Towards an intersectional analysis of media, communication and social progress

The author critiques the IPSP's approach to media and communication, arguing that social progress cannot be measured without naming specific structural oppressions—such as white supremacy and heteropatriarchy—and applying an intersectional lens. The paper emphasizes that representation, ownership, and employment inequalities persist, and that online hate speech and state/corporate propaganda are critical threats. It advocates for 'design justice' in ICT development, the inclusion of free software, and the adoption of media policy proposals from social movements. The author proposes the creation of an 'intersectional Media Equity Index' using semi-automated tools to track progress across ownership, employment, and content production.

• Meaningful indicators of social progress in media require an intersectional analysis to avoid misleading statistics; for example, gender parity in newsrooms might be achieved through hiring white women while simultaneously firing men of colour.
• Media representation remains fundamentally unequal, characterized by the 'symbolic annihilation' of minority communities or the 'hypervisibility' and 'misogynoir' experienced by Black women.
• Long-term data from the USA indicates that media ownership and employment fail to reflect demographic parity, with some sectors backsliding as newsrooms shrink.
• The 'filter bubble' framework is an inadequate critique of networked publics because it ignores the necessity of 'subaltern counter-publics' for marginalized groups and creates a false equivalency between groups with different power levels.
• Systematic, well-funded anti-democratic propaganda by nation-states and powerful firms is a significant threat to social and ecological progress, extending beyond electoral cycles.
• Free software is a vital tool for social justice, yet it reproduces structural inequalities, with women making up only 2% of code contributors.
• The author proposes an 'intersectional Media Equity Index' to track indicators of ownership, employment, content production, standing, and attention.

APA

Costanza-Chock, S. (2019). Towards an intersectional analysis of media, communication and social progress. World Association for Christian Communication. https://waccglobal.org/towards-an-intersectional-analysis-of-media-communication-and-social-progress-2/

Chicago

Costanza-Chock, Sasha. Towards an intersectional analysis of media, communication and social progress. World Association for Christian Communication, 2019. https://waccglobal.org/towards-an-intersectional-analysis-of-media-communication-and-social-progress-2/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Costanza-Chock |first1=Sasha |title=Towards an intersectional analysis of media, communication and social progress |publisher=World Association for Christian Communication |date=11 August 2019 |url=https://waccglobal.org/towards-an-intersectional-analysis-of-media-communication-and-social-progress-2/ |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{costanzachock2019towards, author = {Costanza-Chock, Sasha}, title = {{Towards an intersectional analysis of media, communication and social progress}}, institution = {World Association for Christian Communication}, year = {2019}, month = aug, url = {https://waccglobal.org/towards-an-intersectional-analysis-of-media-communication-and-social-progress-2/}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }