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.

The arrival of the participatory web 2.0 has been hailed by many as a media revolution, bringing with it new tools and possibilities for direct political action. Through specialised online platforms, mainstream social media or blogs, citizens in many countries are increasingly seeking to have their voices heard online, whether it is to lobby, to support or to complain about their elected representatives. Politicians, too, are adopting "new media" in specific ways, though they are often criticised for failing to seize the full potential of online tools to enter into dialogue with their electorates. Bringing together perspectives from around the world, this volume examines emerging forms of citizen participation in the face of the evolving logics of political communication, and provides a unique and original focus on the gap which exists between political uses of digital media by the politicians and by the people they represent.

From hashtag activism to the flood of political memes on social media, the landscape of political communication is being transformed by the grassroots circulation of opinion on digital platforms and beyond. By exploring how everyday people assist in the promotion of political media messages to persuade their peers and shape the public mind, Joel Penney offers a new framework for understanding the phenomenon of viral political communication: the citizen marketer. Like the citizen consumer, the citizen marketer is guided by the logics of marketing practice, but, rather than being passive, actively circulates persuasive media to advance political interests. Such practices include using protest symbols in social media profile pictures, strategically tweeting links to news articles to raise awareness about select issues, sharing politically-charged internet memes and viral videos, and displaying mass-produced T-shirts, buttons, and bumper stickers that promote a favored electoral candidate or cause. Citizens view their participation in such activities not only in terms of how it may shape or influence outcomes, but as a statement of their own identity. As the book argues, these practices signal an important shift in how political participation is conceptualized and performed in advanced capitalist democratic societies, as they casually inject political ideas into the everyday spaces and places of popular culture. While marketing is considered a dirty word in certain critical circles -- particularly among segments of the left that have identified neoliberal market logics and consumer capitalist structures as a major focus of political struggle -- some of these very critics have determined that the most effective way to push back against the forces of neoliberal capitalism is to co-opt its own marketing and advertising techniques to spread counter-hegemonic ideas to the public. Accordingly, this book argues that the citizen marketer approach to political action is much broader than any one ideological constituency or bloc. Rather, it is a means of promoting a wide range of political ideas, including those that are broadly critical of elite uses of marketing in consumer capitalist societies. The book includes an extensive historical treatment of citizen-level political promotion in modern democratic societies, connecting contemporary digital practices to both the 19th century tradition of mass political spectacle as well as more informal, culturally-situated forms of political expression that emerge from postwar countercultures. By investigating the logics and motivations behind the citizen marketer approach, as well as how it has developed in response to key social, cultural, and technological changes, Penney charts the evolution of activism in an age of mediatized politics, promotional culture, and viral circulation.

A diverse series of studies across Europe and the US are presented, providing readers with empirical insights into the articulation of citizen voices in different national, cultural and institutional contexts.

A critical assessment of the role that information technologies have come to play in contemporary campaigns.

A comprehensive guide to future-proofing public sector communication and increasing citizen satisfaction How to communicate with the citizens of the future? Why does public sector communication often fail? Public Sector Communication combines practical examples from around the world with the latest theoretical insights to show how communication can help bridge gaps that exist between public sector organizations and the individual citizens they serve. The authors—two experts in the field with experience from the public sector—explain how public entities, be they cities, governments, foundations, agencies, authorities, municipalities, regulators, military, or government monopolies and state owned businesses can build their intangible assets to future-proof themselves in a volatile environment. The book examines how the recent digitalization has increased citizen expectations and why one-way communication leaves public sector organizations fragile. To explain how to make public sector communication antifragile, the authors map contributions from a wide variety of fields combined with illustrative examples from around the world. The authors propose a research-based framework of different intangible assets that can directly improve communication in the public sector. This important resource: Helps explain the sector-specific conditions and why communication is often challenging in the public sector Summarizes all relevant literature on the topic across disciplines and includes the most popular management ideals of the recent decades Explores how public sector organizations can increase citizen satisfaction with effective communication Presents new approaches to both the study and practice of communication in the public sector Provides international examples of successful public sector communication Offers realistic guides to building intangible assets in practice Written for advanced undergraduate and graduate students, as well as public managers and leaders, Public Sector Communication offers an illustrative, research-based guide to improving communication and engaging citizens of today and the future.

Democratic politics is a collective enterprise, not simply because individual votes are counted to determine winners, but more fundamentally because the individual exercise of citizenship is an interdependent undertaking. Citizens argue with one another and they generally arrive at political decisions through processes of social interaction and deliberation. This book is dedicated to investigating the political implications of interdependent citizens within the context of the 1984 presidential campaign as it was experienced in the metropolitan area of South Bend, Indiana. Hence this is a community study in the fullest sense of the term. National politics is experienced locally through a series of filters unique to a particular setting and its consequences for the exercise of democratic citizenship.