The Future of Media and Social Justice

Abstract

Abstract Nation-states, the military–industry–prison complex, and fundamentalist organizations use media and technology as tools for surveillance, violence, exploitation, propaganda, genocide, and apartheid. Against this backdrop, scholars, educators, and community leaders are urged to use media and technology to elevate the voice, agency, and resistance of those in the margins. Centering intersecting structures of social inequalities such as White supremacy, patriarchy, capitalism, classism, heteronormativity, casteism, fundamentalism, and colonialism within cultural and media systems means that media scholar–activists have to stay vigilant of how social justice is being weaponized, co-opted, and contained in ways that serve status quo dominant ideologies. Scholar–activists must work collectively to create spaces for solidarity, safety, and sense-making within classrooms, creative industries, and communities for scholar–activists and media-makers who speak out against repression by those in power. Together, they must re-envision the role of media and technology in people’s shared collective futures through reckoning, restoration, and reparative justice for collective healing and flourishing.