As the Internet gradually evolves into the metaverse, users’ interaction with places, people, and even themselves will become increasingly mediated by virtual self-representations, called avatars. Deeply tied to avatar use, the Proteus effect suggests that an avatar’s identity characteristics influence the way the users will behave. The Proteus effect represents one of the most interesting, impactful, and perhaps concerning ways that the avatars will play a role in future metaverse-mediated lives.

A stigmatized person is one who is disqualified from full social acceptance. Stigmatization defines a person based upon a negative attribute, which allows others to avoid, discredit, and devalue the person. However, what is considered a negative attribute is perceptual, and perceptions can change. Based on this definition, most people can identify a situation in which stigmatization occurs, but some stigmas lead to more repercussions than others. The LGBTQ+ community has continually been stigmatized. Homosexuality was listed in the DSM-II (the diagnostic manual of the American Psychiatric Association) as a mental disorder; it was not completely removed until the DSM-III was revised in 1987. In the 1980s, homosexuality was linked to the AIDS crisis. The link made sexual orientation appear threatening to the health of others, which increased avoidance behaviors. In addition, gay marriage was not recognized by many mainstream religions and governments until the 2000s. As it was not recognized, these relationships were not given the same respect as heterosexual couples. Stigma occurs at three levels: the structural level, the interpersonal level, and the intrapersonal level. The LGBTQ+ community experiences stigma at all three levels. Structural stigmas are perpetuated by large societal groups and organizations. Structural stigma can have detrimental effects on mental and physical health. Interpersonal stigma occurs when family, friends, and coworkers perpetuate stigma. Family members and friends can provide a powerful buffer against structural stigma, and when that buffer is not provided, the negative outcomes are multiplied. Friends are even more important than family members when it comes to buffering.

Humans have markedly long periods of dependency; as such, care for one another—especially adults providing for children’s needs—is a necessity of survival. Most often, this necessary care is provided by immediate family members, and scholars and laypersons alike acknowledge parent–child relationships as foundational. While assumptions of biological connection permeate the ideology of family, not all (biological) parents of origin are able to provide care for (their) children. For hundreds of thousands of youths in the United States who are unable to safely live with their families of origin, the foster care system, of which foster families are a part, provides temporary residential care. Although youths require care, understandings of and within the foster care system are mixed. Indeed, children in care, caregivers (e.g., foster parents and families), families of origin, and caseworkers and judges carry varied perspectives and goals as well as report on diverse experiences and outcomes. Contributing to efforts to understand and address these variances, communication researchers have begun to examine the foster care system and those it involves and impacts, with research typically focusing on one or more arms of the foster square (i.e., children in care; parents of origin; foster parents and families; and the state via case workers, child welfare departments, judges, etc.). Communication scholars have implemented numerous theories to frame foster square- and foster care-related studies and have focused on varied relationships and experiences within the foster care system and foster families, providing helpful insights into the nuances of foster care. However, extant literature has illuminated avenues for potential future research to expand on the breadth and depth of knowledge surrounding foster care and the foster square and related experiences and relationships.

The social-cultural and political history of Uganda since British colonial rule (1894–1962) to the present offers several manifestations of ethnic and racial confrontations. The first major racial skirmishes in the 1940s and 1950s played out against the Asian business owners and the British colonial masters. Native resentment of Ugandan-Asians reached a peak point leading to their expulsion by President Idi Amin in 1972. In recent times, there have also been increasing reported incidences of xenophobic confrontations between nationals and immigrants and refugees due to the high immigration pressure the country faces from troubled neighboring countries, such as Rwanda, South Sudan, Republic of the Sudan, and Democratic Republic of the Congo. There have also been recent incidences in which Asians have been attacked in the country. However, the most prominent case of xenophobia in the national psyche, which was also a major international media story, remains the expulsion of Asians by President Idi Amin in 1972. In this article, content analysis is used to present the media framing of the Asian expulsion as a manifestation of ethno-racial and xenophobic violence in Uganda. The findings show that the expulsion was framed predominantly as an “economic war” for the “economic independence” of Uganda. Asians were framed as “foreigners” who were “exploiters,” “tricksters,” and, during the expulsion, as “arsonists” and “saboteurs.” Idi Amin was framed as a “brave liberator” and a “patriotic nationalist.” Based on increasing tensions between nationals and a new Asian business class increasingly dominated by Chinese, the historical data provides insights as to what might lie ahead if local grievances are not properly addressed.

