Chokely Carmichael🥋

@stewartcoles

Asst Prof @ Illinois Dept of Communication studying media, politics, & identity, not necessarily in that order. UMich Comm & Media / SDSU Journalism & Media Studies / Drexel Digital Media alumnus / USMC veteran. Views = my own.

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Chokely Carmichael🥋@stewartcoles· Jul 28

The VA really wants me to know that Biden screwed everything up.

VA provides Veterans relief from Biden-era backlogged medical bills

VA will relieve Veterans of more than $272 million in potential medical bills that accrued after the Biden Administration stopped certain copayment claims processing and collections in early 2023.

Chokely Carmichael🥋@stewartcoles· Jul 28

Email in March about how poorly the last administration did on VA benefits claims, but things are better now that Trump is back in charge.

VA benefits claims backlog under 100K for first time since 2020

We recently announced that the backlog of VA disability compensation and pension benefit claims is consistently below 100,000 for the first time since May 2020, during the first Trump Administration.

Hitting this milestone means the department has now cut the backlog of Veterans waiting for VA benefits by 63% since Jan. 20, 2025, after it increased 24% under the previous administration.

VA encourages all Veterans to visit choose.va.gov to learn more and apply for the care and benefits they have earned.

Chokely Carmichael🥋@stewartcoles· Jul 28

From the VA during the shutdown last November.

As you may be aware, funding for some government agencies, including portions of the Department of Veterans Affairs, expired at midnight this morning.

President Trump opposes a lapse in appropriations, and on September 19, the House of Representatives passed, with the Trump Administration’s support, a clean continuing resolution to fund the government through November 21. Unfortunately, Democrats are blocking this Continuing Resolution in the U.S. Senate due to unrelated policy demands.

During the current lapse in funding, the vast majority of VA benefits and services will continue uninterrupted, but the government shutdown is not without consequences to VA. Here is what you need to know:

Chokely Carmichael🥋@stewartcoles· Jul 19

And this is why criticisms of work or policies against speech that is “political” are so pernicious. “Political” means many things to many people, and that ontological slipperiness can always be—and often has been—weaponized to censor certain viewpoints, particularly ones that criticize power.

For those of us who work in the field of Middle Eastern studies—those sentenced to the margins of the humanities, the rough lands—the limits of acceptable “politics” were clear decades ago. Now, after nearly three years of genocide, we have come to understand, without a shadow of doubt, that the “political,” that which supposedly taints art, corrupts scholarship, and disrupts institutional harmony, is code for “Palestine.”

Chokely Carmichael🥋@stewartcoles· May 6

Very minor point, but this caption is incorrect: those are not Marines in this photo. Based on uniforms, looks like Army.

Screenshot of photo and caption from LA Times story erroneously identifying Army soldiers as Marines.

Chokely Carmichael🥋@stewartcoles· May 4

Did Facebook even check the output of its AI slop before slapping it into an ad for its AI slop creation tools? Am I supposed to be impressed or disappointed that it can make videos showing people’s lower and upper bodies pointing in opposite directions?

Chokely Carmichael🥋@stewartcoles· Apr 16

“Non-black people want to take everything from us except the weight of our history.”

It isn’t that MacDonald or Maiberg themselves are the appropriaters. In fact, it’s hard to blame them for not knowing the origins of a slang term that has been so thoroughly appropriated already. But this is a cycle I have watched for a long time, and reporters writing about slang terms black people have used for decades as fresh and new is the end result of that cycle. They get to be discoverers and explainers of something that has already been discovered and explained.
More broadly, I’ve also seen this happen to words and phrases like “chopped,” “clocked it,” “the tea,” “no cap,” and “it’s giving.” All of these are slang terms that originate from African American Vernacular English—“clocked it,” “the tea” and “it’s giving” come from black queer culture in specific—but have now been categorized as “gen Z slang.” I have heard some people start to refer to the habitual be, as in “it really do be like that,” as a “meme” and it makes me want to tear my fucking hair out. We been saying that! That one’s ours!

Chokely Carmichael🥋@stewartcoles· Apr 15

Former govt spokesperson here to tell you that this is a really bad practice for obvious reasons, and police depts do it all the time. How can you release a detailed account when you don’t have all the details?

The department said it now sends a member of the department’s body-worn camera unit to such scenes so that footage can be reviewed by investigating commanders before detailed public accounts are provided.

Chokely Carmichael🥋@stewartcoles· Mar 24

I wrote my dissertation—and this paper—about this. Ms. Rachel’s speech/actions are inherently political, but whether anyone would call them political has a lot to do with “political” being both a four-letter word and one with many, often contradictory meanings. It says both a lot and nothing at all.

Screenshot of abstract for the article "Conceptualizing evaluations of the political relevance of media texts: The Politically Relevant Media Model," found at: https://doi.org/10.1093/ct/qtae004

Chokely Carmichael🥋@stewartcoles· Jan 26

Sorry but IDGAF about the agents and how all of this is unfair or stressful to *them*.

“You’re not addressing the problem by throwing a 500-pound gorilla into these inner cities,” said Mr. Hagelsieb, 52, who said he voted three times for President Trump and retired from the Department of Homeland Security in 2023. “It’s completely unfair to the agents who have been put in this position.”

