise: community and citizen media; social advertising; communication, NGOs and social movements; technopolitics, digital and deliberative democracy; and social appropriation of ICTs. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1070-4987