The vortex of multiculturalism in South Korea: a critical discourse analysis of the characterization of “multicultural children” in three newspapers

This study investigates how multicultural children have been portrayed by the Korean media, where the term is typically used to mean a child of an underprivileged Korean man and a female marriage migrant from a less industrialized neighboring country. Adopting the theoretical lens of critical discourse analysis, I examine news articles published from 2009 to 2013 in the Hankyoreh, the Hankook Ilbo, and the Chosun Ilbo: three daily newspapers representing a full range of progressive, moderate, and conservative political perspectives within society. Analysis reveals that multicultural children have been characterized as a marginalized group, as a threat to the future Korean society, or as global human resources. Given that these discourses are manifestations of underlying ideology, I also explore how these three discourses are conjoined with three competing ideologies in Korea; namely, democracy, nationalism, and neoliberalism. This study concludes by discussing how multiculturalism serves as a discursive framework through which democratic, nationalist, and neoliberal ideas gain their effectiveness.     

A space for countering colorblind discourse: constructions of police-perpetrated homicides of African-American males

This qualitative study assesses how police-perpetrated homicides of African-American males are constructed in the public sphere. Similar studies on the discourse surrounding the topic have focused on newspaper articles as the discourse unit. In this article, I argue that the opinion-editorial (op-ed) pages of newspapers are a space for challenging colorblind frames invoked the discourse about police use of force that dominates in the print media. To demonstrate this point, I conducted an ethnographic content analysis of 168 op-eds from five different U.S. newspapers: Contra Costa Times, New York Times, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Salt Lake Tribune, and Washington Post. The op-eds focused on the police-perpetrated homicides of Eric Garner, Michael Brown, and Tamir Rice in 2014. The findings from this study indicate that the op-ed pages provide a unique opportunity for Black voices to be heard, as well as a space for dominant frames about police-perpetrated homicides to be challenged. Paradoxically, the results also impugn the sequestering of Black voices into the openly subjective spaces of print media.     

Viewing the Public Sphere With Influentials and Citizens

The currently popular emphasis on democratic discussion in the “public sphere” often is critically viewed by observers commenting on issues of participation, empowerment, and efficacy without input from influentials, whose voices often are the content of public debates. Habermas was critical of the quality of democratic discourse, arguing for an “ideal speech situation” where participants are free to question all proposals; introduce proposals; and express their attitudes, wishes, and needs. This article examines perceptions of the climate of communication in the public sphere by influentials and the general public of a major urban area.     

Gregory Bateson,Niklas Luhmann,and Ecological Communication

Cognizant of the evolving academic discipline of ecological communication (EC), I offer this essay as a follow-up to my previous publication—a critical exegesis of Niklas Luhmann's Ecological Communication (1989)—in this journal. Hoping to throw more light on Luhmann's formulations, I introduce and interpret those writings of Gregory Bateson that apparently influenced the former—and/or attempted to link ecology with communication. While I do not necessarily advocate either of these two thinkers' overall philosophical frameworks, I believe that they deserve attention—at the least insofar as they provide a measure of contrast to the contemporary academic discourse of EC (which remains shallow, intellectually parochial, and nonrigorous). That aside, many specific ideas developed by these two thinkers will interest a wide range of constituencies—especially those devoted to the study of information, communication, and ecology.     

Ellen,Television, and the Politics of Gay and Lesbian Visibility

–The discourses constructing the coming-out of Ellen DeGeneres/Ellen Morgan, star of and lead character in the ABC television sitcom Ellen, were permeated with implications of authenticity and liberation, illustrating the continuing power of the confessional ritual described by Michele Foucault in The History of Sexuality. In contrast to the popular interpretation of the coming-out as an escape from repression, media treatment of the Ellen phenomenon was productive, in Foucault's sense, constructing a regulatory discourse that constrained the implications of gay visibility on commercial television by channeling it through a narrative of psychological autonomy, through television norms for representing homosexuality, and through an overarching strategy of personalization. I conclude with a discussion of the problems of “poster-child politics” as exemplified by the Ellen discourse.     

