Cfp: "Theoretical Turbulence: a Paradigm Shift in Intercultural Communication?", 18th Symposium, Nordic Network for Intercultural Communication (NIC), Helsinki, December 1-3, 2011.

In intercultural communication, where are we theoretically and where could or should we go? Is there theoretical turbulence that is unique to this field? If so, what kind of turbulence? Are there paradigms in intercultural communication, and if so, are we in the middle of a paradigm shift?

The conference theme asks for critical evaluations and larger paradigmatic discussions of intercultural communication research and education. The concerns and questions suggested by the theme are shared in different disciplines (media and communication, education, business studies, organizational and management studies, linguistics and sociolinguists, sociology, cultural studies) in Nordic countries and all over the world.

Presentations could touch upon, but are not limited to the following themes:

• Theoretical choices in intercultural communication research;
• Critical evaluations of theories of intercultural communication;
• Pedagogical applications of theoretical knowledge in teaching and consultation;
• Examples of the application of interpretive or critical theories of intercultural communication in intercultural education and training;
• Alternative perspectives for intercultural consultation or multicultural leadership;
• Redefining key concepts in intercultural communication, for example, multicultural identity, culture, nation, diversity, intercultural communication, adaptation, intercultural skills or competence;
• Challenges for intercultural communication (theories) set by the global world and individual multicultural experiences.

Visit: http://www.helsinki.fi/nic2011/.

Pub: EMPEDOCLES: EUROPEAN JOURNAL FOR THE PHILOSOPHY OF COMMUNICATION 1.1 (2009).

Editorial Authors: Johan Siebers Page Start: 5 View Header/Abstract View PDF Beyond Bergson: the ontology of togetherness Authors: Elena Fell Page Start: 9 View Header/Abstract View PDF Communication between friends Authors: Dan O'Brien Page Start: 27 View Header/Abstract View PDF Communication or Confrontation – Heidegger and Philosophical Method Authors: Vincent Blok Page Start: 43 View Header/Abstract View PDF Self-observation, self-reference and operational coupling in social systems: steps towards a coherent epistemology of mass media Authors: Juan Miguel Aguado Page Start: 59 View Header/Abstract View PDF Content and sense Authors: Lydia Sánchez And Manuel Campos Page Start: 75 View Header/Abstract View PDF The public's right to know in liberal-democratic thought vs. The people's ‘obligation to know’ in Hebrew law Authors: Tsuriel Rashi Page Start: 91 View Header/Abstract View PDF The Soul of the Golem Authors: Daniel H. Cabrera Page Start: 107 View Header/Abstract View PDF Radical Interpretation, the primacy of communication, and the bounds of language Authors: Eli Dresner Page Start: 123 View Header/Abstract View PDF Reviews Authors: Laura Green And Mark Olssen And Nick Turnbull Page Start: 135 View Header/Abstract View PDF Further information is here: http://www.intellectbooks.co.uk/journals/view-issue,id=1755/.

McWhorter, John. "The Cosmopolitan Tongue: the Universality of English." WORLD AFFAIRS JOURNAL (Fall 2009).

