- 309 Regent Street
London W1B 2UW
Hilde C. Stephansen
University of Westminster, Social Sciences, Faculty Member
- University of Westminster, History, Sociology and Criminology, Faculty Memberadd
- Sociology, Social Justice, Global Justice, Social Movements, Media and Cultural Studies, Academia and Activism, and 35 moreInternet & Society, Communication, Media Sociology, Interface Journal, Globalization, Feminist Sociology, Political Sociology, Public Sphere, Transnational Social Movements, Alter-globalization, New Media, Critical Pedagogy, Civil Society and the Public Sphere, Alternative Media, Global Civil Society, Activist Ethnography, World Social Forums, Higher Education, Protest Movements, Occupy Movement, Internet Studies, Political Participation, Protest, New Media and Political Activism, Web 2.0, Digital Media, Citizen Journalism, Radical Media, Mediatization (Communication Studies), Social Media, Social Activism, Digital Activism, Media Studies, Social Change, and Antiglobalization Social Movementsedit
- Situated at the intersection of critical political sociology with media and communication studies, my research intere... moreSituated at the intersection of critical political sociology with media and communication studies, my research interests include publics and public sphere theory, transnational social movement networks; citizens' media and media activism; participation and democracy.
I currently work as a Lecturer in Sociology in the Department of History, Sociology and Criminology where I teach across a range of course modules covering social movements, media and cultural studies, contemporary social theory, and research methods.
I have previously worked at the Open University, where I researched contemporary forms of participation and public engagement, and in the Department of Media and Communication at Goldsmiths, on a project that explored the social and digital conditions for narrative exchange and knowledge production.
I received my PhD in Sociology from Goldsmiths, University of London, in January 2012. My thesis explored the character and significance of media and communication in the World Social Forum, focusing on their relationship to processes of knowledge production and to the politics of place and scale in transnational social movement networks.edit
The term 'acting on media' has been proposed (Kubitschko, 2018) as a way to capture activism that focuses explicitly on media technologies, infrastructures, and policies-thus opening up media practice research to a wider range of... more
The term 'acting on media' has been proposed (Kubitschko, 2018) as a way to capture activism that focuses explicitly on media technologies, infrastructures, and policies-thus opening up media practice research to a wider range of practices beyond those that involve doing things with media. This chapter further draws out the implications of this conceptual move by problematizing the role of knowledge in media practices. While knowledge has been understood as integral to media practices, it has a contested status among practice theorists, who reject the 'mentalism' and rationalist assumptions of much modern social thought. Through a critical review of different conceptualizations of knowledge in practice theory, I argue that activities such as theorizing, reflecting, and analysing should themselves be treated as social practices, and that these kinds of 'knowledge practices' should be analysed as a core dimension of media practices. I draw on literature on knowledge production in social movements to develop a framework for analysing such knowledge practices, and illustrate the utility of this framework through a brief case study of the World Forum of Free Media, a global gathering of NGOs and activist groups that mobilize around media and communication.
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This chapter explores the past, assesses the present and delineates the future of a media practice approach to citizen media. The first section provides an extensive overview of the different currents in research on media practices,... more
This chapter explores the past, assesses the present and delineates the future of a media practice approach to citizen media. The first section provides an extensive overview of the different currents in research on media practices, identifying the antecedents of the media practice approach in several theoretical traditions and highlighting possible points of convergence between them. Hence, we ground the roots of the practice approach in Latin American communication and media studies, we scrutinize Couldry's conceptualization in connection to theories of practices within the social sciences, and we examine audience research, media anthropology, social movement studies, citizen and alternative media, and Communication for Development and Social Change. The second section takes stock of the current 'state of the art' of practice-focused research on citizen and activist media and develops a critical assessment of how the concept of media practices has been used in recent literature, identifying key strengths and shortcomings. In this section, we also discuss the integration of media practices with other concepts, such as mediation, mediatization, media ecologies, media archeology, media imaginaries, and the public sphere. The third section delineates future directions for research on citizen media and practice, reflecting on some of the challenges facing this growing interdisciplinary field. Here, we illustrate how the media practice approach provides a powerful framework for researching the pressing challenges posed by mediatization and datafication. Further, we highlight the need for deeper theoretical engagement, underline the necessity of dialogue between different traditions, and point out some unresolved issues and limitations. The chapter concludes with an outline of the contributions to this edited collection.
