Activist Media

Documenting Movements and Networked Solidarity

By Gino Canella

Rutgers University Press

Now more than ever, activists are using media to document injustice and promote social and political change. Yet with so many media platforms available, activists sometimes fail to have a coherent media and communication strategy.

Drawing from his experiences as a documentary filmmaker with Black Lives Matter 5280 and Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 105 in Denver, Colorado, Gino Canella argues that activist media create opportunities for activists to navigate conflict and embrace their political and ideological differences. Canella details how activist media practices—interviewing organizers, script writing, video editing, posting on social media, and hosting community screenings—foster solidarity among grassroots organizers.

Informed by media theory, this book explores how activists are using media to mobilize supporters, communicate their values, and reject anti-union rhetoric. Furthermore, it demonstrates how collaborative media projects can help activists build broad-based coalitions and amplify their vision for a more equitable and just society.

Drawing on firsthand experience as an activist filmmaker, Canella has written an invaluable account of grassroots empowerment and social change. This book provides an essential analysis for scholars of media activism and for anyone who believes we can and must fight for a better world.'
Victor Pickard, author of Democracy Without Journalism

Activist Media is an exemplary piece of activist scholarship. With detail, Gino Canella considers how media co-creation as scholarly political work both uplifts and deconstructs representations, research methods, and human relations between scholars and activists creating ‘grassroots epistemologies’ and ‘radical sociability’ from which we can all learn. The book serves as a great how-to for scholars and activists alike. Alexandra Juhasz, Distinguished Professor of Film, Brooklyn College, CUNY

Drawing on firsthand experience as an activist filmmaker, Canella has written an invaluable account of grassroots empowerment and social change. This book provides an essential analysis for scholars of media activism and for anyone who believes we can and must fight for a better world.'
Victor Pickard, author of Democracy Without Journalism

Canella offers many tangible ways to increase the sustainability of organizations through activist media, such as sharing old media interviews as reminders, staying up-to-date on the technological parameters of social media sites, and remaining cognizant of the connection between the media’s distribution platform and the overarching goal of the organization. Kendrick Roberson, National Review of Black Politics

GINO CANELLA is a documentary filmmaker and assistant professor of journalism and media studies at Emerson College in Boston, Massachusetts. His research and creative works examine how activists use media to build solidarity and intervene in social, political, and journalistic discourses about race and labor.

Introduction
1 Activist Media, Power, and Networked Publics
2 Movements and Media: Structures and Evolution
3 Pre-production: Embracing Confrontation and Difference
4 Production: Scripting Solidarity and Radical Storytelling
5 Post-production: Distribution, Exhibition, and Impact
Conclusion
Appendix
Acknowledgments
Notes
References
Index

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