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Communication, Culture & Critique

@ccc-journal.bsky.social

An International Communication Association journal publishing critical/cultural research and commentary on media, culture and technology. https://linktr.ee/cccjournalica

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Journal Article A Black sensibility for intersectional scholarship by Meshell L Sturgis Communication, Culture and Critique, Volume 18, Issue 4, December 2025, Pages 292–293, https://doi.org/10.1093/ccc/tcaf043 Published: 26 December 2025 Abstract Most advice on how to write critical theory tends to focus on the logistics. Taking the perspective that writing is a skill rather than a talent, such approaches tend to overlook the presence and consequences of emotions in writing. Intersectional scholarship entails navigating and cultivating relations, rituals, and evolving emotional states from the most private to the more generalizable. This essay documents just some of the feelings experienced by one queer Black woman who studies race and communication in the United States. It begins with Black feminist theorizing about writing, research, and the embodiment of intersectional harm. Then, it captures discrete writing experiences and some of the emotions paired with such experiences over the course of the author’s writing career. Finally, it ends with a poetic reveal of writing habits to distill some of the sensory inputs and emotional underpinnings of a Black feminist writing praxis.

Journal Article A Black sensibility for intersectional scholarship by Meshell L Sturgis Communication, Culture and Critique, Volume 18, Issue 4, December 2025, Pages 292–293, https://doi.org/10.1093/ccc/tcaf043 Published: 26 December 2025 Abstract Most advice on how to write critical theory tends to focus on the logistics. Taking the perspective that writing is a skill rather than a talent, such approaches tend to overlook the presence and consequences of emotions in writing. Intersectional scholarship entails navigating and cultivating relations, rituals, and evolving emotional states from the most private to the more generalizable. This essay documents just some of the feelings experienced by one queer Black woman who studies race and communication in the United States. It begins with Black feminist theorizing about writing, research, and the embodiment of intersectional harm. Then, it captures discrete writing experiences and some of the emotions paired with such experiences over the course of the author’s writing career. Finally, it ends with a poetic reveal of writing habits to distill some of the sensory inputs and emotional underpinnings of a Black feminist writing praxis.

Up next in our forum "Dismantling the Master's House," featuring essays exploring new directions for peer review of intersectional scholarship, we have Meshell L. Sturgis.

"A Black sensibility for intersectional scholarship"

Check it out!

academic.oup.com/ccc/article/...

13.02.2026 22:04 — 👍 2    🔁 1    💬 0    📌 0
Journal Article Grounded under a Blue Sky: tools for disrupting the peer review process as we know it Purchased by Meredith D Clark Communication, Culture and Critique, Volume 18, Issue 4, December 2025, Pages 290–291, https://doi.org/10.1093/ccc/tcaf051 Published: 26 December 2025 Abstract This article provides an introduction to a scholarly forum on intersectional approaches to challenging the peer-review process. Developed out of a Blue Sky session at the International Communication Association’s annual conference in 2025, the article and the forum discuss ways to build out of the strength of differences with practical insights that can be adopted throughout the publication process to advance critical scholarship.

Journal Article Grounded under a Blue Sky: tools for disrupting the peer review process as we know it Purchased by Meredith D Clark Communication, Culture and Critique, Volume 18, Issue 4, December 2025, Pages 290–291, https://doi.org/10.1093/ccc/tcaf051 Published: 26 December 2025 Abstract This article provides an introduction to a scholarly forum on intersectional approaches to challenging the peer-review process. Developed out of a Blue Sky session at the International Communication Association’s annual conference in 2025, the article and the forum discuss ways to build out of the strength of differences with practical insights that can be adopted throughout the publication process to advance critical scholarship.

Check out our latest forum, "Dismantling the Master's House" featuring essays exploring new directions for peer review of intersectional scholarship.

It kicks off with an introductory essay from Meredith D. Clark, "Grounded Under a Blue Sky." A must read!

academic.oup.com/ccc/article/...

12.02.2026 18:04 — 👍 4    🔁 3    💬 0    📌 0
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Eroding the market’s hidden hand: toward a Post-Capitalist media system Abstract. Media-related problems facing democratic societies around the world today often stem from various kinds of market failures and structural limitat

Check out @victorpickard.bsky.social's contribution to our forum on Left Democratic Futures, on the urgent need for post-capitalist media in a world where corporate media and big tech have clearly and spectacularly failed us.

academic.oup.com/ccc/article/...

