ABSTRACT This article examines how the El Rey Network departs distinctively from other competing Latinx television channels catered to the young bicultural and bilingual millennials. The cable network’s emphasis on working-class masculinity aims to appeal to the Latino millennials who increasingly identify themselves as the new working class. The deployment of a working-class perspective into its original

(2021). The Hollywood Jim Crow: the racial politics of the movie industry. Critical Studies in Media Communication. Ahead of Print.

ABSTRACT This article details a study of mythological storytelling in the Ghanaian media. It analyzes a number of news articles about a Ghanaian celebrity, Yvonne Nelson, in the wake of leading a protest to pressure the government to find a lasting solution to a two-year energy crisis in Ghana. Drawing on discourse-mythological analysis, the paper explores the discursive construction of hero mythology

ABSTRACT This essay reads iterations of Pete Souza’s “Situation Room” photograph across media contexts as an effect of an overdetermined public desire for U.S. redemption in the War on Terror. I argue that repetitions of the photograph's “about to die moment” invite a visceral identification between citizen-subjects and militarized state action through the subjunctive tense. The image’s tension reflected

ABSTRACT Social Network Games (SNGs) are played via social networking sites such as Facebook. In this article, I examine some of the negative interactions that happen within SNGs that may be obscured by the assumption—driven by benevolent sexism—that these games are entirely collaborative. Drawing on posts made to an online forum devoted to YoWorld—a long-running Facebook game—I detail player frustrations

ABSTRACT The video game FIFA (Electronic Arts) is an annually released title with a very profitable FIFA Ultimate Team (FUT) mode backed by a large community of gamers. This article demonstrates that they are subversive consumers based on a fan studies approach. The netnographic study was conducted over two years on the official FUT forum and supplemented with analysis of online news services and different

(2021). Technology is political: review of Sun-ha Hong’s Technologies of Speculation. Critical Studies in Media Communication: Vol. 38, No. 1, pp. 93-97.

(2021). Crisis reporters, emotions and technology: an ethnography. Critical Studies in Media Communication: Vol. 38, No. 1, pp. 97-100.

(2021). The Twitter presidency: Donald J. Trump and the politics of white rage. Critical Studies in Media Communication: Vol. 38, No. 1, pp. 100-102.

(2021). What comes after entanglement? Critical Studies in Media Communication: Vol. 38, No. 1, pp. 103-105.

ABSTRACT This study is an interpretative, qualitative content analysis of the communicative practice within Telltale Games’ online forums for The Walking Dead video game, a choice-based game with non-stereotypical characters that prioritizes group-communication and conflict resolution. The aim of this study is to determine the community’s culture and explore how moderation and forum rules influence

(2021). A precarious game: the illusion of dream jobs in the video game industry. Critical Studies in Media Communication. Ahead of Print.

ABSTRACT This essay examines domestic and international marketing campaigns for the Australian prison drama, Wentworth (Foxtel, 2013–Present), as an intervention into the relationship between (digital) marketing strategies and fan engagement with televisual ideologies. We comment on how three manifestations of marketing (via two campaigns) connect back to automatization, capitalism, incarceration,

ABSTRACT Dozens of superhero films have been produced to date, yet their narratives tend to marginalize characters of color and offer stereotypical representations of masculinity and femininity. Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther places people of color at the center of its narrative; this study investigates whether it disrupts commonplace tropes and offers innovative portrayals of Black womanhood and manhood

ABSTRACT For decades, Egyptian cultural production has adapted the story of Raya and Sakina, the nation's first women to receive the death penalty for murder. In 2017, their story crossed borders as Warde Shamia, a Syrian musalsal, or Arabic-language television drama serial. This project discusses the story's movement across nations and mediums, exploring the way that it illuminates the precarious

ABSTRACT On September 22nd, 2017, President Trump described any National Football League (NFL) player who protested during the national anthem as a “son of a bitch” deserving to be fired. In response, during the broadcasts of the following games’ anthems, entire teams linked arms, knelt, or stayed in the locker room. This was a problem for the NFL’s multi-media entertainment brand. Normally a broadcast

ABSTRACT Amidst the outpouring of conversation surrounding the popular romantic comedy Crazy Rich Asians (2018), a common response by Asian American audience members centered on the experience of crying at the theater. This article asks what provoked this particular discourse and how it is related to broader issues around Asian American media and representation. It triangulates a complex portrait of

(2021). Materialist media theory: an introduction. Critical Studies in Media Communication. Ahead of Print.