What makes the potential death of a language all the more emotionally charged is the belief that if a language dies, a cultural worldview will die with it. But this idea is fragile. Certainly language is a key aspect of what distinguishes one group from another. However, a language itself does not correspond to the particulars of a culture but to a faceless process that creates new languages as the result of geographical separation. For example, most Americans pronounce disgusting as “diss-kussting” with a k sound. (Try it—you probably do too.) However, some people say “dizz-gusting”—it’s easier to pronounce the g after a softer sound like z. Imagine a language with the word pronounced as it is spelled (and as it was in Latin): “diss-gusting.” The group speaking the language splits into two groups that go their separate ways. Come back five hundred years later, and one group is pronouncing the word “diss-kussting,” while the other is pronouncing it “dizz-gusting.” After even more time, the word would start shortening, just as we pronounce “let us” as “let’s.” After a thousand years, in one place it would be something like “skussting,” while in the other it might be “zgustin.” After another thousand, perhaps “skusty” and “zguss.” By this time, these are no longer even the same language. This is exactly why there are different languages—what began in Latin as augustus became agosto in Spanish and, in French, août, pronounced as just the single vowel sound. Estonian is what happened when speakers of an earlier language migrated away from other ones; in one place, Estonian happened, in the other, Finnish did. And so while Finnish for horse is hevonen, in Estonian it’s hobune. Notice that this is not about culture, any more than saying “diss-kusting” rather than “diz-gusting” reflects anything about one’s soul. In fact, all human groups could, somehow, exhibit the exact same culture—and yet their languages would be as different as they are now, because the differences are the result of geographical separation, leading to chance linguistic driftings of the kind that turn augustus into agosto and août. In this we would be like whales, whose species behave similarly everywhere, but have distinct “songs” as the result of happenstance. Who argues that we must preserve each pod of whales because of the particular songs they happen to have developed? The diversity of human languages is subject to the same evaluation: each one is the result of a roll of the dice. One school of thought proposes that there is more than mere chance in how a language’s words emerge, and that if we look closely we see culture peeping through. For example, in its obituary for Eyak, the Economist proposed that the fact that kultahl meant both leaf and feather signified a cultural appreciation of the unique spiritual relationship of trees and birds. But in English we use hover to refer both to the act of waiting, suspended, in the air and the act of staying close to a mate at a cocktail party to ward off potential rivals. Notice how much less interesting that is to us than the bit about the Eyak and leaves and feathers. For the better part of a century, all attempts to conjure any meaningful indication of thought patterns or cultural outlook from the vocabularies andgrammars of languages has fallen apart in that sort of way, with researchers picking up only a few isolated shards of evidence. For example, because “table” has feminine gender in Spanish (la mesa), a Spanish speaker is more likely—if pressed—to imagine a cartoon table having a high voice. But this isn’t exactly what most of us would think of as meaningfully “cultural,” nor as having to do with “thought.” And in fact, Spanish speakers do not go about routinely imagining tables as cooing in feminine tones. Thus the oft-heard claim that the death of a language means the death of a culture puts the cart before the horse. When the culture dies, naturally the language dies along with it. The reverse, however, is not necessarily true. Groups do not find themselves in the bizarre circumstance of having all of their traditional cultural accoutrements in hand only to find themselves incapable of indigenous expression because they no longer speak the corresponding language. Native American groups would bristle at the idea that they are no longer meaningfully “Indian” simply because they no longer speak their ancestral tongue. Note also the obvious and vibrant black American culture in the United States, among people who speak not Yoruba but English. The main loss when a language dies is not cultural but aesthetic. The click sounds in certain African languages are magnificent to hear. In many Amazonian languages, when you say something you have to specify, with a suffix, where you got the information. The Ket language of Siberia is so awesomely irregular as to seem a work of art. . . . Read the rest here: http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/2009%20-%20Fall/full-McWhorter-Fall-2009.html.

"Reconciliation and the Transition from Orality to the Written Expression," Saint Paul University, Ottawa, October 29-30, 2009.

The goal of this conference is to bring together a broad audience of Aboriginal Peoples, First Peoples, and scholars; academics; and other interested individuals to discuss Reconciliation and the Transition from Orality to the Written Expression as well as to break new ground in terms of alternative approaches and further paths of research. In many cases, the process of objectification assumes that the only difference between oral and written records is materiality, and that once this is achieved, oral [Aboriginal] records then conform to a Western prerequisite for verifying truth; that is, they appear more trustworthy because they become immutable and hence can be assumed genuine based on Western standards .This conference proposes to research and explore how this perception is integrally connected with reconciliation and how language and culture are the basis of a climate of reconciliation towards fostering respect and understanding and thus possible work toward mutual reconciliation. Please send an abstract, maximum length of 150 words, by October 1st, 2009 to: Anitta Aaltonen (aaaltonene@ustpaul.ca).