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Much recent commentary on citizen media has focused on online platforms as means through which citizens may disseminate self-produced media content that challenges dominant discourses or makes visible hidden realities. This chapter goes... more
Much recent commentary on citizen media has focused on online platforms as means through which citizens may disseminate self-produced media content that challenges dominant discourses or makes visible hidden realities. This chapter goes beyond a concern with media content to explore the much broader range of socially situated practices that develop around citizen media. Drawing on Couldry’s proposal for a practice paradigm in media research, it suggests shifting the focus from ‘citizen media’ to ‘citizen media practices’ and demonstrates, through a case study of communication activism in the World Social Forum, how this framework can bring into view a broad range of citizen media practices (beyond those directly concerned with the production and circulation of media content), the different forms of agency that such practices make possible, and the social fabric they can help generate. I conclude by arguing that a practice framework necessitates a rethink of the way that the concept of (counter-) publics is used in the context of citizen media. Citizen media practices of the kind described here can be understood not only as practices of ‘making public’ previously unreported issues and perspectives, but as practices of public-making: practices that support the formation of publics.
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This article contributes to debate about how to conceptualize the global public sphere. Drawing on media practice theory and ethnographic research on media activism in the World Social Forum, it shows how ‘global publics’ can be... more
This article contributes to debate about how to conceptualize the global public sphere. Drawing on media practice theory and ethnographic research on media activism in the World Social Forum, it shows how ‘global publics’ can be constituted through a diverse range of activist communication practices that complicate both conventional hierarchies of scale and contemporary theorizations of publics as personalized networks. It develops an understanding of the global public sphere as an emergent formation made up of multiple, interlinked publics at different scales and emphasizes the significance of collective communication spaces for actors at the margins of the global network society.
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Más que simples herramientas usadas por los movimientos sociales para alcanzar otros importantes objetivos, los medios de comunicación se están transformando cada vez más en sujetos del activismo. Este artículo contribuye a avanzar en la... more
Más que simples herramientas usadas por los movimientos sociales para alcanzar otros importantes objetivos, los medios de comunicación se están transformando cada vez más en sujetos del activismo. Este artículo contribuye a avanzar en la comprensión de tal activismo enfocado en los medios mediante un estudio de caso del Foro Mundial de Medios Libres, un foro temático para activistas de los medios y organizaciones de apoyo a los mismos, conectados al Foro Social Mundial. Con base en la investigación cualitativa realizada entre el 2008 y el 2016—incluyendo las observaciones de los participantes, entrevistas exhaustivas y análisis textuales—el artículo explora hasta qué punto el Foro Mundial de Medios Libres puede ser considerado un movimiento de ‘medios libres’ en gestación, y examina algunos de los retos y contradicciones que tal proyecto de construcción de un movimiento exige. Elaborando sobre la teoría de los movimientos sociales, específicamente el concepto de identidad colectiva, analiza los esfuerzos de los organizadores del foro para movilizar una gama muy diversa de protagonistas— desde activistas de medios de comunicación alternativos hasta ONGs de políticas y apoyo—alrededor de una identidad de ‘medios libres’ plurales e inclusivos. Mientras el Foro Mundial de los Medios Libres ha tenido éxito, hasta cierto punto, en facilitar la convergencia en torno a un conjunto de principios e ideas centrales, ha luchado hasta ahora para desarrollar una clara identidad pública y movilizar una amplia base popular.
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More than simply tools used by social movements to reach other substantive aims, media are increasingly becoming subjects of activism. This article contributes to advancing understanding of such media-focused activism through a case study... more
More than simply tools used by social movements to reach other substantive aims, media are increasingly becoming subjects of activism. This article contributes to advancing understanding of such media-focused activism through a case study of the World Forum of Free Media, a thematic forum for media activists and media advocacy organisations linked to the World Social Forum. Based on qualitative research conducted between 2008 and 2016—including participant observation, in-depth interviews and textual analysis—the article critically explores the extent to which the World Forum of Free Media can be considered a 'free media' movement in the making, and examines some of the challenges and contradictions that such a movement-building project entails. Drawing on social movement theory, specifically the concept of collective identity , it analyses efforts by forum organisers to mobilise a very diverse range of actors—from alternative media activists to policy-and advocacy NGOs—around a plural and inclusive 'free media' identity. While the World Forum of Free Media has to some extent succeeded in facilitating convergence around a set of core principles and ideas, it has so far struggled to develop a clear outwards-facing identity and mobilise a broad grassroots base.