Reconciling Hall with discourse,written in the shadows of ‘“Confederate” and Rainbow Flags

ABSTRACT

This essay addresses Stuart Hall and discourse theory, focusing on his essay “Signification, representation, ideology.” Reflecting upon recent events involving representation and identity—US legalization of gay marriage, murders at a gay nightclub, removal of the “Rebel Flag” from the South Carolina state capitol, Donald Trump’s presidential campaign—I attempt to destabilize the counterproductive dualism of material/discourse in Hall’s critique of poststructural discourse theory. Finding amenability between Hall and Foucaultian discourse theory, I describe Hall’s utility for discourse scholars, such as his perspectives on ideological practices and generation of new discourses as an interventionist act.     

“There’s nothing I hate more than a racist:” (Re)centering whiteness in American Horror Story: Coven

This article examines race and racism in the popular cable horror-drama American Horror Story: Coven. Centered around a feud between a white witch coven and a black, voodoo group of witches, Coven overtly deals with the issue of racism, but presents racism as a phenomenon contained in the past; something that does not happen anymore. Using critical post-race theory and scholarship on colorblind racism, whiteness, as well as black feminist theory, I show that although the narrative of Coven explicitly decries racism, it simultaneously invests in colorblind racist narratives and dialogue. Whiteness is central in Coven, operating through discourse that ignores racial difference and contemporary forms of oppression and erasure. Coven uses graphic depictions of violence against black bodies, makes explicit connections between black sexuality and animals, and uses exotic and aggressive stereotypes of black women to tell its story. Thus, Coven’s narrative both condemns racism and relies on it. This article shows that the contemporaneous presentations of explicit anti-racist dialogue and racist imagery work to (re)place whiteness at the center of Coven, a TV show that purports to forward a message of equality and justice for those who are different.     

From Grand Narratives of Democracy to Small Expectations of Participation

This article critically examines the invocation of democracy in the discourse of audience participation in digital journalism. Rather than simply restate the familiar grand narratives that traditionally described journalism's function for democracy (information source, watchdog, public representative, mediation for political actors), we compare and contrast conceptualisations of the audience found within these and discuss how digital technologies impact these relationships. We consider how “participatory” transformations influence perceptions of news consumption and draw out analytic distinctions based on structures of participation and different levels of engagement. This article argues that the focus in digital journalism is not so much on citizen engagement but rather audience or user interaction; instead of participation through news, the focus is on participation in news. This demands we distinguish between minimalist and maximalist versions of participation through interactive tools, as there is a significant distinction between technologies that allow individuals to control and personalise content (basic digital control) and entire platforms that easily facilitate the storytelling and distribution of citizen journalism within public discourse (integrative structural participation). Furthermore, commercial interests tend to dominate the shaping of digital affordances, which can lead to individualistic rather than collective conceptualisations. This article concludes by considering what is gained as well as lost when grand visions of journalism's roles for democracy are appropriated or discarded in favour of a participation paradigm to conceptualise digital journalism.     

The Rhetoric of Visual Play: An Analysis of Postsubject Voice in New York City

Through an analysis of the street artist Banksy's 2013 residency of New York City, I identify two major rhetorical themes: Images of Discontent and Re-Visions of the City. I argue that the Banksy images exert an influential postsubject voice into the visual discourse of New York City, which I define as a visual articulation that resists traditional markings of identity in favor of visual play. In visual play, elements of the city are turned into toys through a critical orientation towards the urban landscape, postmodern aesthetic codes, participatory rhetoric, and the logics of the virtual. I conclude by arguing that play may offer an effective and transgressive mode of engaging contemporary rhetorical argument, particularly within the materiality of place.     