Latinx media have been part of the U.S. cultural industry for more than two centuries. In the realm of ever-changing scenarios, these outlets have encountered spaces to communicate with bicultural and bilingual audiences at transnational and diasporic levels. By reviewing the origins, development, and early 21st-century trends and future scenarios, this essay examines how even though Latinx media have played a relevant role in the American media landscape, they have remained (in)visible. Historiographical perspective is implemented to compare the growth of Latinx communities along with the launch of print and broadcast media as well as the advent of new technologies and social media.

Communication forms the infrastructure of Hindutva, constituting its ideology based on ongoing processes of creating the “other.” As a nationalist project, Hindutva draws its pedagogy from far-right fascist movements, constructing India as a Hindu nation based on a monolithic Hindu race and a homogeneous Hindu culture. The production and circulation of disinformation shape the hate-based politics of Hindutva, with the movement securing its hegemony through the deployment of extremist violence. The global network power of Hindutva draws on its capacity to continually produce the other while simultaneously appealing to Western multiculturalism by projecting the image of Hinduism as the religion of unity and harmony. Equivocation, the communicative practice of using ambiguous language to hide the truth, is one of the core strategies of Hindutva, speaking a language of hate to an internal audience while making claims of peace and democracy to an external audience in Western democracies. Equivocation enables Hindutva’s diaspora proponents to uphold and perpetuate the political economy of Hindutva that is directly tied to terror and violence while simultaneously performing the narrative of Hinduism as a religion of peace for a Western audience. The networked structure of global Hindutva draws on funding, volunteer resources, material infrastructures, and symbolic flows of disinformation and hate across the diaspora, interconnected in an ecosystem with the Hindutva machinery in India. Resistance to Hindutva disrupts these communicative infrastructures through witnessing, co-creation of voice infrastructures, and expelling discursive gaps.

Different groups of contemporary San or “Bushmen” peoples in southern Africa have a different status. Bantu and White Europeans’ subjugation and marginalization of the San over the past centuries has traceable influences on the way that the San have been represented and are perceived in the public consciousness. Public perceptions are often based on what the mass media present as San identities. This also has implications on the way different countries recognize them as people and as citizens. In the best of situations, they have at least been accorded the status of First Nation within the multiracial and multiethnic modern nation-state. At worst, they lack recognition and are stateless or without citizenship.

Families are (one of) the first and most influential socializing agents of our lives. Among the innumerable messages family members convey to each other, a select few are regarded as “memorable.” Memorable messages are “distinct communication units considered influential over the course of a person’s life.” Those messages that are most memorable are typically brief, direct, oral messages delivered by a higher-status, older, and likable individual to the recipient during their teen or young adult years. Although memorable messages were initially regarded as having positive implications for the receiver’s life, newer research has provided space for the negative implications and perceptions of these messages. Nonverbal communication elements and relational contexts and qualities are influential to the receptivity of memorable messages. Although memorable messages often originate from a family member, the sources of memorable messages can also be friends/peers, teachers, coworkers, or, in some cases, the media. Research on memorable messages has been largely concentrated in health and interpersonal/family communication contexts; organizational and instructional contexts have also been explored. Memorable message research in families has focused much on health topics (i.e., mental health, sexual health, body image and weight), socialization (i.e., around school, work, race, other topics), and coping with hardship. In these studies, memorable messages have largely been investigated through mixed-method survey-based research, but also through purely quantitative (i.e., survey-based) and qualitative (i.e., interview) methods as well. This research has been largely atheoretical but has been grounded in control theory and, more recently, the theory of memorable messages and communicated narrative sense-making theory. Future research and practical applications of family memorable message research include informing health campaigns and family life education programming.

