Authors:Cassandra Troy Abstract: Severe problems like climate change, pollution, and biodiversity loss demand urgent action. Unfortunately, people can tend to view such problems as distant, failing to feel that they are relevant to their lives. Psychological distance may play a role in such perceptions. In order to understand how environmental documentaries, which are often used to educate the public about the environment, may influence perceptions of psychological distance, environmental film festival attendees and organizers were interviewed. Qualitative analysis revealed complex reactions to depictions of environmental issues in films, with perceived severity playing a key role in conceptions of spatial, social, and temporal distance. Additionally, participants expressed complicated reactions to documentaries, often feeling inspired and discouraged in response to the same film. Theoretical implications for researchers and practical implications for environmental communicators are discussed. PubDate: Wed, 06 Dec 2023 16:52:21 PST
Authors:Shawna Dias et al. Abstract: This research aims to evaluate how organizations manage their reputations with publics through compounding crises. The research applies concepts of public relations and crisis management, including situational crisis communication theory and organization-public relationship management. The research investigates a case of compounding health crises at a prominent American University, and assesses how communication managers prioritized publics and issue response, coordinated their communication strategies, and revised their communication practices in the wake of the compounding crises. Interviews were conducted with the three public relations managers who managed the events, and analysis was conducted on the University’s published social media content and artifacts that were obtained from the interview participants. The research reveals that relationship-management theories were only adopted by one of the communication managers, and that the communicators had divergent ideas about which publics should be prioritized. The implications for compounding health crises communication management will be discussed. PubDate: Wed, 06 Dec 2023 16:52:16 PST
Authors:Ben Bishop Abstract: In this essay, I interrogate Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s KP-0401, a 2022 legal opinion letter that frames gender affirming healthcare as dangerous, sterilizing, and therefore, child abuse. Within this framing, trans* youth are presented as both delusional and deviant, written off as victims of abuse and social contagion. In analyzing KP-0401 through a critical perspective of affect and performativity, I demonstrate how particular affects have gained power through their circulation to reify feelings and performances of cisheteronormativity, often through establishing the trans* body as a source of negative affect, like fear or repulsion, and trans* youth as infantile and incompetent. By contrast, I argue that KP-0401 exemplifies how anti-trans* rhetoric operates within a positive affective orientation of love and parental protection that understands cisheteronormativity as extraideological—objective, natural, and logical to the point of being “beyond” ideological boundaries—and transphobia, by extension, as a similarly objective form of common sense. I conclude by reflecting on how KP-0401 served as a predecessor to virulent anti-trans* affects and legislation in 2023 as well as the powerful potentiality of trans* youth. PubDate: Wed, 06 Dec 2023 16:52:11 PST
Authors:Sean TE Maulding Abstract: Despite attending the same universities and working toward the same degrees, trans students and cisgender students do not always have the same perceptions of acceptance at their university. The transmale, gender nonconforming, and gender nonbinary students who participated in this study continue to experience a layer of rejection due to their gender identities and expressions. Using queer theory and feminist standpoint theory, this study sought to answer the question of what acceptance looks like from the standpoint of trans students at the University. Through these theoretical lenses and thematic analysis, it was determined that there were four general levels of acceptance experienced by members of trans communities at this university (i.e., active and passive acceptance, & active and passive rejection). Using their stories and experiences as a guide, a definition for both levels of acceptance and rejection was created. The discussion section includes a list of actions universities could take, provided by the participants of this study. PubDate: Wed, 06 Dec 2023 16:52:05 PST
Authors:Mikay Parsons Abstract: Traditional instruction and communication research defines appropriate, effective teacher self-disclosures as moderate, relevant, and positivelyvalenced. However, despite the wealth of research about teacher selfdisclosure in the classroom, no current research explores the constraints faced by trans* instructors in navigating personal identity in the classroom. To fill this gap, I engage in the practice of “transing” teacher self-disclosure from my perspective as a trans/non-binary GTA. This autoethnography provides important insights into how marginalized instructors are unable to enact taken-for-granted “best practices” in the classroom. PubDate: Wed, 06 Dec 2023 16:52:01 PST
