Communication scholars have continually worked to resolve the well-attested fragmentation of the field. This article breaks away from the usual modes of parsing out research by disciplinary grounding, topic of investigation, or even school of thought, arguing that these older modes of mapping result in divisive academic speciation. Instead, the author proposes analyzing the similarities and differences in scholarship along three axes: methodology, ontology/epistemology, and axiology. This systemic mode produces a flexible and responsive way of viewing commonalities and tensions between scholars and approaches, suggesting productive combinations in which to flock together.

The field of communication scarcely examines issues of gender in documenting its own historiography. Consequently, Hortense Powdermaker, Mae Huettig, and Helen MacGill Hughes do not seem seminal to the development of communication scholarship during its nascent era of the 1930s–1960s, despite these women working and publishing within the same academic circles as Harold Lasswell, Dallas Smythe, and Paul Lazarsfeld. Social, economic, and political factors diminished their contributions to what we now call media effects theory, political economy of communication, and media studies. This article uses feminist standpoint epistemology theory to examine some of these early moments in the history of communication scholarship, to theorize about the consequences of its development, and to suggest the value of future recovery work.

The global era presents a challenge for all memory agents for they are now faced with the task of constructing collective memories that maintain new contemporary values, most notably sensitivity to other nations' memories. This article deals with a major question flowing from the aforementioned task: Is it possible to reframe the past as a “cosmopolitan memory” for the purpose of promoting solidarity and peace? The article provides preliminary evidence of what can be called a “cosmopolitan turn” in collective memory construction, together with suggestions regarding the associated research lexicon. Through analysis of the obituaries published in the elite Israeli daily Haaretz, it illustrates some of the discursive strategies to be used to reframe the past as a cosmopolitan memory.

This article provides a systematic description of various positions on dialogue and their implications for understanding activism and social change. It describes three orientations toward dialogue—collaboration, co-optation, and agonism—which are differentiated by assumptions regarding the pervasiveness of dialogue, the role of difference, and conceptions of power. We argue for a multivocal, agonistic perspective on dialogue that centers issues of power and conflict in activism. Such a perspective illuminates a broad range of activist tactics for social change instead of privileging consensus-oriented methods. These approaches are illustrated with two ethnographic case studies that highlight the importance of lay theories of activism and dialogue.

This article advocates for the interdisciplinary use of critical race theory and critical rhetorical theory in communication to analyze racialized language and to evaluate the cultural and political significance of new racial discourses in the United States. The article examines the dissenting opinion in Plessy v Ferguson (1896) and the congressional hearings on the Tiger Woods Bill (1997), two key instances of public debate over multiracial categories. The article then turns to Tiger Woods' term “Cablinasian” and the possibilities of an alternative and contestory multiracial nomenclature, shifting the critique away from Woods' celebrity or politics and toward the legal history and rhetorical potential of the word itself.