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Though there is now growing commitment to publicly engaged research, the role and definition of the public in such processes is wide-ranging, contested and often rather vague. This article addresses this problem by showing that, although... more
Though there is now growing commitment to publicly engaged research, the role and definition of the public in such processes is wide-ranging, contested and often rather vague. This article addresses this problem by showing that, although there is no single agreed upon theory or way of being public, it is still possible and very important to develop clear, public-centric, understandings of engaged research practice. The article introduces a multidimensional framework based on the theoretical literature on the 'public', and demonstrates – in the context of a recent engaged research project – how it is possible to conceptualize, design and evaluate context-specific formations of the public. Starting from an understanding of publics as mediated and dynamic entities, the article seeks to illuminate some of the choices that researchers face and how the framework can help them navigate these. This article is for all those interested in what it means to address, support and account for an engaged public in contemporary settings. ● Contemporary publics are dynamic, mediated, contextually variable and multidimensional entities – there is simply much more to the public than it being an entity that already exists 'out there' waiting to be engaged. ● The theoretical literature on the public provides a rich set of resources that those involved in public engagement should draw on to: analyse and understand the specificities of different publics; help them consider and navigate what is at stake in the choices and trade-offs that there will inevitably be when planning and conducting engagement projects; and more clearly specify how public-engagement activities are being designed to have wider societal relevance and to contribute to the public good. ● To enhance the quality, rigour and sophistication of public-engagement evaluation, further support should be provided to conceptually informed, contextually grounded and reflexive assessments of the ways that publics are engaged by particular projects and to what emerges from these processes.
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Currently missing from critical literature on public engagement with academic research is a public-centric analysis of the wider contemporary context of developments in the field of public engagement and participation. Drawing on three... more
Currently missing from critical literature on public engagement with academic research is a public-centric analysis of the wider contemporary context of developments in the field of public engagement and participation. Drawing on three differently useful strands of the existing theoretical literature on the public, this article compares a diverse sample of 100 participatory public engagement initiatives in order to first, analyse a selection of the myriad ways that the public is being constituted and supported across this contemporary field and second, identify what socio-cultural researchers might learn from these developments. Emerging from this research is a preliminary map of the field of public engagement and participation. This map highlights relationships and divergences that exist among diverse forms of practice and brings into clearer view a set of tensions between different contemporary approaches to public engagement and participation. Two 'frontiers' of participatory public engagement that socio-cultural researchers should attend are also identified. At the first, scholars need to be critical regarding the particular versions of the public that their preferred approach to engagement and participation supports and concerning how their specific identifications with the public relate to those being addressed across the wider field. At the second frontier, researchers need to consider the possibilities for political intervention that public engagement and participation practice could open out, both in the settings they are already working and also in the much broader, rapidly developing and increasingly complicated contemporary field of public engagement and participation that this article explores.
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This article contributes to an emerging field of ‘small data’ research on Twitter by presenting a case study of how teachers and students at a sixth-form college in the north of England used this social media platform to help construct a... more
This article contributes to an emerging field of ‘small data’ research on Twitter by presenting a case study of how teachers and students at a sixth-form college in the north of England used this social media platform to help construct a ‘community of practice’ that enabled micro-processes of recognition and mutual learning. Conducted as part of a broader action research project that focused on the ‘digital story circle’ as a site of, and for, narrative exchange and knowledge production, this study takes the form of a detailed analysis of a departmental Twitter account, combining basic quantitative metrics, close reading of selected Twitter data and qualitative interviews with teachers and students. Working with (and sometimes against) Twitter's platform architecture, teachers and students constructed, through distinct patterns of use, a shared space for dialogue that facilitated community building within the department. On the whole, they were able to overcome justified anxieties about professionalism and privacy; this was achieved by building on high levels of pre-existing trust among staff and by performing that mutual trust online through personal modes of communication. Through micro-processes of recognition and a breaking down of conventional hierarchies that affirmed students' agency as knowledge producers, the departmental Twitter account enabled mutual learning beyond curriculum and classroom. The significance of such micro-processes could only have been uncovered through the detailed scrutiny that a ‘small data’ approach to Twitter, in supplement to some obvious virtues of Big Data approaches, is particularly well placed to provide.
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This article explores the possibilities for new forms of ‘digital citizenship’ currently emerging through digitally supported processes of narrative exchange. Using Dahlgren's (Dahlgren, P. 2003. “Reconfiguring Civic Culture in the New... more
This article explores the possibilities for new forms of ‘digital citizenship’ currently emerging through digitally supported processes of narrative exchange. Using Dahlgren's (Dahlgren, P. 2003. “Reconfiguring Civic Culture in the New Media Milieu.” In Media and the Restyling of Politics, edited by J. Corner, and D. Pels, 151–170. London: Sage; Dahlgren, P. 2009. Media and Political Engagement. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.) circuit of ‘civic culture’ as a model for exploring the interlinking preconditions for new acts of citizenship, we discuss the contrasting outcomes of research at three fieldwork sites in the North of England – educational (a sixth form college), civil society (a community reporters' network) and social (a local club). Each site provided clear evidence of the elements of Dahlgren's circuit (some depending on the intensive use of digital infrastructure, others predating it), but there were also breaks in the circuit that constrained its effectiveness. A crucial factor in each case for building a lasting circuit of civic culture (and an effective base for new forms of digital citizenship) is the role that digital infrastructure can play in extending the scale of interactions beyond the purely local.
