Mohan Dutta: Culture-Centered Approach

The circulation of the "fake news" discourse reinvents the Cold War narrative of geoinsecurity to reinforce the power and control of hegemonic power structures globally. In the hands of the global elite, "fake news" is the new instrument for reproducing elite power and control, recycled as the weapon for silencing difference, working through the role of the state in carrying out techniques of social media governmentality. The manufacturing of threats serve the strategic purpose of introducing greater and newer methods of repression. Similar to the strategic manufacturing of the "Red threat" as a basis for authoritarian control and repression during the Cold War, the manufacturing of the "fake news" agenda serves as the pretext for the reproduction of draconian laws that fundamentally threaten free speech and freedom of expression. As in the instance of the "Red threat," the paradox of the "fake news" trope is its re

Universities, as modern capitalist organizations, reproduce practices of exploitation that are often obfuscated by the gloss of projected images. Metric mania, the drive toward simply counting in the game toward rankings, is reflected in the blind allegiance in such Universities globally to measuring dollar values of grants and numbers of publications in varieties of tiered journals (tiering itself is a form of categorization that reproduces exploitative practices). One of the effects of this neoliberal obsession with metrics is its role in (re)producing cultures of academic practices that threaten the very nature of academic work. Academic integrity is sacrificed to the accelerated quest for numbers. One such threat to academic integrity is reflected in rent-seeking behaviors of senior academics. What is projected as the academic culture of collaboration driven by faculty in senior ranks within institutions is often driven by practices of exploitation (Of course, there a

In the many culture-centered projects implemented across the globe, the development of habits of participatory communication in local cultural logics and in ongoing relationships with structures is integral to the co-construction of social change interventions. Communication as advocacy emerges from within the infrastructures of participatory communication grounded in community life. For instance, the understanding of racism as a chronic determinant of cardiovascular disease among African Americans emerges as a site for participatory politics that seeks to transform the unhealthy structures of racism. In doing so, advocacy directed at transforming racist structures is fundamentally grounded in local participatory logics of community life. Movements such as the #BlackLivesMatter movement emerge as grassroots-driven, community participatory spaces directed at transforming the structures. The understanding that health is constituted in the organizing of local-global structures i

One of the well-rehearsed strategies of authoritarian control is surveillance. While technologies enable new modes of surveillance, the power and control of surveillance is reproduced through human participation. Mechanisms of surveillance are perfected and reproduced by willing subjects that participate in the reproduction of surveillance (Andrejevic, 2002, 2007; Dubrofsky, 2011; Fuchs, 2017; Owen & Imre, 2013). Those that participate in these mechanisms are led to believe that they will somehow be rewarded by the structures. With each new technology, authoritarian powers invent new mechanisms of control. The power of authoritarianism lies precisely in the threat that one will be found out if they did or said anything that challenges the control of the structure. Surveillance works toward silencing critique through the culture of fear it reproduces. Inherent in the reproduction of this culture of fear is the prevalence of mechanisms of surveillance. Everyday interact

Outside of the disciplinary framework of communication scholarship that systematically examines communication processes, communicative phenomena, messages, and their effects in the realms of health, science, and risk, mostly originating from within the Communication discipline in the U.S. and published in the top-tier disciplinary and sub-disciplinary journals, claims to expertise in science, health, and risk communication are often made by outsiders to the discipline of Communication in other parts of the world. This certainly seems to be the case in significant proportions of science, health, and risk communication being done, taught, and launched across the Asia-Pacific. A quick survey of these new and market-driven forays into science, health, and risk communication would suggest they have little grounding in and little to do with the scientific study of communication. Reviewing these programs, I often come away disappointed, and more importantly, with the recognition that our

from #fieldnotes2011 When the tides of voices emerging from the margins, tell their stories, they offer lessons that disrupt your draconian rules. When the tides of voices emerging from the margins speak their truth, they shake up the lies that you have carefully woven. When the tides of voices emerging from the margins, sing their songs, they sow the seeds of hope. When the tides of voices emerging from the margins, make new rhythms, they remind you the end of your repression is near.

In 2007, more than a decade back, six years into my journey in the Professoriate, I was asked to serve in a leadership role. Since then, I have had the opportunity to serve in various leadership roles from the Deanery to Headship to the Directorships of two centers that I founded. In these journeys of leadership, the key lesson I have learned is the role of a leader as an advocate. Of course, my energy, creativity, and resilience have been great resources that have enabled me in my leadership journey. But all of these resources have been anchored in a lesson I learned early on, leadership in academe is the pursuit for building supportive structures that enable and inspire others to create, to imagine, and to build. This work of building enabling structures is what I understand as advocacy. An academic leader is first-and-foremost an advocate for the people she/he serves. Because most often academic leadership is a pathway into which one ends up (I certainly never imagined I wo