ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the role of civil society as a political actor. It highlights the diversity of institutions and spaces that make up civil society; its porosity with (as opposed to its purported autonomy from) the state; its global embeddedness; and the significance of these features for political engagement with and through different civic spaces. This chapter focuses in particular on the role of both non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and the media, and explores opportunities and challenges to both in engendering discourse and debate within the public sphere. Enmeshed in complex relationships with both states and donors, it is argued that NGOs are hampered and impeded in mediating and animating debate and opinion formation within the public sphere. Within the mediasphere however, while more traditional forms of print and broadcast media are coming under greater pressure and regulation, both community radio and new digitalised forms such as the internet and mobile phones are seen to offer considerable transformative potential, although these are not without their problems also. The opportunities and challenges offered by the globalised digital sphere in informing and transforming gendered debate and action, notably when globally appropriated, are exemplified in the case study of the Nigerian #BringBackOurGirls campaign, which is presented towards the end of the chapter.
