Media as a Tool for Architectural Advocacy and Awareness

Elaboratively, architectural journalism bridges architectural practice, the design community, and the broader range of people. It’s a medium through which architecture can be communicated. Tracing back to the way before the 18th century, journalism in architecture started as taking a step towards documenting and analysing structures and buildings adequately. Although it became more prominent in the late 18th century, the roots of it can be merged with scriptures and reliefs describing historical monuments.1

With the innovation of the printing press during the Renaissance, the fields of art, architecture, and engineering saw an increase in communication, building qualities, and quantities. Journalism, as a practice, includes various subcategories which serve different purposes and cater to different crowds. Advocacy journalism, typically, centres around influencing specific viewpoints or writing pieces that inspire perceptions that fit the intended narrative. Alongside advocacy, journalism for architecture works through other categories like broadcasting, interactive journalism, as well as photographic journalism.2 

Journalism in Architecture

Architectural journalism holds key elements like conceptualization, aesthetics, proportions, and material usage as guiding points. Analysis and Criticism are the two major processes that drive the perception of architecture in specific manners. Although architecture may come across as a distinct field of work, the world of design covers architecture, interior designing, landscape architecture, product designing, urban designing, and more. 

With such a diverse set of topics to cover, architectural advocacy becomes important as it combines critical thinking and communication of the smallest details and the biggest scales.1

Advocacy in architecture means controlling narratives and trends while remaining authentic to the philosophy and the original thought process. From documenting the historical shreds of evidence and progress in the development of iconic monuments to providing news and detailed explanations of urban architecture and discoveries – media personnel can handle how their coverage influences professionals and students in the world of design. It is also how the general public stays up-to-date with the latest drifts as well as better designs. Through journalism, writers can come together and create a notion by writing on a single topic, with individually specific aims. It allows designers to create and project a narrative of the environment that they have built, all the while helping in exchanging ideas and opinions to move towards better results each time.

Media: Print & Digital Publications

In journalism, media is the tool through which creators can raise curiosity in the minds of perceivers. Media has the power to not only encourage the spreading of influential trends but to also create trends in the first place. Media and its various platforms provide depth to the scope of inviting attraction to designs and their details. Not only the ordinary population, but the professionals also seek inspiration through media publications.

Media’s role in architectural journalism can be divided into two major categories: print media and digital media. Social media leads a majority of the digital ways of communication, while also giving their two cents towards marketing by attracting potential clients. Although print and digital media have their obvious differences, some companies have cemented their presence in both areas. There are publications like Architectural Digest which was established in the 1920s, and decided to dive into the online market through social media when the time called for it. Almost all of the leading print publications are also actively contributing to the online part of it, which connects them to the increasingly popularised usage of the internet prevalent in the younger generations. Social media is also conveniently accessible, hence making it a favourable option for new and growing journalism platforms to make themselves known in the market. 

What’s Next: Architectural Journalism & Careers

Here’s what journalism in architecture calls for: combining people’s viewpoints, perceptions of events, and description of realities; while providing the freedom of expressing the same through varying styles of writing: persuasive, narrative, reflective, and critical analysis being some of them. As this field of work opens so many processes to choose from, it also provides multiple options for the platform to showcase your ideas. As established before, print and digital media hold their own sets of publications to explore which automatically creates as many opportunities for more distinct and creative professions. 

Currently, many online and offline platforms offer degrees, courses, and internships that allow students and professionals to merge the professional sides of architecture & journalism and show the best of both as a combined effort. With design at its core, advocacy in architecture maintains creative writing at its front while also offering factual and critical opinions to connect artists and audiences most effectively. 

REFERENCE LIST:

IMAGES :

1. (1580-1605 CE). An illustration of a Flemish printer’s shop, Impressio Librorum. [Illustration]. (London: British Museum.)
2. (1961). Summer 1961. [Photograph]. AD Archive. (https://archive.architecturaldigest.com/issue/19610601) 
3. [Ilustration]. Revista PROA. (https://www.archdaily.com/993671/can-architectural-journalism-shape-the-future-of-the-profession/6398bbed65b1c201700f0985-can-architectural-journalism-shape-the-future-of-the-profession-image)

BIBLIOGRAPHY/EXTERNAL LINKS :

1. Rethinking The Future. (accessed: 2024). Introduction to Architectural Journalism.
2. Stone, G., O’Donnell, M., Banning, S. (1997). Public perceptions of a newspaper’s watchdog role. Newspaper Research Journal, (18), pp. 86-102.