Representation and Advocacy (MECM90016)

This subject addresses the challenges of representing and speaking on behalf of others in the context of communication programs dedicated to social justice and social inclusion. Civil society organisations, public policy initiatives, non-governmental organisations and advocacy groups face challenges different to those of both the news industries and the commercial sector. They must respond to news values, and they need to promote, but they are also devoted to telling often unpalatable truths in hostile or apathetic environments. At the same time, they have ethical obligations to their causes which make demands on their communications strategies in many respects more challenging than those of commerce and the public sector. This subject studies case histories of a variety of campaigns from the non-profit civil society sector, and addresses the different ways in which campaigns may be said to succeed or fail, for example economically, ethically, or in terms of effecting desired and undesired social change.