Protect the Filter Bubbles

In 2018, Knight v. Trump sparked discussion about the boundaries between government and citizen speech on social media. Some scholars argued that the courts erred in their decision to characterize the speech in question as government speech. Others argued that the court decided correctly and claimed that the use of forum analysis was necessary to protect both the health of our democracy and the First Amendment rights of social media users. Within the context of algorithmic curation of social media feeds, this article argues that (1) social media platforms are not designated public forums due to the algorithmic curation of online user speech, (2) due to this, the public forum doctrine should not have been applied to the Knight v. Trump case, (3) despite this, user speech rights should be protected online. It also reviews proposed models of thinking that could address unresolved issues of the case.

Telling Stories about Sexual Violence, Victimization, and Agency in Militarized Settings

In this article, I contribute to a debate among feminist scholars on whether survivors of sexual violence should be seen as passive victims or as agents who possess the capacity to resist or actively fight back against their assailants. I probe this question in the context of militarized settings, following those scholars who have challenged the constructions of victimhood and agency as a binary and who have instead conceptualized survivors as both victimized and agential. My aim is to bring into conversation feminist analyses with key concepts drawn from Pierre Bourdieu's social theory. I argue that Bourdieu's work not only elucidates structural dimensions of lived experience, but also casts light on how survivors might infuse their actions with meaning in times of crisis. In so doing, I further confront objections that personal testimonies and stories fail to capture the structural, often invisible, forces that shape lived experience. I illustrate my argument through a reading of the wartime journal, A Woman in Berlin. By way of conclusion, I reflect on what Bourdieusian insights into power relations, agency, and narrative bring to feminist discussions on the constraints faced by those recounting survivor stories in public forums in pursuit of recognition and justice.

America’s Confessional

In the 1910s, 1920s, and 1930s, newspaper advice columnists and letter writers came together to create a complex and interactive exchange of advice that both responded to and contributed to the making of modern American society. This chapter offers an in-depth analysis of both the letters written to advice columns and the worldviews advocated by the nation’s most influential columnists. It demonstrates that advice columns were essential public forums where Americans critiqued and learned to cope with the dislocations of modern urban life. Advice given by popular columnists upheld both the structural racism undergirding American society, as well as the increasingly unrealistic gender norms to which women were held. Yet the interactivity of the columns transformed advice into an ongoing dialogue that allowed participants to seek guidance and empathy in a public yet anonymous forum.

LEST THE KEYS BE SCORNED: THE IMPLICATIONS OF INDULGENCES FOR THE CHURCH HIERARCHY AND THIRTEENTH-CENTURY CANONISTS’ RESISTANCE TO THE TREASURY OF MERIT

Recent scholarship on indulgences has focused on the shared concepts theologians and canonists drew on to explain these remissions and advantageous effects of indulgences on popular piety, the mendicant orders, and the papacy. A closer examination of the work of thirteenth-century canonists reveals an uncertainty about the mechanism by which indulgences worked and concerns that diverged from those of theologians. While the treasury of merit was a popular theological explanation, it was generally ignored by most canonists, who preferred explanations based on jurisdiction, the power of the keys, and suffrages. A key distinction between suffrages, good works done with the intent of spiritually benefitting others, and the treasury of merit is that the former burdens the living while the latter does not, since it draws on merit stored from already completed actions. Since it makes granting indulgences burdensome, the suffrage theory offers a disincentive to granting indiscrete or excessive remissions. Abuse of indulgences underlined the tensions between the authority of God and the church, the penitential and public forums, and the overlapping jurisdictions of prelates. Unlike the suffrage theory of indulgences, the treasury of merit theory offers little incentive for restraint. This may explain its relative absence in the writings of thirteenth-century canonists.

“Well, in the case of my mom…”

This article is guided by the question: What are the argumentative functions of personal stories in public deliberations? Drawing on the analytical traditions of argumentation theory and discourse analysis, we analyzed three public forums on mental illness, where personal stories were used in a number of argumentative functions. Our analysis reveals that in a deliberative forum personal stories were used as negotiable arguments rather than as mere assertions of individual experience. Personal stories were primarily used as arguments by example to challenge the framing proposed by the moderator and to pitch problem definitions that participants considered most relevant. In this function, personal stories were alternatively engaged as inductive or abductive arguments by other forum participants. Additionally, personal stories were used to support solution proposals and to uphold social ideals.

