Prof Lilie Chouliaraki

This course is available on the MSc in Global Media and Communications (LSE and Fudan), MSc in Global Media and Communications (LSE and USC), MSc in Media and Communications (Communication, Culture and Global Cities) (LSE and NYU), MSc in Media, Communication and Development and MSc in Strategic Communications and Society. This course is available with permission as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit. This course uses controlled access as part of the course selection process. For information on controlled access courses, including eligibility, application processes, deadlines, and departmental contact details, please refer to the Controlled Access Courses webpage.

How to apply: Priority will normally be given to students enrolled on Media and Communications degree programmes; however, course specific availability is indicated via the 'Availability' section of each individual course guide webpage. The number of students that can be accommodated is limited. If a course is oversubscribed, places will be allocated at the Department's discretion. Students are advised to have an alternative course in mind in case they are unable to secure their first-choice course selection.

A list of all taught master's courses in this Department are listed on the Department's Course Selection and Videos webpage.

Students who have this course listed as compulsory are guaranteed a place and no written statement is required.

For all other students, places on these controlled access courses will be allocated via a random ballot process with priority given to students with the course listed on their programme regulations, followed by other Department of Media and Communications students, then students from elsewhere in the School. By submitting an application, students are confirming that they meet any pre-requisites specified. Providing an additional written statement will not aid a student's chances of being accepted onto a course that does not require a written statement.

Deadline for application: Students required to take this compulsory course will be automatically enrolled on LSE for You.

All other students must apply by 10am UK time on Friday 26 September 2025. No offers will be made before this deadline. Offers will be made after 10am and will continue until all places are filled.

For queries contact: Contact Media.MSc@lse.ac.uk with queries.
Please do not email the teacher with personal expressions of interest as these are not required and do not influence who is offered a place.

This course is 'controlled access', meaning that there is a limit to the number of students who can be accepted. If the course is oversubscribed, priority will be given to students who have the course listed on their Programme Regulations. Whilst we do our best to accommodate all requests, we cannot guarantee you a place on this course.

There are no pre-requisites for this course. Students should apply via LSE for You without submitting a statement.

Please do not email the teacher with personal expressions of interest as these are not required and do not influence who is offered a place.

This course critically examines the practices and politics of humanitarian communication, exploring how vulnerability is represented through historical power relations between the Global North and the global South. Images and narratives of people in zones of war, conflict, crisis and disaster are never neutral. They reflect institutional priorities, social imaginaries and global media inequalities that this course sets out to analyse.

The course is organised around three core strands. The first addresses the politics of representation, asking who decides which suffering is made recognizable to Northern publics and how such decisions may change when communities of the Global South speak for themselves. The second places coloniality at the centre of analysis, examining how humanitarian communication reproduces or unsettles colonial imaginaries of poverty and displacement, and what dilemmas of recognition and consent this produces for practitioners and audiences alike. The third examines techno-humanitarianism, exploring how the integration of digital platforms and algorithmic logics into humanitarian practice shapes how vulnerability is made visible and governable in the age of social media and Artificial Intelligence.

Working with case studies drawn substantially from the Global South and informed by a practitioner seminar series bringing together professionals from across the humanitarian sector, students will engage with the theoretical principles and empirical realities of humanitarian communication and the tensions that underpin its practice.

30 hours of seminars in the Winter Term.

All students are expected to complete advance reading, and to prepare and deliver a short presentation.

• Azoulay, A. A. (2019). Potential history: Unlearning imperialism. Verso Books.

  Barnett, M. (2011). Empire of humanity: A history of humanitarianism. Cornell University Press.

  Barnett, M. (2020). Humanitarianism and human rights: A world of differences? Cambridge University Press.

  Bernal, V., & Grewal, I. (2014). Theorizing NGOs: States, feminisms, and neoliberalism. Duke University Press.

  Boltanski, L. (1999). Distant suffering: Morality, media and politics. Cambridge University Press.

  Butler, J. (2006). Precarious life: The powers of mourning and violence. Verso.

  Calhoun, C. (2008). The imperative to reduce suffering: Charity, progress, and emergencies in the field of humanitarian action. In M. Barnett & T. Weiss (Eds.), Humanitarianism in question: Politics, power, ethics (pp. 73–97). Cornell University Press.

  Chouliaraki, L. (2012). The ironic spectator: Solidarity in the age of posthumanitarianism. Polity.

  Chouliaraki, L., & Vestergaard, A. (Eds.). (2022). The Routledge handbook of humanitarian communication. Routledge.

  Jefferess, D. (2026). The humanitarian fable: Saviorism, race and aid. Routledge.

  Madianou, M. (2024). Technocolonialism: When technology for good is harmful. Polity.

  Mathers, K. (2023). White saviorism and popular culture: Imagined Africa as a space for American salvation. Routledge.

  Mbembe, A. (2019). Necropolitics. Duke University Press.

  Mignolo, W. D. (2021). The politics of decolonial investigations. Duke University Press.

  Scott, M., Wright, K., & Bunce, M. (2023). Humanitarian journalists: Covering crises from a boundary zone. Routledge.

  Seu, I. B., & Orgad, S. (Eds.). (2017). Caring in crisis?: Humanitarianism, the public and NGOs. Palgrave Macmillan.

  Silverstone, R. (2007). Media and morality: On the rise of the mediapolis (pp. 136–161). Polity.

  Sontag, S. (2003). Regarding the pain of others. Penguin.

  Tazzioli, M. (2020). The making of migration: The biopolitics of mobility at Europe's borders. Sage.

  Ticktin, M. (2025). Against innocence: Undoing and remaking the world. University of Chicago Press.

Essay (100%, 3000 words).