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Publication Deconstructing Gender and Media: A Mixed Methods Study with U.S. Early Adolescents(2024) Zhou, Cecilia Yuxi; Scharrer, Erica; Durrani, AlinaThis mixed methods study investigates conceptions of gender both in and outside of the media among a sample of 11- and 12-year-olds. Data from a quantitative survey and qualitative writing responses were collected and analyzed from 54 sixth graders at a U.S public elementary school. Results show that the majority held inclusive views of gender, indicating a recognition of gender inequities in media and society and a desire to challenge traditional gender norms. However, perhaps due to gender-typed content, stronger perceptions of the similarity of the people appearing in YouTube videos, commercials, video games, music videos, and movies to the self were associated with more stereotypical views about gender roles and norms in a weak but statistically significant correlation. This may suggest that accepting media representations as accurately reflecting oneself can still be linked to endorsing more traditional roles and norms, even within a sample with generally quite open conceptions of gender.Publication Creative Resonance and Misalignment Stance: Achieving Distance in One Hebrew Interaction(2017-01-01) Dori-Hacohen, GonenThis paper elaborates on one element of the theory of Dialogic Syntax, Du Bois’s main tool for stance-taking, namely creative resonance. The examples are taken from a recording of a car ride which was part of data collected for the analysis of Hebrew. The focus in the analysis is on misalignment, when participants use stance acts to distance themselves from each other. The main claim of this paper is that whenever a stance act takes place, the relations between the participants are at stake. I show how creative, and to a lesser extent pre-existing, resonance can be used for creating and enhancing distance in misalignment. The discussion connects resonance and Dialogic Syntax with other frameworks for the study of language and interactions.Publication Constructing a genre: Hebrew ('ani) lo yode'a / lo yoda'at ‘(I) don’t know’ on Israeli political radio phone-ins(2018-01-01) Maschler, Yael; Dori-Hacohen, GonenWe explore employment of the Hebrew construction ('ani) lo yode'a / lo yoda'at (lit ‘[I] not M/F-SG.know’), roughly equivalent to English ‘I don’t know’, by callers and hosts in 80 interactions on Israeli political radio phonein programs, as compared with its functions in casual conversation. Five uses were attested in the corpus of radio phone-ins and correlated with the syntactic form of complementation (if available) for each token of the construction: (i) expressing literal lack of knowledge; (ii) expressing epistemic stance of uncertainty / hedging; (iii) gaining cognitive processing time in the midst of self-repair; (iv) expressing affective stance of contempt or criticism; and (v) avoidance strategies. While most of these uses are common to both genres, some are unattested in casual conversation. By exploring the functions of the ('ani) lo yode'a / lo yoda'at construction and their distribution according to institutional role, the study (i) sheds further light on the use of the construction and its evolvement through use; and (ii) shows how hosts and callers exploit this specific construction in ways that establish the Israeli political radio phonein institutional genre.Publication Creative Resonance and Misalignment Stance: Achieving Distance in One Hebrew Interaction(2017-01-01) Dori-Hacohen, GonenThis paper elaborates on one element of the theory of Dialogic Syntax, Du Bois’ main tool for stance-taking, namely creative resonance. The examples are taken from a recording of a car ride which was part of data collected for the analysis of Hebrew. The focus in the analysis is on misalignment, when participants use stance acts to distance themselves from each other. The main claim of this paper is that whenever a stance act takes place, the relations between the participants are at stake. I show how creative, and to a lesser extent pre-existing, resonance can be used for creating and enhancing distance in misalignment. The discussion connects resonance and Dialogic Syntax with other frameworks for the study of language and interactions.Publication 'Hitlahamut': A term for unreasonable populist public talk in Israel(2019-01-01) Dori-Hacohen, GonenThis research follows the tradition of Ethnography of Communication to discuss hitlahamut, an Israeli term for a distinctive type of public talk. After presenting the denotive meaning, I define the act and style hitlahamut encodes, using analysis of the type of talk it describes. The data are taken from phone-in interactions and online op-eds and news. Hitlahamut defines a self-centered emotive, exaggerated style of the confrontational and divisive message, and it encodes hostile relations between the participants. I then connect this term with other Israeli terms for talk and with terms for public talk elsewhere, suggesting that hitlahamut describes unreasonable criticism, enabling participants not to engage with the content of the criticism due to its (perceived) style. In addition, hitlahamut describes populist