Communication Culture and Critique

Johnson, Jacqueline E

doi: 10.1093/ccc/tcae001pmid: N/A

This article examines how the podcast Thirst Aid Kit makes Black women’s desires—often erased or distorted in media—audible. Using Critical Technocultural Discourse Analysis (CTDA) and feminist close reading, I make three interrelated arguments: (1) The hosts’ use of regional, Black vernaculars and cultural touchstones disrupts podcasting’s Whiteness and builds intimacy with Black women listeners; (2) The podcast’s aural expressions of thirst articulate Black women’s desires rather than shield them from broader publics; (3) The show’s expression of thirst is connected to the romance genre; however, Thirst Aid Kit, ruptures the genre’s investment in Whiteness and the happy ending. This article builds from and intervenes in podcasting research, studies of Black women and media, and popular romance studies.

Gill, Sim

doi: 10.1093/ccc/tcae004pmid: N/A

In early 2021, the term BAME (Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic) was commonly used by the government, public bodies, and the mass media to describe minority ethnic groups in Britain. However, this usage faced fierce criticism, particularly due to complex tensions surrounding racial and ethnic identity, solidarity, and history. This article critically evaluates these tensions and the meaning behind BAME through 10 interviews with activists working in the field of British race relations. My principle focus amid this debate revisits the foundations of the term BAME, which, I argue, is rooted in the rise and fall of Political Blackness. Additionally, I examine the broader strategic purposes of BAME as well as emphasize the importance of colorism within our discussions of racialization in Britain. Ultimately, this discussion seeks a richer account of our current climate around ethnic identification that considers both the potential and the limits of the term BAME.

Richards, Matthew S

doi: 10.1093/ccc/tcae002pmid: N/A

This article explores the articulation of masculinity in professional wrestling, focusing on how violence can be used to forward alternative performances to hegemonic masculinity. Many modern professional wrestlers are more frequently and openly breaking with traditional masculinity in not just their in-ring/on-screen performances, but also in mediums that blur the lines of the fiction. I detail how one performer, Eddie Kingston, articulates masculinity alongside his own real-life struggles with and the importance of mental health, vulnerability, and violence. In doing so, I contend Kingston performs what I call a nascent masculinity, an emergent reconfiguration or articulation of masculinity that positions key characteristics of traditional hegemonic masculinity in such a way that at least potentially produces something non-hegemonic, and non-toxic. Crucially, such examples reflect the complex relationship between violence and meaning.

Stephens, David

doi: 10.1093/ccc/tcad033pmid: N/A

With their fingers on the pulse of popular culture, RDCWorld, a digital content creation group primarily composed of young Black men, enjoys a following largely gained from their anime-inspired videos that unite a community of like-minded Black nerds in the US and speaks to the power digital media has to construct spaces based on identities that have historically been marginalized, within both Black and White-dominated spaces. Using a content analysis of their videos and textual analysis of fan comments and social media engagement, I argue that RDCWorld’s performance as Black nerds subverts traditional notions of identity, play, and space by resisting notions of the stereotypical cool Black aesthetic, integrating transnational media with Blackness to create new modes of self-representation, challenging hegemonic constructions of public play, and by normalizing spaces of free Black expression through their anime and gaming convention, DreamCon.