NCA Inside & Out

“Not notable enough: Feminism and expertise in Wikipedia,” in Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, published online October 2017, by Maude Gauthier and Kim Sawchuk.

• Per its design, Wikipedia is an online community that anyone can join and contribute to, so long as they follow the rules. In this essay, the authors reflect on their attempt to edit Wiki entries on ageing to include an intersectional perspective, especially with regard to gender. They document and discuss three interconnected, discursive guidelines for contested entries: notability, verifiability, and tone.

“‘Our tears are not enough’”: The warrant of the dead in the rhetoric of gun control,” in Quarterly Journal of Speech, published online November 2017, by Craig Rood.

• In this article, the author examines the concept of the warrant of the dead, or the explicit or implicit claim that the dead place a demand on the living. Rood applies this to why and what effect President Obama used the warrant of the dead in his gun control rhetoric following the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012. “Obama’s effort to transform gun control supporters into gun control activists proved largely ineffective,” Rood writes.

“Narrative mapping: Listening with health, healing, and illness narratives in the classroom,” in Communication Teacher, published online December 2017, by Marie Thompson.

• In this classroom activity, Thompson explains how students can apply listening strategies to improve their communication with health professionals. She employs a technique of narrative mapping, a form of visual storytelling, to encourage participants to “move away from prescriptions of what ‘should be’ toward meaning making through contemplation of the experience of illness and healing.”

Access to NCA’s 11 journals is included with your individual membership. Read the journals here.