{"title":"Smart Assistants for Smart Living: Ideology and Mythology in AI-Powered Smart Speaker Advertising","authors":"Suman Mishra, Rebecca Kern-Stone","doi":"10.1177/01968599231155612","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/01968599231155612","url":null,"abstract":"This study examines advertising of top-selling voice-activated smart speakers in the United States to understand how advertisers are promoting these devices to consumers. The study identifies four representations of technology in smart speaker advertising. This includes technology as human, technology as self-expression and happiness, technology as progress, and technology as productivity. Engaging in semiotic analysis of select advertising, the study reveals deeper meaning, ideology, and myths in smart speaker advertising. Implications for culture and consumption are discussed.","PeriodicalId":45677,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Communication Inquiry","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2023-02-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42639333","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":"The Death of Fordism and the Family Wage in Labor Documentaries: A Feminist Analysis","authors":"Kathryn A. Cady","doi":"10.1177/01968599221150651","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/01968599221150651","url":null,"abstract":"This paper analyzes three labor documentaries released from 1989 to 1991, which depict the United States’ assumed transition from a Fordist to post-Fordist economy. Feminist textual analysis focuses on the depiction of workplaces and gender roles in Roger and Me, American Dream, and Fast Food Women. The analysis demonstrated that discourses of epochal change in the context only held true if one looked at a slice of the U.S. labor market largely dominated by White men. Focusing on feminine sex-typed labor demonstrated the worst elements of industrial Fordism remained in post-Fordist workplaces. Long-standing sexual divisions of labor were unambiguously repeated in post-Fordist work and intensified in a discussion of the family wage.","PeriodicalId":45677,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Communication Inquiry","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2023-02-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45520354","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}
Kristy Hess, Angela Blakston, Jerry Lai, Alison McAdam, Lisa Waller
{"title":"Untapped Potential? Exploring the ‘Latent’ Local Newspaper Reader in Digital Spaces","authors":"Kristy Hess, Angela Blakston, Jerry Lai, Alison McAdam, Lisa Waller","doi":"10.1177/01968599221151084","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/01968599221151084","url":null,"abstract":"When it comes to understanding news audiences in rural areas, scholars often focus on declining readership and the challenge of how to encourage existing audiences to pay for content. There too has been burgeoning interest in news avoidance more broadly in digital spaces, with an emphasis on studying those who actively or intentionally resist or reject the news. This paper explores a gap in the research by seeking to understand the conditions and circumstances in which people who do not engage with their local news in print or digital format might be activated to do so. The paper presents the findings of an Australian survey of Facebook users who live in rural and regional areas and identify as people who do not engage with their local news. Findings highlight the need to conceptualise a subsection of the audience who express a desire to engage with their local news but perceive barriers to doing so. These barriers include cost, accessibility and perceived quality of content. We introduce the term ‘latent’ audience – potential news consumers who remain hidden from industry and scholarly view until changing conditions and circumstances lead to their manifestation.","PeriodicalId":45677,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Communication Inquiry","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2023-02-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45798151","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":"Political Purpose and the Development of Mediatisation: Considering Media Representations and News Management During the Coal Dispute of 1984-5","authors":"Frances Myers","doi":"10.1177/01968599231153220","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/01968599231153220","url":null,"abstract":"One major contestation of mediatisation is insufficient empirical historiography of its development, particularly in light of claims for its value in understanding political and social change and the processes of change. This article seeks to add to evidence on concept development by considering a single transformation from mediation towards mediatisation in public communication processes as an example of its phased development at the juncture of press and politics. Using a historical case framework from the British Coal Dispute of 1984-5 to consider political change agency, it explores print media representations of union activity and union leadership to examine how the Conservative government used the media as a proxy in seeking to change public attitudes toward industrial relations. Using three themes from the 1977 Stepping Stones strategy, the article discusses how media outlets were used as a vehicle for purposeful political communication.","PeriodicalId":45677,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Communication Inquiry","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2023-02-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48158906","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":"Global Narratives of Ecological Modernization: The Construction of Climate Change op-eds in China Daily and the New York Times","authors":"D. Moscato, Ricardo J. Valencia","doi":"10.1177/01968599231151969","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/01968599231151969","url":null,"abstract":"This study assesses the journalistic sources contributing to international climate change op-eds in tandem with narratives arising from this prominent platform for media elites and institutions. Through a theoretical lens of ecological modernization, this paper conducted a mixed methodological analysis featuring descriptive quantitative analysis and a subsequent narrative analysis. The authors first analyzed a dataset of 305 op-eds published by the New York Times and China Daily between January 2016 and October 2019. The authors also assessed the narratively-constructed themes embedded within selected op-eds leading up to the United States’ departure from the Paris Agreement. These narratives, which featured appeals to a global ecological modernization, are (1) Humankind's shared economic destiny; (2) The new globalization and diplomacy; (3) The looming climate catastrophe. While the New York Times and China Daily featured different op-ed contributors and climate topics, both publications helped to construct larger unifying narratives about the role of climate change in global politics, economy, and society.","PeriodicalId":45677,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Communication Inquiry","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2023-01-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47567957","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":"Nigerian Military Strategic Use of Social Media During Online Firestorms: An Appraisal of the NDA Terrorist Attack","authors":"Temple