“They’re causing chaos, and unfortunately it’s costing lives,” he added. “There’s only so much they can handle before bad things start to happen.”

Chokely Carmichael🥋@stewartcoles· Jan 21

Mediation analyses find descriptive and injunctive ingroup norms and perceptions of audience demographics all at play between endorsements and exposure intentions. These were tested in isolation with accompanying sensitivity analyses, and also in parallel, AND moderated by participant race.

Parallel moderated mediation model depicting the indirect effect of copartisan endorsement on exposure intentions, as moderated by participant race. Solid lines indicate statistically significant paths. The effect of inparty injunctive norms on exposure intentions, as well as the conditional indirect effect of copartisan endorsement on exposure intentions via this mediator, were not statistically significant for Black participants.

Chokely Carmichael🥋@stewartcoles· Jan 21

What explains how in- vs. out-group endorsements affect exposure intentions? For one, ingroup descriptive & injunctive norms. But also, based on audience studies and uses & gratifications literatures, perceptions of the audience itself, not just of the ingroup. What audience community am I joining?

Conceptual model of injunctive and descriptive ingroup norms and ingroup share of the audience.

Chokely Carmichael🥋@stewartcoles· Jan 21

Likewise, given that prior studies have found that Republicans are more selective in their entertainment choices, I explored general exposure intentions depending on participant race and party. Well, turns out this pickiness applies more so to *white* Republicans, not as much to Black ones.

Bar graph showing exposure intentions for Black Democrat, white Democrat, Black Republican, and white Republican participants. Estimated marginal means and standard errors, controlling for participant gender and age, are depicted above each bar. Error bars denote standard errors.

Chokely Carmichael🥋@stewartcoles· Jan 21

Overall, I find that partisans had stronger exposure intentions when endorsements came from copartisans—but this effect was only statistically significant for white partisans. This further calls into question whether certain phenomena related to political identity apply across all racial groups.

Bar graph showing exposure intentions for Black and white participants, depending on whether the social media endorsers they saw were copartisans or outpartisans. Estimated marginal means and standard errors, controlling for participant gender and age, are depicted above each bar. Error bars denote standard errors.

Chokely Carmichael🥋@stewartcoles· Jan 21

To get at this, I recruited an equal number of Black and white Democrats & Republicans (N = 1,259) and exposed them to social media endorsements of a TV show coming from co- vs. out-partisans who are racial in- vs. out-group members. No information about the show is given, just who is endorsing it.

Example of the study stimulus depicting Black Republicans.

Chokely Carmichael🥋@stewartcoles· Jan 21

🚨New pub alert!🚨 Now available open-access in @hcr-journal.bsky.social, I show how endorsements of entertainment media from ingroup members, particularly inpartisans, affect exposure intentions, with differential effects across racial lines. #PolComm #PoliSci #Politics #MediaStudies 🧵

Current explanations for political divides in entertainment media use identify divergent preferences for or evaluations of content. According to the theory of normative social behavior (TNSB), extratextual information such as cues about the audience may also influence exposure intentions due to viewers’ perceptions of ingroup norms. Social media users discuss and form communities around entertainment content while conveying partisan and racial identities. A preregistered experiment exposed Black and White partisans (N = 1,259) to tweets in which a television show was endorsed by co- or out-partisans who were racial in- or out-group members. Exposure intentions were stronger when endorsement came from co-partisans; however, this effect was stronger for White partisans. Treatment effects were mediated by perceived ingroup norms and perceptions of how much of the audience consisted of ingroup members. Implications of multiple identities (i.e., race and partisanship) for the TNSB and the study of partisan entertainment divides are discussed.

Chokely Carmichael🥋@stewartcoles· Dec 28

A perfect 90s album? Easy.

Chokely Carmichael🥋@stewartcoles· Dec 26

Not timbs, but I put too many miles on these MFs

Chokely Carmichael🥋@stewartcoles· Dec 16

Forthcoming at @hcr-journal.bsky.social: "A Show for Us: How Racial and Partisan Cues About Television Audiences Affect Exposure Intentions"! More to follow once the final version is published, but just glad this will be out in the world soon! #PolComm #PoliSci #Politics #MediaStudies

A Show for Us: How Racial and Partisan Cues About Television Audiences Affect Exposure Intentions

Stewart M. Coles
Assistant Professor
Department of Communication
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Current explanations for political divides in entertainment media use identify divergent preferences for or evaluations of content. According to the theory of normative social behavior (TNSB), extratextual information such as cues about the audience may also influence exposure intentions due to viewers’ perceptions of ingroup norms. Social media users discuss and form communities around entertainment content while conveying partisan and racial identities. A preregistered experiment exposed Black and white partisans (N = 1,259) to tweets in which a television show was endorsed by co- or out-partisans who were racial in- or out-group members. Exposure intentions were stronger when endorsement came from co-partisans; however, this effect was stronger for white partisans. Treatment effects were mediated by perceived ingroup norms and perceptions of how much of the audience consisted of ingroup members. Implications of multiple identities (i.e., race and partisanship) for the TNSB and the study of partisan entertainment divides are discussed.

