Critical Communication Pedagogy – serie

Mediated Critical Communication Pedagogy explores the role of both traditional and new media in critical communication pedagogy. This edited volume addresses not only how new and other forms of media serve as tools towards social justice in the communication classroom, but also how those media transform the classroom interaction itself in empowering and disempowering ways. Contributors describe and assess how particular instances of media use—particularly the use of new media technologies—support or challenge critical communication pedagogy. Each chapter engages in critical analysis of how to effectively use particular mediums in the classroom, how classroom communication is affected by uses of new media, and particular instances of critical communication pedagogy in teaching. Scholars of communication and education will find this book particularly useful.

Mediated Critical Communication Pedagogy explores the role of both traditional and new media in critical communication pedagogy. This edited volume addresses not only how new and other forms of media serve as tools towards social justice in the communication classroom, but also how those media transform the classroom interaction itself in empowering and disempowering ways. Contributors describe and assess how particular instances of media use—particularly the use of new media technologies—support or challenge critical communication pedagogy. Each chapter engages in critical analysis of how to effectively use particular mediums in the classroom, how classroom communication is affected by uses of new media, and particular instances of critical communication pedagogy in teaching. Scholars of communication and education will find this book particularly useful.

Critical Administration: Negotiating Political Commitment and Managerial Practice in Contemporary Higher Education explores the challenges that higher education administrators face when negotiating political commitments in the day-to-day practice of university life. Jay Brower and W. Benjamin Myers have collected reflections from 12 administrators, all of whom identify as critical/cultural scholars, about how ideological commitments affect their identities as administrators and the work they conduct. Contributors reflect on how their academic training helps them understand their role as administrators in higher education in terms of central issues surrounding power, ethics, and identity, and how they entwine with managerial responsibilities. Each contributor focuses on specific experiences where their managerial duties intersect with political commitments. Ultimately, this collection provides opportunities to observe the challenges and opportunities of performing ethical leadership in contemporary higher education. Scholars of education, critical/cultural communication, and administration will find this book particularly useful.

This edited volume both provides and examines different ways of engaging with critical communication pedagogies in an age of crisis acceleration, where crisis communication impacts social systems including political, economic, educational, cultural, and environmental systems.Building on the frameworks of critical communication pedagogy and critical/social constructionist approaches to crisis communication, contributors to this volume demonstrate the critical importance of communication in the higher education context, a particularly ripe breeding ground for these crises. Contributors address a broad range of topics relating to higher education divided into three major categories - interpersonal and community crises; social, political, and institutional crises; and the development of pedagogical strategies and technologies in response to crises - in order to provide a thorough, well-rounded examination that will be of interest to a widely interdisciplinary audience. This book is not just about weathering crises; it's about reimagining higher education as a space where crises become opportunities for transformative learning and systemic change.

In Pedagogies of the Enfleshed: Critical Communication Pedagogy Otherwise, Lore LeMaster proffers a historic account of the rise of education and, in turn, communication studies as a distinct field of study. In doing so, the author reconsiders communication’s disciplinary origins with less of an emphasis on the mythos of the Ancient Greeks and, more accurately, relocates them within the historic context of U.S. settler colonial development and ever-expanding empire. LeMaster argues that the point of critical communication pedagogy otherwise isn’t to instill critical sensibilities into our teaching, but to instead draw on lived experiences as grounds for more effective uses of communication to intervene in oppressive relations across (in)formal pedagogical contexts and in service of liberatory change. Where critical communication pedagogy calls for reform, critical communication pedagogy otherwise labors in service of liberation within the long arc of revolutionary change, beginning from y/our vantage as educators-as-learners. This is especially crucial, LeMaster posits, in the face of critical ongoing issues, including economic recessions, growing climate collapse, escalating fascisms, amassing white nationalisms, and U.S.-funded genocides, all amid an active pandemic. Ultimately, this book makes a compelling case for the need of new critical communication pedagogy tools or, at minimum, approaches to communication pedagogy that support critical worldmaking efforts beyond recognition and with resource support at the local level.

In Pedagogies of the Enfleshed: Critical Communication Pedagogy Otherwise, Lore LeMaster proffers a historic account of the rise of education and, in turn, communication studies as a distinct field of study. In doing so, the author reconsiders communication’s disciplinary origins with less of an emphasis on the mythos of the Ancient Greeks and, more accurately, relocates them within the historic context of U.S. settler colonial development and ever-expanding empire. LeMaster argues that the point of critical communication pedagogy otherwise isn’t to instill critical sensibilities into our teaching, but to instead draw on lived experiences as grounds for more effective uses of communication to intervene in oppressive relations across (in)formal pedagogical contexts and in service of liberatory change. Where critical communication pedagogy calls for reform, critical communication pedagogy otherwise labors in service of liberation within the long arc of revolutionary change, beginning from y/our vantage as educators-as-learners. This is especially crucial, LeMaster posits, in the face of critical ongoing issues, including economic recessions, growing climate collapse, escalating fascisms, amassing white nationalisms, and U.S.-funded genocides, all amid an active pandemic. Ultimately, this book makes a compelling case for the need of new critical communication pedagogy tools or, at minimum, approaches to communication pedagogy that support critical worldmaking efforts beyond recognition and with resource support at the local level.

