Interview: Guidance in the Struggle for Social Justice

“Social media has forever changed the landscape of social and political development work. And yet, we have only seen the beginning of a phenomenon that even the experts struggle to understand,” says Thomas Tufte, media researcher and co-director of Ørecomm, in a recent article published in the magazine Rubrik (Roskilde University).

He is one of three editors who will discuss the subject in a new anthology, about to be released in February next year.

When a demonstration against raised bus fares was started in Sao Paolo, Brazil, in June this year, the riots quickly spread across more than 100 cities. The interplay between established media and social media was decisive for the development of the events.

“Traditional media, together with Facebook and Twitter, made it possible to orchestrate all these demonstrations and spread the message,“ says Thomas Tufte.

In the new book the three co-editors have collected examples from the whole world of how media and communication is being used by the UN, governments and social movements in their work toward social and political development.

The anthology holds the title ”The Handbook of Development and Social Change” and will offer both practical and conceptual guidance to all those engaged in struggles for social justice around the world.

This article is a short version of a longer article, originally published in Danish in the magazine Rubrik. Read the full article here (page 20 – 23).