Cfp: "Crisis of Meaning," Philosophy Programme, Murdoch University, November 27, 2009.

The Murdoch Philosophy Program, in conjunction with the Krishna Somers Foundation, the Murdoch School of Social Sciences and Humanities and the Faculty of Arts and Education, invites abstracts of 250 words for twenty-minute papers in any field of philosophy, or related disciplines. In choosing 'Crisis of Meaning' as the theme of this year’s Colloquium, we hope to encourage contributions from a range of disciplines that consider philosophical questions relating to the nature of meaning and truth, and their significance in human lives. Papers might examine the theme along broad philosophical lines, for example, in terms of humanistic compared with scientific forms of meaning, historical and timeless understandings of meaning, phenomenology, hermeneutics, language and interpretation, the meaning of meaning itself, philosophy and truth. Papers might also approach the theme as a question, exploring, for example, the notion that every generation sees itself as having a crisis of meaning (or of circumstance), asking what it means to think of something as a crisis and whether this idea is especially appropriate in particular contexts or whether it is an essential part of the human condition. Alternatively papers might offer a philosophical examination of a currently perceived crisis, whether philosophical, social, political, psychological, etc., in contexts such as ‘ethics’, ‘the good life’, ‘sustainability’, ‘education’, ‘welfare’, ‘rationality’, ‘communication’, ‘depression’, etc. Deadline for abstracts: October 20, 2009. Contact: Dr Lubica Ucnik, Philosophy Program, School of Social Sciences and Humanities Murdoch University, Western Australia 6150 L.Ucnik@murdoch.edu.au.

Cfp: "Communication and Memory," Landmarks 2, Institute of Germanic and Romance Studies, University of London, December 9-11, 2009.

Update: The conference webpage is here: http://igrs.sas.ac.uk/events/conferences-workshops/ecrea-conference.html. Original Post (July 28, 2009): Biennial Conference, European Communication Research and Education Association. 'Landmarks' is the name of our bi-annual conference exploring current pathways of research and scholarship in the philosophy of communication. We aim to provide a platform for interdisciplinary discussion and engagement, spanning philosophy and communication studies broadly understood, and creating opportunities for established as well young scholars and researchers to present their work and their ideas. The theme for Landmarks 2 is Communication and Memory. At all levels at which communication mediates, expresses or constructs relatedness, the function of memory – and with it forgetting and expecting - is present. Memory shapes presuppositions in communication as much as expectations. The temporality of personal existence and of consciousness is a prerequisite for communicative interaction. But communication processes have a formative influence on the content of individual and collective memories and of cultures and practices of remembrance as well – as indeed, according to some thinkers, on the performative constitution of temporality, seriality or iteration itself. At the same time, communication introduces a factor of change, or otherness - of mediation - in what is remembered or memorised. Thus the dialectics of memory and communication signals the interdependence of the immediate and the mediated. In personal, social, political, ideological and cultural practices and identities this dialectic plays a largely unexplored role. Again, for hermeneutics, the process of understanding is essentially both mediated by memory, in the form of tradition, and by communication, in the form of dialogue – Mnemosyne is the mother of the muses. Memory, as conceptualised in traditions of thought as diverse as phenomenology and the philosophy of cognition, plays a central role in the understanding of interpretation, thinking and thought processes. With this conference we aim to explore the fundamental aspects of the relation between memory and communication, across a range of (philosophical) methods and disciplines. These include phenomenology, philosophy of culture, philosophy of language and cognition, metaphysics, critical theory, rhetoric and aesthetics, the history of philosophy, the new universalism and communication ethics. Many aspects of the relation between communication and memory have not yet been investigated systematically; this conference aims to provide a map of the landscape. We hope to be able to bring together researchers from a wide range of backgrounds to collectively explore this area. We seek to explore questions such as the following: 1. What role does communication play in rituals and cultures of remembrance? 2. What is the role of memory in the information society? 3. What is the difference between memory and remembrance and how do mediation practices play a role in this difference? 4. How can we conceptualise the relation between memory, remembrance and communication in various philosophical traditions and disciplines, including aesthetics and ethics? 5. What are the outlines of a (critical) theory conceptualising the interplay of memory and communication – including cultural practices, social and political practise, cognitive practices, information management practices etc.? 6. How can we understand the relationships between the mediation of memory and ideology formation, hegemony and power, reason, mythos and logos? 7. Is there a utopian dimension to memory, remembering and communication? 8. What are the outlines of a contemporary theory of rhetorical memoria and how do they relate to a descriptive and normative theory of communicative competence? 9. What is the role of communicating memory and of remembering in the constitution and dynamics of the subject and of intersubjectivity – e.g. in psychoanalysis or the philosophy of mind? Key note speakers will be announced shortly (suggestions are also still welcome!). Abstracts of 500 words maximum for a paper or poster presentation can be submitted to: papersubmission@philosophy-of-communication.eu, by 1 October 2009 at the latest. The registration fee is £40; an on-line registration form will be available on the Section’s website from 1 September. A selection of conference papers will be published in the Section’s Journal, Empedocles: European Journal for the Philosophy of Communication. A full programme, as well as information about accommodation and travel, will be made available in due course on the Section’s website, http://www.philosophy-of-communication.eu/.

