Communications And Social Change: A Citizen Perspective

14 December 2017. From 18:30 | Workshop | English | IEMed, Barcelona

“Social movements and new technologies for communicating and relating are key in the relationship between citizens and governments. This gives us opportunities, but it also carries some risks.” Our society is challenged by growing social inequalities, by crises in relations between citizens and decision-makers, and by growing criticisms of dominant development paradigms. From these challenges and recent citizen responses, a number of questions arise: how can and should we conceive of social change; who are the key actors in the articulation of change processes; and what role can the media, understood as tools, play in articulating equitable and sustainable processes of social change?

Thomas Tufte is Professor of Development Communication at the University of Leicester and co-founder and co-director of Orecomm-Center for Communication and Global Change. He is currently leading an international research project on Critical Perspectives on New Media and Processes of Social Change in the Global South (2013-2017), focusing on Kenya and the Media, Empowerment and Democracy in East Africa ( 2009-2015).