Drawing on the culture-centered approach (CCA), this book re-imagines culture as a site for resisting the neocolonial framework of neoliberal governmentality. Culture emerged in the 20th Century as a conceptual tool for resisting the hegemony of West-centric interventions in development, disrupting the assumptions that form the basis of development. This turn to culture offered radical possibilities for decolonizing social change but in response, necolonial development institutions incorporated culture into their strategic framework while simultaneously deploying political and economic power to silence transformative threads. This rise of “culture as development” corresponded with the global rise of neo-liberal governmentality, incorporating culture as a tool for globally reproducing the logic of capital. Using examples of transformative social change interventions, this book emphasizes the role of culture as a site for resisting capitalism and imagining rights-based, sustainable and socialist futures. In particular, it attends to culture as the basis for socialist organizing in activist and party politics. In doing so, Culture, Participation and Social Change offers a framework of inter-linkage between Marxist analyses of capital and cultural analyses of colonialism. It concludes with an anti-colonial framework that re-imagines the academe as a site of activist interventions.

Communicating Social Change describes the social challenges that exist in current globalization politics, and examines the communicative processes, strategies and tactics through which social change interventions are constituted in response to the challenges.

The book covers the trajectories and trends in social change communication, engaging the key theoretical debates on communication and social change. Attending to the concepts of communication and social change that emerge from and across the global margins, the book works toward offering theoretical and methodological lessons that de-center the dominant constructions of communication and social change. The chapters in the book delve into the interplays of academic-activist-community negotiations in communication for social change, and the ways in which these negotiations offer entry points into transformative communication processes of social change. Moreover, a number of chapters in the book attend to the ways in which Asian articulations of social change are situated at the intersections of culture, structure, and agency. Chapters in the book are extended versions of research presented at the conference on Communicating Social Change: Intersections of Theory and Praxis held at the National University of Singapore in 2016, organized under the umbrella of the Center for Culture-Centered Approach to Research and Evaluation (CARE).

With a foreword by Norman Denzin Communication and the history of technology have invariably been examined in terms of artefacts and people. Gary Krug argues that communication technology must be studied as an integral part of culture and lived-experience. Rather than stand in awe of the apparent explosion of new technologies, this book links key moments and developments in communication technology with the social conditions of their time. It traces the evolution of technology, culture, and the self as mutually dependent and influential. This innovative approach will be welcomed by undergraduates and postgraduates needing to develop their understanding of the cultural effects of communication technology, and the history of key communication systems and techniques.

Popular Culture and Social Change: The Hidden Work of Public Relations argues the complicated and contradictory relationship between public relations, popular culture and social change is a neglected theoretical project. Its diverse chapters identify ways in which public relations influences the production of popular culture and how alternative, often community-driven conceptualisations of public relations work can be harnessed for social change and in pursuit of social justice. This book opens up critical scholarship on public relations in that it moves beyond corporate understandings and perspectives to explore alternative and eclectic communicative cultures, in part to consider a more optimistic conceptualisation of public relations as a resource for progressive social change. Fitch and Motion began with an interest in identifying the ways in which public relations both draws on and influences the production of popular culture by creating, promoting and amplifying particular narratives and images. The chapters in this book consider how public relations creates popular cultures that are deeply compromised and commercialised, but at the same time can be harnessed to advocate for social change in supporting, reproducing, challenging or resisting the status quo. Drawing on critical and sociocultural perspectives, this book is an important resource for researchers, educators and students exploring public relations theory, strategic communication and promotional culture. It investigates the entanglement of public relations, popular culture and social change in different social, cultural and political contexts – from fashion and fortune telling to race activism and aesthetic labour – in order to better understand the (often subterranean) societal influence of public relations activity.

This valuable resource offers a wealth of practical and conceptual guidance to all those engaged in struggles for social justice around the world. It explains in accessible language and painstaking detail how to deploy and to understand the tools of media and communication in advancing the goals of social, cultural, and political change. A stand-out reference on a vital topic of primary international concern, with a rising profile in communications and media research programs Multinational editorial team and global contributors Covers the history of the field as well as integrating and reconceptualising its diverse perspectives and approaches Provides a fully formed framework of understanding and identifies likely future developments Features a wealth of insights into the critical role of digital media in development communication and social change

How do the communication practices of governments, NGOs and social movements enhance opportunities for citizen-led change? In this incisive book, Thomas Tufte makes a call for a fundamental rethinking of what it takes to enable citizens’ voices, participation and power in processes of social change. Drawing on examples ranging from the Indignados movement in Spain to media activists in Brazil, from rural community workers in Malawi to UNICEF’s global outreach programmes, he presents cutting-edge debates about the role of media and communication in enhancing social change. He offers both new and contested ideas of approaching social change from below, and highlights the need for institutions – governments and civil society organizations alike – to be in sync with their constituencies. Communication and Social Change provides essential insights to students and scholars of media and communications, as well as anyone concerned with the practices and processes that lead to citizenship, democracy and social justice.