Gooch, John C. "Imagining the Law and the Constitution of Societal Order ..."

Abstract: legal scholar and theorist James Boyd White has challenged both lawyers and rhetoricians to imagine the law as a rhetorical and literary process (“Imagining the Law” from the 1997 anthology, The Rhetoric of Law). White contends that members of the legal profession should see law as an activity of speech and imagination that occurs in a social world (“Imagining the Law,” p. 35). He encourages members of the legal profession to look at law in its social context; in other words, instead of thinking of law as a social machine or technical system of regulations and applying its rules in a mechanical way, lawyers should engage the legal profession as an interaction of authoritative texts and as a process of legal thought and argument (“Imagining the Law,” p. 55). By asking members of the legal professional to see law as rhetoric, White encourages them to recognize the socially constitutive nature of language, which runs contrary to a perspective of law as machine or, rather, the law as only a system of rules and regulations. My paper will extend White’s notion of imagining law as rhetorical and literary process. White has analyzed specific court cases as instances of lawyers and judges imagining the law in particular ways. In addition, scholars, particularly from communication and rhetoric, have taken inspiration from his ideas and applied them to the rhetoric of the courtroom (e.g., court testimony, judicial opinions, and narrative in legal discourse). However, I intend to take White’s concept of imagining the law and to apply it to a public address concerning constitutionality and the legal system (as opposed to analyzing transcripts from court cases). The specific case for my paper, the “Crime and the Great Society” (1965) speech from former Los Angeles Police Chief William Parker, reflects Parker’s imagining of the law and of constitutional rights – particularly the rights of the accused. (Based on my research, the speech itself represents an artifact no one has seriously studied.) My paper will show how his speech reflects a vision for the City of Los Angeles; Parker, himself, imagines the law by referencing several authoritative texts and literary works to advance his agenda for societal order in Los Angeles. In the end, Parker asks his audience, the city’s leaders and citizens, to share his vision and his imagination, and, moreover, he constitutes a societal order through his use of language. Such imaginings, however, can adversely affect the very society a rhetorician intends to strengthen if the rhetorician’s words result in negative consequences for citizens’ constitutional rights. Download the paper here: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1391668.

Starger, Colin P. "The DNA of an Argument: A Case Study in Legal Logos." JOURNAL OF CRIMINAL LAW AND CRIMINOLOGY (2009).

