Justice – Capabilities Approach – Communications – San Diego, CA

The International Communication Association holds its annual meeting May 25-29, 2018, in San Diego. A preconference, Applying the Capabilities Approach to Media and Communications, takes placeMay 24, 2018. Abstracts for the pre conference are due Dec. 15, 2017.

Recent years have seen a growing interest in the concept of justice in media and communication studies. In the more general literature on social justice, an important contribution has come from the capabilities approach developed by Indian economist Amartya Sen and US philosopher Martha Nussbaum. The theory challenges utilitarian narratives and liberal notions of redistributive justice and has become the cornerstone of the United Nations’ Human Development Index. Despite its potentially great relevance for media industries and production studies, information and communication for development, telecommunications and media policy, and digital media research, there has been limited use of the capabilities approach across the media, communication and cultural studies field.

About the author

Reference librarian, University of Washington School of Law