The dialogic of media and social movements

Abstract

In the contemporary “information society” the mobilization of information and knowledge may be as important as the mobilization of people in the struggle for social justice and equality. Emergent political actors, such as the new social movements (NSMs), must first reach and persuade their audiences with information and knowledge before they can hope to move them to action. In order to do so, movements must first develop strategic access to commercial news media organizations. As the major sources of political information for citizens in modern societies, news media are still one of the most crucial bottlenecks in the distribution of new information by and about emergent social movements. The question of whether (and how) the new movements can produce access to news media, and what kind of access they can produce, becomes an urgent democratic question about the possibilities and processes of social change in the United States.