Introduction: about democratic discourse

ABSTRACT

This essay introduces a twentieth anniversary forum reviewing the state of scholarship on communication as a critical/cultural study. It features democratic discourse as a main line of inquiry for pursuing a more just public culture, references relevant critical/cultural scholarship, and notes that forum contributors focus on matters of identity addressed in queer scholarship, including a current shift in the culture wars, and on constructions of race, articulations of whiteness, and issues of racism. Values of inclusion, rights, equality, and political agency engaged by these forum contributors are critical to the challenge of renewing democracy in a time of cultural turbulence.

KEYWORDS:

• Democratic discourse
• cultural turbulence
• productive critique
• democracy renovation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Robert L. Ivie, “What Are We About?” Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies 1, no. 2 (2004): 125; “Editorial Policy,” Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies 1, no. 1 (2004); see also Greg Dickinson, “Encomium: D. Robert Dechaine, Editor, Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies 2015–2018,” Communication and Critical Cultural Studies 15, no. 4 (2018): 271–3.

2 For a sense of the impulse for founding the journal, the breadth of its topics, and its continuing role as a vehicle of change, see Kent A. Ono, “The Future ofCommunication and Critical/Cultural Studies,” Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies 17, no. 1 (2020): 56–61.

3 Cat Zakrzewski, Cristiano Lima, and Drew Harwell, “What the Jan. 6 Probe Found Out About Social Media, But Didn’t Report,” Washington Post, January 17, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/01/17/jan6-committee-report-social-media/#.

4 See one aspect of this phenomenon discussed in Ginna Husting, “Neutralizing Protest: The Construction of War, Chaos, and National Identity through US Television News on Abortion-related Protest, 1991,” Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies 3, no. 2 (2006): 162–80.

5 See, for instance, a recent special issue of Javnost—the Public 30, no. 1 (2023) on the theme of “Pandemic, Demagoguery, and Right-Wing Authoritarianism: A Demoralising Mix for Democracy” with articles focused on various states, including Denmark, France, Italy, Portugal, India, Turkey, and the United States.

6 Whitney Gent, “‘Not in My Backyard’: Democratic Rhetorics in Spatial Gatekeeping,” Communication and Critical Cultural Studies 19, no. 2 (2022): 140–57.

7 John Louis Lucaites and James P. McDaniel, “Telescopic Mourning/Warring in the Global Village: Decomposing (Japanese) Authority Figures,” Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies 1, no. 1 (2004): 1–28.

8 Deepa Kumar, “Media, War, and Propaganda: Strategies of Information Management During the 2003 Iraq War,” Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies 3, no. 1 (2006): 48–69.

9 Douglas Kellner, “The Media and the Crisis of Democracy in the Age of Bush-2,” Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies 1, no. 1 (2004): 29–58.

10 Michael Butterworth, “Ritual in the ‘Church of Baseball’: Suppressing the Discourse of Democracy after 9/11,” Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies 2, no. 2: 107–29; on the relationship of sport to democracy, see also Michael Butterworth, “The Politics of the Pitch: Claiming and Contesting Democracy Through the Iraqi National Soccer Team,” Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies 4, no. 1 (2007): 184–203; Michael Butterworth, “Militarizing and Memorializing in the Pro Football Hall of Fame,” Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies 9, no. 3 (2012): 241–58.

11 Robert L. Ivie and Oscar Giner, “A Democratic Peoples’ Dissent from War,” Javnost—The Public 24, no. 3 (2017): 199–217; Vincent Russell and Spoma Jovanovic, “Public Deliberation and Social Justice Sensibilities in Greensboro Participatory Budgeting,” Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies 17, no. 2 (2020): 111–28.

12 Emma Frances Bloomfield and Curtis Ladrillo Chamblee, “Rhetorical Fractals: An Afrocentric Analysis of #JusticeForGeorgeFloyd,” Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies 20, no. 3 (2023): 307–24.

13 Kristy Best, “Rethinking the Globalization Movement: Toward a Cultural Theory of Contemporary Democracy and Communication,” Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies 2, no. 3 (2005): 214–15.

14 Edith M. Lederer, “UN: Parts of Internet Becoming ‘Toxic Waste Dumps’ for Hate,” Washington Post, February 27, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/un-parts-of-internet-becoming-toxic-waste-dumps-for-hate/2023/01/27/94a9ff0c-9e8c-11ed-93e0-38551e88239c_story.html.

15 K. C. Councilor, “Feeding the Body Politic: Metaphors of Digestion in Progressive Era US Immigration Discourse,” Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies 14, no. 2 (2017): 139–57.

16 Megan Foley, “Voicing Terri Shiavo: Prosopopeic Citizenship in the Democratic Aporia between Sovereignty and Biopower,” Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies 7, no. 4 (2010): 381–400.

17 Kelly Gates, “Biometric Registration: The Liquidation of US Democracy?” Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies 5, no. 2 (2008): 208–11; Jonathan J. Edwards, “Figuring Radicalization: Congressional Narratives of Homeland Security and American Muslim Communities,” Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies 12, no. 1 (2015): 102–20.

18 Susan Hafen, “Patriots in the Classroom: Performing Positionalities Post-9/11,” Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies 6, no. 1 (2009): 61–83; Derek Lewis, “Modern Zues: Drones, Deinos, and Dissuading Dissent,” Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies 18, no. 3 (2021): 261–79.

19 Joshua Reeves, “Rhetoric, Violence, and the Subject of Civility,” Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies 19, no. 1 (2022): 91–108.

20 J. McGregor Wise, “Editorial Statement,” Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies 7, no. 1 (2010): 1–2.

21 Robert L. Ivie, “Productive Criticism at the Crossroads: Interventions, Trajectories, and Intersections,” Review of Communication 16, no. 1 (2016): 104–7; John M. Sloop, “Editorial,” Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies 4, no. 1 (2007): 1–2.

22 Greg Dickinson, “Editorial,” Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies 16, no. 1 (2019): 1.

23 Robin M. Boylorn, “How to Be a (Black Woman) Journal Editor During a Pandemic: An Introduction to an Inaugural Issue,” Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies 19, no. 1 (2022): 1–4.

24 National Communication Association, “Call for Nominations/Applications: Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies Editor-Elect Assuming Duties in 2024; Overseeing 2025–2027 Volumes,” https://www.natcom.org/sites/default/files/Communication%20and%20Critical%20Cultural%20Studies%202023%20Call%20for%20Nominations%20.pdf.

25 James Hays, “Introduction,” Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies 10, no. 1 (2013): 8. See also James Hays, “Introduction,” Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies 10, nos. 2–3 (2013): 177–82.

26 Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, Tyranny of the Minority: Why American Democracy Reached the Breaking Point (New York: Crown, 2013), 225.

27 Danielle Allen, “America is in a Great ‘Pulling Apart’: Can We Pull Together,” Washington Post, January 31, 2023, https://www-washingtonpost-com.proxyiub.uits.iu.edu/opinions/2023/01/31/danielle-allen-american-democracy-renovation-series/.

28 Robert L. Ivie, “Bolstering Democratic Culture: What We Can Do to Quell The Totalitarian Menace,” Hunt the Devil, October 30, 2023, https://huntthedevil.wordpress.com/2023/10/30/bolstering-democratic-culture-what-we-can-do-to-quell-the-totalitarian-menace/.

29 Relevant to this question, see Deva Woodly, “Inventing and Implementing a World We Wish to Share,” Public Seminar, January 31, 2023, https://publicseminar.org/essays/inventing-and-implementing-a-world-we-wish-to-share/.