Understanding of esport from a communicative perspective is offered, covering the history, expansion, and operationalization of esport, while highlighting five main areas to bolster the understanding of communication-based esport scholarship. First, theories that are often used for explaining the phenomenon of esport are explored. This section gives particular deference to uses and gratifications approaches as the most-often adopted theoretical lens for investigations in the area, while also listing parasocial interaction as a common secondary focus. Other theories include the theory of reasoned action, self-determination theory, entertainment theory, and media dependency. Second, motivations for esport consumption are advanced, showing that as many as 30 (and likely more) could at least conceivably be part of the equation for the appeals of esport consumption. Third, the sociocultural elements of esport participation are extrapolated upon, particularly with an eye to disparities in participation based on biological sex, race or ethnicity, nationality, and elements of the digital divide. Fourth, formal measurements of the motives for esport media consumption are offered, highlighting areas of overlap and deviation in equal measure. Finally, the Motivation Scale for esport Spectatorship Consumption. Along with consumption measures, 13 factors are advanced, each with a trio of Likert-based statement for measurement. More specifically, these factors include (alphabetically): (a) aggressive behaviors, (b) communication, (c) escapism, (d) family gathering, (e) friend gathering, (f) information load, (g) information supremacy, (h) knowledge acquisition, (i) personal education, (j) skillful performance, (k) support, (l) vicarious achievement, and (m) wholesome environment. Collectively, these five areas summarize the current state of esport scholarship in the communication discipline while signaling various trajectories for further understanding.

Relational dialectics theory (RDT) is a postmodern critical theory of meaning. Based on the writing of Russian philosopher, RDT attunes researchers to the ways that discourses (i.e., ideologies) compete to make meaning of particular semantic objects (e.g., identities, phenomena, processes, etc.). Of note, not all discourses hold the same amount of power. Some discourses are dominant (i.e., centripetal) whereas others are marginalized (i.e., centrifugal). RDT researchers, then, are primarily interested in exploring how these discourses, with unequal power, compete. This focus on the competition of discourses for power and the ability of RDT to call out the ideological forces that disenfranchise some groups while enfranchising others holds promise for practical applications such as debunking misconceptions and better understanding where privilege comes from and how it is perpetuated. When discourses compete, they might do so within or across a set of utterances. Utterances are turns in talk and serve as the primary unit of analysis in RDT research. Utterances, however, are not standalone entities. Rather, they are connected by different links to form an utterance chain. Some links of the utterance chain pertain to time (what has been said before and what response an utterance can anticipate) whereas the other links of the utterance chain pertain to the relationship level (some pertain to the culture at large whereas other only to an idiosyncratic relationship). Overall, discursive competition takes place across a continuum of interplay. At one end of the continuum is monologue. Monologue represents the absence of meaning. Next are discursive enactments (i.e., closure) that reinforce the dominant discourse and shut down alternatives (see entry for complete list). Diachronic separation occurs when the dominance of a discourse changes across time. Diachronic separation can take two forms: (a) spiraling inversion or (b) segmentation. Synchronic interplay is next and occurs when two discourses compete within a given utterance. When RDT researchers examine a text for synchronic interplay, they often look to see how a marginalized discourse (a) negates, (b) counters, or (c) entertains the dominant discourse. Finally, on the other end of the continuum of interplay, is dialogic transformation. Dialogic transformation occurs through either (a) discursive hybridity or (b) an aesthetic moment whereby discourses suspend their interplay to create new meanings. Conducted using RDT’s corresponding method, contrapuntal analysis, researchers using this theory work to disrupt hegemonic, taken-for-granted assumptions about how things are and call attention to voices overlooked in the past. To date, this theory has been taken up primarily by family, interpersonal, and health communication scholars, although many scholars have used this theory throughout the discipline.