Search

The euphemism that Florida, the nation's third most populous and politically powerful state, is a battleground is an apt description--and more than just every four years. Every year, every day in the state's capital, Florida has become high ground for pro-corporate, special-interest lobbyists who seek to instill a far-right legislative and social agenda, specifically the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and the National Rifle Association (NRA). Armed with seemingly endless cash from their billionaire supporters and a slick but distorted focus on individual rights, and facing a mostly uninformed and unorganized citizenry, the far right has found in Florida the perfect Petri dish for passing self-serving laws. This ideological battle is evident in the recent NRA, and ALEC supported attempts to pass legislation that would allow concealed weapons on the state's public college and university campuses.

Framing and its influences on public discourse of educational policy and how such policy is informed, shaped and conveyed by use of news frames is described. The reform measures made in opposition to desegregation have survived for nearly half a century and are framed as public education policy measures aimed to assist disadvantaged students to have improved educational access.

This article utilizes critical political economy to examine how The Coca-Cola Company (Coke) constructs healthy or "natural" messages on food labels and other promotional texts to advertise non-carbonated sugary beverage brands (SSBs) owned by the company. The labeling histories and controversies of two products in particular, VitaminWater and Simply Orange Juice, are analyzed as case studies to illustrate how companies such as Coke have liberally labeled SSBs as healthy with little legal consequence. What results from labeling-related deception are consumers at risk of making ill-informed decisions about their health. However, the cases examined here reveal that current labeling regulation does little to deter from this behavior and allows for the proliferation of misleading claims. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This critical qualitative case study interrogates the roles Barstool Sports and its founder, Dave Portnoy, serve in reaffirming the narrative power of conservative cultural ideology in mainstream US sports media. Portnoy's targeted harassment of female journalists is analyzed as examples of how the outlet alienates critics of heteronormative, hypermasculine discourse within relevant cultural arenas in digital sports media. To examine how the company deflects criticisms of misogyny, we explore Barstool Chicks —an alternative version of the company's website targeting female audiences. Resultantly, Barstool and Portnoy undermine the potential for feminist-driven narratives in sports media and contribute to the normalization of repressive conditions within cultural industries that perpetuates the continued dominance of conservative ideology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is shown that The Matrix franchise provided a model for channeling revenue and fans through different multimedia revenue streams via linked narratives that expand the nature of the corporately created, commodity-oriented media text.

This article discusses problems posed by statistical interaction in communication research. To illustrate this, the authors reexamine research conducted on the relevance of political conversation on situational involvement, image attention and issue attention, suggesting a different methodology for determining regression slopes.

This article examines the struggles, actions, and challenges of the journalist organizers at two Florida legacy newspapers – the Lakeland Ledger and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune – who unionized in 2016 with the NewsGuild – Communication Workers of America. In-depth interviews with journalists from both papers suggest that unionizing can help to counter the effects of media concentration, corporate practices, and the resulting changes in organizational structure and their impact on the working conditions of reporters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines newspaper coverage of fracking, focusing on Florida, a state with a unique geology and some of the most sensitive environmental areas. A series of bills proposed in the 2015 and 2016 Florida legislative sessions and the subsequent reporting about the proposed legislation provide just one aspect of fracking in the state and largely marginalize other viewpoints. Analysis reveals newspaper practices tend to favor the fracking industry and promote a pro-business agenda. Common journalistic issues, such as sourcing and staff reductions, along with a desire to maintain profitability, contribute to an emphasis on political and business coverage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article contributes to a more systematic understanding of the role of newspaper ownership in deliberative processes by analyzing how inclusive local newspapers are of diverse perspectives on the Terri Schiavo case. Drawing on a content analysis of 1182 stories, we use multinomial logistic regression to analyze how ownership affects what ideas are included in the discussion as well as the tone with which they are discussed. We find that ownership indeed matters. Independently owned newspapers cover controversial ideas more often – even on the opinion pages. We also find that geography matters. Newspapers closest to the event epicenter include more stories and a broader range of perspectives regarding the Schiavo case. We discuss the implications of this research for understanding the role of economics in deliberative processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the paradoxes of communicative liberalization. We explore the ways in which something as seemingly banal as backyard basketball-by being incorporated into the realm of Internet communication-is at once 'opened up' to the media consuming public and yet invariably constrained by the corporate and spectacularizing technologies that have come to define the era of free market communication. Drawing upon an extensive case analysis of the 'trick shot' enterprise known as Dude Perfect, we illustrate how even the most homespun forms of mediation are thrust into the imperatives of neoliberal accumulation whereby the 'homemade' cyber-spatial media-sport production becomes aligned with, if not overdetermined by, the processes of corporatization, spectacularization, and marketization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The identification of core characteristics of labor and value creation in the information society is complicated, specifically in regard to user-generated content in social media websites and networks of audience labor. The issues related to user-generated content raise a number of definitional questions that are fundamental for theory development. Core elements of this debate include the definitions and significance of user-generated content, labor, value, price, production, commodities, exploitation, and class, all of which are challenging to define in the context of information and knowledge activities. Each perspective article in this special issue brings something unique to questions about labor in the information society, contributing both to clarification of concepts and to theory-building regarding labor and value creation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article argues that The Matrix franchise provided global Hollywood with a model for channeling revenue and fans through different multimedia revenue streams via linked commodity narratives. Building on previous theoretical concepts of the expansion of corporate media texts, the article discusses The Matrix as “commodified intertextual flow” where various consumable forms were marketed as narratively necessary purchases for Matrix fans. Ultimately, The Matrix as a narratively integrated brand expanded the marketing strategies for commodity-oriented media texts and undermined the original film's critique of consumer culture. The integration of DVD technologies, release strategies, and ancillary licensing constructed a narrative necessity and “community” of fans who may have felt compelled to buy into the complete multicommodity narrative. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Cultural products play an important and critical role in representing and circulating mass mediated public culture. An examination of one such cultural product, cartoons, and their representations of tourists' interactions with hosts reveals an understanding of what is perceived as cultural differences among populations as well as inappropriate intercultural communication. The authors examine The New Yorker cartoons in order to advance a conceptual and theoretical discussion regarding intercultural communication and tourism. Specifically, they ask how cartoonists represent the intercultural interaction of American tourists in southern Europe. Using framing theory and analysis, the authors seek to understand how popular and humorous representations of intercultural communication between tourists and hosts intersect with contemporary critiques of tourism. The subsequent exploratory analysis suggests three frames: the world is ours to use, cultural commoditization, and the gaze. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]