Showing papers in "Journal of Communication Inquiry in 2022"
TL;DR: In this paper , the authors examined the function of transformational leadership in enhancing employee engagement through internal communication during the COVID-19 pandemic to ensure the companies' sustainability, and they found that transformational leaders play a critical role in fighting the co-eviction by encouraging employees to be innovative and creative, undertaking active actions, and strengthening employee engagement.
Abstract: This article examines the function of transformational leadership in enhancing employee engagement through internal communication during the COVID-19 pandemic to ensure the companies’ sustainability. This article is based on semi-structured interviews with 16 informants (human resources department representatives and employees) from the four industries most impacted by the COVID-19 epidemic: travel, hotel, food and beverage, and retail sectors. The findings reveal that transformational leaders play a critical role in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic by encouraging employees to be innovative and creative, undertaking active actions, and strengthening employee engagement through internal communication. On the other hand, internal communication has changed due to the pandemic, including communication flow, messages, and media. Internal communication has promoted a climate for active communication behaviors encouraging knowledge sharing, collaboration, and creativity-enhancing employee engagement. Through spiritual values, transformational leaders who promote employee engagement amid this crisis ensure the organization's sustainability. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this research suggests that leaders might increase employee engagement by including spiritual values through internal communication.
10 citations
TL;DR: This paper analyzed metajournalistic discourse regarding the use of the term "alt-right" including internal newsroom policies and updates to newsroom manuals and externally published public discourse, and found that discourse shifted from requiring contextualization of the terms in the first wave to requiring journalists to define the term or not use it at all in the second wave that began with the Charlottesville rally.
Abstract: In 2016 and 2017, several newsrooms presented guidelines for using the term “alt-right” in the wake of events such as the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia (USA) and the US presidential campaign of Donald Trump. This study analyzed metajournalistic discourse regarding the use of the term “alt-right” including internal newsroom policies and updates to newsroom manuals and externally published public discourse. The analysis tracks how news organizations and academic and trade journalism associations participated in discourse about the use of “alt-right,” and their peers’ policies around use of the term. The study finds that discourse shifted from requiring contextualization of the term in the first wave to requiring journalists to define the term or not use it at all in the second wave that began with the Charlottesville rally. Journalism organizations acknowledged, at times endorsed, and used each other's statements in developing their own understandings as an interpretive community and a community of practice.
7 citations
TL;DR: In this paper , a cross-national comparative study of how media in Zimbabwe, Botswana, and South Africa reconstructed their operations in response to the Covid-19 global pandemic.
Abstract: This is a cross-national comparative study of how media in Zimbabwe, Botswana, and South Africa reconstructed their operations in response to Covid-19 global pandemic. The study is grounded in a qualitative research design that uses semi-structured interviews with journalists from Zimbabwe, Botswana and South Africa. The study investigated how news operations, newsroom cultures, news gathering, and news dissemination practices were impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic. Informed by the sociology of news production theoretical lens, the study noted that journalists and editors were affected by the Covid-19 pandemic which ensured they change some journalistic practices. The findings of this study reveal that journalists suffered traumatic experiences such as job losses, covid-19 related illness and fatalities. At a regulatory level, findings confirm the perennial challenges with media freedoms in the region with South Africa remaining a lone outlier. Lastly, interviews with journalists further demonstrate that newsrooms have had to maximise digital affordances for news gathering and dissemination as old revenue streams dried up. As a result, print media scaled back in its operations as a response to containing the spread of the virus.
5 citations
TL;DR: Wang et al. as discussed by the authors analyzed how Chinese government's social media accounts were used to communicate during the COVID-19 pandemic through the lens of agenda-setting, and argued that three aspects were most salient in the communication: information regarding the virus, US-China relations during the pandemic, and emotional tributes to public servants.
Abstract: This research provide a case study to analyses how Chinese government’s social-media accounts were used to communicate during the COVID-19 pandemic through the lens of agenda-setting. Two most active Chinese government official accounts on Sina Weibo, the most popular Chinese social media platform, are selected as examples. The frequencies and content of postings between December 2019 and May 2020, namely the period of the first outbreak of COVID-19, are analysed. The research argues that Chinese government official accounts frequently posted during this period, and three aspects were most salient in the communication: information regarding the virus, US-China relations during the pandemic, and emotional tributes to public servants. The salience of these aspects contributed to narratives that reinforce Chinese government’s efforts in fighting the pandemic, and enable positive portrayal of government to be more visible in the online public space.