Social reproduction as social infrastructure

The term social infrastructure is increasingly being discussed in academic literature, policy reports and public forums. We might even go so far as to say it is the latest buzzword. Feminist economists understand social infrastructures as encompassing all aspects of social reproduction, but these ideas are routinely sidelined in wider debates. This article provides a critical reading of key trends in the ways the term social infrastructure is currently being defined and deployed: namely, as being equivalent to social spaces and spaces of sociability, such as community centres, parks and libraries, rather than being understood in terms of labour, gender and social reproduction. Part of the reason for this is the association between social reproduction and the home, which leads to a dismissal of reproductive work in communities at large. In writing about infrastructures more generally, it is not uncommon for gendered labour, care and reproduction to go completely ignored, or at least to only be discussed in relation to physical infrastructure. This simultaneous erasure and co-optation of feminist ideas has the effect of diminishing, diluting and marginalising the role of social reproduction as the foundation of our economy and society. It is therefore also a form of depoliticisation. In the article's conclusion, the case is made for recognising and reclaiming social reproduction as social infrastructure: an infra-structural approach could help alleviate long-standing tensions in definitions of social reproduction as both process and practice, and as operating on multiple scales.

Stepping out of the Shadows: Identity Exposure as a Remedy for Stigma Transfer Concerns in the Medical Marijuana Market

Many legalized markets bear categorical stigma—a vilifying label attached to an industry and its participants—that threatens their performance and survival chances. This happens because audiences avoid engagement with stigmatized organizations to minimize the probability of stigma transfer. Although scholars have explored what strategies stigmatized companies undertake to mitigate their stigma, we know very little about whether and how audiences’ acceptance of stigmatized organizations actually happens and if industry-level processes play a role in this acceptance. We develop a theory of identity exposure predicting that customers will become less concerned about stigma transfer when stigmatized organizations unambiguously reveal their identities by publicly advocating and celebrating their business and when vanguard customers openly discuss stigmatized organizations and their products in public forums. We find support for our theorizing in the analyses of customers’ concerns about stigma in Weedmaps.com —a marijuana-based community—from its inception in 2008 through 2014. Ultimately, our findings and extensive robustness checks suggest that identity exposure within stigmatized industries can alleviate customers’ concerns about stigma transfer and in this way accelerate the market destigmatization process.

Charlotte Libraries Tackle Controversial Topic

UNC Charlotte’s Atkins Library, along with the History Department and Charlotte Mecklenburg Public Library, in response to violence, hatred and killings in both South Carolina and Virginia in 2015 and 2017, and contentious arguments over the presence of Confederate monuments, particularly on the campus of UNC Chapel Hill, proposed a series of public forums to address the controversy. With funds from the UNC Charlotte Chancellor’s Diversity Fund, plans were made to sponsor a total of five programs, each addressing a way to combat long-held myths and deliver truths about North Carolina’s history during the Confederacy. This series of programs, Beyond the Myths: The American Civil War in History and Memory, held in February and March 2019, took place on the main and downtown campuses of UNC Charlotte and at the Sugar Creek Branch of the Charlotte Mecklenburg Public Library. The planning and delivery of the series, marketing efforts and follow-up are detailed in this article.

Majlis Ta’lim: Institution for Strengthening Islamic Moderation

This article aims at answering the questions on how the strategy used by majlis ta’lim developed in the Nahdliyyin community in strengthening Islamic moderation in this globalization era, and what are its advantages as a non-formal institution. In terms of answering these questions, the writer used the technique of collecting the data through interviews and observation. Considering that this study tends to be traditional, there is no need for written documents. The interview was conducted with the Muslim figures as activists of majlis ta’lim, and the observation was carried out through joining the recitation held by Muslimat. The collected data show that majlis ta’lim is a strategic place for strengthening and building Islamic moderation. Its strategy is carried out in several ways. First, inviting Islamic moderation figures to majlis ta’lim. Second, determining moderate themes as the main focus of the recitation. Third, optimizing majlis ta’lim as a massive movement. The advantages of majlis ta’lim as one of the public forums for Muslim community are: First, majlis ta’lim is a forum for education and teaching followed by its members. Second, the emotional relation among those members is stronger as compared to those in other forums. Third, the recitation in majlis ta’lim makes no difference in the profession, occupation, and position of the members.