{"title":"“Belief Initiates and Guides Action—Or it Does Nothing”: An Exploration of the Political Functions of Watching and Reading Dystopian Fiction","authors":"Mayte Donstrup","doi":"10.1177/01968599241234323","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/01968599241234323","url":null,"abstract":"This article addresses the question of how dystopian fiction can produce civic and ideological connections among audiences. To this end, we have drawn from different theoretical perspectives on public connectivity to show how audience involvement with fictional entertainment can forge clear links with the political sphere. In short, we offer a qualitative reception study that has yielded six features of dystopias: cognition, rejection of socially negative themes, warning, speculation, ideology, and narcosis. These features are empirically grounded in extensive qualitative research. Finally, based on the participants’ responses, we have proposed a specific reception strategy for the dystopian genre: dystopian imaginative engagement.","PeriodicalId":45677,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Communication Inquiry","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2024-03-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140072348","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Joshua D. Atkinson, Matthew Dorr, Vamsi Chaitanya Pedasanaganti, Shudipta Sharma
{"title":"Toward an Understanding of Centralized Intertextual Fortification: The Case of Commercially Oriented Qanon Content Creators","authors":"Joshua D. Atkinson, Matthew Dorr, Vamsi Chaitanya Pedasanaganti, Shudipta Sharma","doi":"10.1177/01968599241231281","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/01968599241231281","url":null,"abstract":"In this research, we engaged in a cyber-archaeology of interactive media utilized by Qanon content creators to determine if the concept of diffused intertextual production was present in their work. Most of these content creators were engaged in commercial endeavors with their content. Through our research, we found a communicative strategy similar to diffused intertextual production was utilized by content creators in the Qanon community, but with key differences. We call this emergent strategy centralized intertextual fortification. Our analysis demonstrates that there were different kinds of content creators associated with the Qanon community: intertextual curators, interactive accumulators, and interactive confederates. The first two often “boost” one another and the newer confederates through the content that they produce. In addition, interactivity associated with the various social media and streaming platforms did not allow for followers to take part in the production process as in the case of diffused intertextual production. Instead, the user-to-user interactivity provided by followers of the content creators entailed praise, sharing of virtual objects, and expressions of ideology. Taken together, this centralized use of intertextuality and interactivity allows for these commercially oriented content creators to spread the Qanon intertext, as well as reinforce it through the interactivity of their followers.","PeriodicalId":45677,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Communication Inquiry","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2024-03-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140037715","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Don’t Fear Artificial Intelligence, Question the Business Model: How Surveillance Capitalists Use Media to Invade Privacy, Disrupt Moral Autonomy, and Harm Democracy","authors":"Joseph Jones","doi":"10.1177/01968599241235209","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/01968599241235209","url":null,"abstract":"This paper analyzes the causes, consequences, and logic of surveillance capitalism, delineating how behavioral surplus became the latest form of accumulation and questioning its ethical, legal, and material implications. The purpose of this project is to provide a decisively human response to an otherwise reductive, totalizing political economic system that uses equally reductive technology. Using history, political economy, and media ethics, it shows how surveillance capitalists use artificial intelligence (AI) to disrupt the privacy necessary for identity work and distort the moral autonomy necessary for democratic worldmaking. Exploiting human psychology and emotional vulnerabilities, surveillance capitalists interfere with our ability to become better versions of our personal and collective selves. We must therefore reject surveillance capitalism and embrace a more inconclusive understanding of democracy informed by care. While experts and technocrats can endlessly debate the potential outcomes and possibilities, the challenges of AI and an abusive surveillance capitalist system must ultimately be answered by a caring citizenry with equally resilient social institutions.","PeriodicalId":45677,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Communication Inquiry","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2024-02-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140019923","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Book Review: Beyond Mainstream Media: Alternative Media and the Future of Journalism by Stephen Cushion","authors":"Wahyuddin, Muhammad Farid, Arianto","doi":"10.1177/01968599241232358","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/01968599241232358","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45677,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Communication Inquiry","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2024-02-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139840237","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Book Review: Beyond Mainstream Media: Alternative Media and the Future of Journalism by Stephen Cushion","authors":"Wahyuddin, Muhammad Farid, Arianto","doi":"10.1177/01968599241232358","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/01968599241232358","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45677,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Communication Inquiry","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2024-02-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139780596","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Exploring Gendered Futures","authors":"Patrick R. Johnson","doi":"10.1177/01968599241227059","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/01968599241227059","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45677,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Communication Inquiry","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2024-02-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139782920","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Exploring Gendered Futures","authors":"Patrick R. Johnson","doi":"10.1177/01968599241227059","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/01968599241227059","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45677,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Communication Inquiry","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2024-02-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139842863","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Book Review: Avoiding the News: Reluctant Audiences for Journalism by Benjamin Toff, Ruth Palmer, and Rasmus Kleis Nielsen","authors":"V. Y. Lameky, Sahrir Sillehu, Oci Tasijawa","doi":"10.1177/01968599241231284","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/01968599241231284","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45677,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Communication Inquiry","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2024-02-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139798604","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Book Review: Avoiding the News: Reluctant Audiences for Journalism by Benjamin Toff, Ruth Palmer, and Rasmus Kleis Nielsen","authors":"V. Y. Lameky, Sahrir Sillehu, Oci Tasijawa","doi":"10.1177/01968599241231284","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/01968599241231284","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45677,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Communication Inquiry","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2024-02-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139858593","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"“This is Not a Slippery Slope” Versus “The Queer Sex Panic is Just Beginning”: Discourse About FOSTA-SESTA in Ideologically Diverse U.S. Mass media, 2017–2023","authors":"Chelsea Reynolds","doi":"10.1177/01968599231220925","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/01968599231220925","url":null,"abstract":"This research analyzes mass media coverage of The Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA) and Stop Enabling Online Sex Traffickers Act (SESTA), two landmark 2018 bills that changed how sexual content is moderated by internet service providers in the United States. Using critical discourse analysis, I compare the framing of 101 news stories about FOSTA-SESTA published in mainstream U.S. newspapers, feminist media, and LGBTQ magazines over the course of 7 years. Findings describe coverage of online sex work, online child sexual exploitation, and free speech concerns that preceded and followed the landmark ruling from 2017 to 2023. I show FOSTA-SESTA's progression as a topic of discourse during the 2020 presidential election and compare differences between coverage in ideologically diverse U.S. media. While mainstream news originally supported FOSTA-SESTA's efforts to restrict the tech industry and prevent online child sexual exploitation, alternative media tended to present skeptical arguments that supported sex workers and other marginalized communities. Journalism industry interventions are discussed.","PeriodicalId":45677,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Communication Inquiry","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2024-01-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139380930","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}