Catherine R. Squires

What Is This “Post-” in Postracial, Postfeminist… (Fill in the Blank)?

The events of the 2008 election continue to spark prognostications that we live in a world that is postracial/feminist, and so on. At the 2009 NCA (National Communication Association) convention, a panel of communication scholars discussed how to approach questions of identity and communication over the next 5 years. Participants suggested ways to be critical of assertions of “post” and elaborated ways to encounter new dimensions of identification in an era of immense sociopolitical challenges. This forum revisits the exchanged dialogues among the participants at the roundtable and further explores the meaning of post- in post-America.

In/discernible bodies: the politics of passing in dominant and marginal media

This essay explores news media coverage of two types of alleged “passing”: passing across racial lines from Black to White and across sex lines from female to male. Textual analysis of dominant print media and print media discourses produced by and/or addressed to Blacks and queers reveals prominent frames through which news consumers are invited to perceive these events. In particular, the analysis demonstrates that both dominant and marginal social groups express the desire to fix the identities of passers in a single, discrete category, although these groups wish to do so for disparate reasons. In addition, marginal groups frame passing events within broad cultural and historical contexts in contrast to the narrow contexts framed by dominant media. Comparison of race and sex passing exposes the similarities–including community consternation about the passer–and differences–including disparate focus on civil rights rather than identity issues–between Black and queer coverage of these events. Comparison of race and sex passing also exposes the way in which dominant media correlate race passing with class passing, while sex passing is correlated to sexuality passing (that is, queer passing for heterosexual).

Bursting the Bubble: A Case Study of Counter-framing in the Editorial Pages

Research continues to show troubling patterns in racial discourse in conventional news reporting on public policy. This article argues that the editorial pages of mainstream newspapers are more likely spaces for counter discourses on race and policy to emerge and take root. A case study of how op-ed contributors represented the racial aspects of the subprime mortgage crisis is presented here as an example of how editorial pages may supply readers with opportunities to reflect upon and challenge dominant discourses of race, wealth production, and housing. The article suggests that, given the continued agenda-setting power of mainstream news, critical scholars should endeavor to utilize the op-ed as one strategy for interrupting dominant racial discourse.

Reducing Race: News Themes in the 2008 Primaries

This article presents a content analysis exploring how racial issues were addressed in newspaper and news magazine coverage of the 2008 Democratic primaries. Despite the presence of Latino and biracial candidates, discussion of race was limited by binary racial frames, resulting in the construction of racial groups as competing voting blocs (including frequent references to white voters) and few references to Barack Obama’s biracial heritage. The dominant framing constricted the range of racial issues to matters of interpersonal insensitivity and misguided statements and ignored matters of public policy and racial equity.

Public Intellectuals, Public Life, and the University.

The figure of the public intellectual galvanizes the imagination and catalyzes social commentary. Examination of contemporary debates about public intellectuals draws our attention to competing claims about the health of public lift, the conditions and resources of academe, and the relations between the academy and public life. In our analysis of popular commentary about public intellectuals, we discern three major topoi: breadth, site, and legitimacy. Additionally, we explore the ways in which John Dewey imagined the relationships between schools and public life, and we argue that reference to Dewey helps to illuminate contemporary discussion about public intellectuals. We conclude with a framework for understanding and practicing public intellectualism today.

Race and Reality TV: Tryin’ to Make It Real—but Real Compared to What?

This special issue comes at an opportune time. Not only is the reality TV (RTV) format continuing in its popularity and proliferation, but also the nation is confronting its changing racial realities as a multiracial African American man is on the verge of winning (at this writing) the Democratic Party nomination for the President of the United States. As such, I feel privileged to have read these articles, all of which raise important questions about how television continues to try to manage and exploit race in a changing industrial and demographic environment. The strengths of these essays are in their deep, detailed readings of and comparisons across a wide range of RTV shows, and in the authors’ ability to interweave critical race theory, Black feminist theory, and elements from cultural studies and news discourse analysis. This commitment to theory and deep description illuminates the troubling, troubled, and transgressive elements of racial representations and performances in RTV. They remind us of how much our racial realities are constructed through cultural, textual interactions (e.g., Hall, 1986, 1989; Jackson, 2006). As I read the analyses, I was struck by the extent to which these RTV shows borrow from and depend upon racial conventions and constructions from other genres: news, talk shows, sitcoms, and soap operas all provide easily accessible types, plot points, and stereotypes for producers and editors to use when shaping their preferred readings of how ‘‘real people’’ deal with racism, or embody racial identities.

Book Review: Marian Meyers African American women in the news: Gender, race & class in journalism

journalism approach, used in areas other than strict conflict reporting. In this case the debate on asylum seekers in Australian politics and the coverage of the US-sponsored Middle East peace process are the subjects for investigation. The other cases are from countries where Lynch has been doing fieldwork, teaching or producing films with a peace journalism approach. Chapter 4 is based on the experience from an assignment in the Philippines in 2012 to record pictures and do interviews with the Communist rebels. In Chapter 5 the difficult post-apartheid period in South Africa is dealt with in a critical manner. In Chapter 6, attention is drawn to the so-called war on drugs in Mexico within the context of a presidential election. Based on these and other cases, the author summarizes what he calls a Global Standard for conflict reporting and the prospects for its implementation. Here Lynch also summarizes the methodological conclusions from experiments with reception studies presented throughout the book. He has himself made two versions of news stories. The first story, framed as a traditional conventional news story and the second, framed through a peace journalism approach. The different versions are shown to focus groups. This is both proof that the peace journalism approach is appreciated by the audience and a look forward through suggesting methods for further use of the peace journalism approach under different circumstances. In the final chapter, he also presents a content analysis of conflict coverage in UK media during a short period in May 2012. The discussion about social-responsibility culture is seen in light of the ongoing phone-hacking scandal, which resulted in the closing down of the News of the World. The conclusion is that we should be worried about the consequence of the influence from such powerful owners as Rupert Murdoch. Finally, the global standard approach is tested on Nepal and Chile as cases. The conclusion is that the suggested Global Standard “could inform and lend itself to reform agendas in many mediascapes, with recognizable similar characteristics of both deficit analysis and positive results” (p.175). All in all, this is a very useful book for researchers and students within the field of war and peace reporting.

A Review of “Public Opinion and Democracy: Vox PopuliVox Dei?”

civics texts and how American identity is constructed by governmental officials during times of crisis. There are some problematic assumptions in the analysis. In the chapter on “politics,” for instance, the authors searched for titles that included the phrase “the politics of,” and from that sample declare that there is a significant and growing interest in cultural politics at the expense of more traditionally understood institutional politics. But I wonder if the result would have been the same had the search used “power,” or “government,” or any number of other choices as the focal word. I don’t find it hard to believe that those studying cultural politics would use one phrase while those investigating other forms of politics might favor others. One could make similar quibbles in many other chapters as well. The authors use the fact that so many of these words occur across so many contexts to argue that “it is as if the term is controlling the writers who use it rather than they controlling it” (p. 20). Well, maybe. But then again, maybe not. If nothing else, this interesting and provocative claim demands more argumentative support than the authors provide. These issues do not mean that this book isn’t valuable or important, for it is both. They indicate the difficulty of the project these authors have undertaken, Students and scholars of rhetoric and political language will find it an engaging and provocative read, and it is likely to spawn considerable discussion and additional research.