4 citations
TL;DR: In this paper , the authors argue that Netflix works through a process of planned differentiation, designing unique customization experiences to create a new type of media user that participates in its global and regional release and production strategies.
Abstract: This article explains how Netflix has transformed the ways in which we interact with media in the contemporary milieu. I argue that Netflix works through a process of planned differentiation, designing unique customization experiences to create a new type of media user that participates in its global and regional release and production strategies. This leads me into a discussion of how the Netflix interface manages the spectators’ experience through a series of connected features. Thus, I detail Netflix’ personalization mechanisms, proposing that, ultimately, its users ‘pay to buy themselves’, or the version of themselves its interface offers back to users upon systematically gathering data on their habits. Finally, I remark that the key characteristics of the current streaming service/spectator relationship are deceptive limitlessness, customization, the automation of content flow and ubiquity, weaving a form of audiovisual engagement that has partially and, at times completely, conquered our everyday.
3 citations
TL;DR: In this article , a qualitative interview with ten Pakistani women from diverse backgrounds revealed identity conflicts between their offline and online identities due to the control exhibited by the prevalent cultural norms and values, which adversely affects Pakistani women's lives.
Abstract: The presentation and performance of women's selfhood and identity in Pakistan, in both the real and the virtual world, is dictated and shaped by the male-dominated cultural mores of Pakistan. Therefore, drawing upon Goffman's notion of self-presentation and everyday performance of selfhood, this paper explores digitally active Pakistani women's selfhood and identity presentation through qualitative interviews with ten Pakistani women from diverse backgrounds. Participants’ narratives revealed identity conflicts between their offline and online identities due to the control exhibited by the prevalent cultural norms and values. Similarly, offline cultural mores of the veil seeping into the online world operate as a patriarchal means of controlling women online akin to the male-protected family and home as a sacred sanctuary providing security to the family women. Pakistani women's experience of the online world is also defined in terms of “digital veil” and “digital sanctuary”. Findings reveal that Pakistani women social media users’ offline self-presentation clashes with their performance of selfhood in their virtual lives. This divergence and resulting identity crisis of selfhood is shaped by cultural regulation which adversely affects Pakistani women's lives. Extended research on social and cyber culture in offline and online identity formation with respect to psychosocial implications is recommended.
2 citations
TL;DR: In this paper , the authors discuss the main challenges encountered when defining hate speech, what alternatives are there for the definition of hate speech and what is the relationship between the nature and scope of the definition and its operationability.
Abstract: As legislators and platforms tackle the challenge of suppressing hate speech online, questions about its definition remain unresolved. In this review we discuss three issues: What are the main challenges encountered when defining hate speech? What alternatives are there for the definition of hate speech? What is the relationship between the nature and scope of the definition and its operationability? By tracing both efforts to regulate and to define hate speech in legal, paralegal, and tech platform contexts, we arrive at four possible modes of definition: teleological, pure consequentialist, formal, and consensus or relativist definitions. We suggest the need for a definition where hate speech encompasses those speech acts that tend towards certain ethically proscribed ends, which are destructive in terms of their consequences, and express certain ideas that are transgressions of specific ethical norms.
2 citations
TL;DR: In this article , the authors analyze the miniseries When They See Us from a narrative perspective and show how the media failed in fulfilling its democratic role and tried to make amends for it.
Abstract: The miniseries When They See Us constitutes an example of how a based-on-real-events fiction work can add to its poetic role the ability to participate in shaping democracy. Although journalism is not its central issue, this Netflix series makes a representation of the press in which it shows how the media failed in fulfilling its democratic role and tries to make amends for it. By analyzing 21 scenes dedicated to the media from a narrative perspective, this paper shows how the series represents the press’ failure in acting as watchdog during this case. Moreover, it also shows how this representation of the press turns the series into a watchdog itself.
2 citations
TL;DR: This article examined 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.
Abstract: 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.
2 citations
TL;DR: In this article , the authors explored the shifting dynamics of what constitutes a contemporary social movement and the pros and cons that emerge after movements have gone online and found that social networking sites have led to greater awareness and better coordination among movement actors to organize LGBTQ'+'movements in New Zealand (NZ).
