Global Media Activism explores how activists in transnational social movement networks use media and communication – not only to broadcast messages but to produce knowledge, build solidarity, and articulate visions for social change.
Based on fifteen years of research, it takes as its central case study the World Social Forum, a global civil society gathering that has met regularly since 2001 under the slogan ‘another world is possible’. Resisting the tendency to focus only on the newest technologies, the book takes a longer-term view, exploring diverse forms of media activism that have developed since the turn of the millennium – with particular attention to practices that have emerged from the global South.
The book combines theoretical rigour with rich ethnographic detail through drawing on decolonial theory, critical pedagogy, and media practices. Its organising concept is that of ‘emancipatory global publics’: communities constituted across borders through media and communication practices, oriented not merely towards inclusion in dominant publics but towards the articulation of alternatives to prevailing social, economic, and political orders.
Global Media Activism: Practices, Pedagogy, Publics offers a nuanced view of the role of communication in social movements and will be of interest to activists, students and scholars of social movements, media activism, and global politics.