Abstract: this article develops an original rhetorical framework for analyzing the logic of legal arguments and then applies it to unpack a post-conviction DNA testing controversy currently before the Supreme Court. My framework extends Aristotle's concept of logos by specifying different logical types of proof in legal argument. The Osborne case now before the Court concerns how DNA proof intersects with legal process and the procedural barriers to prisoners' accessing DNA evidence after conviction. After parsing the persuasive dynamics in the federal litigation preceding Osborne, I make a prediction on what argument logic will prevail in the Court. Drawing on the work of Aristotle, neo-Aristotelian argument scholars, and contemporary jurisprudence, I first construct an original taxonomy of logos that distinguishes between modes of proof in legal argument. This taxonomy characterizes prototypical differences in formal, empirical, narrative, and categorical arguments by reference to the logical and rhetorical roles of their constituent premises, inferences, and conclusions. I then use my new vocabulary to frame an in-depth case study of federal-court litigation over post-conviction access to DNA evidence under 42 U.S.C. Section 1983. I describe the history of this discourse, and engage in close readings of two arguments – the concurring opinions of Judge Michael Luttig and Chief Judge Harvie Wilkinson in the Harvey II case – that represent the competing rhetorical poles of the debate. I classify Luttig's argument logos as formal, and Wilkinson's as narrative. After examining all published decisions that have considered the Section 1983 issue since Harvey II, I argue that Luttig's formal logos has successfully persuaded federal courts. I therefore predict that Luttig's logic on the procedural dispute in Osborne will prevail at the Supreme Court. By closely dissecting this argument over DNA, I bring fresh perspective on the rhetorical DNA of a legal argument. Download the paper here: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1389504.

Bix, Brian. "Law and Language: How Words Mislead Us."

Abstract: this talk was the Reappointment Lecture for the Frederick W. Thomas Chair in the Interdisciplinary Study of Law and Language at the University of Minnesota. The topic is the way that the words we use in legal doctrinal reasoning can - intentionally and unintentionally - mislead us regarding the proper outcomes of cases and the best development of the law. Connecting to the ideas of the American legal realists Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., and Felix Cohen, the talk uses examples from Contract Law (assent to terms in electronic contracting cases, waiver of the failure of conditions), Medical Decision-Making (deciding on behalf of incompetent patients), and Family Law (same-sex marriage, child custody, and alimony) to make general points about how we choose words to make our decisions more persuasive or more comfortable, when we should instead be using more transparent (more honest) terminology, in order better to confront the real underlying moral and policy questions. Download the paper here: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1376366.

Tiersma, Peter. "What is Language and Law and Does Anyone Care?" LAW AND LANGUAGE. Ed. Frances Olsen, et al.

Abstract: There has been growing attention paid recently to the interdisciplinary study of language and law. This article explores the nature and parameters of this relatively new discipline, including its relationship to related areas such as law and semiotics, literature, and forensic linguistics. Although the study of language and law has been advancing, it nonetheless remains a relatively marginal and underappreciated field. The article concludes with some suggestions for making the field more prominent. Download the whole essay here: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1352075.

Cfp: "Enabling Complexities: Communities / Writing / Rhetoric," Rhetoric and Writing Program, Michigan State University, October 7–9, 2009.

Update:
Access the conference website here: http://kairos.wide.msu.edu/~femrhet/.

Original Post (November 8, 2008):
The 7th Biennial Conference on Feminism(s) and Rhetoric(s) of Coalition of Women Scholars in the History of Rhetoric and Composition.
We invite proposals that:

• reflect the complexity and diversity of who "we" are as a scholarly community;
• make manifest the deep structure of the connections, intersections, and overlaps that actually make us a community;
• help articulate who "we" are as a deliberate community of scholars, and what that means about our responsibilities and relationships to one another across scholarly areas and institutional positions;
• highlight scholarly and teacherly activities that deliberately create space for more complex notions of scholarship and teaching within the discipline of Rhet/Comp;
• include and significantly engage communities outside of the academy;
• focus on antiracist pedagogies and scholarship; present interdisciplinary scholarship in Afrafeminist Rhetorics; American Indian Rhetorics, Chicana Rhetorics, Asian American Rhetorics, post/neo-colonial rhetorics;
• highlight the intellectual traditions of women’s communities, especially communities constellated around specific identity markers such as race, ethnicity, class, sexual orientation issues, geographic origins;
• explore the relationships between written, oral, and material discursive production;
• and other topics that address the connections in the conference theme.

