ACTIVISM IN MEDIA

This dissertation is a study of Donna Allen, the founder of the Women’s Institute for Freedom of the Press and Media Report to Women, a feminist newsletter on women’s efforts to influence the mass media. Allen lived from 1920 to 1999. My intent is to assess Allen’s influence in the women’s movement as it related to media. I show that her life can be used to illuminate the origins of significant feminist activism and thought in the communication field and in communication academia. I wrote a biography of Allen in relation to her work in founding the institute and MRW. By tracing Allen’s participation in the feminist movement within communication, I analyze what actions activists took and why, as well as what the goals of feminism in activism and scholarship within communication were in the las