29.01.2026 17:53 — 👍 4    🔁 2    💬 0    📌 0
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Solidarity in action: building worker-owned intersectional platforms in Latin America Abstract. The project Worker-Owned Intersectional Platforms (WOIP) (Grohmann et al., 2025) brought together six organizations from Brazil and Argentina in

Check out @grohmannrafael.bsky.social's contribution to our forum on "Democratic Left Futures" for real world examples of "solidarity in action" against the dystopia of big tech fascism!

academic.oup.com/ccc/article/...

28.01.2026 20:17 — 👍 4    🔁 2    💬 0    📌 0
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Meeting the moment with José Aricó and “Neither Cynicism nor Utopia”1: Editor’s note We are featuring two urgent Forums in our final issue of our first volume of CCC. The first Forum on “Left Democratic Futures” is inspired by José Aricó, a

See here for an introductory essay and link to the Aricó!

doi.org/10.1093/ccc/...

08.01.2026 19:09 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
It is impossible to reorient the operation of a society’s economic life in an anticapitalist path without a decisive presence from the state. Yet the ever-growing presence of the state in society causes a progressive stifling of democratic spaces. This is the dilemma that was posed at that time and it is the dilemma that frames the processes of change today. To put it bluntly: bread and democracy seem to be mutually exclusive concepts; all that is left is to opt for one or the other. During these long years, the Latin American left – and not only the Latin American left, of course – justified “real” socialism on the basis of the admission that it had been able to solve the same persistent issues affecting the people of Latin America. According to it, those who, also from the left, insisted on speaking about democracy did so with the narrow-minded goal of denying the conquests achieved by socialism – in the end, who cared about those miserable bourgeois freedoms, like reading the newspaper of one's choice, compared to the countless benefits that socialism gave to humanity!

It is impossible to reorient the operation of a society’s economic life in an anticapitalist path without a decisive presence from the state. Yet the ever-growing presence of the state in society causes a progressive stifling of democratic spaces. This is the dilemma that was posed at that time and it is the dilemma that frames the processes of change today. To put it bluntly: bread and democracy seem to be mutually exclusive concepts; all that is left is to opt for one or the other. During these long years, the Latin American left – and not only the Latin American left, of course – justified “real” socialism on the basis of the admission that it had been able to solve the same persistent issues affecting the people of Latin America. According to it, those who, also from the left, insisted on speaking about democracy did so with the narrow-minded goal of denying the conquests achieved by socialism – in the end, who cared about those miserable bourgeois freedoms, like reading the newspaper of one's choice, compared to the countless benefits that socialism gave to humanity!

Today, this terrible quid pro quo has blown up. Because it is not true that socialism assures the historical necessities of men and women by amputating their fundamental freedoms. In the long run, this amputation hampers the fulfilment of historical necessities. Today, the crisis of socialism is showing us that it is impossible to draw a dividing line between bread and democracy, because, in doing so, socialism itself disappears. In increasingly complex modern societies, it seems as though socialism cannot make headway based on an enlightened confidence in the abilities of reason to create progress, but rather the opposite, on questioning, to the fullest, its neocapitalist recuperation. It is only by questioning the harmoniousness of socialist models that we can admit social conflictiveness and political interaction as irrepressible phenomena of all future – and therefore present – societies. Socialism resets recompone the dialecticity of its relationship with democracy by incorporating pluralism (political, organisational, ideological, cultural, etc.) as its own irrepressible value; but in doing so, it radically questions all concrete socialist experiences.

Today, this terrible quid pro quo has blown up. Because it is not true that socialism assures the historical necessities of men and women by amputating their fundamental freedoms. In the long run, this amputation hampers the fulfilment of historical necessities. Today, the crisis of socialism is showing us that it is impossible to draw a dividing line between bread and democracy, because, in doing so, socialism itself disappears. In increasingly complex modern societies, it seems as though socialism cannot make headway based on an enlightened confidence in the abilities of reason to create progress, but rather the opposite, on questioning, to the fullest, its neocapitalist recuperation. It is only by questioning the harmoniousness of socialist models that we can admit social conflictiveness and political interaction as irrepressible phenomena of all future – and therefore present – societies. Socialism resets recompone the dialecticity of its relationship with democracy by incorporating pluralism (political, organisational, ideological, cultural, etc.) as its own irrepressible value; but in doing so, it radically questions all concrete socialist experiences.