discourse (from both left and right) due to its combination of aggression and emotive style with divisive language and problematic argumentative content.Publication The cultural meanings of Israeli Tokbek (talk-back online commenting) and their relevance to the online democratic public sphere(2013-01-01) Dori-Hacohen, Gonen; Shavit, NimrodAbstract: Israeli journalistic websites have initiated a feature that became fairly universal: a section at the end of each article that allows readers to respond to the article and to each other. This feature is captured by the metacommunicative term ‘tokbek’, derived from the English phrase ‘talk-back’. Although originally viewed as having the potential to promote civil participation, the tokbek soon became associated with pejorative cultural meanings that indicated its failure to do so. Drawing on the Ethnography of Communication, we provide an interpretative framework for an analysis of this failure. The main function of tokbek is the construction of the commenters’ political identities, mainly as leftists and rightists. This oppositional construction takes the antagonistic form of a ‘bashing ritual’ that communicates radical pessimism about the possibility of political debate. Because sharing a virtual space does not necessarily facilitate deliberation, democratic culture should be explicitly addressed when discussing technological advancements.Publication "Rush, I Love You": Interactional Fandom on U.S. Political Talk radio(2013-01-01) Dori-Hacohen, GonenThis article analyzes the openings in host-caller interactions in three leading U.S. political talk radio (PTR) programs. Conversation analysis and membership categorization analysis are used to describe how fandom is achieved in these shows. Callers present themselves as fans in the first possible position in the interaction, using various practices ranging from uttering the word ditto to creating extended discourse structures. The hosts usually perceive these practices as compliments and appreciate them and the callers. PTR is a prime example of a fan-public, since its host harnesses the fans to achieve his political (and commercial) agenda. The hyphen in fan-public deserves attention, because this notion is rooted in infotainment, combining the relationships of the entertainment business, fans, and stars with the realm of politics, which would assume some critical notion and individuality in the decision-making processes.Publication Hebrew nu: Grammaticization of a borrowed particle from synchronic and diachronic perspectives(2016-01-01) Maschler, Yael; Dori-Hacohen, GonenHebrew nu is a non-referential item borrowed into the language in the early days of revival of spoken Hebrew, as is the case for many discourse markers (Schiffrin 1987) in language contact situations (e. g., Brody 1987; Maschler 1988, 1994,2000; Salmons 1990; Matras 1998). Even-Shoshan’s dictionary (2003) classifies it as an interjection and provides the information that nu was “imported from the European languages”, which could be understood as mainly Russian (nu),Yiddish (nu), and possibly Polish (no). Even-Shoshan provides the meanings 'efo (‘therefore’), hava (‘let us’), uvxen (‘well then’) – all words of rather high register. To these meanings, another dictionary (Avneyon 1998) adds a colloquial use: milat zeruz (‘an urging word’) and provides the example: nu kvar, bo! hasha'a me'uxeret! (‘nu already, come! It’s late!’).Publication "I Have a Question for You": Practicies for Achieving Institutional Interaction in Israeli Radio Phone-In Programs(2011-01-01) Dori-Hacohen, GonenSchegloff described utterances such as “lemme ask you a question” as pre-questions, pre-pre’s or pre-delicates (Schegloff 1980). This paper provides a discussion of similar utterances in a specific institutional setting - political radio phone-in programs in Israel. The participants use these utterances in ways that are similar to Schegloff’s description. Yet, the pre-construction has additional institutional functions for the differing roles of the host and the caller. Hosts use these utterances to manage the interaction during overlaps as a means to secure an exclusive turn of talk following them. Callers use them infrequently at the beginning of their talk as story-prompts. Hosts may challenge this usage and the interactional role reversal. Regular callers can use the pre-constructions similarly to hosts. In this way, the pre-constructions in the Israeli radio phone-in programs are employed as interactional practices that relate and construct the roles in this institutional setting.Publication Language ideology and identity construction in public educational meetings(2019-01-01) Vasilyeva, Alena L.The study explores educational meetings that have a goal of promoting the Belarusian language and providing a platform for people who want to interact in this language. These meetings are not like any traditional language courses; they are rather a public discussion space for a community of people who speak Belarusian, try to speak this language, or are interested in it. Findings demonstrate how the identity of a Belarusian-speaking Belarusian is interactionally constructed and speaking Belarusian is framed in relation to identity formation and