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GWRJ Issue 11.2

Spring 2021

Khadidja Belhadi

The Ecology of Change: The Algerian Protest Signs

Belhadi analyzes protest posters and signs as a genre and how they have been used historically to forge change. To illustrate, Belhadi focuses on the protest posters and signs used in the 2019 Algerian protests,  known as the second wave of the Arab Spring movement. She explores the planning, production, reception, and distribution of the signs.

Bailey Salyards

Translingualism in Politics

In this article, Salyards explores the connection between translingualism and US politics. Through the analysis of recent campaign advertisements, multicultural American politicians, and general history, she demonstrates the necessity of cultural awareness in politics today.

Raven Preston

Invisible PCHAT Network and the Digital Black Wall Street: Remediating Black Wall Street in a Digital Age

 

Preston uses Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) and remediation to explain how Black entrepreneurship was assimilated to successfully engage consumers in the digital age. She gives insight into the historical and cultural significance of niche marketing in the 21st century and how new marketing techniques, like algorithms, influence the consumer market.

Faith Borland

Listen to the Music: A Multimodal View of Albums and Their Covers

Borland dives deep into the many ways that different modalities convey meaning, including how album art can add to a listener’s deeper understanding of the album in its entirety. Specifically looking at Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon, Borland addresses the meaning derived through multimodality and how representation and socialization both play large roles in the life of this iconic album.

Allison Mool

We Love Discourse Groups 3000: Exploring the Literacies and Discourse Group of the Marvel Fandom

Mool explores how people interact with the Marvel genre of movies and how this creates an important discourse group. WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD!

Danielle Eldredge

A Recipe for Literacy: An Analysis of Translating as a Vernacular Literacy

Eldredge argues that translating her grandmother’s recipes is a vernacular literacy because of the way these recipes have personal value to her, are a part of her everyday life, are self-generated, include a network of exchange, and are informally learned.

Kendal “Alexis” Adams

#UndertheInfluence: Analyzing Instagram Influencer Posts with CHAT

 

Adams examines how and why Instagram influencer posts are a genre and how everyday Instagram users can be impacted by this genre when they encounter it. Using ISU’s version of Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (PCHAT), Adams argues that Instagram influencers plan, create, and promote their posts in a specific way in order to successfully advertise brands, products, and services to their followers.

Emily McCauley

Writing in a Plastic World

 

McCauley utilizes the PCHAT terms production, reception, socialization, and ecology to examine the trajectory of plastic pollution in our environment.

Kevin Roozen

Unraveling “Writing”: Interweaving Maverick Literacies Throughout a Literate Life

 

Roozen argues that the notion of “literate activity” can substantially broaden and enrich our understanding of writing and what it entails. He offers some glimpses into the literate activity of one man’s involvement with automotive repair to illustrate what it looks like when we work to unravel the rich complexity of writing and its functions in people’s lives.

Allie Beam

Talk with your Hands: An Exploration of Communication through Sign Language

 

Sign language is typically overlooked when discussing translingualism. Beam, a member of Deaf Redbirds Association, explores how sign language interpretation is indeed a translingual experience.

Emily Capan and Bryanna Tidmarsh

The Activity System of ISU Women’s Basketball Pride Night: An Interview with Jordan Ashley

 

Capan and Tidmarsh interview Redbird Athletics’ marketing director Jordan Ashley about the activity system of planning Pride Night: what texts were produced, who was involved, what the reception was, and more.

Lisa Hanimov

An Everlasting Meal

 

Hanimov explores the definition of what it means to be creative. You do not have to be a producer of elite art or cultural products to be deemed creative; instead, mundane everyday activities can hold just as much creative value. Hanimov was able to put this idea into practice by forming a new family tradition by utilizing her mother’s first recipe book.

 Emily Capan and Leslie Hancock

A Conversation with a Grassroots Author

Capan speaks with Hancock about her article, “From Noob to Veteran in League of Legends: Activity Systems and Genre Analysis in Video Games.”

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