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This article explores how communication activists in Belém, Brazil, engaged with the 2009 World Social Forum (WSF) when it arrived in their city and sought to take advantage of the opportunity it offered to strengthen and gain visibility... more
This article explores how communication activists in Belém, Brazil, engaged with the 2009 World Social Forum (WSF) when it arrived in their city and sought to take advantage of the opportunity it offered to strengthen and gain visibility for place-based movements in the Amazon. While the WSF has enabled an unprecedented diversity of movements to exchange knowledges and experiences, and to a certain extent succeeded in “giving voice” to marginalised groups, it also has continued to suffer from its own hierarchies and exclusions. These are evident, inter alia, in the asymmetrical relationship that exists between “local” grassroots groups and “global” cosmopolitan elites. Emphasising the centrality of place to the construction of alternative epistemological imaginaries, the article analyses efforts by communication activists to facilitate autonomous processes of knowledge production among movements in the Amazon. At once place-based and transnational in scope, their communication strategies challenge conventional hierarchies of scale and highlight the importance of grassroots movements appropriating communication technologies for their own purposes. At stake here is not simply the inclusion of “local subalterns” within the “global” WSF, but the construction of communication networks that can support the proliferation of alternative knowledge projects at different scales, within and beyond the WSF.
Research Interests: Cultural Studies, Political Sociology, Social Movements, Gender Studies, Media and Cultural Studies, and 16 moreGlobalization, Space and Place, Critical Pedagogy, Critical Race Theory, Global Justice, Amazonia, Globalization And Postcolonial Studies, Violence Against Women, Latin American social movements, Transnational Feminism, World Social Forums, Community Education, Globalization, Alter-Globalization, Antiglobalization, Globalization from Below, World Social Forum, Terrorism, New Media, Ecology, Postcolonial feminisms, Human Rights and Social Justice, and Resistance Formation
Communication technologies occupy a central place in contemporary theorizations of transnational social movement networks. Not only does the internet provide the technical infrastructure through which activists communicate and share... more
Communication technologies occupy a central place in contemporary theorizations of transnational social movement networks. Not only does the internet provide the technical infrastructure through which activists communicate and share information, increasing their capacity to introduce oppositional messages into the public realm (Castells); its network architecture is also closely linked to the organizational logic of contemporary social justice movements (Juris). While recognizing the fundamental importance of communication technologies for such movements, this article cautions against overly disembodied conceptions of transnational activist networks and highlights the need to pay attention to issues of place and scale, as well as the importance of affect in the construction of alternative global imaginaries. Through a case study of a small social forum event held in February 2010 in a poor urban community in the south of Brazil as part of the World Social Forum process, the article examines activists’ use of communication technologies to construct transnational networks between different place-based actors. It shows that these practices are not simply concerned with establishing links between already existing places; the creation of networks is also inextricably bound up with particular constructions of place. By engaging in a politics that is simultaneously place-based and global in scope, these actors challenge traditional conceptions of scale as well as dominant epistemological paradigms.
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This article explores the possibilities for new forms of ‘digital citizenship’ currently emerging through digitally supported processes of narrative exchange. Using Dahlgren's (Dahlgren, P. 2003. “Reconfiguring Civic Culture in the New... more
This article explores the possibilities for new forms of ‘digital citizenship’ currently emerging through digitally supported processes of narrative exchange. Using Dahlgren's (Dahlgren, P. 2003. “Reconfiguring Civic Culture in the New Media Milieu.” In Media and the Restyling of Politics, edited by J. Corner, and D. Pels, 151–170. London: Sage; Dahlgren, P. 2009. Media and Political Engagement. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.) circuit of ‘civic culture’ as a model for exploring the interlinking preconditions for new acts of citizenship, we discuss the contrasting outcomes of research at three fieldwork sites in the North of England – educational (a sixth form college), civil society (a community reporters' network) and social (a local club). Each site provided clear evidence of the elements of Dahlgren's circuit (some depending on the intensive use of digital infrastructure, others predating it), but there were also breaks in the circuit that constrained its effectiveness. A crucial factor in each case for building a lasting circuit of civic culture (and an effective base for new forms of digital citizenship) is the role that digital infrastructure can play in extending the scale of interactions beyond the purely local.
