Citizen Media & Citizen Tactics: - pathways to change? Thomas Tufte, Roskilde University, Denmark Presentation given at Ørecomm Festival: Agency in a Mediatized World: Media, Communication and Development in Transition’ Roskilde University, 13 September 2011

This presentation What influences agency in a mediatized world? A few concepts. What influences agency in a mediatized world? A few concepts. Revisiting ’citizen media’ Revisiting ’citizen media’ Exploring citizen tactics Exploring citizen tactics Repositioning communication for development Repositioning communication for development

What influences agency in a mediatized world?

Media Content, Technology, Audience  Co-evolution of new and old media  Changing dynamics and relations between decision-makers and citizens  Leading to new spaces of and opportunities for deliberation and public debate, critique and civic action

Analytical Perspectives  Mediapolis: a mediated public sphere, a space which hosts both possibilities and limitations for the cultivation of civic action and participation. It includes the flows of media and communication practices  Human Security: relates to both material and immaterial conditions of existence. Is deeply connected to questions of identity, community and subjectivity  Citizenship: a social practice grounded in everyday life. A multi-dimensional concept which includes the agencies, identities and actions of people themselves

Why voice matters - the role of media and technology in carving out space  Allowing voice in public for a vastly increased range of people  A greatly increased mutual awareness of these new voices  New scales of organisation  Understanding what spaces are required for political organization  New forms of listening

Human Security  Human security as freedom from fear describes a condition of existence in which human dignity is realized, embracing not only physical safety but going beyond that to include meaningful participation in the life of the community, control over one’s life and so forth (Thomas 2007: )

Human (In)Security aims with this concept  Helps us understand –The subjective position from which people speak and act –The conditions of existence fundamental of agency and communiction –the social reality citizens live in, and the socio- physic situation this reality produces  Helps produce a parameter for the quality and scope of civil society driven media and communication initiatives

Disjunctions of Citizenship - the ménage of exclusion  ‘ the state is today unable, and/or unwilling, to promise its subjects existential security (‘freedom from fear’, as Franklin D. Roosevelt famously phrased it) (Bauman 2010: 65)’. When the state acts in this way, the individual citizen is left to his own, unable to obtain existential security, that is unable to obtain and retain ‘a legitimate and dignified place in human society and avoiding the ménage of exclusion’ (Bauman).

Communication Power  ‘in a world marked by the rise of mass self- communication, social movements and insurgent politics have a the chance to enter the public space from multiple sources. By using both horizontal communication networks and mainstream media to convey their images and messages, they increase their chances of enacting social and political change – even if they start from a subordinate position in institutional power, financial resources, or symbolic legitimacy’ (Castells )

Revisiting Citizen Media

Citizen Media  Grassroot media  Community media  Participatory media  Alternative media  Radical media  Nano media  Social movement media, and ……………...citizen media

Citizen Media  The term ’citizens media’ implies –first, that a collectivity is enacting its citizenship by actively intervening and transforming the established mediascape: –second, that these media are contesting social codes, legitimized identities and institutionalized social relations: –and third, that these communication practices are empowering the community involved, to the point where these transformations and chages are possible (Rodriguez 2001/2006: 774)

Citizen participation tradition public communication between citizen media and public service media  The basis of legitimacy for this tradition is the idea that the media belong to the people, with an emancipatory, expressive, and critical purpose. This media are typically engaged in some form of struggle for collective rights. Where political change is achieved, they may expire or become institutionalized as the true voice of citizens, without being beholden to the market or government authority (Christians et al 2009: 25)

Issues in citizen media..  Invited spaces or citizen driven? (Thompson and Tapscott 2010)  What community is served? Local/ national/transnational/diasporic.  Participants – audience – consumers – citizens  Civic action: Social mobilization..and then?  Control and finance

Issues…: Accountability  Upward Accountability: –Gaining political clout –Balancing social critique and political influence –Holding governments accountable for service delivery  Downward accountability –(Re)presenting voice –Balancing a mass vehicle with space for personal engagement

Citizen media as public service?  The joint public service-entreprise shall, via TV, radio and internet, etc ensure the Danish population a broad supply of programs and services including news services, awareness-raising programs, education (or ‘teaching programs), art and entertainment. The supply put forth shall pursue quality, breadth and diversity. In program planning emphasis should be put on securing freedom of information- and expression. In conveying information emphasis must be put on seriousness and non-partisanship (neutrality, ed). The programming shall ensure the population access to significant societal information and debate. Furthermore, emphasis will be put on Danish language and culture. The programming shall furthermore reflect the breadth in the production of art and culture and provide a supply of programs that reflect the diversity in the cultural interests in the Danish society. (The Law on Public Service §10).

Citizen Tactics  Tactics: Efforts made by ordinary people to create spaces for themselves, overcoming power structures to which they are subjected (de Certeau 1984)  Citizen tactics relate to the ways in which citizens exert agency, articulate ownership and form their identity in accordance with their own norms and values, trajectories and projections for the future

 ’…conceiving globalization from the perspective of communication and its articulation with the social is, possibly, to understand where what we might call the re-configuration of the political identities is occurring. (It’s the) pursuit of a citizenship as a process open for definition’ (Reguillo 2005: 70)

Repositioning communication for development  Interdisciplinarity  Normativity  Deals with core concerns in mainstream media and communication agendas today

Thank you!