Abstract: This paper explores the shifting dynamics of what constitutes a contemporary social movement and the pros and cons that emerge after movements have gone online. This paper is premised on in-depth interviews with twenty-nine interviewees regarding how social media has brought changes to the contemporary LGBTQ + movement in New Zealand among both Māori and Pākehā (white New Zealanders) communities. The interviewees testified to the shifting nature of the contemporary LGBTQ + movement after the emergence and inclusion of the Internet and social media platforms on movement messaging and participant engagement. This research found that social networking sites have led to greater awareness and better coordination among movement actors to organise LGBTQ + movements in New Zealand (NZ). The paper concludes that the Internet and social media have led to more visibility and acceptability of information within contemporary movements. The Internet was a facilitator of movement organisation even before the emergence of social media platforms; however, online activism has amplified and has taken a new meaning with the advent of several social media platforms.
2 citations
TL;DR: In this paper , the authors analyzed the presence of the Spanish brands that are most valued for their CSR on the four main television channels with the highest audience over the two months of total lockdown, and also in the online press.
Abstract: Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, in March 2020, the Spanish Government announced a total lockdown of the population and the interruption of all nonessential economic activity. From this point, televisions adapted their programming schedules by reducing their usual informative content, such as sport or economic segments. In this context, it would be reasonable to assume that the overall television coverage devoted to the main Spanish brands would decrease, but what about those considered to be most active in the field of corporate social responsibility (CSR)? In this work, we analyze the presence of the Spanish brands that are most valued for their CSR on the four main television channels with the highest audience over the two months of total lockdown, and also in the online press. The study confirms that the television coverage of these brands was not only reduced but was also mostly positive during the pandemic, so it reveals the CSR importance in crisis periods.
TL;DR: In this paper , the role of gender in U.S. Indigenous news coverage during the early stage of the COVID-19 pandemic was analyzed, showing that women's voices led media coverage and amplified issues.
Abstract: As COVID-19 surged in 2020, non-Indigenous media had a chronic disease of its own: sparse pandemic news from Indian Country. Within this inadequate coverage, there was an erasure of sources: Indigenous women were missing. This study evaluates the role of gender in U.S. Indigenous news coverage during the early stage of the COVID-19 pandemic. In a qualitative thematic textual analysis, 161 Indigenous media news articles were analyzed to examine gendered news coverage themes from the time the United States instituted a nationwide quarantine until the autumn of 2020. U.S. Indigenous media amplified voices of the Indigenous women on the COVID-19 frontlines. This study focuses on Indigenous media as the benchmark for telling ethical diverse Indigenous community-focused stories, illustrating how women's voices led media coverage and amplified issues. U.S. tribes are often matriarchal. As Europeans wielded disease and genocide as extermination tactics on these communities, women's voices served as medicine to guide narratives to community solutions and healing. As such, this study seeks to add to current theoretical understanding of how Indigenous women's roles were portrayed in COVID-19 coverage.
TL;DR: The central nature of WhatsApp in Indian social life is defined as India's WhatsApp imaginary, in which ritualized mobile media practices intertwine with cultural contexts to transcend borders, connect people via mobile affordances, and sustain daily social and business lives as mentioned in this paper .
Abstract: WhatsApp is one the world's most popular social media apps, as well as one of the most popular chat-based, closed platforms. Utilizing the insights from 19 in-depth interviews, we approach WhatsApp from a cultural perspective of ritual communication, seeking to understand how people make sense of WhatsApp use in their daily lives. We found WhatsApp is largely used to maintain community and fellowship with friends, coworkers, family, and even acquaintances or strangers. However, WhatsApp use is not wholly cohesive or harmonious. Social life on WhatsApp can become highly fragmented given numerous groups, and more groups mean more messages that individuals struggle to keep up with. We define the central nature of WhatsApp in Indian social life as India's WhatsApp imaginary, in which ritualized mobile media practices intertwine with cultural contexts to transcend borders, connect people via mobile affordances, and sustain daily social and business lives.
TL;DR: In this article , the authors highlight the importance of deconstructing binary logics in understanding social and cultural relations regulating Asian/American derogatory representations, and employ intersectional lenses to visualize the contradiction of Asian/ American politics reclaimed by the dynamic integration of capitalism, transnationalism, imperialist militarism, and racially sexual fetishism.
Abstract: This paper highlights counternarratives of identity essentialism (re)producing representational conflations to normalize the existing system of social hierarchies. Analyzing anti-hegemonic discourses of identity in the film series “Asian Americans”, I propound how anti-essentialist critiques work as a rhetorical vehicle for constructing coalitional possibilities. This essay reinstates the importance of deconstructing binary logics in understanding social and cultural relations regulating Asian/American derogatory representations. Unpacking the invisibility of ideological power in administering representational strategies, this essay employs intersectional lenses to visualize the contradiction of Asian/American politics reclaimed by the dynamic integration of capitalism, transnationalism, imperialist militarism, and racially sexual fetishism. Representational complexity thus becomes a modality of analytic unveiling the presence of power relations in racially gendering Asian/Americans.
