Abstract
The October 2021 issue of the Journal of Communication Inquiry starts with an article about a subreddit group acting as an alternative for fashion journalism and ends with a research showing the correlation between teachers’ non-verbal communication and students’ self-concept. In other articles published in this issue, fake news is considered as part of a continuum started long before our era, CIC theory is argued to elaborate on cultural consumption in the United States, and news frames of professors accused of sexual harassment are analyzed.
Margaret Anne Murray and Nathalie Desrayaud examine an online community called Female Fashion Advice as an example of convergence culture. They argue that this venue offers an alternative to traditional fashion journalism and empowers women to become producers and consumers of fashion. However, this paper also shows that women on this subreddit group struggle to keep fashion from becoming unpaid labor. They try to show their activities as meaningful, enjoyable, stressful, and socially required versus just being considered leisure.
In response to critics calling our era post-truth based on the prevalence of fake news, James Morris argues that fake news is not a new phenomenon. Instead, fake news is considered as part of a continuum started long before the age of digital media and social networks. This paper argues that the digital age has provided the simulation of communications media with a new format. This researcher states that instead of trying to fix the toxic trends causing fake news, journalists should focus their efforts on reporting realities and making realities show the diverged versions of the truth.
By looking at the results of an assignment done by American undergraduate students about non-English music songs on Spotify, Christof Demont-Heinrich shows the general explanatory utility of cultural insularity in the center (CIC). CIC theory describes a tendency among American cultural consumers to prioritizing consuming Anglo-American cultural products since they are located at the center of the global cultural system. This paper argues that the CIC model can help to see the patterns of cultural consumption in the American context and beyond.
Researchers Bethany Pitchford, Miglena Sternadori, Jesse C Starkey, and Amy Koerber look at the main frames in the news coverage of four professors accused of sexual harassment at research-intensive universities. This research shows that news frames were distinctly based on gendered power dynamics and normative assumptions about gender, and the coverage ignored the problem’s systematic nature and the institutional responsibility to prevent it. This paper also shows that the term sexual harassment has been misused to avoid showing what had happened to victims.
Maja Šeric examines the role of non-verbal communication (NVC) in classroom by examining teachers’ NVC cues and students’ behavior on a sample of students in Spain and Italy. The results of this research show that students’ self-concept is significantly correlated with teachers’ non-verbal communication.
Finally, I would like to thank the authors, reviewers, editorial board, advisory board, and SAGE publishing for their work in making this issue possible.