Uwalaka","doi":"10.1177/01968599231151727","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/01968599231151727","url":null,"abstract":"This study appraises how the Nigerian military used social media platforms to provide a counter narrative and quell the online firestorm regarding the Nigerian Defence Academy's (NDA’s) terrorists’ attack and how Nigerians reacted to these strategic communication items or lack of items about the attack. The study analysed 8,210 Facebook posts and comments from Defence Headquarters Nigeria and Facebook users in Nigeria. Findings demonstrate that the Nigerian military adopted silence as a strategy and thus, did not effectively utilise social media platforms to provide a counter narrative or information to quell the online firestorm regarding the NDA terrorists’ attack. Results further illustrate that Nigerian Facebook users criticised the Federal Government, and the military, and were disgusted that a fortress such as the NDA could be attacked and demanded the firing of the Service Chiefs and NDA leaders for their response and attempted cover-up of the attack. The study concludes that while a high reservoir of trust moderates the short and long-term effects of an online firestorm, inactions during an online firestorm aggravates the effect of such an online crisis.","PeriodicalId":45677,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Communication Inquiry","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2023-01-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44086551","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":"Digital Moral Outrage, Collective Guilt, And Collective Action: An Examination of How Twitter Users Expressed Their Anguish During India's Covid-19 Related Migrant Crisis.","authors":"Neelam Sharma","doi":"10.1177/01968599221081127","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/01968599221081127","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This paper examines the intersection of group-based expressions including digital moral outrage, collective guilt, and collective action on Twitter, following the tragic incident of 8 May 2020, in which 16 migrant workers were run over by a train after the Indian government imposed a sudden COVID-19-related lockdown. Twitter data were gathered immediately at three different times - May 8-15, May 16- 23, May 24-May 31, and 4598 tweets were manually coded. The analysis revealed that digital moral outrage was the most frequently expressed emotion. It, however, gradually decreased, signaling digital outrage fatigue. Collective guilt and sympathy constituted the second-largest portion of the total tweets, and tweets reflecting collective action by the community progressively increased. The network of relationships among different group-based emotions, the promotion of one-sided narratives and virtue signaling on social media platforms are discussed.</p>","PeriodicalId":45677,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Communication Inquiry","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9676108/pdf/10.1177_01968599221081127.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"10481936","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Editor's Introduction","authors":"Frankline Matanji","doi":"10.1177/01968599221138466","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/01968599221138466","url":null,"abstract":"By conducting interviews and ethnographic observations, Stein shows how dreams of various groups from Palestine, and video activists and human rights workers failed in the hands of the Israeli military. It looks at the presence of main Spanish brands most active in the field of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in four main Spanish televisions channels with the highest audience and online press during the two months of total lock-down due to Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. The January issue of the Journal of Communication Inquiry includes five original articles, and one book review. [Extracted from the article]","PeriodicalId":45677,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Communication Inquiry","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49542986","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":"Beyond Laughter: An Analysis of Phonological Joke in A. B. Crentsil's Atia and Osookoo","authors":"Samuel Ato Bentum, Daniel Oppong-Adjei","doi":"10.1177/01968599221141740","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/01968599221141740","url":null,"abstract":"Phonological joke is an area that appears to be under-studied especially in its application to the analysis of humor in a given setup such as Ghana. This study explores the concept of phonological joke in the songs, Atia and Osookoo by the Ghanaian musician, A. B. Crentsil, paying attention to the critical issues that are embedded in the songs. These selected highlife songs are conveniently sampled in order to capture the elements of phonological joke. Phonological joke is explained as a type of humor that parodies the sound of another language for an effect other than simply amusement. This study's application of phonological joke, as an interpretative framework, is borne out of the views shared by phonological joke theorists, Adrjan & Muñoz-Basols. At the end of the study, the findings reveal that A. B. Crentsil uses phonological parallelism and paradigmatic associations to foreground the conveyance of critical messages such as: stereotyping certain ethnic group(s) and mixed or cross-cultural gender representations. The major implication of this study is that the utility of humor in Ghanaian music goes beyond amusement to convey critical issues. This study contributes to the on-going pedagogical understanding of phonological joke in the Ghanaian highlife culture.","PeriodicalId":45677,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Communication Inquiry","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2022-12-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46225605","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":"Theoretical and Social Implications of Alternative ‘Feminist’ Media: Sexual Harassment and Intersectional Advocacy in India","authors":"I. Mukherjee, Priya V. Shah, Tina E. Dexter","doi":"10.1177/01968599221144029","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/01968599221144029","url":null,"abstract":"What makes alternative digital media ‘alternative’ is critical content and being a ‘prosumer’ platform that champions social justice and change. An Indian digital zine, and our present case study for critical alternative media, is Feminism in India (FII) and its news coverage of the #MeTooIndia movement from 2017 to 2021. In this article, we adopt the critical theory of alternative media and transnational intersectionality frameworks to perform a critical-cultural review of the theoretical, sociopolitical, and change-making implications of FII. We aim to explore its role as alternative media that presents intersectional perspectives and advocacy opportunities in relation to India and its transnational #MeToo mobilizations against sexual harassment. As ‘critical content’ is what defines alternative media, we argue that FII is a critical news site that democratizes gender-diverse narratives and introduces a rupture within India's politically-pandered and patriarchally-primed mainstream media.","PeriodicalId":45677,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Communication Inquiry","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2022-12-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49328848","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}