Authors:Shawna Dias et al. Abstract: The purpose of this study is to investigate how message framing influences people’s risk perceptions, protective action decision making, and behavioral response. We make a case for both revising and extending the use of the protective action decision model (PADM) and message framing theory to examine the message characteristics of the adenovirus warnings during this crisis event, as well as participants’ impressions and behavioral responses to health risk communication messages. The data were collected from three focus group sessions, held at the University of Maryland. We found evidence to suggest that fear appeals and efficacy focused messaging may increase the effectiveness of health risk messages for university virus outbreaks. PubDate: Wed, 06 Dec 2023 16:51:52 PST
Authors:Ololade Afolabi Abstract: This paper examines how a Chicago-based alternative medium covered the 2019 Chicago’s mayoral race. The study uses critical discourse analysis and the theory of Black feminism to argue for the need to examine the multiple identities of Black women and how such identities determine their representation in socio-cultural and political spaces. The findings from this study show that agency is a major part of media coverage and that the identities of Black women are better represented when the women are portrayed as agents in their own stories. These findings provide an alternative narrative to the discourse of Black womanhood which has been racialized and perverted. PubDate: Wed, 06 Dec 2023 16:51:47 PST
Authors:Sydney Elaine Brammer Abstract: While a significant amount of time has been devoted to researching and analyzing existing opinions about reproductive rights, few have aimed to identify how young women, between the ages of 18 and 35, have arrived at those opinions. This project includes a literature review, an analysis of a series of interviews with young women, and an in-depth discussion about the importance of understanding their experiences. Above all else, it suggests that there are several common points of interest and demands for change from women all across the spectrum on reproductive rights issues, and critical similarities in the ways that they have come to craft their opinions over time. PubDate: Wed, 06 Dec 2023 16:51:41 PST
Authors:Damon Darling Abstract: The stories found within these pages disclose graphic and intimate details regarding numerous accounts of physical, sexual, and drug-based assaults. These stories are raw, they are bloody, and they are mine. There are parts of me that I wish I could continue to remain silent about. However, I hold on to hope that these pages may offer some form of healing for myself and for (potentially) you. Given the nature of these pages, reader, I implore you to approach the essay carefully and cautiously. In this paper, I performatively engage with an internal family system of various personae that have manifested as a result of different anger responses to trauma. Through a system (dis)embodiment and narrative personification, I come to an intimate knowledge of varying orientations of anger and the role they play in my continued survival. Each member of the aggressional family, Rage, Resilience, Revenge, and Recovery, offers a unique insight into how anger can be understood as a central force of protection, growth, and healing. These pages may prove just as challenging to read, as they were to write. Let your anger guide you. PubDate: Wed, 06 Dec 2023 16:51:35 PST
Authors:Jessica Clifford Abstract: This paper is an autoethnography highlighting the reflections of a White, female, graduate student as she begins her protest journey to struggle for justice within a southern city facing an epidemic of police brutality. In this reflection, she contemplates and negotiates her ally identity while serving as a scholar-activist in a historic city for social justice. The autoethnography spans a college semester of activism, involving a march, weekly protests, and a storytelling event centered on police brutality. Communication scholarship undergirds this narrative that reveals entering activism is a rewarding journey to justice, and also to self-discovery. PubDate: Wed, 06 Dec 2023 16:51:30 PST
Authors:Jesse Snider Abstract: Using the video game Kentucky Route Zero as an artifact and the theories of Space and Place of De Certeau, I examine “confused spaces:” places that present simultaneously as two or more contradictory spaces. Through the inevitable confusion between my performance/agency as the game’s player and the performance/agency of the characters within the game, I re-examine De Certeau’s idea of the pedestrian through the lens of twice-behaved behaviors, bureaucracy, remembered religion, inside, outside, and the agency to exert perceived change in one’s environment. Finally, I bring what I learned through Kentucky Route Zero into the realm of the physical, as I briefly examine a particular Black Box theater as a real-life confused space and the confusing effect of trying to keep track of all the places a small theater has been and can be. PubDate: Wed, 06 Dec 2023 16:51:25 PST
