Troubling Dialogue and Digital Media: A Subaltern Critique

• Main Authors: Katie R. Place, Erica Ciszek
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: SAGE Publishing 2021-02-01
• Series: Social Media + Society
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305120984449

Over the past several decades, scholars have explored dialogue and digital media. While this scholarship has advanced strategic communication theory, it lacks a critical focus on how marginalized groups have been written out of these theories and practices. We bring a critical lens to dialogue, employing a subaltern critique to elevate the experiences and voices of members of an activist group working on behalf of low-income, minority women. Advancing theoretical and empirical work on dialogue and social media, our study approaches activist communication and dialogue through a co-optation orientation, to consider how advocacy groups are co-opted or erased through dialogic methods entailed in dominant discourses and how these groups exert agency and resistance. While social media may not always help activists penetrate the walls upheld by powerful social actors, they offer connective and transformative possibilities.