Socialists have no practical solutions, nor Marxists theoretical answers, to all these issues. But I wonder: Does anyone have them, or did anyone ever have them? Is capitalism an answer? Are we not witnessing the fall of the ideological paradigms on which bourgeois societies were constructed? Are we not beginning to accept the idea of the un-governability of such societies? At the same time, does the firm questioning of current socialist experiences mean we are negating the gains in the growth and redistribution of resources? Put another way, does it mean we must renounce any programmatic and society-centered reconstruction project of society? Is there a third way that would allow us to escape capitalism to construct a more egalitarian – but also infinitely freer and more democratic – society? This is where, I think, the debate turns into a vicious circle and shows itself completely incapable of moving forward in novel paths. It is here, too, that we are unable to prevent ourselves from either dashing for utopia or accepting cynically the state of things. It is here where, in total good faith but with maximum critical faculty, we must learn to measure ourselves against the facts.

Socialists have no practical solutions, nor Marxists theoretical answers, to all these issues. But I wonder: Does anyone have them, or did anyone ever have them? Is capitalism an answer? Are we not witnessing the fall of the ideological paradigms on which bourgeois societies were constructed? Are we not beginning to accept the idea of the un-governability of such societies? At the same time, does the firm questioning of current socialist experiences mean we are negating the gains in the growth and redistribution of resources? Put another way, does it mean we must renounce any programmatic and society-centered reconstruction project of society? Is there a third way that would allow us to escape capitalism to construct a more egalitarian – but also infinitely freer and more democratic – society? This is where, I think, the debate turns into a vicious circle and shows itself completely incapable of moving forward in novel paths. It is here, too, that we are unable to prevent ourselves from either dashing for utopia or accepting cynically the state of things. It is here where, in total good faith but with maximum critical faculty, we must learn to measure ourselves against the facts.

In light of the Trump administration's renewed imperialism in Latin America, it's worth revisiting the insights of José Aricó.

In our latest forum on "Left Democratic Futures," we include a republication of his 1980 essay “Neither Cynicism nor Utopia.”

08.01.2026 19:09 — 👍 7    🔁 3    💬 1    📌 0
Validate User

The interview is part of our Forum on Left Democratic Futures. See the other contributions here:

academic.oup.com/ccc/issue/18/4

06.01.2026 17:52 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
Protestors in a city park holding signs reading "JIN JIYAH AZADI" and "FEMINISTS FOR JINA" and "From Iran to Palestine, End the War, End the Crime" among other slogans.

Protestors in a city park holding signs reading "JIN JIYAH AZADI" and "FEMINISTS FOR JINA" and "From Iran to Palestine, End the War, End the Crime" among other slogans.

OPEN ACCESS!

In our latest issue, @manijehm.bsky.social interviews Iranian left feminist activist Neda Naji on resisting authoritarianism and imperialism.

academic.oup.com/ccc/article/...

06.01.2026 17:52 — 👍 9    🔁 3    💬 2    📌 0
Preview
Eroding the market’s hidden hand: toward a Post-Capitalist media system Abstract. Media-related problems facing democratic societies around the world today often stem from various kinds of market failures and structural limitat

In his recent essay for @ccc-journal.bsky.social, @victorpickard.bsky.social analyzes the capitalist logics at the root of many media-related issues and provides a framework for shifting to a less capitalist, more democratic media system.

Read here: buff.ly/AYvibor

05.01.2026 20:02 — 👍 5    🔁 4    💬 1    📌 0
Validate User

Here's a link to the full call with submission instructions!

academic.oup.com/ccc/pages/jo...

