How central are the media to the functioning of a democracy? Is democracy primarily about citizens using their votes? Does the expression of their voices necessarily empower citizens? These are among the questions addressed in Media and Citizenship. Challenging assumptions about the relationship between the media and democracy in highly unequal societies like postapartheid South Africa, the authors present a range of perspectives that not only interrogate the role of the media, but also offer suggestions for how citizens can engage both the media and the state to overcome the distance between marginalization and participation.CONTENTS: THE MEDIA-CITIZENSHIP NEXUS. Citizens and Journalists: The Possibilities of Co-Creating the Democracy We Want—the Editors. Listening: A Normative Approach to Transform Media and Democracy—T. Dreher. Democracy and Political Participation: The Ambivalence of the Web—P. Dahlgren. THE MEDIA-DEMOCRACY PROBLEMATIC. Speaking Power's Truth: South African Media in the Service of the Suburbs—S. Friedman. "Back to the People" Journalism: Journalists as Public Storytellers—H.C. Boyte. A Better Life for All? Consumption and Citizenship in Post-Apartheid Media Culture—M. Iqani. "Don't Raise Your Voice. Improve Your Argument": Reason, Emotion and Affect in the Post-Apartheid Public Sphere—S. Robins. The Tale of Two Publics: Media, Political Representation and Citizenship in Hout Bay, Cape Town—L. Piper et al. "Non-Poor Only": Culture Jamming and the Limits of Free Speech in South Africa—A. Haupt. ACTS OF CITIZENSHIP. Could a "Noongarpedia" Form the Basis for an Emerging Form of Citizenship in the Age of New Media?—L. Collard et al. The Media, Equal Education and School Learners: "Political Listening" in the South African Education Crisis—A. Mufamadi and A. Garman. Innocence: A Free Pass Into the Moral Commonweal—Y. Vanderhaeghen. We Are Not the "Born Frees": The Real Political and Civic Lives of Eight Young South Africans—V. Malila.