While memory can be both retrospective and prospective, referring to either what happened or what needs to be done, scholarship on media and collective memory has focused on retrospective memories. Shifting the focus to the news media as agents of prospective memory, this article develops the notion of mediated prospective memory. This new construct, which encompasses the various media practices by which collective prospective-memory tasks are shaped and negotiated, is intended to shed light on one facet of the complex relationships between past, present, and future in news discourse; create a much needed bridge between the theoretical frameworks of agenda setting and collective memory; and provide one possible answer to the question of what is unique about journalism's memory work.

This essay reconceptualizes “social capital” as it relates to scholarship regarding the traditional news media. Much academic attention links the news media to Robert Putnam's view which focuses on social capital as enhancing “civic pride” and collective/community involvement. I suggest Putnam's perspective is often adopted without wider exploration of what the theory may offer the future of the commercial news media in western societies. This essay proposes the term “mediated social capital” may be a more suitable lens through which to consider this theory, taking a cue from Pierre Bourdieu who views social capital as a resource of power that may be utilized to maintain or build a position of advantage.

References to journalism-as-a-conversation abound in audience-centered literatures. Missing, though, are clear conceptual and operational definitions that allow theory building for purposes of explanation and prediction, a key goal in science. This essay identifies limitations to related audience-centered concepts in journalism and offers a richer, more coherent definition of conversation as a multidimensional phenomenon with a distinct democratic bent, consisting of both socio-psychological and technological features. The features/variables that theoretically appear to best index conversation: social presence, friendliness, informality, coorientation, and interactivity.

Scholars in the fields of organization science and communication have shown increasing interest in exploring theories of complexity as a framework for theorizing about organizational processes. We conceive of organizations as heterogeneous complex systems characterized by interdependency and member identification, which self-organize into a relatively stable core and fluid, ill-defined boundaries. This conceptualization also necessitates rethinking our understanding of organizational identity construction, since many predominant theories of organizational identity suffer from managerial bias (Scott, 2007). We thus propose that identity is an emergent property of self-organization in complex organizational communities. From a complexity theory perspective, organizational identity can be viewed as a dynamic, emergent, multilevel process of negotiation that encompasses reflexivity, boundary setting, and relationship building.

Within interpersonal and family communication, researchers have tended to construct and describe LGBTQ relationships in regard to a heterosexual norm. A review of recent research reveals the conceptual limitations of this framework, “outing” heteronormativity's influence on our understandings of nonheterosexual relationships. I outline the challenges of “queering” interpersonal and family communication research and argue that feminist theory can contribute to this process by (a) revealing the heteronormative assumptions perpetuated by dyadic models of communication, (b) challenging the public/private bifurcation, (c) complicating notions of identity, and (d) emphasizing intersectionality. The article concludes by discussing the implications a feminist queer perspective holds for interpersonal and family communication pedagogies and research.