(2021). Beyond Journalism. Critical Studies in Media Communication. Ahead of Print.

ABSTRACT This essay examines the celebrity interview as a significant promotional paratext because it is through these that white, cisgender, heterosexual actors are asked to comment upon playing gay. We focus on paratexts around Scandal, Modern Family, Behind the Candelabra and Call Me By Your Name because they are important sources for shaping the ways audiences respond to media and are often re-circulated

(2021). Materialist media theory: an introduction. Critical Studies in Media Communication. Ahead of Print.

(2021). Beyond Journalism. Critical Studies in Media Communication. Ahead of Print.

ABSTRACT This essay examines the celebrity interview as a significant promotional paratext because it is through these that white, cisgender, heterosexual actors are asked to comment upon playing gay. We focus on paratexts around Scandal, Modern Family, Behind the Candelabra and Call Me By Your Name because they are important sources for shaping the ways audiences respond to media and are often re-circulated

ABSTRACT This article explores Irish and international news reporting on the gay Irish politician Leo Varadkar during his term as Irish Prime Minister (2017–2020). Focusing on two media events occurring in 2019 – first, the outing of Varadkar as a Kylie Minogue fan in the KylieGate scandal and, second, his St. Patrick's Day meeting with then U.S. Vice President Mike Pence – the article argues that

ABSTRACT The video game industry is known for its secretive nature, which limits the amount of public disclosure about video game production. In this context, in which even developer postmortems are believed to systematically omit key information, comedy series Mythic Quest: Raven’s Banquet promises to deliver an authentic, albeit fictionalized representation of the industry. Based on a qualitative

(2021). Building affective infrastructures: a review of Gestures of Concern. Critical Studies in Media Communication: Vol. 38, No. 1, pp. 90-93.

ABSTRACT Prominent filmmakers frequently direct two success narratives toward Hollywood hopefuls: prioritize “telling your story” or “refining your craft.” However, through reflecting on his experiences in cinema school, Mexican filmmaker Jorge Gutiérrez challenges the effectiveness of the “tell your story” narrative for minoritized industry aspirants. Through interviewing students in a prominent U

ABSTRACT This article examines media coverage of the murder by a Mexican farmworker of Mollie Tibbetts, a white college student, in the digital alt-right publication Breitbart as a case study analyzing the historicized racialized rhetoric of immigration in the American press. Examining all articles published within the 24-hour period of the discovery of Tibbetts’ body, this article argues that the

ABSTRACT “Deepfake” is a form of machine learning that creates fake videos by superimposing the face of one person on to the body of another in a new video. The technology has been used to create non-consensual fake pornography and sexual imagery, but there is concern that it will soon be used for politically nefarious ends. This study seeks to understand how the news media has characterized the problem(s)

ABSTRACT Recent revelation of disinformation campaigns conducted by external adversaries on social media platforms has triggered anxiety among western liberal democracies. One focus of this anxiety has been the emerging technology known as deepfake. In examining related controversy, I use the theoretical lens of securitization to establish how communicative reflexivity shapes the attribution of threat

ABSTRACT Previous research has revealed a connection between news consumption and class, both in terms of how much and what kind of news is consumed. By deploying a cultural sociological perspective on how young people from different class positions make sense of their differences, this study breaks new ground in the study of news use and inequality. Focus group interviews with young working-class

ABSTRACT Nnedi Okorafor’s Binti series (2015–2017) weaves advanced mathematics, multi-species entanglements, and futuristic modes of communication into Africanfuturist narratives; the series’ devotion to mathematics in particular has even led to its inclusion into the Scientific American’s Math Reading Challenge 2020. This article sets out to analyze Binti’s depiction of mathematics as an almost magical

ABSTRACT This introduction to the special issue Afrofuturism’s Transcultural Trajectories aims to provide momentary insights into the state of the art of an expanding and increasingly diversified field of exploration, cultural and artistic practice and theoretical debate. Momentary indeed, because so much is happening under the umbrella term of Afrofuturism that we can only relegate readers, quite