TL;DR: This paper examined the reasons why this happened and concluded with an argument for paradigm repair's utility for studying advertising ethics, and with implications for advertising practice, concluding that the ad violated the ethical boundaries of the industry because it coopted a social issue, acted as a form of cultural appropriation, and served as an example of brand activism.
Abstract: This paradigm repair study contributes to advertising ethics research by analyzing discourse from trade publications and press outlets regarding the divisive 2017 Kendall Jenner Pepsi advertisement. After the controversary surrounding the commercial ensued, actors within and outside the advertising industry argued the ad violated the ethical boundaries of the industry because it coopted a social issue, acted as a form of cultural appropriation, and served as an example of brand activism (gone awry). This study examines the reasons why this happened and concludes with an argument for paradigm repair's utility for studying advertising ethics, and with implications for advertising practice.
TL;DR: In this article , the authors argue that such work must not focus merely on the actions of today's tech-savvy journalism but should interrogate social and cultural relationships at the center of journalistic production so not to as become distracted away from the embedded practices of ideological incorporation that shapes media messages and reproduces inequalities through what and how journalism covers.
Abstract: This essay complicates interpretations of digital architectures in online journalism production in terms of journalistic interlopers and intralopers during an age of increased influence of technologists on online news development. While much normative scholarship revolves around social media, metrics, algorithms, artificial intelligence, VR, and other forms of digital innovation applied to journalism, the essay argues that such work must not focus merely on the actions of today's tech-savvy journalism but should interrogate social and cultural relationships at the center of journalistic production so not to as become distracted away from the embedded practices of ideological incorporation that shapes media messages and reproduces inequalities through what and how journalism covers. In the future, as we approach a notion of the Metaverse, scholars must interrogate the long-standing embedding of elite ideologies into the news as journalists collaborate with technologists (or as journalists become technologists), interact (and re-interact) with elite ideologies at accelerating rates in networked societies, and move into new digital realms we have not yet imagined.
TL;DR: In this paper , the authors identify and map discourse coalitions that emerged as part of Indonesia's cigarette advertising debate (2010-2020) through an analysis of the main actors' use of arguments during media coverage of the policy.
Abstract: This study contributes to an understanding of the discourses of cigarette advertising which intersect within policy debate, media exposure, and the interests of a debate’s primary actors. The policy refers to the existing legislation that has been evolved for ten years. Meanwhile, the debate refers to the nuance of banning the cigarette advertisement in fully or partially form of regulation. It identifies and maps discourse coalitions that emerged as part of Indonesia’s cigarette advertising debate (2010–2020) through an analysis of the main actors’ use of arguments during media coverage of the policy. The findings highlight the contested ground—as well as nature—of the cigarette advertising debate and policy in Indonesia. The current research was able to map the actors, arguments, target audience, as well as channels and impacts of the debate over the evolution of policy in the nation. As implied, the current research engages in the critical use of Lasswell’s model in communication and the process of constructing policy with the strong ties of interest from organizations behind the discourse.
TL;DR: The authors argue that participants in the contemporary U.S. public sphere do not seem to recognize the legitimacy of their political opponents, and there is an increasing turn toward raw assertion instead of rational deliberation.
Abstract: After the January 6th, 2021, riots at the U.S. Capitol, it seemed clear that the public sphere in the U.S. was being challenged by political extremists. Yet, existing public sphere normative theories provide unsatisfying tools for explaining why the riots occurred. Participants in the contemporary U.S. public sphere do not seem to recognize the legitimacy of their political opponents, and there is an increasing turn toward raw assertion instead of rational deliberation. In this essay, we discuss these shortcomings, focusing on how internet-mediated communication makes basic assumptions about legitimacy and rationality untenable. We settle on the concept of an “assertive turn” in the public sphere and analyze how anti-rationalism is becoming dominant in political discourse. We then argue for a scholarly reckoning with the social reality of 21st century U.S. politics—mainly that there are significant gaps in normative theory when it comes to addressing the assertive turn in the U.S. public sphere.
TL;DR: In this article , Pinchevski considers different periods and mediums in and through which trauma and traumatic events were circulated, negotiated or represented, and argues that trauma has and gives rise to a different "technological unconscious" whereby the very conditions of trauma are tied to its form and technological dimensions.
