Rhetoric and Critical Cultural Studies

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
John M. Sloop
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Studies ◽  
Graduate Programs ◽  
Affect Theory ◽  
Specific Area ◽  
Media Ecology ◽  
The Political ◽  
Communication Studies ◽  
Culture Study ◽  
Broad Area ◽  
The U.S

While each term denoting the area of “Rhetoric and Critical/Cultural Studies” denotes a broad area of academic study on its own, there are numerous to contain or capture a specific area of study. Regardless of how it gets cordoned off, the area is defined by similar themes. In one sense, the area now going under this banner begins with the march of British cultural studies (especially, the so-called Birmingham School under Stuart Hall’s leadership) into the U.S. academic discussion that began in the 1970s. As this particular study of culture found its way into communication studies departments across the country, many scholars emerging from their graduate programs were shaping the area of rhetoric and critical/cultural scholars in the very act of researching the ways meanings/ideology were constrained and enabled by the operation of the entire circuit of meaning (i.e., production, consumption, representation, identity, and regulation). As the critical/culture study of rhetoric and communication has grown, several themes have emerged: (a) the study of ideological and discursive constraints (often linked to a critique of neoliberalism); (b) the study of media ecology and its way of shaping meaning; (c) studies focusing on reception/agency/resistance; (d) studies concerning materialism and the ways communication is altered by the political economy; (e) studies based in performativity; and (f) studies based in affect theory. In general, regardless of the orientation, these studies are concerned with issues of power and action around intersectional axes such as gender, race, class, sexuality, ethnicity, class, and nationality.

Stitched together, torn apart: The keffiyeh as cultural guide

2017 ◽  
Vol 21 (6) ◽  
pp. 571-586 ◽  
Author(s):  
Evan Renfro
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Studies ◽  
Symbolic Interactionism ◽  
Affect Theory ◽  
Cultural Work ◽  
The Political ◽  
The West ◽  
Cultural Importance ◽  
Current Events

While the political and cultural importance of the keffiyeh, as well as its attendant commodification as a fashion accessory in the West, is established, this article seeks to analyze the precise theoretical coordinates of this cultural artifact’s affective power, and its relationship to current politico-cultural trends. That is, we know what cultural work the keffiyeh does, but here we show how that work is carried out, its theoretical underpinnings, and its implications for better understanding the interrelationship between current events, the ideological, and the cultural. Symbolic interactionism, along with affect theory, are leveraged as tools to answer these questions of serious and timely political importance. Indeed, the keffiyeh is used here as the theoretical vehicle that may elucidate the broader implications for cultural studies internationally.

scholarly journals Studying the political economy of media and information

2005 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 25-48 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janet Wasko
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
North America ◽  
Cultural Studies ◽  
North American ◽  
The Political ◽  
Communication Studies ◽  
Media Economics ◽  
Media Communication ◽  
Global Expansion ◽  
Political Economy Of Media

Studying the political economy of communications is no longer a marginal approach in media/communication studies in North America and some parts of Europe. Increasingly, the study of political economy is crucial to understanding the growth and global expansion of media and information industries. Thus, more researchers have turned to this perspective as a necessary and logical way to study these developments. This article will discuss the foundations and some of the major works in the study of the political economy of media and communications (PE/C). The focus is mostly on North American and Britain, with some European references. The discussion is intended to present an overview of the development of this approach, as well as providing a few examples of research representing the perspective. A brief discussion of the approach’s relationship to media economics and cultural studies also will be included.

scholarly journals A Data-Driven Framework for Coding the Intent and Extent of Political Tweeting, Disinformation, and Extremism

Information ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 148
Author(s):  
Mahdi Hashemi
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Presidential Election ◽  
Online Social Networks ◽  
Data Driven ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Affiliation ◽  
News Sources ◽  
The U.S

