From whence we came and where we are going: the editors’ introduction

Much can be said about the far-reaching impact of the COVID-19 pandemic: omnipresent threats to democracy in the U.S. and abroad; global surges of anti-Semitic, racist, and white supremacist violence; steadily unfolding consequences of the contentious 2020 U.S. presidential election; and nefarious upticks in anti-LGBTQIA+ bills, policy, and laws. Increasingly characterized by polarization and fragmentation, our cultural landscape offers a great deal to reflect upon, question, mourn, and resist. Yet, there are also glimmers of hope and societal transformation lighting our path forward. Gen Z has proven itself highly effective at utilizing social media to raise climate change awareness and impact policy; artificial intelligence, including ChatGPT, has the potential to generate new solutions to some of humanity’s oldest problems; and the stories told by Indigenous and women of color filmmakers continue to gain prominence.

Turning our attention inward, the National Communication Association (NCA) has transformed what began as shining moments worthy of celebration into material achievements that re/shape our discipline. Foremost is Dr. Shari Miles-Cohen’s competitive selection as NCA’s Executive Director, the first African American woman to serve in this role. Since 2013, when the IDEA Council became part of the executive leadership structure, NCA has consistently leveled up its prioritization of inclusion, diversity, equity, and access (IDEA) throughout the organization. Recent efforts include remedying exclusionary awards practices, welcoming three new caucuses as interest groups (Caribbean Communication; Indigenous; and South West Asian/North African, Middle East), and further diversifying its journal editorships and editorial boards. The lack of intersectional diversity represented among journal editors and editorial boards can be traced back to the origination of 11 of NCA’s 12 journals. Recounted in the 2021 IDEA Task Force Report, NCA formally acknowledged exclusionary barriers in our discipline’s publication processes via the 1988–1990 Speech Communication Association Taskforce on Affirmative Action. In 2018, scholar–activists led a renewed call to remove structural barriers that discourage scholars of color and Others who identify with marginalized populations from applying and/or earning these appointments (Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Access Strategic Planning Task Force [IDEA], 2022a, p. 1; see also IDEA, 2022b). NCA’s newest journal, Communication & Race, acknowledges and addresses our discipline’s need to “counteract the ongoing exclusions of scholars and scholarship related to race and racism …  as well as the suspicious questions scholars of color face around issues of ‘objectivity’” (IDEA, 2022a, pp. 8–9). As the first African American (Kimberly) and biracial Black (Rachel) women to serve as editors of Critical Studies in Media Communication (CSMC) since its founding in 1984, our editorial term (2023–2025) is a direct outcome of persistent scholar–activism alongside the combined labor of NCA’s Publications Council, Executive Committee, and National Office.

As critical/cultural media scholars whose interdisciplinary research profiles overlap in the realm of Black women and media, we applied to co-edit this journal with a specific interest in continuing to invest in each other’s professional endeavors. Beginning over 15 years ago as an established assistant professor and a bold doctoral student jointly aware of the importance of mentorship among Sister-Scholars, we intentionally nurture a mutually beneficial collegiality and friendship by presenting on panels, teaching and citing each other’s research, and emerging as leaders in NCA—first in the Black Caucus and then in the Critical/Cultural Studies Division. And YES, we have also, sometimes often, caught each other’s eye across a room to exchange a look of “WHAT?!?” or “Are you gonna speak up or should I?” in response to whatever form of oppressive/offensive/injurious rhetoric has spilled un/knowingly out of a scholar’s mouth.

As with any new editorship, we know that our theoretical and methodological roots will invite works that mirror our expertise. While we regard such scholarship as essential to critical/cultural media and mass communication inquiry, we have also identified three research areas quite different from our own that we hope to expand in CSMC to sustain its robust interdisciplinary appeal. First, we are interested in featuring works on misinformation, disinformation, and propaganda. Take, for instance, Ukraine’s use of social media to combat Russian disinformation designed to justify the brutality of an unprovoked war. Second, we welcome theorizations of media policy, nation-state censorship, and surveillance capitalism. While the historical milestones at the crossroads of media and politics remain salient (e.g., the First Amendment, 1966 Freedom of Information Act, 1996 Telecommunications Act, etc.), we also want CSMC to lead conversations engaged with theorizing, for example, the myriad national and international debates that inform the banning of apps such as TikTok from U.S. American government technology and—potentially—nationwide. Third, we hope to increase CSMC’s appeal to critical interpersonal and family communication. Although interpersonal communication is often presumed to belong to quantitative and qualitative domains of inquiry, we invite analyses of mediated interpersonal topics encased by ideological power dynamics, including, but not limited to: partnership and marriage, in/fertility, family relationships, families of choice, addiction, grief, and suicide. Such works might employ an array of methods (e.g., rhetorical, auto/ethnographic, performative) that yield robust critical/cultural media analyses.

To be clear, our intentions are not to discourage submissions that fall outside of the abovementioned areas. Nor are we discouraging works that bridge critical media inquiry with other paradigmatic approaches; we welcome submissions that blend the critical foci of the journal with quantitative, qualitative, rhetorical, and performative inquiry. Take, for example, the promising emergence of critical examinations of big data (Crawford et al., 2014; Croucher, 2023), pairing quantitative analysis with critical/cultural analysis (Coe & Griffin, 2020), and critical computation (Lukito & Pruden, 2023). Cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, and autonomous weapons systems also offer optimal opportunities for cross-paradigmatic critical media inquiry.

