Empowerment

This entry discusses the various roles of media and communication in terms of empowerment and social change. It does so by focusing on a temporal and historical dimension which relates to innovations in terms of media and communication technologies going from the print-press over radio broadcasting and the internet. Besides this, we also identify a special dimension going from the local to the trans-national, but also exposing media and communication as a space of contention. Finally, a strategic dimension is identified focusing on how political actors and social movements frame issues and attempt to influence, at times successfully at other times less so, the process of meaning making.