Disinformation campaigns on online social networks (OSNs) in recent years have underscored democracy’s vulnerability to such operations and the importance of identifying such operations and dissecting their methods, intents, and source. This paper is another milestone in a line of research on political disinformation, propaganda, and extremism on OSNs. A total of 40,000 original Tweets (not re-Tweets or Replies) related to the U.S. 2020 presidential election are collected. The intent, focus, and political affiliation of these political Tweets are determined through multiple discussions and revisions. There are three political affiliations: rightist, leftist, and neutral. A total of 171 different classes of intent or focus are defined for Tweets. A total of 25% of Tweets were left out while defining these classes of intent. The purpose is to assure that the defined classes would be able to cover the intent and focus of unseen Tweets (Tweets that were not used to determine and define these classes) and no new classes would be required. This paper provides these classes, their definition and size, and example Tweets from them. If any information is included in a Tweet, its factuality is verified through valid news sources and articles. If any opinion is included in a Tweet, it is determined that whether or not it is extreme, through multiple discussions and revisions. This paper provides analytics with regard to the political affiliation and intent of Tweets. The results show that disinformation and extreme opinions are more common among rightists Tweets than leftist Tweets. Additionally, Coronavirus pandemic is the topic of almost half of the Tweets, where 25.43% of Tweets express their unhappiness with how Republicans have handled this pandemic.

Cardinal Cullen, Early Fenianism, and the MacManus Funeral Affair

1995 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 549-563
Author(s):  
Oliver P. Rafferty
Keyword(s):  
The Political ◽  
Large Numbers ◽  
The Government ◽  
John Mitchel ◽  
The U.S ◽  
The Phoenix

The political threat posed by the growth of Fenianism in Ireland in the late 1850s and early 1860s has generally been underplayed by much present-day historiography. Even contemporaries were not disposed to see American Fenianism as much of a danger to the constitutional stability of Ireland. The Dublin police authorities decided to recall sub-inspector Thomas Doyle from his surveillance work in America in July 1860. By that time Doyle had sent dozens of reports on Irish-American revolutionary activity. On the basis of his reports the authorities knew that John O'Mahony and Michael Dohney, both of 1848 notoriety, were prominently involved in Phoenix and Fenian conspiracy. They also knew the general points of the ‘phoenix theory’ that England's difficulty was Ireland's opportunity, that men were being recruited and drilled in large numbers in the U.S. for a possible invasion of Ireland, that ‘O'Mahony's theory [was] … to root out the Government, to cut down the landlords, and to confiscate the land of Ireland’, and that John Mitchel had gone to Paris as an agent for the ‘phoenix confederacy’ in the U.S.

The Distribution of Emotions: Affective Politics of Emancipation

Hypatia ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 580-596 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brigitte Bargetz
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Feminist Theory ◽  
Affect Theory ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Sciences And Humanities ◽  
The Social

Currently, affect and emotions are a widely discussed political topic. At least since the early 1990s, different disciplines—from the social sciences and humanities to science and technoscience—have increasingly engaged in studying and conceptualizing affect, emotion, feeling, and sensation, evoking yet another turn that is frequently framed as the “affective turn.” Within queer feminist affect theory, two positions have emerged: following Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick's well‐known critique, there are either more “paranoid” or more “reparative” approaches toward affect. Whereas the latter emphasize the potentialities of affect, the former argue that one should question the mere idea of affect as liberation and promise. Here, I suggest moving beyond a critique or celebration of affect by embracing the political ambivalence of affect. For this queer feminist theorizing of affective politics, I adapt Jacques Rancière's theory of the political and particularly his understanding of emancipation. Rancière takes emancipation into account without, however, uncritically endorsing or celebrating a politics of liberation. I draw on his famous idea of the “distribution of the sensible” and reframe it as the “distribution of emotions,” by which I develop a multilayered approach toward a nonidentitarian, nondichotomous, and emancipatory queer feminist theory of affective politics.

The Case for Repealing the Second Amendment? The Historical Barriers to Constitutional Change

2021 ◽  
Vol 51 (4) ◽  
pp. 595-607
Author(s):  
David T. Konig
Keyword(s):  
Constitutional Law ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
The Political ◽  
Constitutional Change ◽  
Second Amendment ◽  
The People ◽  
The Right ◽  
The U.S ◽  
Popular Constitutionalism

The controversy surrounding the Second Amendment—“the right of the people to keep and bear arms”—is, to a large extent, historical in nature, redolent of other matters in this country’s legal and constitutional past. But the historical analogies that might support the Amendment’s repeal do not permit easy conclusions. The issue demands that legal historians venture beyond familiar territory to confront unavoidable problems at the intersection of theory and practice and of constitutional law and popular constitutionalism. An interdisciplinary analysis of Lichtman’s Repeal the Second Amendment illuminates the political, legal, and constitutional dimensions—as well as the perils—of undertaking the arduous amending process permitted by Article V of the U.S. Constitution.

