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Professor Shakuntala Banaji

This course is compulsory on the MSc in Media, Communication and Development. This course is not available as an outside option.

The content of the course addresses the history of and tensions between 'media for development' and 'communication for development', while challenging mainstream development perspectives on aid, modernisation, and the role of ICTs and media and communication in low income countries and unequal social contexts. It achieves this aim by emphasising the conflictual relationships between economic and political power structures and the empowerment of individuals, as well as among collective groupings within their local and regional contexts. In particular, paying attention to issues of history, colonisation, race and gender, this course questions who constructs knowledge and how knowledge is constructed in modernisation approaches to Media, Communication and Development. It explores the ways in which the concepts of ideology, discourse, orientalism, reflexivity and power can enable a critical understanding of social life, participation and change in the global south. The course also offers a sharp critique of scholarly and policy oriented literature that regards the media, information, and communication strategies, and information and communication technology applications, as obvious direct means of alleviating poverty, improving health outcomes and fostering democracy and human rights in low-income countries. It offers alternative theorisations of the contested way in which developments in these areas become embedded in the cultural and social fabric, especially where injustice, poverty and unequal power relations influence the capacities of individuals to make changes in their lives and communities.

This course is delivered through a combination of lectures and seminars totalling a minimum of 30 hours across Michelmas Term and 1 hour in Summer Term. This course includes a flim screening and discussion totalling 180 minutes in Michaelmas Term. This course includes a reading week in Week 6 of term..

All students are expected to complete advance reading, participate in case studies and discussions on moodle forums, prepare seminar presentations, organise and attend pract