March 12

2:00pm

Sage 4711

The Limits of Mediation and Opportunities for Communication and Media

Abstract:

What unites conspiracy theorists, defense intellectuals, doomsday preppers, Internet reactionaries, and Pentecostal serpent-handlers? Calum Matheson suggests that all of these groups--and many others--share structural similarities despite their very different beliefs. In a time when the decline of dominant narratives has itself become a dominant narrative, communities form around a desire to grasp hold of truth that exceeds mediation, something more "real" than language which is paradoxically accessible only through it. Because these groups tend to root themselves in feigned certainty that rejects alternative meanings, reading rhetorically with attention to contingency, multiplicity, and uncertainty is perhaps more important than ever. The lessons that we learn from rhetoric, media, and cultural studies in a time of contested truth should also influence philosophies of administration and teaching. Matheson argues that we should affirm the potentials of discourse and dialogue inherent in Communication and Media and embrace opportunities to imagine new futures together, celebrating rather than erasing our differences.

Bio:

Calum Lister Matheson is Chair of the Department of Communication at the University of Pittsburgh and faculty at the Pittsburgh Psychoanalytic Center. His academic work draws on media, cultural studies, rhetoric, and psychoanalysis to analyze conspiracy theories, apocalypticism, and extremist Internet communities. His second book, Post-Weird: Fragmentation, Community, and the Decline of the Mainstream is due to be published by Rutgers University Press in November 2025. Prior to becoming Chair, Matheson was the Director of Debate and the William Pitt Debating Union and a founding member of a communication consulting firm.