scholarly journals Algorithmic Media Need Democratic Methods: Why Publics Matter

2014 ◽  
Vol 39 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Fenwick Robert McKelvey
Keyword(s):  
Traffic Management ◽  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Theoretical Work ◽  
Public Deliberation ◽  
The Political ◽  
Communication Studies ◽  
New Methods ◽  
Technical Operation ◽  
Systèmes D’Information

Algorithms increasingly control the backbone of media and information systems. This control occurs deep within opaque technical systems far from the political attention capable of addressing its influence. It also challenges conventional public theory, because the technical operation of algorithms does not prompt the reflection and awareness necessary for forming publics. Informed public deliberation about algorithmic media requires new methods, or mediators, that translate their operations into something publicly tangible. Combining an examination of theoretical work from Science and Technology Studies (STS) with Communication Studies–grounded research into Internet traffic management practices, this article posits that mediating the issues raised by algorithmic media requires that we embrace democratic methods of Internet measurement.De plus en plus, les algorithmes gouvernent la base des médias et des systèmes d’information. Ce contrôle s’exerce au plus profond de systèmes techniques obscurs, loin de l’attention du monde politique et de responsables aptes à encadrer une telle influence. En outre, il remet en question la théorie classique du public. En effet, l’exploitation technique des algorithmes ne suscite pas la réflexion et la sensibilisation propres à éduquer le public. Ainsi, pour qu’ait lieu un débat éclairé, ouvert à tous, sur les médias algorithmiques, il faut privilégier de nouvelles méthodes, ou médiateurs, qui permettront de transposer les activités de ces médias en notions publiquement tangibles. La démarche proposée dans cet article associe l’étude de la communication, étayée par la recherche sur les pratiques de gestion du trafic Internet, à une analyse des travaux théoriques émanant de l’étude des sciences et des technologies. On y pose en principe que la résolution des questions soulevées par les médias algorithmiques passe par l’adoption de méthodes de mesure Internet démocratiques.

Black Voices, White Power

2016 ◽  
Vol 48 (2) ◽  
pp. 143-164 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Redding
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Studies ◽  
White Privilege ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Communication Studies ◽  
Media Ownership ◽  
Black Voices ◽  
Black Media ◽  
Personal Accounts ◽  
Insight Into

When a former Black editor says he was told that Blacks do not care about news by his White boss and a Black deejay is told that his commentary is too hard hitting and not to go to an event featuring a Black militant leader by his White boss, these personal accounts could be extrapolated to mean that there may still be a world filled with White privilege and an ensuing hegemonic bifurcation in a communication studies context. This study utilizes Afrocentricity and the agency that is denied to these two individuals to provide insight into a world where these Black media/newsroom personnel describe how they lost ground to their White media owners. Those interviewed said this world does not promote the agency that comes with Afrocentricity, which is utilized as a critical cultural studies lens to interpret these 18-question qualitative interviews. The environment that those interviewed described is a world not often viewed in the context of White media ownership and the Black-focused content that is produced within them, but is a phenomenon that may be better understood by utilizing an Afrocentric lens in a Communication Studies context.

Plus ça Change: The 1922 U.S. Congressional Debate on the Balfour Declaration

2017 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 98-106
Author(s):  
Khaled Elgindy
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
House Of Representatives ◽  
Political Discourse ◽  
The United States ◽  
League Of Nations ◽  
Foreign Affairs ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Palestinian Arab ◽  
The U.S

This essay looks at the hearing held by the Foreign Affairs Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives in April 1922 on the subject of a Jewish National Home in Palestine, as well as the broader congressional debate over the Balfour Declaration at that crucial time. The landmark hearing, which took place against the backdrop of growing unrest in Palestine and just prior to the League of Nations' formal approval of Britain's Mandate over Palestine, offers a glimpse into the cultural and political mindset underpinning U.S. support for the Zionist project at the time as well as the ways in which the political discourse in the United States has, or has not, changed since then. Despite the overwhelming support for the Zionist project in Congress, which unanimously endorsed Balfour in September 1922, the hearing examined all aspects of the issue and included a remarkably diverse array of viewpoints, including both anti-Zionist Jewish and Palestinian Arab voices.

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