Shayna Plaut

Although it is recognized that media and communication are an inherent part of political struggles for self-representation, much of the academic research is limited to the role of the media in state formation (Anderson, 1983/1991) or media reform in post-conflict areas such as Rwanda or the former Yugoslavia (Price & Thomas, 2002). My research, however, evaluates the role of journalism education as a political project for transnational peoples (i.e., peoples who identify as belonging to the same nation yet span two or more states). Transnational peoples may identify as Indigenous (e.g., the Saami people, who have traditionally inhabited land currently located in Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia) or may not (e.g. the Roma/Gypsy people) and often have an ambiguous, if not contested, relationship with two or more states. My work asks what if any, relationship exists between journalism, self-representation and socio-political change and how this is incorporated into the socialization process of the next generation of journalists and others who use/create media as a form of advocacy.