Emancipatory Communication
Stefanía Milan · The International Encyclopedia of Media Literacy · 2019
Emancipatory communication indicates the grassroots creation of alternatives to existing media and communication infrastructure, whether analog or digital, commercial or state‐owned. Examples include Internet servers and platforms providing noncommercial services; community and low‐power radio and TV stations; independent print media initiatives; community‐owned wireless networks; social practices of horizontal knowledge production such as open source software and hacking. Emancipatory communication plays a crucial role in the contemporary movement ecology. It is as old as social movements, as over the years people have taken advantage of the possibilities of technology innovation to support social change efforts. Emancipation evokes both negative and positive freedoms: it is about “freedom from” the commercial and/or privacy‐infringing logics of dominant media and tech firms, and about “freedom for” creating spaces for people to engage in communications and media production in their own terms.