28.08.2025 13:50 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
Call for Papers Journalism in Ruins: Interrogating norms of ‘independent’ journalism Thematic Issue for Communication, Culture & Critique (2026/27) Abstract Deadline (500 words): December 15, 2025 Complete Manuscript Deadline (7,000-8,000 words): June 15, 2026 Co-editors: Natalie Fenton (Goldsmiths, University of London), Srirupa Roy (University of Göttingen)

Call for Papers Journalism in Ruins: Interrogating norms of ‘independent’ journalism Thematic Issue for Communication, Culture & Critique (2026/27) Abstract Deadline (500 words): December 15, 2025 Complete Manuscript Deadline (7,000-8,000 words): June 15, 2026 Co-editors: Natalie Fenton (Goldsmiths, University of London), Srirupa Roy (University of Göttingen)

Rationale This thematic issue critically interrogates the normative ideal of an independent journalism that drives contemporary laments for a “journalism in ruins.” Normative liberal understandings of news have often declared independent news production as the holy grail of media freedom. A free media is in turn associated with a healthy democracy. Independence of news organizations from government pressure or interference in news production is considered vital to democracy’s well-being. Independence of journalism from wealthy sponsors or corporate pressures is seen as key to its integrity. In turn, independent news media are hailed as the ultimate democratic horizon (Fenton, 2025). An entrenched belief of Anglo/Western liberal media systems, the norm of ‘independent journalism’ also exerts a powerful influence across much of the postcolonial South (Mustvairo et al., 2021). Yet, the mythology of a ‘free’ news media sustaining ‘liberal’ democracy has long since been exposed as exhausted at best, and as absolving of truths at worst. Corruption and compromise have come to the fore as political and commercial interests merge and expand. It is now beyond doubt that a media and tech system that may have many platforms and points of distribution but is dominated by a few, powerful voices and a news media increasingly run to secure financial reward or political influence is highly unlikely to foster greater democratic participation in political culture (Pickard, 2019). Indeed, journalism is arguably now more often subject to fear and favor than without it despite claims to the contrary. As liberal democracy flounders, as legal frameworks fail to deliver journalistic protections, as free expression becomes the preserve of the powerful, as good governance gives way to commercialism at all costs and mechanisms of accountability seek to preserve privilege rather than uphold standards, then the ideal of independent journalism flails too. So why do many scholars and journalist…

Rationale This thematic issue critically interrogates the normative ideal of an independent journalism that drives contemporary laments for a “journalism in ruins.” Normative liberal understandings of news have often declared independent news production as the holy grail of media freedom. A free media is in turn associated with a healthy democracy. Independence of news organizations from government pressure or interference in news production is considered vital to democracy’s well-being. Independence of journalism from wealthy sponsors or corporate pressures is seen as key to its integrity. In turn, independent news media are hailed as the ultimate democratic horizon (Fenton, 2025). An entrenched belief of Anglo/Western liberal media systems, the norm of ‘independent journalism’ also exerts a powerful influence across much of the postcolonial South (Mustvairo et al., 2021). Yet, the mythology of a ‘free’ news media sustaining ‘liberal’ democracy has long since been exposed as exhausted at best, and as absolving of truths at worst. Corruption and compromise have come to the fore as political and commercial interests merge and expand. It is now beyond doubt that a media and tech system that may have many platforms and points of distribution but is dominated by a few, powerful voices and a news media increasingly run to secure financial reward or political influence is highly unlikely to foster greater democratic participation in political culture (Pickard, 2019). Indeed, journalism is arguably now more often subject to fear and favor than without it despite claims to the contrary. As liberal democracy flounders, as legal frameworks fail to deliver journalistic protections, as free expression becomes the preserve of the powerful, as good governance gives way to commercialism at all costs and mechanisms of accountability seek to preserve privilege rather than uphold standards, then the ideal of independent journalism flails too. So why do many scholars and journalist…

These concerns are even more pertinent as mainstream news organizations around the world face multiple challenges from both state and commercial forces, resulting in their closure and constriction and as attacks on journalists increase. As calls of fake news, mis/disinformation abound, so public trust in journalism has plummeted in many places. Yet in the face of such existential challenges, the mainstream journalistic vanguard reaches once more for a return to ‘core values’ aligned with liberalism’s promises to expose the truth with little regard for the systemic forces (of commercialism, marketisation, elite capture, and political entanglement) that have evaded such truth-making claims from being realized. As journalism retreats to its safe default space of hegemonic values and claimed conformity of standards such as ‘objectivity’, ‘impartiality’ and ‘independence’ so it fails to acknowledge the structures and practices that ensure these spaces are too often distorted by money, power and privilege and hence are also heavily classed, gendered and racialized. How has this ‘high modernism’ (Hallin, 2006) of journalism managed to prevail and largely ignore critiques of power relations and geopolitical context and what does it mean for a journalism in ruins? This Thematic Issue seeks to interrogate these concerns: Crucially, it asks, what if the pilgrimage for journalistic independence is treading the wrong path, directing us away from interrogating power relations that exist and blinkering our visions of what journalism could become? If news and journalism are always situated in relation to and interact with other organizations, institutions, professions and people, would we be better placed to interrogate the relations of power therein and establish the levels of interdependence that exist in order to determine how these interdependencies can be recognized, better understood and managed? How can journalism studies move beyond liberal conceptions of the public sphere…