ABSTRACT Wangari Maathai’s environmental activism aims at the restoration of ecosystems to guarantee ecological sustainability. It is a mission premised on the need to place measures such as the planting of trees to remedy environmental wounds. To stress both the gravity of loss and the possibilities of arresting it, the metaphor of healing the earth underlines her vision that speaks to concerns of

ABSTRACT The Afrodiasporic experience after the Armageddon of slavery, Afrofuturism has long theorized, is essentially post-apocalyptic. However, while the end of the world is conceptually at the heart of the Afrofuturist imagination, it is still relatively rare as a diegetic event. This article seeks to highlight how two British films, Ngozi Onwurah’s dystopian Welcome II the Terrordome (1994) and

ABSTRACT Sankofa is an Akan principle which philosophizes that in order to move forward and build a future, one must reach into the past to retrieve that which is at risk of being left behind or forgotten. Marvel Cinema’s Black Panther which is usually perceived as a speculative, Afrofuturist representation of Black identities has a strong concern with the historical African past. In its construction

ABSTRACT This essay analyzes the growing trend of candidates bearing arms in political ads. We argue this genre represents the enactment of White masculinity through the spectacle of violence that capitalizes on the spectacular qualities of networked media environments to spread and legitimize a recuperative White male politics. We contend such ads operate as a form of inferential racism and racial

(2020). Killer apps: war, media, machine. Critical Studies in Media Communication: Vol. 37, No. 5, pp. 514-518.

ABSTRACT Collegiate esports in the U.S. and Canada have grown tremendously over the past decade, through intensive investments by both universities and esports publishers. Although post-secondary institutions are believed to offer more hospitable conditions for gender-inclusive esports than professional scenes, the institutionalization of collegiate esports might be transforming these conditions. Drawing

ABSTRACT National discourses surrounding fathers and caregiving have changed in the last two decades. Once, fathers were only expected to financially provide for their children and be a disciplinarian; today we see that acceptable parenting behaviors for men have expanded to include traditionally feminine roles. One way to understand the current caregiving culture is through popular media; however

ABSTRACT Airing 25 years after its initial run, Twin Peaks’ television revival complexified nostalgic fulfillment through its subversive treatment of narrative, character, and temporality. Nowhere was nostalgic attachment challenged more than in The Return’s treatment of original series protagonist Special Agent Dale Cooper and his two doppelgangers. Through an analysis of the three representations

ABSTRACT Using the New Yorker story Cat Person, and the babe.net story I went on a date with Aziz Ansari, it turned into the worst night of my life, we explore the possibilities of consent in a context of gender inequality and white supremacy, where women’s physical safety is in danger when in the presence of men, where men have significantly more cultural capital and privilege than women, where white

ABSTRACT A paradox of drawing attention to violations of one’s privacy is that one must publicly detail what has happened. The targeted individual (TI) community is sustained by this very tension, voluminously producing media detailing what they believe is state surveillance. “TI” is a self-descriptor used by members of an online community to denote when a person believes they personally are being

(2020). Behind the screen: content moderation in the shadows of social media. Critical Studies in Media Communication: Vol. 37, No. 5, pp. 512-514.

ABSTRACT Although the scientific community has frequently criticized the reliability and validity of direct-to-consumer ancestry DNA testing (DTC DNA), sales continue to rise, with an estimated 26 million U.S. American customers to date. This surge speaks to a desire among U.S. consumers to fulfill a symbolic need constructed by these DTC DNA companies. Using constitutive rhetoric as a methodological

ABSTRACT This article examines the role of the public in media policymaking through the lens of the 2018 U.S. net neutrality repeal. I begin by outlining a framework for conceptualizing public influence on policymaking. First, I identify constraints on the potential public impact on the policymaking process. Second, I theorize opportunities for policy reform. Third, I invoke the concept of “translation

ABSTRACT This article examines the online advocacy work of Zainab bint Younus, a Canadian Muslim blogger who identifies herself online as the Salafi Feminist. In 2015, bint Younus curated a series of self-portraits from women who wear the niqab, the Islamic face veil. These photos show the women engaging with Western consumerism and popular culture, but they also employ the blended visual styles and

Those familiar with scholarship on games will know that there is no shortage of works which offer a framework to describe what games are and how best to design them for various ends. Academics from...

