Planning, media, and power

This chapter explores media’s complex power, ultimately arguing that unlocking its democratising potential for planning requires both new norms and practices that enable a sharper understanding of new potential communication opportunities, as in those relating to community organising and empowerment, and a deeper appreciation for the pitfalls that may further proliferate within an already noisy and authoritarian environment of misinformation and disinformation. Failing to achieve a more refined appreciation of media’s power threatens to prevent planning from delivering equitable outcomes and may instead result in a field out-of-step with political and cultural realities. Recognising that the implications of media’s power can both expand or threaten possibilities for planning, we consider a more sophisticated media literacy for planners while exploring the role that new media is playing, and can further play, in elevating community voices amidst the constant, cacophonous and varied threat of elite and institutional interests, including those with undemocratic tendencies. We emphasise not only the role that media plays in planning as a form of political communication about development, futures, and places, but also, its provision of pathways to power. We seek to identify factors that scholars and practitioners might find useful in analysing their own contexts.