In Grading Justice: Teacher-Activist Approaches to Assessment, new and seasoned teachers are invited to engage with socially-just approaches of assessment, including practices aimed at resisting and undoing grading and assessment altogether, to create more democratic grading practices and policies, foregrounding the transformative potential of communication within their courses. The contributions in this collection encourage readers to consider not only how educators might assess social justice work in and beyond the classroom, but also to imagine what a social justice approach to grading and assessment would mean for intervening into unjust modes of teaching and learning. Educators wishing to explore critical modes of grading and assessment, grounded in social justice, will find this book a timely and relevant pedagogical guide for their teaching and scholarship.

Colleges and universities face unprecedented pressure to streamline and reduce their infrastructure. A new generation of reformers, frustrated by bureaucratic obstacles and rising costs, dream of education without schools. Those reforms, if realized, promise to render education indistinguishable from other social spheres. Advocating Heightened Education mobilizes situated theories of learning to advocate the labor and expense that goes into maintaining campuses. Higher education’s bulky and incommensurable institutions—from the community colleges and Ivy Leagues to the regional public universities and small liberal arts campuses—serve a critical modality. They ensure that educational forms remain visible and available for critique. Their diversity of form retains the possibility of divergent and transformative educational futures. This ethnographic and archival study of two alternative campuses, The Evergreen State College and California State University, Monterey Bay, illustrates how educators advocate their work by heightening its visibility and by modeling appreciation for situated teaching and inquiry. It provides examples of those advocacy techniques with stories of professional life and close readings of historical documents that include institutional and legislative reports, facilities memoranda, and course descriptions. These materials offer a vibrant counter-narrative to reform movements that seek to standardize the college experience. Scholars of higher education, pedagogy, and communication will find this book particularly interesting.

This collection, edited by Daniel S. Strasser, was unearthed from the demand for more inclusive and expansive dialogues on intersectional identities, ethnicity, neuro-diversity, physical ability, religion, sexual orientation, class, and gender performance in academia. The autoethnographic and narrative accounts within Communication and Identity in the Classroom: Intersectional Perspectives of Critical Pedagogy offer personal, experiential perspectives on the power of identity to influence educators in classroom and mentoring spaces. The multiple perspectives offered here promote dialogue about how personal experience provides the ground upon which we build more dynamic relationships and communities. The contributors’ experiences offer examples for a more expansive understanding of privilege, oppression, and identity. These seeds for conversation nourish discourses that build new communicative bridges between educators and students as we prepare to face the next interaction, class, and challenges and opportunity for resilience. This collection invites educators to be critical of their bodies, of their politics, of their intersecting identities, and acknowledge in words and actions that our bodies are political. Throughout this collection the contributors expand upon theories and methods of critical communication scholarship, radical love, and intersectionality using their embodied pedagogical experiences to ground the scholarship.

Pedagogies of Post-Truth explores the national and international political developments in what has been called a post-truth society; specifically, in which conservative groups target media outlets claiming fabrication of news and that the veracity of evidence-based reporting should be questioned. Truth has been reduced to the validation of opinions instead of the presentation of scientific facts. This collection responds to these issues by initiating a scholarly dialogue about teaching in the era of post-truth in which research-based findings that do not align with political viewpoints are judged, criticized, and often described as “fake.” Contributors evaluate the pedagogical challenges of post-truth discourse and how post-truth messages negatively affect instructors and students. By highlighting ways instructors and students can resist the hegemony of post-truth, this book creates a dialogue among scholars, illustrates the challenges, and offers pedagogical techniques to discuss “post-truth,” the role of the educator, the role of media, and the role of other story-makers of our society.

Pedagogies of Post-Truth explores the national and international political developments in what has been called a post-truth society; specifically, in which conservative groups target media outlets claiming fabrication of news and that the veracity of evidence-based reporting should be questioned. Truth has been reduced to the validation of opinions instead of the presentation of scientific facts. This collection responds to these issues by initiating a scholarly dialogue about teaching in the era of post-truth in which research-based findings that do not align with political viewpoints are judged, criticized, and often described as “fake.” Contributors evaluate the pedagogical challenges of post-truth discourse and how post-truth messages negatively affect instructors and students. By highlighting ways instructors and students can resist the hegemony of post-truth, this book creates a dialogue among scholars, illustrates the challenges, and offers pedagogical techniques to discuss “post-truth,” the role of the educator, the role of media, and the role of other story-makers of our society.