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The article discusses the divides between political communication and social movement research. Topics include electoral politics, communication as internal interpretive work, sociological approach to communication and American Political Science Association (APSA) and social activism and political campaigns.

The article discusses the divides between political communication and social movement research. Topics include electoral politics, communication as internal interpretive work, sociological approach to communication and American Political Science Association (APSA) and social activism and political campaigns.

Resistance to women’s public voice and visibility via street harassment and workplace sexual harassment have long constrained women’s use of and comfort in physical public spaces; this gender-based resistance now extends into digital arenas. Women face extreme hostility in the form of digital sexism in discussion rooms, comment sections, gaming communities, and on social media platforms. Reflecting on two years of in-depth interviews with women who have been on the receiving end of gender-based digital abuse (n = 38), conversations with industry professionals working in content moderation and digital safety, the extant literature, and news stories about digital attacks against women, I offer a lens to think through the prominent patterns in digital sexism, showing (1) that aggressors draw upon three overlapping strategies - intimidating, shaming, and discrediting - to limit women’s impact in digital publics, (2) the way femininity and femaleness are used to undermine women’s contributions, and (3) men call attention to women’s physicality as a way to pull gender - and the male advantage that comes with it - to the fore in digital exchanges. Finally, I argue that when digital sexism succeeds in pressing women out of digital spaces, constrains the topics they address publicly, or limits the ways they address them, we must consider the democratic costs of gender-based harassment, in addition to the personal ones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most research on incivility in American politics focuses on its effects on citizens' political attitudes and behaviors, in spite of remarkably little data on the extent to which political discourse is actually uncivil. Those studies that do examine content focus on negative campaign advertisements, overlooking more egregious forms of political incivility that penetrate the broader media landscape. In this study, we attempt to conceptualize and measure more dramatic types of political incivility, which we term 'outrage.' Outrage discourse involves efforts to provoke a visceral response from the audience, usually in the form of anger, fear, or moral righteousness through the use of overgeneralizations, sensationalism, misleading or patently inaccurate information, ad hominem attacks, and partial truths about opponents. Scrutinizing 10 weeks of data from political blogs, talk radio, and cable news analysis programs, we demonstrate that outrage discourse is extensive, takes many different forms (we examine 13 different types), and spans media formats. We also show that while outrage tactics are largely the same for liberal and conservative media, conservative media use significantly more outrage speech than liberal media. It is our hope that introducing more concrete information about the actual content of political media will render existing research on potential effects more meaningful. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research has shown that participation in voluntary associations, including those labeled nonpolitical, increases political participation. Using data gathered from 2,517 interviews for the American Citizen Participation Study, we complicate this understanding by exploring the relationship between voluntary association involvement and political activity in a more nuanced manner-separating association involvements according to the level of exposure to political dialogue and information, even within organizations typically considered apolitical. We find that the extent to which association involvement predicts political participation is dependent upon the level of political activity that transpires within these otherwise nonpolitical organizations. In order for participation in voluntary associations to lead to increases in political participation, participants must have exposure to political discourse. It is not the generic act of participation that supports political life but rather the opportunity to engage with politics that serves as an impetus for political activity. In light of this, we offer a critical exploration of existing federal tax policies governing nonprofit organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]