Abstract: Media and trauma are technologically intertwined and even interdependent, this is one of the central arguments of Amit Pinchevski ’ s wide-ranging and important book Transmitted Wounds (2019). The book advances debates in trauma theory and psychoanalytic media studies in a highly original and clear manner. It will be of interest to stu-dents, academics and clinicians alike. Drawing on psychoanalytic trauma studies and media theory, a number of fascinating case studies are presented that in different ways make the case for the need to consider the technicity and structure of mediated trauma. De fi ning trauma in this context as ‘ mediation of failed mediation ’ (p. 1), Pinchevski considers different periods and mediums in and through which trauma and traumatic events were circulated, negotiated or represented. Depending on its mediating technology, trauma has and gives rise to a different ‘ technological unconscious ’ (p. 44) whereby the very conditions of trauma are tied to its form and technological dimensions. The book can also be regarded as a historical survey of technological developments since the radio became a mass medium in the early 20 th century up to more contemporary phenomena such as virtual reality. In this combina-tion, it is a skillful tour-de-force of how trauma, both in conceptual and more practical terms, is intrinsically shaped by the technology through which it is mediated. Pinchevski innovatively contributes to media theory and the wider infrastructural turn in media studies and related disciplines.
TL;DR: This article proposed a ludic theory of popular propaganda that captures the affective, non-discursive, and post-ideological dimensions of propaganda artifacts as well as subjects' aesthetic engagement with them.
Abstract: Propaganda research was central to the coalescence of communication studies into a modern social science field in the early twentieth century. Positivist and behaviorist in its orientation, traditional propaganda research centers on questions of message and effect, brushing aside the culturally rich forms that propaganda assumes as well as the myriad ways in which subjects experience these forms on an aesthetic and sensorial level. This article endeavors to complement the message-and-effect-centric orientation by proposing a (re)turn toward the aesthetic dimension of propaganda, with a particular emphasis upon the nexus between propaganda and the concept of play. Drawing on observations from modern China, I venture a ludic theory of popular propaganda that captures the affective, non-discursive, and post-ideological dimensions of propaganda artifacts as well as subjects' aesthetic engagement with them. My intent in this article is to diversify the perspectives, approaches, and possibilities of propaganda research within the field of communication and media studies.
TL;DR: This paper examined synchronous chats from an online suicide crisis intervention and used contrapuntal analysis to identify competing discourses of meaning among online suicide chat users, and found two emergent discourses in competition to make meaning of suicide among crisis chat users: Discourses of the Precious Life (DPL) and Discourse of Life as a Thing (DLT).
Abstract: Examining synchronous chats from an online suicide crisis intervention, we used contrapuntal analysis to identify competing discourses of meaning among online suicide chat users. Contrapuntal analysis revealed two emergent discourses in competition to make meaning of suicide among crisis chat users: Discourses of the Precious Life (DPL) and Discourses of Life as a Thing (DLT). The results provide a nuanced understanding of the cultural meaning of suicide presented in chat visitors’ discourse. Aside from the theoretical implications for RDT 2.0 focused research, this study extends a growing body of suicide research that foregrounds culture as a basis for understanding the meaning of suicide from the perspective of the lived experience.
TL;DR: In this paper , the authors consider the possibility that students are subversive actors in a hidden curriculum of anti-intellectualism and propose a framework that incorporates three sources of influence: socio-demographics, student-oriented anti intellectualism (impatience with education, disliking instructors), and three dimensions of journalism ideology: the consumeroriented and loyal roles and accountability to the public.
Abstract: This study considers the possibility that students are subversive actors in a hidden curriculum of anti-intellectualism. Mass communication provides the arena in which intellectuals are held up to public judgment, and consequently media education represents a promising context for observing the enculturation of resentment. The hidden curriculum framework incorporates three sources of influence: socio-demographics, student-oriented anti-intellectualism (impatience with education, disliking instructors), and three dimensions of journalism ideology: the consumer-oriented and loyal roles and accountability to the public. Data are drawn from questionnaires distributed to undergraduates at five U.S. colleges with comprehensive programs in journalism and mass communication (JMC). Republican identity, student anti-intellectualism, and journalism ideology predict support for news media exposing faculty as subversive. The study concludes with suggestions for future research on how JMC education, from a comparative perspective, could be vulnerable to anti-intellectual incursions depending on media system and populist climate.
TL;DR: The authors compare two popular Chinese television series, We Get Married (2013) and Nothing but Thirty (2020), to examine the altering constructions of unmarried women on Chinese television against the backdrop of China's post-socialist gender politics.