For those taking on the complexity of traveling betwixt/between paradigms and/or employing mixed methods, please note that submissions must attend to the journal’s Aims and Scope: “CSMC publishes original scholarship in mediated and mass communication from a cultural studies and/or critical perspective” (NCA, n.d.). Mediated and mass communication research that is housed within critical/cultural and/or cultural studies inquiry is incredibly varied, yet also united by emphases on factors such as ideology, hegemony, normativity, context, structural power dynamics, dis/enfranchisement, and resistance. Echoing Avery’s (1984) “Editor’s Note” in CSMC’s first issue, we too want to underscore the ethos of critical works by revisiting the foundations of cultural studies. Hall described the nature of such theorizations through “the metaphor of struggle, of wrestling with the angels” (1992/2019, p. 75). Still accurate today is Hall’s assertion: “What is important are the significant breaks—where old lines of thought are disrupted, older constellations are displaced, and elements, old and new, are regrouped around a different set of premises and themes” (Hall, 1980, cited in Avery, 1984, p. 1).

Emulating the efforts of NCA journal editors who have come before us, we too are committed to demystifying the publication process; humanizing the review process; and removing the structural barriers that exclude Others as authors, editorial board members, and the focus of scholarship. Driven by our desire to create greater transparency and inclusion in publishing, we started developing what we think of as editorial practices of compassion to cultivate a culture of practice that rings more supportive than demoralizing. Day (2011) writes that “Publishing takes an emotional toll on researchers” (p. 704). Moreover, “rejections may compromise some scholars’ need to belong to the meaningful social identity of successful academic researchers, and negative emotional responses can result” (p. 705). Our own early experiences in academia align with this assertion. In hopes of dismantling that culture and fostering an approach that exemplifies much of what NCA’s IDEA Task Force Report and IDEA Strategic Plan articulate, we are choosing otherwise (IDEA, 2022a; 2022b). Rather than sending desk reject decisions without context (e.g., Teixeira da Silva et al., 2018), we offer reasons (e.g., scope of the journal, readiness for peer review, disciplinary awareness and politics of citation, etc.) and guidance for processing rejection to normalize such discussions.

Mirroring several NCA journal editors, we use Dutta’s (2006) essay, “The Ten Commandments of Reviewing,” as a guide in the review process. We focus on four of the commandments, which declare a call to action for reviewers to provide specific feedback, and in a timely manner, while also using the review as an opportunity to encourage, and “do unto others as you would have them do unto you” (pp. 199–200). These serve as the basis for our expectations of reviewers, who we know have tremendous expertise to share with junior faculty and future colleagues (i.e., graduate students) in particular, and who we hope will utilize the review space to uplift and support these scholars. The unwritten and informal process of denigrating authors, or showcasing the reviewer’s superiority over an author, runs counter to Dutta’s recommendations; we look forward to making this approach less commonplace within the work of CSMC. We see these compassionate practices as a reflection of our strong commitment to mentoring new scholars and graduate students—imaginably, NCA’s future editors—through the editorial process. We hope this model will encourage all scholars to re/invest in the publication process as authors, reviewers, and editorial board members.

Additionally, we want to ensure that our presence as critical/cultural scholars who explore identity and representation is highlighted during our editorship. To that end, our first special issue, “Lifting as We Climb: Elevating Mediated Epistemologies by and about Black Women,” will feature the works most personal to us, while also providing a space for the next generation of scholars who are working to expand the scholarship in these areas. We envision this special issue as an intellectually rigorous space in which diverse authors unapologetically center Black women and media to disrupt the hegemonic practices that often position Black transgender, queer, and cisgender women on the margins of the margins of scholarly inquiry—if we are included at all. Moreover, to date, media scholarship that centers Black nonbinary identity is acutely undertheorized. Meeting the politics of underrepresentation with a discourse of refusal, this special issue will challenge normative practices and exclusionary structures (e.g., impositions of hyper(in)visibility, oversimplified and caricatured representations, grievous citational politics, etc.) by featuring multiple, overlapping, and contradictory voices across the discipline to theorize the state of Black women, Black girls, and media. We are thrilled to have the opportunity to exemplify who we are as scholars and what we desire as equitable practices and ways of being in our disciplinary journals.

We recognize our vision for CSMC is a major lift and we will experience both successes and setbacks in pursuit of an IDEA editorial praxis committed to demystifying publication practices, enacting mentorship, and creating infrastructure that will outlast our term. NCA’s material actions toward prioritizing IDEA and trends in recent scholarship signal hope for our journals, our association, and even our society. We are optimistic and invite you to join us in fully realizing our aspirations in this undertaking.

Acknowledgements

We cannot express our gratitude enough to Mia Consalvo, immediate past editor of CSMC, who seamlessly transferred the journal reins to us with tremendous care, thought, and assistance. Her role in our transition made an overwhelming endeavor easier. Thank you, Mia! Additional shoutouts must be extended to Sohinee Roy, our associate editor, who keeps us on task and finds ways to support (and challenge) the wildly unorthodox ideas we toss her way. And to Jessica Burstrem, our book reviews editor, who models an impressive caliber of focus and organization, in addition to being a parent and fulltime Ph.D. student. Many thanks to Fiona Richmond, Sophie Wade, Melissa Wilkinson, and the entire Taylor & Francis team for their support with the submissions, review, and production process. Last but not least, we are grateful to Devika Chawla and the NCA Publications Council, as well as Marjorie Lightman and Dane Claussen at the NCA National Office, for entrusting us with this enormous and momentous opportunity.