MDIA 325 Media Advocacy and Activism
MDIA 325 examines how political and cultural groups have utilized, responded to, and organized around media institutions and mediated representations in the 20th century. Students evaluate successful and unsuccessful strategies, and engage both liberal and conservative approaches. The class is premised upon a basic distinction between "advocacy" and "activism": 1) media advocacy - institutional and political system building focused on public and private media institutions, and 2) media activism - emergent responses to social, representational, and institutional messages prominently received through media circulation.
Students read from a selection of conceptual, historical, and contemporary analyses, listen to presentations from guest researchers, and meet representatives from, as well as visit media advocacy and activism institutions in Washington D.C.