Abstract: The tendency of late marriage and the increasing single population in Chinese society have galvanized a considerable amount of anxiety in recent years. Part of such anxiety has been manifested through the constant media representations of “shengnü” or “leftover women” since 2010. Referring to women in their late twenties or over thirties while still not getting married, the term “leftover women” indicates a continuous patriarchal policing of single women circulated in mass media. This study, by comparing two popular Chinese television series— We Get Married (2013) and Nothing but Thirty (2020), discusses the altering constructions of unmarried women on Chinese television against the backdrop of China's post-socialist gender politics. The comparison provides a useful vantage point to examine the emerging gendered structures and new cultural imperatives under specific historical contexts.
TL;DR: In this article , the authors make a qualitative analysis of the intensifiers used in Spanish and American opinion columns, focusing on the topic of Weinstein's scandal and publications during next weeks by different sources.
Abstract: The aim of this paper is to make a qualitative analysis of the intensifiers used in the Spanish and American opinion columns. The topic chosen has been Weinstein's scandal and the publications during next weeks by different sources. The method followed will be Albelda Marco (2014) in which she divides intensifiers into lexical, semantical and expressions. Euphemisms will also be considered due to the relationship it has in the corpus with intensification. Conclusions try to explain the uneven number of examples in both nations and the reasons.
TL;DR: Mad Men is often assumed to be “subversive” in the academic literature whereas this investigation interprets the astutely promoted series as questioning capitalism before it ratifies market relations as mentioned in this paper .
Abstract: Mad Men is often assumed to be “subversive” in the academic literature whereas this investigation interprets the astutely promoted series as questioning capitalism before it ratifies market relations. Alongside convulsive change under capitalism that Mad Men captures, class-striated market societies require narratives that posit class division as compatible with meritocracy. Mad Men delivers such legitimizing narratives through Don Draper's and Peggy Olson's realization of class promotions—whereas Roger Sterling, Jr. and Pete Campbell present the privileges of inherited wealth. Don's performance in advertising illustrates Mad Men's often divided view of capitalism. Don melts down during one pitch and reveals his primordial experiences of capitalism as conditioned by poverty, theft and prostitution. However, by the final episode, Don's Coke ad affirms the market as a vehicle toward transcendental community. While Mad Men interrogates capitalism, it is solidly neoliberal in its disregard for State activity (regulation, implications of elected office). The narratively privileged moment of the series’ extended closing montage doubles-down on capitalism as the flawed but optimal steering mechanism for human aspiration. With the conspicuous exception of Betty Draper Francis who never participated in corporate work, core characters realize wealth and fulfillment by mastering market relations.
TL;DR: In this article , the authors compare performance types in advertisements from the 2012 and 2016 U.S. presidential elections and reveal that the rightward shift in Republican messaging leans into fascism.
Abstract: Super PACs have become a pivotal force in U.S. elections, often working in tandem with political campaigns to create cohesive messages in advertisements that serve as a tool for impression management. In previous research, I outlined a series of performance types, impression management techniques used by candidates and Super PACS in the 2012 Republican Primary. Since then, a second Republican Primary occurred, and a more expansive dataset on 2012 was released. In this paper I replicate my past work with the new dataset and compare performance types in advertisements from the 2012 and 2016 primaries. When comparing datasets, the findings were overwhelmingly consistent. At the same time, there were fundamental changes between 2012 and 2016. Notably, the inclusion of a new performance type, “the warrior,” which promotes an eagerness to use physical violence toward non-Americans. This change further indicates the rightward shift in Republican messaging that leans into fascism.
TL;DR: In this article , the authors proposed a cognitive semantic analysis of 50 children's blogs and found that sport, books, entertainment and games, music, fashion, nature and environmental protection, travel and so forth.
Abstract: The research proposes the cognitive semantic analysis of 50 children's blogs. Using cognitive semantic analysis and the experiment method, the research identifies lexical-semantic domains based on the blogs’ concepts. Therefore, it explores the role of culture in children's blogs published by authors from different countries. The cognitive semantic analysis reveals that the key themes in children's blogs are sport, books, entertainment and games, music, fashion, nature and environmental protection, travel and so forth. The sample consists of 625 schoolchildren studied in grades 1, 5, 9 and 11. The research finds there is a cultural component in children's blogs. Future research should focus on the analysis of different blogs, not only for children, but also for adults, and the development of lexical and semantic domains based on key themes and concepts.