language ideology.Publication Visual analysis of information world maps: An exploration of four methods(2019-01-01) Greyson, Devon; O'Brien, Heather; Shankar, SagunaInformation researchers increasingly use participatory, arts-based methods to better understand the social contexts of individuals and populations. However, it remains rare to engage in qualitative analysis of the resulting visual artefacts. This article explores approaches to analysing visual media generated through a specific arts-based method, information world mapping (IWM), an interdisciplinary draw-and-talk technique that elicits data about individuals’ social information worlds. Here, we test four approaches to analysing visual media generated through IWM: directed qualitative content analysis (QCA), compositional interpretation, conceptual analysis and visual discourse analysis using situational analysis (SA). QCA was effective in creating an overview of participants’ information practices, yet raised concern regarding interpretive bias. Using an inductive taxonomy for compositional interpretation, we identified genre conventions for IWMs. Conceptual analysis resulted primarily in a reflection of the research procedures and epistemology. SA, while time-consuming, generated a large amount of rich data, including discourses and power relations that were not identified in previous analysis of textual data. In a reversal of our previous stance that cautioned against IWM analysis, we encourage other researchers to consider integrated or secondary visual analysis of IWMs.Publication Book Review: Speaking into air: A history of the idea of communication(2001-01-01) Chang, Briankle G.Publication Justice, Report and Testimony in #MeToo and the ICTY(2019-01-01) Cooks, Leda M.; Zenovich, Jennifer A.In the aftermath of the confirmation hearings of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, in the United States the phrase “I believe Christine Blasey Ford” was trending next to “I still believe Anita Hill,” #MeToo, and “Why I didn’t report.” At 51, Dr. Ford explained that Kavanaugh attempted to rape her in high school. In the United States, Democratic politicians mobilized her trauma as evidence of Kavanaugh’s unfitness for the position of Supreme Court Justice while some Republicans questioned the legitimacy and weight of her claims (Stolberg, 2018). Although there is precedent for the handling of accusations of sexual misconduct in Supreme Court confirmation hearings, the way in which the story and testimony was reported and received politically, nationally, and internationally illuminates the dialogism (Bahktin, 1981) as well as the moral imperative of the #MeToo movement.Publication Fake News and Scandal(2019-01-01) Cabañes, Jason; Anderson, C.W.; Ong, Jonathan CorpusWe argue that there are four ways we both understand and misunderstand fake news as a research concept. This includes seeing fake news as text rather than visual content; as either “true” or “false” information rather than as facts embedded within narratives; as surface level content rather than being produced within institutional processes; and from a “Western-centric” lens rather than from a comparative context. As we will argue in our conclusion, these foci make connecting empirical work on fake news to larger media theories of visibility and surveillance more difficult. In particular, they make it harder to connect questions of fake news to sociologies of scandal and the public sphere. In the second section, we attempt to address each of these critiques by outlining elements of our research on fake news production in the Philippines, which was selected insofar as it provides a non-European case of a phenomenon the discussion of which is usually confined to the industrialized West and which serves as a launching pad for engaging in larger meta-theoretical reflection. In the third and final section, the chapter returns to the initial conversation about the media and scandal and discusses how these different frameworks for considering fake news shed light on the relationship between scandal and the media.Publication Young parents’ experiences and perceptions of ‘Teen Mom’ reality shows(2019-01-01) Greyson, Devon; Chabot, Cathy; Shoveller, Jean A.MTV’s hit reality shows 16 and Pregnant and Teen Mom were produced with an agenda of preventing teen pregnancy. Researchers have examined their effectiveness as behavioral interventions, yet little attention has been paid to experiences of young parents themselves with these shows, nor to their ethical consequences, including the potential for compounding of stigma against young parents. This analysis qualitatively examines the experiences of young parents in British Columbia, Canada, with the media phenomenon referred to as ‘Teen Mom shows.’ Interview and observation data from a large, longitudinal, mixed-methods ethnographic study of young parents was analyzed using hybrid deductive-inductive qualitative content analysis. The dominant understanding was that Teen Mom depictions of young parenting were inaccurate and overly dramatic. Young mothers and fathers experienced stigma and judgement that directly or indirectly referred to Teen Mom portrayals of young mothers as immature, dramatic, and promiscuous, and young fathers as absentee parents.Publication Bodies, spaces and places for food taste and waste(2019-01-01) Cooks, Leda M.In a darkened auditorium, I project two images to the audience. In one, a picture of mass-produced, perfectly spherical, unblemished red tomatoes. In the other, a picture of some garden tomatoes: stretch-marked, unevenly shaped, blemished, and with slightly different coloration. I ask the group of students and community members assembled at this public talk: “Which tomatoes would you buy?” I have asked this question of audiences around the US, and surveyed distributors and consumers informally in Italy and Brazil. Another time, I show a photo of abundant piles of clean, fresh, perfect produce at one market, and a picture of another market where there are just a few of each item (though no less perfect) on display. Again, the question is posed: “Which would you buy?” I have pointed out tomatoes or other produce and queried people in farmers’ markets, community centers, convention halls and classrooms. My reasons for the inquiry and the implications of the responses, while seemingly simple questions of taste and consumption, are the basis for my journey in this chapter into the complexities of taste, waste, capital and embodiment that prefigure a preference for tomato (and other food) consumption.Publication Network Visualization and Problem-Solving Support: A Cognitive Fit Study(2018-01-01) Welles, Brooke Foucault; Xu, WeiaiThis study examines the relative effectiveness of four different social network representations for improving human problem-solving accuracy and speed: node-link diagrams, adjacency matrices, tables, and text. Results suggest that visual network representations improve problem-solving accuracy and speed, compared with text. Among the visual representations, tables produced superior problem-solving outcomes for symbolic tasks and link-node diagrams produced superior problem-solving outcomes for spatial tasks. These results partially support a cognitive fit model of problem-solving support. There is not “one best way” to represent network data. Instead, it is important to match network representations and problem-solving tasks.Publication Research on Mobile Phone Data in the Global South: Opportunities and Challenges(2018-01-01) Avle, Seyram; Quartey, Emmanuel; Hutchful, DavidThe rapid uptake of mobile phones in the global South—that is, developing countries located primarily in the Southern Hemisphere—is a fact that is often repeated in popular discourse as well as academic research. In the years since it became a favorite factoid, there have been shifts in some of the most well-known patterns of use, with new data being created and collected. To a large extent, communication and information researchers have yet to fully address the opportunities and challenges regarding these changes. This chapter outlines some of the shifts in usage trends, what kinds of data they generate, and what kinds of questions they can help answer about social and economic ties, mobility and location, and innovation and design. These can strengthen theorizing new communication practices and generate greater knowledge about life in a networked age for those in resource-constrained environments.Publication Toward an ordinary ethics of mediated humanitarianism: An agenda for ethnography(2019-01-01) Ong, Jonathan CorpusThis article takes stock of the insights and approaches advanced by the last 15 years of critical research in humanitarian communication and distant suffering while arguing for a new agenda for ethnography. Ethnography lays bare the messy and fertile terrains of human experience and disrupts idealized figures of witness and sufferer, aid worker and aid recipient, event and the everyday. Bringing into dialogue the anthropology of aid literature and media and cultural studies, this article proposes three important shifts for future research: (1) a focus on processes rather than principles in production studies of humanitarian communication, (2) a focus on ethics arising from everyday life rather than from events of distant suffering, and (3) and a focus on the lifeworlds of the poor and vulnerable rather than those of witnesses.Publication Conviviality as a politics of endurance: the refugee emergency and the consolations of artistic intervention(2019-01-01) Ong, Jonathan Corpus; Rovisco, MariaAgainst the impasse of despair in the public response to the refugee emergency, artistic interventions emerge to offer fleeting significant opportunities for restorative and reparative action. This article takes up conviviality as a conceptual tool to understand artistic interventions to the forced migration and asylum issues that variably aim for healing, empathy, and reflexivity. Drawing on comparative research consisting of interviews of artists in France, the United Kingdom, and the United States and textual analyses of their performances, we discuss specific motivations and diverse representational practices that aim to enact togetherness-in-difference. We discuss the potentials and risks of convivial artistic productions, which we argue produce a politics of endurance that, as Feldman has said, helps “people live better with circumstances they cannot change.”