[ecrea] New Special Section on Communication Activism Research Published [IJoC]

International Journal of Communication Publishes Special Section
“Communication Activism Research: Engaged Communication Scholarship for
Social Justice”

How can engaged communication research best produce social justice?

Despite calls within the communication discipline (and others) for engaged
research that makes unjust social systems and practices more just,
communication researchers largely have not produced such scholarship.
Indeed, engaged communication research frequently avoids social justice,
critiques without changing social injustices, or benefits powerful corporate
and political interests that maintain injustices.

Communication activism research (CAR) offers a new form of engaged
scholarship that involves communication scholars using their theories,
methods, and applied practices to work with oppressed communities and
activist groups to intervene into unjust discourses and material conditions
to make them more just, and documenting their efforts. CAR, thus, involves
communication researchers intervening and acting collectively with
marginalized communities and activists groups to secure social justice.

This Special Section on Communication Activism Research examines and debates
this engaged communication research approach. Guest-editors Kevin M.
Carragee and Lawrence R. Frey first explain CAR and how it differs from
other engaged scholarship, and then discuss challenges confronting CAR.
Three prominent scholars then evaluate CAR critically from communication
traditions that emphasize engaged research: J. Kevin Barge (applied
communication), Robert W. McChesney (media research) and Michelle
Rodino-Colocino (critical-cultural studies). This Special Section concludes
with Frey and Carragee’s response to these essays.

Collectively, these essays in the International Journal of Communication
offer an informed debate about how this new form of engaged communication
research can be employed, including by engaged scholars working from other
communication research traditions, to change systemic injustices.

We invite you to read these articles on communication activism research that
were published August 15, 2016.
Communication Activism Research: Engaged Communication Scholarship for
Social Justice — Introduction
Kevin M. Carragee, Lawrence R. Frey
        Crossing Boundaries between Communication Activism Research and 
Applied
Communication Research Discourses
J. Kevin Barge

Missing in Action: Engaged U.S. Communication Research in the Context of
Democratic Decline and the Digital Revolution
Robert W. McChesney

Critical-Cultural Communication Activism Research Calls for Academic
Solidarity
Michelle Rodino-Colocino

Seizing the Social Justice Opportunity: Communication Activism Research at a
Politically Critical Juncture — Epilogue
Lawrence R. Frey, Kevin M. Carragee

______________________________________________________
Larry Gross
Editor Arlene Luck
Managing
Editor

Kevin M. Carragee & Lawrence R. Frey
Guest Editors
___________________________________________________
International Journal of Communication (IJoC)
USC Annenberg Press
University of Southern California
http://ijoc.org/

---------------
ECREA-Mailing list
---------------
This mailing list is a free service offered by Nico Carpentier and ECREA.
--
To subscribe, post or unsubscribe, please visit
http://commlist.org/
--
To contact the mailing list manager:
Email: (nico.carpentier /at/ vub.ac.be)
URL: http://homepages.vub.ac.be/~ncarpent/
--
ECREA - European Communication Research and Education Association
Chaussée de Waterloo 1151, 1180 Uccle, Belgium
Email: (info /at/ ecrea.eu)
URL: http://www.ecrea.eu
---------------