The City Personified: The Geopolitical Narratives of Rudy Giuliani

The article examines the growing interest in political celebrity and urban branding within media and cultural studies. It stresses the significance of narrative strategies in political statecraft, with specific reference to the intimate relationship between mayors and cities. It focuses on the figure of Rudy Giuliani, both in his period as mayor of New York between 1993 and 2001, and in his subsequent political and private lives, paying close attention to how the event of 9/11 acted as a pivot in his political career. After conceptualizing the relationship between mayors and cities through a discussion of public discourse, celebrity, and political scale, the paper then identifies three processes by which Giuliani has personified New York: first, through narrative control and self-projection within the New York political sphere, by considering his use of selected city sites as a form of synecdoche in his media strategies, and his marginalization of those who challenged him politically; second, through his elevated celebrity status and visual representation by the media in the aftermath of 9/11; and third, through the genre of autobiography and branding, via his book Leadership and related commercial activities, whereby he shifted the scale of his narrative beyond New York.     

Negotiating boundaries of knowledge: Discourse analysis of Wikipedia's Articles for Deletion (AfD) discussion

Although previous research has revealed factors that affect Wikipedia editors' decisions regarding content retainment and deletion,¹1. J. Schneider, A. Passant, and S. Decker, “Deletion Discussions in Wikipedia: Decision Factors and Outcomes,” WikiSym '12 (2012); and D. Taraborelli, and G. L. Ciampaglia, “Beyond Notability. Collective Deliberation on Content Inclusion in Wikipedia,” 2010 Fourth IEEE International Conference on Self-Adaptive and Self-Organizing Systems Workshop (2010): 122–25.View all notes there has been little research on the editors' discussion that is involved therein as a linguistic process. In this article, I study Wikipedia's Articles for Deletion (AfD) talk pages and conceptualize each discussion as a conflictual language game.²2. L. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, 3rd ed. (Oxford, UK: Basil Blackwell, [1953] 1967).View all notes I study, by using discourse analysis interpretively and critically, how participants (especially first movers) frame the discussion direction—either as an invitation to collaborate or with cascading arguments (leaving little room for casual chit-chat). Finally, I study entire AfD discussions and find two coexisting language games: the discussion game and the consultation/enforcement game. I find that the closing admins of AfD discussions function as policy experts rather than consensus facilitators. Hence, AfD discussions contain both sets of game rules, but ultimately the power of the decision is nonetheless vested in the admins. This brings background power dynamics into the grammar of language games in the struggle for the generation and sustenance of the dominant knowledge or narratives of our information society.     

It Follows: precarity,thanatopolitics, and the ambient horror film

In the 2014 horror film It Follows, a teenage woman is terrorized by a fatal curse that passes from victim-to-victim via sexual intercourse. The subject of the curse is relentlessly pursued by vacant-minded assassins that take the form of friends, loved ones, and strangers. The film is set near the infamous dividing-line of Detroit’s 8 Mile Road, between what remains of the suburban working-class and the sacrifice zone of post-industrial urban triage. I argue that It Follows confronts audiences with the spectral manifestation of precarity: the deliberate and unequal redistribution of human fragility to populations who are the most socially and economically vulnerable. First, the generic shift from a specific monster to an anonymous and relentless force redeploys horror convention to draw attention to the conditions that induce horror within the prevailing socioeconomic order. Second, the film renders such precarity visible by contrasting the mise-en-scene of the suburban enclave with zones of postindustrial ruin; the relative comfort of the former predicated on the vulnerability of the latter. The film maps a landscape of postindustrial ruin, enacting a visual and narrative critique of thanatopolitics, the biopolitical organization of death under late capitalism.     

Graduate theses: An index of graduate work in speech,XXVIII

With an 1890 book called The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, Alfred Thayer Mahan had a profound and far‐reaching impact upon subsequent world events. In large measure, Mahan's effectiveness was derived from his style in discourse. Evidence for this assumption is found in the reactions of Mahan's readers, in their correspondence to him or about him. Analysis and synthesis of those situationally bound responses to discourse account for a rhetorical function of style in language as para‐message conducing to ethos.     