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This article explores the possibilities for new forms of ‘digital citizenship’ currently emerging through digitally supported processes of narrative exchange. Using Dahlgren's (Dahlgren, P. 2003. “Reconfiguring Civic Culture in the New... more
This article explores the possibilities for new forms of ‘digital citizenship’ currently emerging through digitally supported processes of narrative exchange. Using Dahlgren's (Dahlgren, P. 2003. “Reconfiguring Civic Culture in the New Media Milieu.” In Media and the Restyling of Politics, edited by J. Corner, and D. Pels, 151–170. London: Sage; Dahlgren, P. 2009. Media and Political Engagement. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.) circuit of ‘civic culture’ as a model for exploring the interlinking preconditions for new acts of citizenship, we discuss the contrasting outcomes of research at three fieldwork sites in the North of England – educational (a sixth form college), civil society (a community reporters' network) and social (a local club). Each site provided clear evidence of the elements of Dahlgren's circuit (some depending on the intensive use of digital infrastructure, others predating it), but there were also breaks in the circuit that constrained its effectiveness. A crucial factor in each case for building a lasting circuit of civic culture (and an effective base for new forms of digital citizenship) is the role that digital infrastructure can play in extending the scale of interactions beyond the purely local.
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Research Interests: Geography, Environmental Health, Physical Activity, Multi-level Analysis, Public Health, and 15 moreBeliefs, Medicine, Multidisciplinary, England, Level Design, Humans, Environmental public health, Intentions, Regression Analysis, Exercise, Article, Human Factors and Ergonomics, Urban Population, Cross Sectional Studies, and Environment
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The term 'acting on media' has been proposed (Kubitschko, 2018) as a way to capture activism that focuses explicitly on media technologies, infrastructures, and policies-thus opening up media practice research to a wider... more
The term 'acting on media' has been proposed (Kubitschko, 2018) as a way to capture activism that focuses explicitly on media technologies, infrastructures, and policies-thus opening up media practice research to a wider range of practices beyond those that involve doing things with media. This chapter further draws out the implications of this conceptual move by problematizing the role of knowledge in media practices. While knowledge has been understood as integral to media practices, it has a contested status among practice theorists, who reject the 'mentalism' and rationalist assumptions of much modern social thought. Through a critical review of different conceptualizations of knowledge in practice theory, I argue that activities such as theorizing, reflecting, and analysing should themselves be treated as social practices, and that these kinds of 'knowledge practices' should be analysed as a core dimension of media practices. I draw on literature on knowledge production in social movements to develop a framework for analysing such knowledge practices, and illustrate the utility of this framework through a brief case study of the World Forum of Free Media, a global gathering of NGOs and activist groups that mobilize around media and communication.
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Much recent commentary on citizen media has focused on online platforms as means through which citizens may disseminate self-produced media content that challenges dominant discourses or makes visible hidden realities. This chapter goes... more
Much recent commentary on citizen media has focused on online platforms as means through which citizens may disseminate self-produced media content that challenges dominant discourses or makes visible hidden realities. This chapter goes beyond a concern with media content to explore the much broader range of socially situated practices that develop around citizen media. Drawing on Couldry’s proposal for a practice paradigm in media research, it suggests shifting the focus from ‘citizen media’ to ‘citizen media practices’ and demonstrates, through a case study of communication activism in the World Social Forum, how this framework can bring into view a broad range of citizen media practices (beyond those directly concerned with the production and circulation of media content), the different forms of agency that such practices make possible, and the social fabric they can help generate. I conclude by arguing that a practice framework necessitates a rethink of the way that the concept ...
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This article contributes to debate about how to conceptualize the global public sphere. Drawing on media practice theory and ethnographic research on media activism in the World Social Forum, it shows how ‘global publics’ can be... more
This article contributes to debate about how to conceptualize the global public sphere. Drawing on media practice theory and ethnographic research on media activism in the World Social Forum, it shows how ‘global publics’ can be constituted through a diverse range of activist communication practices that complicate both conventional hierarchies of scale and contemporary theorizations of publics as personalized networks. It develops an understanding of the global public sphere as an emergent formation made up of multiple, interlinked publics at different scales and emphasizes the significance of collective communication spaces for actors at the margins of the global network society.
Research Interests: Sociology, Globalization, Practice theory, Media Activism, Network Society, and 10 moreCivil Society and the Public Sphere, Global Justice Movement, World Social Forums, New Media and Political Activism, Citizen media, Media Practice, Language Culture and Communication, Publics, Publics and Counterpublics, and Global media and communication policy
More than simply tools used by social movements to reach other substantive aims, media are increasingly becoming <em>subjects</em> of activism. This article contributes to advancing understanding of such media-focused activism... more
More than simply tools used by social movements to reach other substantive aims, media are increasingly becoming <em>subjects</em> of activism. This article contributes to advancing understanding of such media-focused activism through a case study of the World Forum of Free Media, a thematic forum for media activists and media advocacy organisations linked to the World Social Forum. Based on qualitative research conducted between 2008 and 2016—including participant observation, in-depth interviews and textual analysis—the article critically explores the extent to which the World Forum of Free Media can be considered a ‘free media’ movement in the making, and examines some of the challenges and contradictions that such a movement-building project entails. Drawing on social movement theory, specifically the concept of collective identity, it analyses efforts by forum organisers to mobilise a very diverse range of actors—from alternative media activists to policy- and advoc...