We also welcome proposals on relevant topics not directly addressed above, that significantly engage disciplines other than Rhet/Comp, and that have consequences for communities located outside of the academy. Although traditional presentations are acceptable, we encourage participants to create formats that go beyond the read-aloud academic paper. Interactive sessions that include discussions, dialogues, and performances are especially welcome. Proposals should be uploaded to the FemRhet 2009 web site (www.femrhet.cwshrc.org), and can be for: *20-minute individual presentations (250-word proposals) *90-minute 3–4 member panels (500-word proposals) *90-minute workshops or roundtables (500-word proposals) Please plan to submit a title, a proposal the length indicated above, and a program-ready, booklet-friendly 50-word blurb for the presentation. Proposal System: December 15, 2008 Open Proposal Deadline: February 1, 2009 Acceptances Distributed: April 30, 2009

For more information: Contact Malea Powell (powell37@msu.edu), Nancy DeJoy (dejoy@msu.edu), or Rhea Lathan (lathan@msu.edu).

Hitchings, Henry. "One Language Fits All." FINANCIAL TIMES May 3, 2008.

What is the future of English? Here are a few statements that I’ve recently read, heard or overheard. “If you don’t speak English, you can’t feel part of the world.” “English isn’t much more than an ugly symbol of white supremacy.” “All this unchecked immigration is turning a once-beautiful language into some sort of mongrel.” “English is popular because it’s so accommodating.” “True English keeps getting diluted.” “In the future, we are all going to speak just one language, and it’s our one.” As such anecdotal evidence suggests, statements about language are typically freighted with political judgments. People characteristically identify their own language as precious – an embodiment of their heritage, a measure of their prosperity. They see other languages as rivals or dangerous intruders. And native users of English are particularly proud in their awareness that the language of Shakespeare, Adam Smith and The Simpsons is becoming the world’s sovereign tongue. Yet popular thinking about the language tends to be myopic. Books, articles and news items on the subject usually take one of three forms. First, there is the lament, which bemoans, for example, the decline of the semi-colon or the proliferation of split infinitives and so-called greengrocers’ apostrophes. The most celebrated recent example is Lynne Truss’s Eats, Shoots and Leaves. Then there is the archaeological approach, in which the history of the language is quarried. Contributions to this field are sometimes historical (Melvyn Bragg’s The Adventure of English) or more concerned with philology (Nicholas Ostler’s brilliant Empires of the Word). Third, and with more than a nod to this archaeological school, there is the curatorial method, in which linguistic oddities are individually displayed like museum pieces. Did you know that “kit” once denoted a wooden vessel used for carrying fish, or that “clone” comes from the Greek word for a twig? There have been numerous recent books in this vein, and the form also thrives on the internet. . . . Read the rest here: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/4be29966-17db-11dd-b98a-0000779fd2ac.html?nclick_check=1.

Donoghue, Dennis. "On Eloquence." CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION January 18, 2008.

Eloquence is not the same as rhetoric. Eloquence isn't even a distant cousin of rhetoric — it comes from a different family and has different eyes, hair, and gait. Long thought to be a subset of rhetoric's devices, eloquence has declared its independence: It has no designs on readers or audiences. Its aim is pleasure; it thrives on freedom among the words. Unlike rhetoric, it has not sent any soldier to be killed in foreign countries. I'd like to say how I came to this one beautiful idea. . . . Find out how here: http://chronicle.com/temp/reprint.php?id=nyhrj8jd59dvt47dtvdzjk3g6vqqnrv9.

CFP: "Communication Policies and Culture in Europe," 2nd Conference, European Communication Research and Education Association, November 15-18, 2008.

