How did processes of communication happen within collective action for social change before the rise of Internet and mobile technology? How do those historical practices connect with contemporary, digital age uses of information and communication technology for collective action?
The thematic seminar “Communication and Social Change" (organized on behalf of Professor Suvi Salmenniemi's thematic course "Communities and Social Change") uses this question as a starting point to analyze how people have used media technologies available in different times in history to communicate, mobilize and promote social change and political transformations.
Using the conceptual debate on “public and counterpublics” as a theoretical framework, the course will explore four themes:
- Communication for Rights and Justice in Latin America;
- Communication in Anti-Racism Struggles (guest lecturer Thulile Gamedze, cultural worker from Cape Town, South Africa);
- Communication and Working Class Movements (guest lecturer Aaron Goings, from the Institute for Advanced Social Research (IASR), Tampere University);
- Communication in a Polarized World.
About the teacher: Leonardo Custodio, PhD, is a Brazilian post-doctoral fellow at the Institute for Advanced Social Research (IASR) at Tampere University. He is also the co-coordinator of the Anti-Racism Media Activism Alliance (ARMA), a three-year project (2018-2020) funded by the Kone Foundation. Previously, Custodio researched media activism in favelas of Rio de Janeiro. His current research and project focus on how people who suffer from racism use media technologies available to raise their voices and act against racism in Finland and Brazil. This research came out as a book "Favela Media Activism: Counterpublics for Human Rights in Brazil" (Lexington Books, 2017).
- Teacher: Joni Jaakola