Research Interests: Communication, Media Studies, New Media, Digital Media, Media Activism, and 15 moreMedia, Media Law, Alternative Media, Democracy, Freedom of Information, Collective Identity, Alternative, Media Communication, Communication Rights, Demokratie, Medien, Cogitatio, Kommunikation, Informationsfreiheit, and Medienrecht
Though there is now growing commitment to publicly engaged research, the role and definition of the public in such processes is wide-ranging, contested and often rather vague. This article addresses this problem by showing that, although... more
Though there is now growing commitment to publicly engaged research, the role and definition of the public in such processes is wide-ranging, contested and often rather vague. This article addresses this problem by showing that, although there is no single agreed upon theory or way of being public, it is still possible and very important to develop clear, public-centric , understandings of engaged research practice. The article introduces a multidimensional framework based on the theoretical literature on the 'public', and demonstrates – in the context of a recent engaged research project – how it is possible to conceptualize, design and evaluate context-specific formations of the public. Starting from an understanding of publics as mediated and dynamic entities, the article seeks to illuminate some of the choices that researchers face and how the framework can help them navigate these. This article is for all those interested in what it means to address, support and account...
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Currently missing from critical literature on public engagement with academic research is a public-centric analysis of the wider contemporary context of developments in the field of public engagement and participation. Drawing on three... more
Currently missing from critical literature on public engagement with academic research is a public-centric analysis of the wider contemporary context of developments in the field of public engagement and participation. Drawing on three differently useful strands of the existing theoretical literature on the public, this article compares a diverse sample of 100 participatory public engagement initiatives in order to first, analyse a selection of the myriad ways that the public is being constituted and supported across this contemporary field and second, identify what socio-cultural researchers might learn from these developments. Emerging from this research is a preliminary map of the field of public engagement and participation. This map highlights relationships and divergences that exist among diverse forms of practice and brings into clearer view a set of tensions between different contemporary approaches to public engagement and participation. Two ‘frontiers’ of participatory pub...
Research Interests: Cultural Studies, Participatory Action Research, Participatory Culture, Impact Evaluation, Participation, and 15 moreCivil Society and the Public Sphere, Civic Engagement, Activism, Community Based Participatory Research, European Public Sphere, Citizen participation, Participatory Decision Making, Participatory and Relational Arts, Communication and media Studies, Engaged Research, European Cultural Studies, Community Engaged Research, Community participation and engagement, Impact of Social Sciences and Humanities, and Commercial Services
Building on the principles of the digital storytelling movement, this article asks whether the narrative exchange within the ‘storycircles’ of storymakers created in face-to-face workshops can be further replicated by drawing on digital... more
Building on the principles of the digital storytelling movement, this article asks whether the narrative exchange within the ‘storycircles’ of storymakers created in face-to-face workshops can be further replicated by drawing on digital infrastructure in specific ways. It addresses this question by reporting on the successes and limitations of a five-stream project of funded action research with partners in north-west England that explored the contribution of digital infrastructure to processes of narrative exchange and the wider processes of mutual recognition that flow from narrative exchange. Three main dimensions of a digital storycircle are explored: multiplications, spatializations (or the building of narratives around sets of individual narratives), and habits of mutual recognition. Limitations relate to the factors of time, and levels of digital development and basic digital access.
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It is well known that narrative exchange takes distinctive forms in the digital age. Less understood are the digitally based processes and infrastructures that support or constrain the wider exchange of narrative materials. This article... more
It is well known that narrative exchange takes distinctive forms in the digital age. Less understood are the digitally based processes and infrastructures that support or constrain the wider exchange of narrative materials. This article reports on research in a UK sixth form college with ambitions to expand its students’ digital skills. Our approach was to identify the preconditions (sometimes, but often not, involving fully formed narrative agency) that might support sustained narrative exchange. We call these conditions collectively ‘proto-agency’, and explore them as a way of establishing what a ‘digital story circle’ (not just a digital story) might be: that is, how new digital platforms and resources contribute to the infrastructures for narrative exchange and wider empowerment in a complex institutional context. During our fieldwork, interesting insights into the tensions around social media emerged. Only by understanding such forms of proto-agency can we begin to assess the p...