These concerns are even more pertinent as mainstream news organizations around the world face multiple challenges from both state and commercial forces, resulting in their closure and constriction and as attacks on journalists increase. As calls of fake news, mis/disinformation abound, so public trust in journalism has plummeted in many places. Yet in the face of such existential challenges, the mainstream journalistic vanguard reaches once more for a return to ‘core values’ aligned with liberalism’s promises to expose the truth with little regard for the systemic forces (of commercialism, marketisation, elite capture, and political entanglement) that have evaded such truth-making claims from being realized. As journalism retreats to its safe default space of hegemonic values and claimed conformity of standards such as ‘objectivity’, ‘impartiality’ and ‘independence’ so it fails to acknowledge the structures and practices that ensure these spaces are too often distorted by money, power and privilege and hence are also heavily classed, gendered and racialized. How has this ‘high modernism’ (Hallin, 2006) of journalism managed to prevail and largely ignore critiques of power relations and geopolitical context and what does it mean for a journalism in ruins? This Thematic Issue seeks to interrogate these concerns: Crucially, it asks, what if the pilgrimage for journalistic independence is treading the wrong path, directing us away from interrogating power relations that exist and blinkering our visions of what journalism could become? If news and journalism are always situated in relation to and interact with other organizations, institutions, professions and people, would we be better placed to interrogate the relations of power therein and establish the levels of interdependence that exist in order to determine how these interdependencies can be recognized, better understood and managed? How can journalism studies move beyond liberal conceptions of the public sphere…

Critical journalism studies folks!

We're looking for contributors to a new special issue: "Journalism in Ruins: Interrogating norms of ‘independent’ journalism." Editors: Natalie Fenton and Srirupa Roy.

Abstracts due Dec. 15, 2025.

28.08.2025 13:50 — 👍 12    🔁 8    💬 1    📌 1
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Abolitionist sanctuary under Trump 2.0 Abstract. This article examines the importance of sanctuary movements under rising fascism in the US under the second presidential administration of Donald

As part of our forum on Media & Fascism, @naomipaik.bsky.social explores the vital role of sanctuary movements in resisting Trump's authoritarianism. Check it out!

doi.org/10.1093/ccc/...

03.07.2025 13:50 — 👍 3    🔁 2    💬 0    📌 0
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Kamala is for they/them: liberalism, fascism, and nonsense Abstract. The slogan that the Trump campaign used in the 2024 US presidential election to tie rival Kamala Harris to trans activists in its television ads—

Awesome! You may also be interested in this piece too, from the same forum (and open access): doi.org/10.1093/ccc/...

02.07.2025 15:24 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0
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Transing Trump’s moral crusade against transgender people Abstract. The beginning of Trump’s second presidency finds us immersed in a moral crusade with the expressed intent of complete annihilation of transness f

As part of our forum on Media & Fascism, @lorelemaster.bsky.social and @marykathinks.bsky.social unpack Trump's moral crusade against trans people. Check it out!

doi.org/10.1093/ccc/...

02.07.2025 13:35 — 👍 7    🔁 5    💬 1    📌 1
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“With friends like this, who needs enemies?”: on the global rise of Christian Zionism Abstract. This article argues for greater media and critical emphasis on Christian Zionism, a deeply antisemitic and Islamophobic ideology, whose supporter

As part of our forum on Media & Fascism, Gil Hochberg argues for greater critical focus on the global rise of Christian Zionism. Check it out!

doi.org/10.1093/ccc/...

01.07.2025 12:44 — 👍 4    🔁 1    💬 0    📌 0
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The roots of reactionary tech oligarchy and the need for radical democratic alternatives Abstract. The aim for this commentary is two-fold: first, we seek to outline how decades of liberal “post-democratic” hegemony—prevalent across liberal dem

As part of this month's forum on Media & Fascism, @jfarkas.bsky.social and @aurelmondon.bsky.social explore the rise of reactionary tech oligarchy and why liberalism, journalism, and the Internet aren't the bulwarks they might seem. Check it out!

doi.org/10.1093/ccc/...