The development of discourse presentation in The Times, 1833–1988

Newspaper preferences for particular formats of speech presentation differ and they change in the course of time. In this contribution we focus on The Times and trace such developments in the formative years of the modern Anglo-American newspapers, from 1833 to 1988. We extracted data from The Times Digital Archive in six samples of roughly 5000 words at intervals of 31 years and analysed the texts manually for instances of reported speech. Our analysis shows that the focus has shifted from the presentation of speech events as coherent wholes in earlier newspapers towards a more selective use of individual statements that summarise an event or characterise it from different angles. And it also shows that the frequency of indirect forms of discourse presentation decreases over the years in favour of direct forms. This gives further support to the claim that in terms of discourse presentation broadsheets slowly develop into the direction spearheaded by tabloids.     

Candidates’ use of informal communication on social media reduces credibility and support: Examining the consequences of expectancy violations

ABSTRACT

This experiment (N= 476) investigates how individuals evaluate political candidates who use informal communication on social media. We use expectancy violations theory (EVT) to predict that informal communication will lead to negative evaluations. Our results suggest that politicians’ use of informal communication on social media leads to expectancy violation, which decreases perceived credibility and lessens intention to support a candidate. This effect was not moderated by sex (male versus female) or age (young versus old) of the candidate, nor of participants being the same sex as the candidate. These findings suggest that political figures should use informal communication on social media with caution.     

A bibliography of rhetoric and public address for the year 1967

The purpose of this investigation was to isolate personality correlates of leadership by determining the unique personality profiles associated with autocratic and democratic leadership styles. Based on a multiple discriminant analysis which separated the autocratic from democratic groups on the basis of seven personality variables (of 53 considered), subjects were classified as autocratic or democratic with a 75.66% accuracy. Also, a personality profile emerged from the pattern of scores on the variables from the discriminant analysis which allowed for a useful personality‐based characterization of autocratic and democratic leaders.     

Beyond genre theory: The genesis of rhetorical action

In this essay, I contend that traditional genre theory has an important inherent limitation: It assumes that a single controlling characteristic (often, but not exclusively, situation) is responsible for (and explains) the production of a genre of rhetoric. In contrast, the theory of the Genesis of Rhetorical Action holds that four Burkean ratios—scene‐act, purpose‐act, rhetor‐act, and agency‐act—can be employed to explain how rhetorical discourse occurs (invention). After arguing that the theory of the Genesis of Rhetorical Action is a potentially powerful extension of genre theory on conceptual grounds (and noting that published genre studies reveal the limitations of this theory), I provide empirical evidence from the analysis of rhetorical discourse (research on the Functional Theory of Political Campaign Discourse) to reinforce this argument. A new conception of genre theory is then advocated.     

B(l)acklash: Tamera,Tia, and the “white man’s whore”

Tamera Mowry-Housely and Tia Mowery-Hardrict first gained popularity with their 1990s sitcom Sister Sister and re-entered the limelight in 2011 with the Tia &; Tamera reality show. During the opening scene of season one, Tamera disclosed that she was referred to as a “white man’s whore” on social media. By using critical discourse analysis, we examine how producers on Tia and Tamera and Oprah: Where Are They Now? employ this trope to construct Tamera in a particular way and reinforce postracial storylines.     

ETV's financial dilemma

Cagney and Lacey marks a change in the traditional law‐and‐order, police‐detective genre because character, rather than crime, activities are the dominant elements of the series. Character dramatization is achieved through five discourse patterns that interact in individual episodes and continue across episodes and seasons. The integration of discourse patterns results in a narrative that is serial in nature and cumulative in effect. This essay traces these discourse patterns and demonstrates how the series evolved into a hybrid program form that explored, in an innovative way, television's dramatic narrative potential.