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ABSTRACT
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Research Interests: Sociology, Media Studies, Narrative, Digital Media, Political Science, and 13 moreSocial Media, Communities of practice, Media, Digital Storytelling, Citizenship, Civil Society, Citizenship studies, Digital Citizenship, Civic Culture, Digital Story Telling, Communities of Practice, Voice and Recognition, and Place and Scale
Research Interests: Cultural Studies, Political Sociology, Social Movements, Gender Studies, Media and Cultural Studies, and 15 moreGlobalization, Space and Place, Critical Pedagogy, Political Science, Critical Race Theory, Politics, Global Justice, Amazonia, Globalization And Postcolonial Studies, Latin American social movements, Transnational Feminism, Community Education, Postcolonial feminisms, Human Rights and Social Justice, and Resistance Formation
This entry will begin by providing an overview of the history and development of the World Social Forum (WSF), situating it within the broader context of the global justice movement that emerged in the mid-1990s. Highlighting its unique... more
This entry will begin by providing an overview of the history and development of the World Social Forum (WSF), situating it within the broader context of the global justice movement that emerged in the mid-1990s. Highlighting its unique character as a meeting place for civil society actors from diverse backgrounds – and thus a site of tension between different political traditions – the entry will survey key scholarly and activist debates about the WSF. It will examine controversies about the forum’s supposed status as an ‘open space’, relating this to broader debates about openness and horizontality in social movements and the rise of ‘networked politics’ facilitated by new communications technologies (Juris 2008). Scholarship that has theorized the WSF from a postcolonial perspective will also be covered, focusing on the forum’s potential to advance alternative political and epistemological paradigms (Santos 2006; Conway 2012). The entry will then turn to focus more specifically o...
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This chapter explores the past, assesses the present and delineates the future of a media practice approach to citizen media. The first section provides an extensive overview of the different currents in research on media practices,... more
This chapter explores the past, assesses the present and delineates the future of a media practice approach to citizen media. The first section provides an extensive overview of the different currents in research on media practices, identifying the antecedents of the media practice approach in several theoretical traditions and highlighting possible points of convergence between them. Hence, we ground the roots of the practice approach in Latin American communication and media studies, we scrutinize Couldry’s conceptualization in connection to theories of practices within the social sciences, and we examine audience research, media anthropology, social movement studies, citizen and alternative media, and Communication for Development and Social Change. The second section takes stock of the current ‘state of the art’ of practice-focused research on citizen and activist media and develops a critical assessment of how the concept of media practices has been used in recent literature, i...
Research Interests: Sociology, Social Movements, Latin American Studies, Practice theory, Digital Media, and 12 moreMedia Ecology, Citizen Journalism, Media Activism, Social Activism, Media Theory, Alternative Media, Social Practice, Digital Activism, Citizen media, Media theory and Research, Activist Media, and Critical Data Studies
This groundbreaking collection advances understanding of the concept of media practices by critically interrogating its relevance for the study of citizen and activist media. Media as practice has emerged as a powerful approach to... more
This groundbreaking collection advances understanding of the concept of media practices by critically interrogating its relevance for the study of citizen and activist media. Media as practice has emerged as a powerful approach to understanding the media’s significance in contemporary society. Bringing together contributions from leading scholars in sociology, media and communication, social movement and critical data studies, this book stimulates dialogue across previously separate traditions of research on citizen and activist media practices and stakes out future directions for research in this burgeoning interdisciplinary field. Framed by a foreword by Nick Couldry and a substantial introductory chapter by the editors, contributions to the volume trace the roots and appropriations of the concept of media practice in Latin American communication theory; reflect on the relationship between activist agency and technological affordances; explore the relevance of the media practice approach for the study of media activism, including activism that takes media as its central object of struggle; and demonstrate the significance of the media practice approach for understanding processes of mediatization and datafication. Offering both a comprehensive introduction to scholarship on citizen media and practice and a cutting-edge exploration of a novel theoretical framework, the book is ideal for students and experienced scholars alike.
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Research Interests:
'Communicate to mobilise to communicate'. The WSF has been referred to as an emergent global public sphere; however, little systematic attention has been paid to how media and communication are implicated in making it ‘global’ and ‘public’.
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This thesis provides an in-depth empirical analysis of the character and significance of media and communication in the World Social Forum (WSF), focusing on their relationship to processes of knowledge production. Using the concept of... more
This thesis provides an in-depth empirical analysis of the character and significance of media and communication in the World Social Forum (WSF), focusing on their relationship to processes of knowledge production. Using the concept of publics as a theoretical tool, it explores how, through mediated communication, forum organisers and communication activists seek to extend the WSF in time and space and thereby make it public. Engaging critically with the idea of the WSF as a global process, the thesis considers how mediated communication might contribute to making the WSF global, not so much in absolute terms as by creating a sense of globality, and how the idea of the global relates to other scales. It develops an understanding of the WSF as an epistemic project that seeks both to affirm the existence and validity of multiple knowledges and to facilitate convergence between them, and considers how different communication practices might further this project.
