"Communication, Culture & Critique"

Bauer, A J; Chakravartty, P

doi: 10.1093/ccc/tcaf009pmid: N/A

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 U.S. and around the globe.

Farkas, Johan; Mondon, Aurelien

doi: 10.1093/ccc/tcaf011pmid: N/A

The aim for this commentary is two-fold: first, we seek to outline how decades of liberal “post-democratic” hegemony—prevalent across liberal democratic parliaments, journalism, and academia—have enabled the rise of reactionary tech oligarchy. Second, we call for cross-disciplinary and cross-societal alliances that not only reject depoliticized euphemisms such as “polarization,” “populism,” and “post-truth,” but also actively commit to building radical democratic alternatives to both the failed liberal democratic status quo and its authoritarian outgrowth. Departing from the growing overt involvements of tech billionaires in authoritarian movements—financially, politically, discursively—we build on emergent scholarship to highlight failures in understanding the rise of reactionary tech, through its historical roots, financial and political power, and discursive reach.

Escoffery, Aymar Jean

doi: 10.1093/ccc/tcaf015pmid: N/A

Drawing from the work of scholar-activist W.E.B. Du Bois and insights from co-creating a community-based media platform, this article demonstrates how it is possible to experiment with both repairing harmful systems and reconstructing new systems with historically oppressed communities, even if those in power may extract some of the fruits of our labor. Reconstructing democracy amid fascism will require grass-roots solidarity among communities who have cultivated the necessary cultural, social, and technological protocols to heal systemic harm—racism, sexism, transphobia, nationalism, and other forms of hate.

Peck, Reece

doi: 10.1093/ccc/tcaf010pmid: N/A

This article examines Trump’s masculinist “alt-media strategy” in the 2024 election to explore the right’s dominance in the online media landscape. Often referred to as “the first influencer election,” post-2024 election analyses have highlighted the pivotal role alternative online media played in securing Trump’s second presidency. While some commentators have focused on the quantitative edge—such as Trump appearing on over twice as many podcasts as Harris—others have emphasized the influence of key MAGA-aligned figures, like Joe Rogan and Elon Musk. This article, however, spotlights a less appreciated but crucial factor: Trump’s historical relationship with alternative online political media, which traces back to the 2016 election cycle. This article calls upon communication scholars to adopt a “cultural-genealogical” lens to fully understand and reckon with the depth of MAGA media power.

Adair, Cassius

doi: 10.1093/ccc/tcaf013pmid: N/A

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—“Kamala is for They/Them, Trump is for You”—makes no sense. It's grammatically incoherent, it melds non-binary people and trans women into one generic out-group, and it argues that Kamala Harris was somehow a champion for trans people when in fact many of Harris's strongest critics on the left were (and are) trans. But these ads weren't designed to make sense. Instead, they operate within a fascist mode of address that aims to elicit not meaning but sensation: to frighten, to confuse, and then to reorient those affective responses towards fealty to a protective leader. This article thinks through the operations of these media attacks, considers the distinction between transgender illiberalism and fascist illiberalism, and speculates on how trans cultural production might best answer the ascendant fascist aesthetics of nonsense and sensation.

LeMaster, Lore/tta; Katreeb, Mary C

doi: 10.1093/ccc/tcaf012pmid: N/A

The beginning of Trump’s second presidency finds us immersed in a moral crusade with the expressed intent of complete annihilation of transness from public life. We argue that this moment requires revolutionary visions for enacting radical political coalitions that center our most vulnerable community members. We consider two media texts across time: (1) a 2024 political ad titled “Nonsense” paid for by the Trump campaign; and (2) Sylvia Rivera’s speech at the 1973 Christopher Street Liberation Day Rally in New York City. While both Trump and Rivera turn to the image of the incarcerated transgender person of color in search of sex and gender transition, Rivera allows us to “trans” Trump’s moral crusade through the mobilization of transaffirming love. To love and fight for trans people is to love and fight for the people.

Hochberg, Gil Z

doi: 10.1093/ccc/tcaf014pmid: N/A

This article argues for greater media and critical emphasis on Christian Zionism, a deeply antisemitic and Islamophobic ideology, whose supporters constitute the largest, most impactful advocates for the State of Israel. It calls for a reconsideration of Zionism as a primarily “Jewish movement,” emphasizing instead its Christian theological resonances that have proven foundational to Zionism’s growing salience throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. Overlooking Christian Zionism, mainstream media framings of the Israeli occupation of Palestine remains deeply Orientalist (Said, 1979). It is invested in telling stories about the (“centuries old”) rivalry between Arabs and Jews; Islam and Judaism, “the Semites” rather than exploring the role of Western Christian theology in shaping this rivalry, and its geopolitical implications, from its outset.

Paik, A Naomi

doi: 10.1093/ccc/tcaf016pmid: N/A

This article examines the importance of sanctuary movements under rising fascism in the US under the second presidential administration of Donald Trump. It looks to the history of U.S. sanctuary movements for migrants as a guide for organizing today, particularly efforts of ordinary people “doing justice” to defend migrants in open violation of the state. It then examines the U.S. political conditions in the first months of Trump’s second regime, focusing on the weaponization of immigration policy and repression of anti-genocide speech and activity. It argues that to confront such wide-ranging, vicious attacks, sanctuary today must be grounded in an abolitionist sanctuary for all, mobilized through many local efforts in community defense and building.

Stabile, Carol A; Tokos, Lauren; Yousaf, Miriam

doi: 10.1093/ccc/tcaf001pmid: N/A

In the second half of the 1940s, the Federal Bureau of Investigation initiated an investigation of the broadcasting industry that had far-reaching consequences for the future of television. This investigation, COMINFIL Radio-TV (short for Communist Infiltration of Radio-TV) provided justification and resources for the Bureau’s surveillance of progressives and efforts to attack and undermine progressive reforms in the postwar era. This article shows how the Bureau used the threat of communist infiltration to infiltrate trade unions, broadcast networks, and progressive organizations. In doing so, this article begins to address a crucial gap in Cold War media historiography—the Bureau’s interventions into broadcasting at a particularly critical moment in the development of television—by documenting government suppression of dissent and censorship.

Forde, Sydney L; Freedman, Des

doi: 10.1093/ccc/tcaf003pmid: N/A

Critiquing normative articulations of a public versus commercial media binary, we explore the contradictory juxtaposition of democratic expectations assigned to public service media (PSM) broadly, alongside actual PSM reporting. We examine US and UK PSM coverage of two major events related to the bombardment of Gaza and subsequent humanitarian crisis in the months following the Hamas attacks on October 7, 2023. Contextualized within the UK, US and Israel’s historical and ongoing colonial violence within Palestine over the past 75 years, we assess coverage that stands in contradiction to the often fetishized notion of PSM’s role in serving a broadly conceived and normatively accepted “public,” and challenge the independence afforded to existing PSM structures via a critique of the notion that PSM organizations operate at “arm’s length” from government. Throughout our analysis, we find evidence of systematic failures and highlight PSM’s use as an instrument perpetuating state power and control.