30.06.2025 13:26 — 👍 19    🔁 9    💬 0    📌 0
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More than money and algorithms: the cultural roots of Trump’s alt-media strategy Abstract. This article examines Trump’s masculinist “alt-media strategy” in the 2024 election to explore the right’s dominance in the online media landscap

As part of this month's forum on Media & Fascism, @reecepeck.bsky.social explores Trump's alt-media strategy and shows why we need more historically engaged analyses of political communication strategy and tactics. Check it out!

doi.org/10.1093/ccc/...

26.06.2025 15:32 — 👍 3    🔁 2    💬 0    📌 1
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Media reconstruction and reparative media Abstract. Drawing from the work of scholar-activist W.E.B. Du Bois and insights from co-creating a community-based media platform, this article demonstrate

As part of this month's forum on Media & Fascism, @ajescoffery.bsky.social explores how experimental, community-based media practices can help us revitalize and reconstruct democracy. Check it out!

doi.org/10.1093/ccc/...

26.06.2025 13:20 — 👍 8    🔁 3    💬 0    📌 1

Mis/Disinformation Studies folks!

This is an excellent meditation on the political limitations of debunking and on how we might respond otherwise. Even if you're not a queer/trans studies person, this piece is well worth the read!

05.06.2025 13:26 — 👍 38    🔁 13    💬 2    📌 2
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Kamala is for they/them: liberalism, fascism, and nonsense Abstract. The slogan that the Trump campaign used in the 2024 US presidential election to tie rival Kamala Harris to trans activists in its television ads—

🚨OPEN ACCESS🚨

As part of our new forum on "Media and Fascism," @cassiusa.bsky.social writes about how trans cultural production might best answer the ascendant fascist aesthetics of nonsense and sensation.

There's no paywall, check it out!

academic.oup.com/ccc/article/...

05.06.2025 13:12 — 👍 14    🔁 7    💬 0    📌 3
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Cruel capitalism: a forum on media and fascism Abstract. This article introduces a forum on “Media and Fascism” by reading tech oligarch and right-wing political operative Elon Musk as a nexus of intern

Our June issue is now live! It kicks off with a forum on Media and Fascism, featuring a star-studded list of contributors.

Get started with this introduction by forum editors @paulachak.bsky.social and @ajbauer.bsky.social!

academic.oup.com/ccc/article-...

04.06.2025 13:41 — 👍 10    🔁 6    💬 0    📌 2
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Cruel capitalism: a forum on media and fascism Abstract. This article introduces a forum on “Media and Fascism” by reading tech oligarch and right-wing political operative Elon Musk as a nexus of intern

Check out CCC’s latest forum on “Cruel Capitalism: Media and Fascism” co-edited with @ajbauer.bsky.social in
@ccc-journal.bsky.social!
Essays on trans culture, the central role of Christian Zionism, masculinity and alt media, reparative and abolitionist futures, and more!

doi.org/10.1093/ccc/...

03.06.2025 19:17 — 👍 5    🔁 4    💬 0    📌 0

Must read from colleagues in the latest issue of Communication, Culture and Critique.

03.06.2025 19:09 — 👍 6    🔁 2    💬 1    📌 0

This was so fun to write! Using Du Bois and reconstruction to talk about how media could help us survive authoritarianism.

03.06.2025 18:57 — 👍 25    🔁 9    💬 0    📌 0
Cruel Capitalism: a forum on media and fascism by AJ Bauer and Paula Chakravartty in Communication, Culture and Critique: This article introduces a forum on "media and fascism" by reading tech oligarch and right-wing political operative Elon Musk as a nexus of international fascist tendencies. It notes contradictions in the affective promises of capitalism vis a vis the elimination of racialized and gendered state regulatory and social welfare functions and describes the role of violent repression in sustaining right-authoritarian political formations in the US and around the globe.

Cruel Capitalism: a forum on media and fascism by AJ Bauer and Paula Chakravartty in Communication, Culture and Critique: This article introduces a forum on "media and fascism" by reading tech oligarch and right-wing political operative Elon Musk as a nexus of international fascist tendencies. It notes contradictions in the affective promises of capitalism vis a vis the elimination of racialized and gendered state regulatory and social welfare functions and describes the role of violent repression in sustaining right-authoritarian political formations in the US and around the globe.

