ABSTRACT
This chapter offers a new theoretical framework for studying media activism in NGO contexts. In building theory from activist practice and experience, I draw on institutional ethnography of a successful media activist NGO in South Africa, Media Monitoring Africa (MMA). Through ethnographic fieldwork, including interviews, observations, and textual analysis, I derive three central values of media activist organizing for social change NGOs based on MMA’s case: activism as identity and practice, media democratization, and fostering representational equity alongside organizational feminism. FDMA can thus provide a more nuanced theoretical lens for scholars who are interested in studying the actions and impacts of media-focused NGOs and enable cross-cultural and multi-sided comparative studies.