Accepted for publication in Human Communication Research. The final article will be available, upon publication, via its DOI: 10.1093/hcr/hqaf032

Chokely Carmichael🥋@stewartcoles· Dec 12

What’s the worst that could happen?

The transmission of CWD to other species such as squirrel monkeys and humanized mice has been observed in experimental settings.

Chokely Carmichael🥋@stewartcoles· Dec 3

We offer a more concrete framework for studying political communication from a group perspective at the micro, meso, and macro levels. We apply the framework to the case of public opinion, then conclude with a reflection on what our approach means for group-centric #polcomm research moving forward.

A framework for studying political communication from a group perspective at the micro, meso, and macro levels, from problem definition, to theoretical (re)orientations, to methodological approaches.

Chokely Carmichael🥋@stewartcoles· Dec 3

We synthesize disparate bodies of theory on groups, politics, and communication to offer a foundation for a group theory of #polcomm that is underpinned by three basic propositions: Prop #1: The group—not the individual—is the fundamental organizing unit of human social and political life.

Prop #1: The group—not the individual—is the fundamental organizing unit of human social and political life.
Prop #2: Groups are constituted through communication, which is central to how they define their membership, identity, boundaries, and interests–in short, their politics.
Prop #3: Groups and politics are reciprocally influencing forces through political communication, oriented around power.

Chokely Carmichael🥋@stewartcoles· Dec 3

🚨New pub alert!🚨 Now available open-access in @journal-of-comm.bsky.social, we (w/ @dkreiss.bsky.social, @danlane.bsky.social, & @shannimcg.bsky.social) critique political communication's "Identity Turn" and offer instead a foundation for studying #polcomm from a *group* perspective. 🧵

Abstract: Recent political communication scholarship finds that groups and identities play a central role in the crises faced by political and media systems globally, particularly in democracies. Yet an individualist orientation in the literature has resulted in key theoretical and conceptual limitations, preventing a broader group-centric theoretical framework from emerging. We synthesize disparate bodies of theory on groups, politics, and communication to offer three basic propositions underlying a group theory of political communication. First, it is the group—not the individual—that is the fundamental organizing unit of social and political life. Second, groups are constituted through communication, which is central to how they define their politics. Third, groups and politics are reciprocally influencing forces through political communication, oriented around power. We offer a framework for studying the role of groups in political communication at the micro, meso, and macro levels, providing a concrete agenda for the study of groups in political communication.

Chokely Carmichael🥋@stewartcoles· Nov 6

This machine kills fascists

Chokely Carmichael🥋@stewartcoles· Oct 30

From Coles (2024). People's ideas of "politics"/"political" are all over the place and amount to practically nothing. Thread below.

From Coles (2024): First, how people often use “politics” and “political” may influence questionnaire items with those words. People may reserve these words for “controversial” viewpoints they disagree with (Harbin, 2023; Walsh, 2004) or for governmentinvolved issues and activities (Fitzgerald, 2013). They might likewise avoid those words for issues they do not want the government involved in (Fitzgerald, 2013). For others, “politics” is solely the domain of self-interested politicians, their parties, and electoral processes (Hay, 2007; Phelan & Maeseele, 2023; Walsh, 2004), not issues that are “close to home” and open to people’s direct influence (Eliasoph, 1998). Some only call issues political if parties disagree on them (Shannon, 2020). Those who view politics as the process of public deliberation (Hay, 2007; O’Gorman, 2020) to reach consensus may exclude issues (e.g., matters of morality or human rights) as political because they do not believe there is anything that should be deliberated or on which there should be any compromise. Thus, asking if a text is “political” or about “politics” may elicit responses based on rather narrow, often competing, definitions of politics.

Chokely Carmichael🥋@stewartcoles· Oct 29

I can't speak to what order things happened in before, so I will take your word for it. But just looking at some of your posts from *this morning*, they count as spam. Here are three more near-identical posts about the NYT. My guess is any spam label is retroactive and applies to all your posts.

Chokely Carmichael🥋@stewartcoles· Oct 29

There are six of these just within the past hour, not even counting those from the previous days/weeks. That’s why they marked you as spam.

Chokely Carmichael🥋@stewartcoles· Oct 1

Daily m̶e̶m̶e̶i̶n̶g̶ writing goal met!

"C'mon, do something" meme with "Minor Revision" poking "Me."

Chokely Carmichael🥋@stewartcoles· Sep 30

This is one of my favorite articles, by @dkreiss.bsky.social & @shannimcg.bsky.social, on why “polarization” is the wrong framing of the problem to begin with. journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

From Kreiss & McGregor (2023): “Normatively, we argue that we cannot sacrifice equality and justice on the altar of social cohesion. Any consideration of the harmful democratic effects of polarization must address the fact that political inequality, especially in the context of White racial supremacy in the United States, has historically had far greater and more lasting de-stabilizing and anti-democratic effects, especially for non-White and non-dominant groups in society (Mulrooney, 2018).”

Chokely Carmichael🥋@stewartcoles· Sep 30