Based on ethnographic research carried out in connection with the WSF 2009 in Belém, complemented by fieldwork at other social forums, the thesis is structured as a series of case studies of different communication practices, ranging from efforts to engage with conventional mass media to various initiatives that seek to strengthen movement-based communication infrastructures and enable WSF participants to communicate on their own terms. These demonstrate that there are many different approaches to making the WSF 'public' and 'global', which beyond facilitating the circulation of media content also involve mobilising new actors to participate in media production and generating a sense of identification with a global WSF process. They also show that mediated communication can contribute to knowledge production not only by facilitating information sharing, but also through the more subtle processes of empowerment, network-building, and translation across difference it can stimulate when embedded in movement dynamics.
Based on ethnographic research carried out in connection with the WSF 2009 in Belém, complemented by fieldwork at other social forums, the thesis is structured as a series of case studies of different communication practices, ranging from efforts to engage with conventional mass media to various initiatives that seek to strengthen movement-based communication infrastructures and enable WSF participants to communicate on their own terms. These demonstrate that there are many different approaches to making the WSF 'public' and 'global', which beyond facilitating the circulation of media content also involve mobilising new actors to participate in media production and generating a sense of identification with a global WSF process. They also show that mediated communication can contribute to knowledge production not only by facilitating information sharing, but also through the more subtle processes of empowerment, network-building, and translation across difference it can stimulate when embedded in movement dynamics.
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The World Social Forum (WSF) is often referred to as a global or transnational public sphere, and assumed to have a democratising function as an arena where citizens can participate directly in conversations about global social and... more
The World Social Forum (WSF) is often referred to as a global or transnational public sphere, and assumed to have a democratising function as an arena where citizens can participate directly in conversations about global social and political issues. Such a conception of the WSF is, however, both theoretically and politically problematic. Drawing on empirical examples from research carried on at social forums between 2008 and 2011, this this talk engages critically with the idea of the WSF as a global public sphere. I argue that in order to fully understand the emancipatory potential of the WSF it is necessary to pay close attention to the ways in which activists use media and communication to create publics and the various scales at which they operate. In this way, it is possible to problematise hierarchical conceptions of scale and arrive at alternative understandings of what it might mean to create global publics.
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This talk will link the notion of critical pedagogy to broader social processes of knowledge production taking place outside or at the borders of academia. Developing a conception of social movements such as the World Social Forum (WSF)... more
This talk will link the notion of critical pedagogy to broader social processes of knowledge production taking place outside or at the borders of academia. Developing a conception of social movements such as the World Social Forum (WSF) and the Occupy Movement as knowledge producers, this talk will show that radial spaces such as this can facilitate pedagogical encounters across difference, providing concrete examples from the practices of alternative media activists. It will highlight that the significance of these movements lies in the emphasis that activists place on collective knowledge production and mutual learning in their search for alternatives. Both the WSF and Occupy can be conceived as efforts to create public spheres in which academic and other forms of knowledge intersect in creative ways, raising questions about the privileged status of the university and the role that we as academic practitioners might play in broader social processes of knowledge production.
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This chapter explores the past, assesses the present and delineates the future of a media practice approach to citizen media. The first section provides an extensive overview of the different currents in research on media practices,... more
This chapter explores the past, assesses the present and delineates the future of a media practice approach to citizen media. The first section provides an extensive overview of the different currents in research on media practices, identifying the antecedents of the media practice approach in several theoretical traditions and highlighting possible points of convergence between them. Hence, we ground the roots of the practice approach in Latin American communication and media studies, we scrutinize Couldry's conceptualization in connection to theories of practices within the social sciences, and we examine audience research, media anthropology, social movement studies, citizen and alternative media, and Communication for Development and Social Change. The second section takes stock of the current 'state of the art' of practice-focused research on citizen and activist media and develops a critical assessment of how the concept of media practices has been used in recent literature, identifying key strengths and shortcomings. In this section, we also discuss the integration of media practices with other concepts, such as mediation, mediatization, media ecologies, media archeology, media imaginaries, and the public sphere. The third section delineates future directions for research on citizen media and practice, reflecting on some of the challenges facing this growing interdisciplinary field. Here, we illustrate how the media practice approach provides a powerful framework for researching the pressing challenges posed by mediatization and datafication. Further, we highlight the need for deeper theoretical engagement, underline the necessity of dialogue between different traditions, and point out some unresolved issues and limitations. The chapter concludes with an outline of the contributions to this edited collection.