"The Routledge Companion to Media and Activism is a wide-ranging collection of 42 original and authoritative essays by leading contributors from a variety of academic disciplines. Introducing and exploring central debates about the diverse relationships between both media and protest, and communicat
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ion and social change, the book offers readers a reliable and informed guide to understanding how media and activism influence one another. The expert contributors examine the tactics and strategies of protest movements, and how activists organize themselves and each other; they investigate the dilemmas of media coverage and the creation of alternative media spaces and platforms; and they emphasize the importance of creativity and art in social change. Bringing together case studies and contributors from six continents, the collection is organized around themes that address past, present and future developments from around the world." (Publisher description)
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"Research on popular culture is a dynamic, fast-growing domain. In scholarly terms, it cuts across many areas, including communication studies, sociology, history, American studies, anthropology, literature, journalism, folklore, economics, and media and cultural studies. The Routledge Companion to
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Global Popular Culture provides an authoritative, up-to-date, intellectually broad, internationally-aware, and conceptually agile guide to the most important aspects of popular culture scholarship. Specifically, this Companion includes: "interdisciplinary models and approaches for analyzing popular culture; wide-ranging case studies; discussions of economic and policy underpinnings; analysis of textual manifestations of popular culture; examinations of political, social, and cultural dynamics and discussions of emerging issues such as ecological sustainability and labor. Featuring scholarly voices from across six continents, The Routledge Companion to Global Popular Culture presents a nuanced and wide-ranging survey of popular culture research." (Publisher description)
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"News and current affairs journalism that purports to be for the public good, and in the public interest, can survive, grow and flourish but not through market forces and new technology alone. To survive, news media will have to adjust and adapt to changes in technology and a harsher commercial envi
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ronment. New ways of ensuring the space for, and independence of, news and current affairs journalism that purports to be for the public good, need to be found to preserve and protect the public interest and encourage a healthy democracy. This is not the same as preserving and protecting news organisations, or even the news, as we know it. In a world of communicative abundance there is, more than ever, a sense that there are many things that news journalism ought to be doing – monitoring, holding to account, and facilitating and maintaining deliberation – but is not doing in a fully satisfactory way, and we neglect this at our peril. To ignore it is to accept that the market can be relied upon to deliver the conditions for deliberative democracy to flourish. However, when markets fail or come under threat, ethical practice is swept aside in pursuit of financial stability. Civil society associations have a key role to play in this extended news environment. They can act as wardens of, and contributors to, news media at local, regional and national levels; they can facilitate deliberation and expand the diversity of views on news platforms, and develop news platforms of their own. They could also provide crucial funding for news organisations or consortia deemed to be operating on a not-for-profit basis. Establishing a more collaborative relationship between news organisations and civil society associations should be encouraged in order to: enable participation; increase effective engagement; expand the public sphere; and enhance democracy. This report recommends a number of ways that civil society associations, media industries and policy-makers can act to achieve these goals. The authors also recommend that the Charity Commission should recognise journalism in the public interest as a charitable endeavour available for charitable status." (Conclusion, page 36)
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"'Alternative Media' is the term used to describe non-mainstream media forms that are independently run and community focussed, such as zines, pirate radio, online discussion boards, community run and owned broadcasting companies, and activist publications such as Red Pepper and Corporate Watch. The
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book outlines the different types of 'alternative" (Publisher description)
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