We Can Do Better: Feminist Manifestos for Media and Communication

Feminist Manifestos for Media and Communication brings together evidence-based manifestos for media and communication that take a feminist perspective and add up to a provocative vision of feminist media practices and of feminist communication. The book discusses critical problems and complaints in ways that identify and make the case for actionable, concrete solutions to media problems and deficiencies; it shows how feminist thinking can be usefully and effectively applied to a wide range of journalism, media, and communication practices. The manifestos are not ＂only＂ about women but rather offer specific, feasible blueprints for restructuring media in ways that make them fairer and more equitable along many vectors of identity, so that media can better serve democracy. These manifestos give concrete solutions to specific problems that can and should be implemented by journalists, media practitioners, students, faculty, and scholars. Our manifestos are organized around three sets of demands: for better media practices, for more participatory online spaces, and more precise and appropriate language.

Linda Steiner is a professor and Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs in the College of Journalism at the University of Maryland; she previously directed the UMD’s ADVANCE program, which promotes the interests of women and faculty of color. She is an ICA Fellow. She served 8 years as editor of Journalism & Communication Monographs, and has published nine co-authored or co-edited books. Her co-authored books include Women and Journalism and her co-edited books include Newswork and Precarity; Front Pages, Front Lines: Media and the Fight for Women’s Suffrage; and Journalism, Gender, and Power.

Stine Eckert is an associate professor in the Department of Communication at Wayne State University, where she is also co-PI of the NSF ADVANCE grant project to promote better gender equity policy in STEM fields. She serves on the board of WSU’s Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies program. She chairs the Feminist Scholarship Division of the International Communication Association division’s award for emerging feminist scholarship. She is editor of the bi-lingual journal Journalism Research / Journalistik. She is co-editor of Reflections on Feminist Communication and Media Scholarship: Theory, Method, Impact.