Authors:Fatima Albrehi Abstract: The purpose of this research is to understand how non-white, marginalized races and/or ethnicgroups feel about utilizing hip hop music to address and combat structural violence. Structuralviolence includes any institutional, social, and political barriers that prevent equality. Twenty-six non-white participantswere recruited and asked to listen to and watch music videos for three contemporary hip hop songs: Nowhere Fast by Eminem ft. Kehlani (2017), This is Americaby Childish Gambino (2018), and Nothin’ Newby 21 Savage (2017). Participants then conversed with one another through a focus group session in which questions were asked about how they felt about artists utilizing hip hop music to communicate discontent towards societal practices that enable structural violence, how hip hop music may or may not contribute to feelings of group cohesion and identity within marginalized groups, and their thoughts on the utility of hip hop music in the future when addressing inequality. PubDate: Fri, 29 Jul 2022 06:21:14 PDT
Authors:Alex Rister Abstract: Although human trafficking is a widespread issue impacting millions of people, anti-trafficking campaigns often misrepresent the problem. Media can distort the reality of trafficking and avoid addressing underlying issues such as violence against women. Digital activism is a critical strategy to accurately communicate human trafficking and in particular, Twitter is cited as important for such efforts. This case study examines 100 tweets from Polaris Project, Girls Educational and Mentoring Services, and End Slavery Now. A thematic analysis of 100 tweets was conducted to reveal three primary themes: realistic information of practical value, feminist voices and stories, and engagement with other users. Results may be utilized to raise awareness for the issue of human trafficking as a racial, gender, and criminal justice issue, and especially an issue for girls and women of color. PubDate: Fri, 29 Jul 2022 06:21:08 PDT
Authors:Adam J. Whiteside Abstract: Sexual violence is a global issue with devastating consequences. Existing research primarily focuses on its prevalence globally or how countries understand sexual violence. Additionally, media reports often misrepresent sexual violence, fail to capture its complexities, and ignore larger gender issues at play. This article synthesizes extant research using a feminist intersectional approach to provide a basis for comparing how sexual violence is discursively constructed globally. More specifically, how historical, cultural, and socioeconomic discourses underscore the perpetration and media framing of sexual violence. To this end, I reviewed 49 articles on sexual violence in India and South Africa with an eye toward contextual similarities and differences. My analysis highlights the complicated ways that cultural norms inform gender roles in context-specific ways. In doing so, this review cuts across regions of the world to demonstrate how neo-patriarchal gender norms are inextricably linked to particular socioeconomic, historical, and cultural moments in time. PubDate: Fri, 29 Jul 2022 06:21:02 PDT
Authors:Cassidy D. Ellis Abstract: This paper autoethnographically interrogates the author’s personal experience as an abortion clinic patient escort. Based in a performance paradigm, the author uses performative writing to articulate her experiences and to argue for an emphasis of the body and embodiment in scholarship on anti-abortion violence that centers patients and providers. Additionally, the paper articulates the ways in which anti-abortion violence is storied and narratively inherited by abortion providers, which affects their identity related to their abortion work. Finally, the author demonstrates how internalized and embodied narratives of anti-abortion violence manifest in fear of unpredictability. PubDate: Fri, 29 Jul 2022 06:20:56 PDT
Authors:Karly L. Poyner Abstract: This paper examines the identity negotiations of undergraduate students who identify as both feminist and evangelical Christian. Studies of the negotiation of religious identities and social identities have primarily focused on contexts such as sexuality/religion, context/location, and culture/religion. This study, however, focuses on young adults attending private, religious universities while openly identifying as religious and feminist. By pinpointing Christian universities, this study uncovers an additional layer of tension, since these schools “arguably exert a stronger influence over their students than churches, religious denominations, or parachurch ministries” (Gardner, 2017, p. 33). From 14 interviews with feminist Christian students using Ting-Toomey’s INT as a theoretical foundation, rhetorical performance and invitation were found existing as strategic methods students used to negotiate particular discursive tensions brought on by their dual identities. PubDate: Fri, 29 Jul 2022 06:20:50 PDT
Open Access journal
[3 journals]