The broad theme of this major international congress, "Communication Policies and Culture in Europe," refers to the confluence that can be established between the media and the different interpretations of culture in Europe nowadays. This confluence refers to the globalization effects on a diversity of spaces (multinational, national, local) with all its political implications. It moreover refers to the different mediations and interactions that configure the current European society with respect to migrations, new forms of political participation, the dialectics of identity and diversity, new cultural consumptions, etc. The broad title aims to emphasize the importance of politics and culture, but also refers to new ways of regulation and de-regulation, the technology and the management of convergence within the cultural industries the new public service remit, and the variety of communication policies that aim to guarantee cultural diversity and development in Europe. The Philosophy of Communication section (http://www.philosophy-of-communication.eu/) invites proposals within the area of philosophy of communication, broadly conceived. The Philosophy of Communication Section in particular sets out to consolidate a European forum for the philosophy of communication. The section is explicitly oriented to reflect the cultural variety and the variety of traditions in the history of thought, scholarship and science. The philosophy of communication encompasses a variety of concerns including reflective, theoretical, analytical, normative and historical questions relating to communication as a phenomenon, a dialectical or hermeneutical process, a central element of social reality, a form of expression, a theoretical construct or last but not at least a paradox. What distinguishes Philosophy of Communication from other approaches is the foundational dimension embodied by the Section. The Philosophy of Communication section welcomes contributions that deal with questions regarding theory formation and methodology in communication scholarship, and with fundamental questions regarding the place of communication in human existence. Further information on the conference is available here: http://www.ecrea2008barcelona.org/eng/home.asp.

Hardt, Hanno. "Cruising on the Left: Notes on a Genealogy of 'Left' Communication Research." FAST CAPITALISM 2.2 (2007).

This essay traces the idea of "left" communication research in the United States, with references to the writings and practices of American authors and critics of mass communication and in the context of historical developments from nineteenth century philosophical and theoretical influences to the rise of the New Left in the 1960s. Not unlike the Old Left, which never achieved holding political power and realizing its political goals—but whose ideas have made a difference in reforming American society—"left" communication research never dominated the research culture in the United States, but its contributions continue to enrich the landscape of communication studies. The idea of "left" communication research is typically contained in the notion of "critical" communication research. Although potentially different (in terms of ideology), both share an understanding of communication as relations of power, which they address in their critique of the relations of media and society, for instance. There is a tolerance of inclusion (of left perspectives) among those writing about "critical" communication research, like Leslie T. Good, who sees even a moral imperative at work in "critical" communication research on the demystification of power relations with the goal of creating a climate of interrogation among "critical" researchers (or theorists). While Sue Curry Jansen writes about the implementation of a "media-critical" theory to suggest a broad based critique of media practices, W. J. T. Mitchell's ideas about "dialectical pluralism," with its notion of "pushing divergent theories and practices toward confrontation and dialogue" become the inspiration for the mission of a new journal, Critical Studies in Mass Communication. The work in a Marxist tradition of communication research, one thinks of Herbert Schiller or Dalles Smythe, for instance, remains isolated in its critique of society and reappears later with the rise of a Marxist tradition in a new and perhaps more hospitable environment of Cultural Studies, inspired by the work of Raymond Williams and Stuart Hall, in particular, and legitimized by their intellectual standing. Mainstream—or traditional—communication research, on the other hand, represents a different understanding of communication, one that is compatible with the ruling ideology. The latter embraces relations of power for the purpose of creating and maintaining community or democracy by preserving a pluralism of shared responsibilities, or consensus in a Deweyan sense. Under these conditions of existence, communication studies describes representative relations of power among social, economic, and political or cultural institutions in pursuit of a common good. Its research practices are embedded in the positivism of the traditional social sciences and provide empirical evidence, whose decontextualized and ahistorical nature invites a growing critique during the 1980s, in particular. All the while "left" communication research is marginalized in the disciplinary discourse; it is either considered a foreign product—based on European philosophical or theoretical propositions regarding democracy and society—or a Marxist project, which occupies only a fleeting moment in the American experience, when leftist ideas influenced the cultural and intellectual life of some communities before repression and the McCarthyism of the 1950s destroyed the sense of a collective mission. . . . Read the rest here: http://www.uta.edu/huma/agger/fastcapitalism/2_2/hardt.html.