Abstract
The April issue of Journal of Communication Inquiry (JCI) brings together scholarship that applies a critical-cultural lens to exploring communication phenomena in a range of national and historical contexts, from the 19th- and 21st-century United States to contemporary Latin America to post-Soviet Russia. JCI is dedicated to publishing research that explores the complex relationships between mass communication and society across time and culture. The articles in this issue reflect that commitment.
In the opening article, Emilia M. Valenzuela-Vergara analyzes the representations of immigration in the mainstream Chilean press. Findings show that, despite the emerging alternative narrative that provides a more humanizing take on immigration, the prevailing discourse continues to rely on simplified, vilifying representations of immigrants. Such portrayals fail to provide a comprehensive picture of immigration that would give justice to the complex, multifaceted nature of this societal phenomenon.
The question of the meaning-making role of the media is also central to the article by Ryan J. Phillips, who analyzes the framing techniques applied by The Washington Post in its online coverage of vegan parenting, in order to explore the role of the media in shaping public debate on contentious issues and to demonstrate the usefulness of applying a rhetorical framing analysis in such scholarly explorations. The analysis reveals a reliance on prolepses and blind spots, which enables The Washington Post to construct the meaning of vegan parenting in terms of a dominant health-based frame. This contributes to relegating alternative perspectives to the margins of public debate and to making it harder for proponents of vegan parenting to effectively challenge the dominant narrative.
In the next article, titled “Unruly Women and Carnivalesque Countercontrol: Offensive Humor in Mediated Social Protest,” Anne Graefer, Allaina Kilby, and Inger-Lise Kalviknes Bore take the reader on a virtual tour to the Women’s March in January 2018 by exploring social media postings of anti-Trump protest signs with the purpose of exploring the opportunities of offensive humor for civic participation. The authors conclude that offensive humor can operate as an effective political tool able to galvanize social protest in both online and offline settings.
In “How Trains Became People: Southern Pacific Railroad Co.’s Networked Rhetorical Culture and the Dawn of Corporate Personhood,” Nicholas S. Paliewicz offers an actor-network analysis of the corporation’s alliances and coalitions. The analysis provides insight into a rhetorical culture that bolstered the corporation’s case for constitutional protection and eventually expanded the boundaries of the 14th Amendment to apply to corporations as legalistic persons with constitutional prerogatives.
The issue is rounded out by reviews of two books that examine recent political and media transformations in two regions: Russia and Latin America. In her review of Natalia Roudakova’s Losing Pravda: Ethics and The Press in Post-Truth Russia, Anna Popkova concludes that the book can be considered “an essential reading not only for the scholars of Russian media and politics but for anyone who cares about the role of journalism, truth, and ethics in political and public culture.” The opinion about the relevance of a region-specific look for a broader audience is shared by Ingrid Bachmann, who reviews a second book, The Pink Tide: Media Access and Political Power in Latin America, edited by Lee Artz. Bachmann notes that the book not only offers an insightful picture of different approaches to public communication in the region but opens up opportunities for a broader, “much needed discussion about media policy, social justice, and public communication.”
Many thanks to all those who helped this issue to completion, including Sage production staff, Advisory Board members, Executive Editor, our reviewers, and authors.