Check out my latest, with @paulachak.bsky.social, in @ccc-journal.bsky.social!

It introduces a forum we co-edited on "Media and Fascism," with a star-studded lineup! See the 🧵 below:

doi.org/10.1093/ccc/...

03.06.2025 18:55 — 👍 35    🔁 17    💬 1    📌 3
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Prison media mobilization: smuggled technologies and media practices in Lebanese carceral spaces

Read our latest article by @chaficnajem.bsky.social'on smuggled digital technologies and how incarcerated people in Lebanon make their voices heard. With lessons for those interested in abolition media everywhere! Now available from @ccc-journal.bsky.social!

doi.org/10.1093/ccc/...

23.05.2025 15:23 — 👍 7    🔁 3    💬 0    📌 0
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A statement on the ongoing genocide in Gaza Abstract. Communication, Culture and Critique has been the leading venue for critical approaches to communication and media studies. This issue marks the f

In know that there have been a few exceptions in the international community, most importantly the “statement on the ongoing genocide in Gaza” by the Editorial Collective of Communication, Culture and Critique (@ccc-journal.bsky.social): academic.oup.com/ccc/article-...

03.06.2025 18:38 — 👍 3    🔁 1    💬 1    📌 0
Prison media mobilization: smuggled technologies and media practices in Lebanese carceral spaces by Chafic Tony Najem in Communication, Culture and Critique, published 15 May, 2025

Prison media mobilization: smuggled technologies and media practices in Lebanese carceral spaces by Chafic Tony Najem in Communication, Culture and Critique, published 15 May, 2025

This article explores the use of smuggled digital technologies by prisoners in Lebanese carceral spaces. Since 2012, prisoners have smuggled cellphones to document and share their experiences and protests, despite efforts by authorities to restrict this access. The study adopts Martín-Barbero’s mediaciones and Mattoni’s activist media practices, to propose “prison media mobilization”—the strategic and illicit reconfiguration of digital technologies by prisoners to subvert constraints and amplify dissent. The analysis focuses on four approaches: representation, production, circulation, and material practices. By examining recordings and contextual information from significant events in Lebanese prisons, the research shows how contraband digital technologies catalyze mobilizations. These technologies document, incite, propagate, and aid prisoners perform acts of defiance against prison conditions. The study highlights the complexity and innovation in prisoners' media practices, calling for a comprehensive framework to understand media mobilizations in carceral spaces.

This article explores the use of smuggled digital technologies by prisoners in Lebanese carceral spaces. Since 2012, prisoners have smuggled cellphones to document and share their experiences and protests, despite efforts by authorities to restrict this access. The study adopts Martín-Barbero’s mediaciones and Mattoni’s activist media practices, to propose “prison media mobilization”—the strategic and illicit reconfiguration of digital technologies by prisoners to subvert constraints and amplify dissent. The analysis focuses on four approaches: representation, production, circulation, and material practices. By examining recordings and contextual information from significant events in Lebanese prisons, the research shows how contraband digital technologies catalyze mobilizations. These technologies document, incite, propagate, and aid prisoners perform acts of defiance against prison conditions. The study highlights the complexity and innovation in prisoners' media practices, calling for a comprehensive framework to understand media mobilizations in carceral spaces.

Check out @chaficnajem.bsky.social's latest on smuggled digital technologies used by incarcerated people in Lebanon, now available from @ccc-journal.bsky.social!

doi.org/10.1093/ccc/...

23.05.2025 14:36 — 👍 5    🔁 2    💬 0    📌 1

If you are trying to figure out how to make sense of authoritarian turn, read this thoughtful review by @jfarkas.bsky.social and @bilgeyesil.bsky.social new book on Turkish mediated authoritarianism and how to contest its hold..

23.04.2025 16:35 — 👍 9    🔁 4    💬 0    📌 0
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The urgency of producing Palestine Palestine has long been in the global conscience, especially for many, a beacon of a decolonial struggle for liberation. Today, there is a new urgency to u

See Ather Zia's review of "Producing Palestine: The Creative Production of Palestine Through Contemporary Media," edited by Dina Mater and Helga Tawil Souri (Bloomsbury, 2024) here:

doi.org/10.1093/ccc/...

23.04.2025 15:17 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

@ccc-journal is following 20 prominent accounts