ABSTRACT This essay uses J. Cole’s song “Wet Dreamz,” the artist’s boyhood tale about losing his virginity, as a case study examining how Black male hip-hop artists draw from ideas about the ordinary to position themselves vulnerably within the contours of the mainstream genre. I argue that Cole positions himself vulnerably by presenting himself as sexually insecure, making him susceptible to criticism

ABSTRACT School shootings are mediated by ways of sensing—through seeing bloodless, distant photographs and hearing retroactive eyewitness accounts. Yet at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, students’ cell phones offered a more immediate and immersive experience. This new way of seeing and hearing created a unique rhetoric situation. In the immediate aftermath, Emma González, a student and survivor

ABSTRACT This essay analyzes how far-right paratexts enunciate and circulate frameworks of interpretation that situate the film, Black Panther, as a Trumpian homage. Such rubrics travel through an interconnected media ecosystem and use the film to promote the views of the far-right, adoration for Donald Trump, and a postracial, neoliberal worldview. Analysis of these paratexts demonstrates how white

ABSTRACT We argue that Black Mirror delivers an amplified experiential analog to the structured excesses of digital techno-culture, affectively “inoculating” viewers with the poison of dark futurity. Through critical examinations of “The National Anthem,” “Hated in the Nation,” “The Waldo Moment,” and ||Bandersnatch|| we track how Black Mirror actualizes the entanglements of digital agency and mediated

ABSTRACT This paper deploys a case study of the first transgender lead character in Flemish television fiction—Kaat Bomans in the soap opera Thuis [Home] (één, 1995–)—to engage an underexplored distinction between the televisual dissemination of identity norms that regulate the embodied difference of sexual and gender minorities and ethical norms that prescribe moral modes of interacting with social

ABSTRACT Since most women do not experience birth firsthand before giving birth themselves, many U.S. American birthing women draw knowledge from media representations for understanding what to expect during delivery. Most media representations of birth uphold a medical model, presenting many women with limited options for birth and reducing the agency available to women in their healthcare choices

ABSTRACT The release of the Netflix series 13 Reasons Why (13RW) was met with vehement backlash from individual viewers, medical institutions, and scholars around the globe. Many claimed that the show’s gruesome portrayal of suicide would cause viewers dangerous psychological distress—particularly because the show was aimed at teen audiences. While these concerns about a potential contagion effect

ABSTRACT Media’s negative representations of sexual violence have evolved over time in western culture. This study examines news coverage surrounding the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing to confirm Brett Kavanaugh’s appointment to the Supreme Court. I focus on how women in the news industry articulate sexual violence in relation to Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony and the counter-testimony of Brett

ABSTRACT The queer dating and hookup app Grindr evidences a technological and economic intensification in queer spaces online. The dominant modality of capitalist power is no longer consumerist norms but the collection and analysis of data. Grindr’s participation in datafication distributes increased risks upon its queer users and necessitates a renewed politics of queer privacy beyond homonormativity

ABSTRACT This project employs framing theory to analyze the gender ideologies present in local coverage of the Democratic Party’s official nomination of Hillary Clinton in battleground counties. By applying framing theory, this study aims to uncover how journalists covered her bid to “win the day” over her male opponents, Democratic challenger Bernie Sanders and Republican nominee (and now president)

ABSTRACT The episode of The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt titled “Kimmy Goes to a Play” is widely understood as Tina Fey's unapologetic response to anti-racist criticism of the show’s first season. By satirically vilifying Asian American protesters as intolerant of Titus, a Black queer man, for performing a one-person play about his former life as a geisha, the show hides problems of White American appropriation

ABSTRACT This article examines how a Venezuelan prison newspaper challenges hegemonic representation of prisoners and the prison crisis through constructing new meanings of the prison and new subjectivities of incarcerated peoples. In my research, I utilize qualitative methods such as textual and visual analysis of the August 2014 Venezuelan prison newspaper La Voz, unstructured interviews conducted