Activist Strategic Communication for Social Change: A Transnational Case Study of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Activism

Abstract

This study explores activists as producers of strategic communication for social change, suggesting communication for development and social change (CDSC), activism, and public relations are not antagonistic but rather occupy a fluid space informed by cultural-economic forces. This article presents a model of cultural intermediation for social change, arguing that activism is a form of strategic communication embedded in micro, meso, and macro levels. Through a case study of transnational LGBT activism, this research demonstrates how activists function as cultural intermediaries, playing a mediating role that is often concerned with (re)producing and challenging cultural meaning.communication. This research takes a transnational 1 approach to strategic communication for social change, requiring attention to the flows of people, goods, and knowledge and how this flow produces relationships and linkages between and among disparate people and places (Valentine, Vanderbeck, Sadgrove, & Andersson, 2013). Rather than emphasizing outcomes or effects, the focus of this study is an examination of how activists come to describe, explain, and account for the world in which they live and the processes through which activists bring about and contribute to shared understandings. This study explores how lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT 2 ) activists engage in public relations, operating as cultural intermediaries (Bourdieu, 1984) to make, remake, subvert, communicate, and circulate cultural identities, representations, and imaginations by way of strategic communication for social change. Through a consideration of transnational activism, this research works to show that public relations research can productively inform existing interdisciplinary research on communication for social change.

Introduction to the Special Issue: Challenges of LGBT research in the 21st century

“…Parallel to this process of homogenization, a renewed activism has emerged around digital media, which are providing new opportunities to make the diversity of LGBT identities visible around the world (Ciszek, 2017). This new activism is part of the intellectual efforts that examine the change of LGBT politics and its connections to the combative discourse against Western colonization of social movements.…”

Communication and Action: Re-Reading Habermas in the Age of Activism

“…The more recent scholarship, however, has moved away from this state of knowledge. Instead, scholars highlight the need to embrace nonlinear models, for example of communication for social change (Ciszek 2017;Tufte 2016). In communication for development, effectively, one could argue, that scholars promote hybridity (see Chadwick, 2017) as a way of dealing with the theoretical confusion in the field (Tufte 2016;Wilkins et al 2014).…”

Fighting Social Normalisation in Generation Z: Trans* Youth Activism on Tumblr

“…As online communities don't require any geographical proximity it is vitally important for transgender activists that they are used for social justice organising and discussion of international politics (Báez, 2013;Whittle, 1998). In sociopolitical context, cyber communities could certainly be understood as Transnational Advocacy Networks (TANs), large international groups that advocate change, which Ciszek (2017) claims have had considerable influence on public policy. An example of strategic communication is 'public relations', which is used to integrate organisations' political discourse into wider circles (Hallahan, Holtzhausen, van Ruler, Sriramesh, and Veri, 2007).…”

“…To understand the progression of socio-political activism into the 21st century it is important to highlight similar advocacy during the 20th century. This writing will reflect on movements that maintained the advancement of gay rights and comparatively look at transgender activism, prior to and following the birth of the internet; highlight problems that it will face; and outline how Transnational Advocacy Networks (TANs) will develop a larger and more nuanced conversation about transgender (Ciszek, 2017). Popular culture, specifically tv and film representation, has created cultural artefacts that realise a popular understanding of gender and sexuality (Benshoff and Griffin, 2006).…”