In this paper, we analyze an emergent cultural clash between: (a) how media outlets and other control culture institutions have portrayed events related to Black Lives Matter, and (b) the complex reality of Black Lives Matter movements as they have developed through embodied, intersectional, and always socially situated forms of direct collective action. In focusing specifically on American mainstream media coverage of the killing of Trayvon Martin, we argue that, given the history of white supremacy in America, such journalistic accounts generally fail to provide an adequate socio-historical context for emergent social movements in the vein of Black Lives Matter. In framing such movements, at worst, as anti-American terrorist organizations, though more regularly as social constellations of misplaced anger, American control culture institutions have consistently reinforced a certain set of logical contradictions found across broader discussions about race throughout the history of America. Finally, drawing on the theory of play proposed by Gregory Bateson, we outline how a form of subverting mainstream journalistic framing techniques is enacted and embodied creativity through the communally oriented tactics successfully deployed by social movements like Black Lives Matter.
The authors deploy Marxist theory-and Gramscian hegemonic theory in particular-to investigate the subtleties of racial "othering" in the media representations of African Americans in a putatively postracial America. The paper's objects of inquiry are an opinion article in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and the reaction it instigated in the Atlanta Black Star. We argue that the contestations of signification between the dominant narrative about African Americans in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and the rhetorical pushback it actuated in the alternative Atlanta Black Star both reproduce and legitimate dominant media framing by highlighting the alterity of subordinate ethnic groups and providing a site for contestation.
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With the changes in societies and economies, new formats and packaging of educational products have been emerging as alternatives to the traditional degrees and certificates. Most of these offerings emerge outside higher education institutions and aim to alleviate the gap between the supply of skills and the needs of industries which had a big impact on the educational space. The authors studied approximately four hundred thousand tweets discussing educational offerings. They used a combination of topic modeling and network analysis to group topics into wider themes over the topic network. They also used word embeddings to measure semantic similarity of words related to specific educational packagings and further understand the discussion carried out on Twitter. The results of this study show how public opinion on Twitter discussed formal and non-formal educational offerings in ways that stress economic and professional advancement. Finally, the results from the word embeddings analysis revealed a need for common and clear taxonomy that differentiates between educational formats.
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