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Kent A Ono
University of Utah, Communication, Faculty Member
- Kent A. Ono is a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Utah. Professor Ono ... moreKent A. Ono is a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Utah. Professor Ono conducts critical and theoretical research of print, film, and television media, specifically focusing on representations of race, gender, sexuality, class, and nation. He has contributed articles to numerous journals including: Communication Monographs, Critical Studies in Media Communication, Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, Communication Inquiry, Western Journal of Communication, Philosophy and Rhetoric, Amerasia Journal, and Journal of Asian American Studies.He has authored Contemporary Media Culture and the Remnants of a Colonial Past (Peter Lang, 2009). Also, in addition to co-authoring Asian Americans and the Media with Vincent Pham (Polity 2009) and Shifting Borders: Rhetoric, Immigration, and California’s Proposition 187 with John Sloop (Temple University Press, 2002), he has co-edited Critical Rhetorics of Race with Michael Lacy (New York University Press, 2011) and Enterprise Zones: Critical Positions on Star Trek with Taylor Harrison, Sarah Projansky, and Elyce Helford (Westview Press, 1996) and has edited Asian American Studies after Critical Mass (Blackwell, 2005) and A Companion to Asian American Studies (Blackwell, 2005).Ono directed the Asian American Studies Program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign from 2002-2007. He also directed the Cultural Studies Program at the University of California at Davis from 1999-2002. He founded the Asian American Cultural Politics Research Cluster at UC Davis in 1997. He wrote the proposal to create the journal, Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies. He helped propose, organize and chair the Critical and Cultural Studies Division of NCA from 2000-2001. He was President of NCA in 2020.edit
- Bruce Gronbeckedit
This essay revisits and expands upon the Leff-McGee text-ideology debate by coining the concept "contextual fields." Contextual fields are the situating elements used to make sense of the rhetorical text, texts, intertexts, transtexts,... more
This essay revisits and expands upon the Leff-McGee text-ideology debate by coining the concept "contextual fields." Contextual fields are the situating elements used to make sense of the rhetorical text, texts, intertexts, transtexts, paratexts, or even "discourse formations" under study. A contextual field may be the theory or theoretical field one uses to understand a text, the synchronic social-cultural context surrounding a text, or the diachronic history or genealogy that either anchors or situates the text temporally in some way. After situating contextual fields within the text-ideology debate and defining it conceptually, the essay then explores the way contextual fields manifest in intersectional rhetorical scholarship.
This essay revisits and expands upon the Leff–McGee text-ideology debate by coining the concept “contextual fields.” Contextual fields are the situating elements used to make sense of the rhetorical text, texts, intertexts, transtexts,... more
This essay revisits and expands upon the Leff–McGee text-ideology debate by coining the concept “contextual fields.” Contextual fields are the situating elements used to make sense of the rhetorical text, texts, intertexts, transtexts, paratexts, or even “discourse formations” under study. A contextual field may be the theory or theoretical field one uses to understand a text, the synchronic social-cultural context surrounding a text, or the diachronic history or genealogy that either anchors or situates the text temporally in some way. After situating contextual fields within the text-ideology debate and defining it conceptually, the essay then explores the way contextual fields manifest in intersectional rhetorical scholarship.
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Critical Race Theory (CRT) is a body of scholarship steeped in radical activism that seeks to explore and challenge the prevalence of racial inequality in society. Central to CRT is the understanding that race and racism are the product... more
Critical Race Theory (CRT) is a body of scholarship steeped in radical activism that seeks to explore and challenge the prevalence of racial inequality in society. Central to CRT is the understanding that race and racism are the product of social thought and power relations. Racism is understood to operate through structures and assumptions that appear entirely normal and unremarkable to most people in society. Scholars of CRT work, therefore, to challenge and expose dominant narratives of race that permit and legitimise the existence of racism.
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Perhaps there is no more powerful stereotype of Asian Americans than that of the “model minority.” Harkening back to a 1966 New York Times article by William Petersen titled “Success Story: Japanese-American Style” and a U.S. News and... more
Perhaps there is no more powerful stereotype of Asian Americans than that of the “model minority.” Harkening back to a 1966 New York Times article by William Petersen titled “Success Story: Japanese-American Style” and a U.S. News and World Report story on Chinese Americans titled “Success Story of One Minority in the US,” the mainstream media has often characterized and depicted Asian Americans as the minority that fulfilled the American dream against all odds and without government assistance. According to Osajima’s germinal article, “Asian Americans as the Model Minority: An Analysis of the Popular Press image in the 1960s and 1980s,” the “overt racial comparisons between the success of Asians and the failures of other minorities are tempered and replaced… by a non-racial discourse that focuses primarily on differences between Asian American families and ‘American’ families” (1998: 169–70). This comparison of racial groups and its promotion of non-racial discourses, currently considered post-racial or “colorblind” (Bonilla-Silva) discourses, continues to be a vital part of how Asian Americans are configured and represented within media.
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This article provides readers with a critical analysis of Mexico’s Parque EcoAlberto. Utilizing some of the theoretical work of interdisciplinary scholars who are interested in the study of ‘‘thanatourism,’’ the authors illustrate how... more
This article provides readers with a critical analysis of Mexico’s Parque EcoAlberto. Utilizing some of the theoretical work of interdisciplinary scholars who are interested in the study of ‘‘thanatourism,’’ the authors illustrate how this park, with its Caminata Nocturna (night hike), is much more than simply a ‘‘dark’’ tourist attraction that deters those who might travel North to the U.S. border. This study shows how the indigenous Hñähñú in Mexico have to confront a host of symbolic and material forces that are sometimes hidden in the patriotic metanarratives that swirl around this park.
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This article provides readers with a critical analysis of Mexico’s Parque EcoAlberto. Utilizing some of the theoretical work of interdisciplinary scholars who are interested in the study of ‘‘thanatourism,’’ the authors illustrate how... more
This article provides readers with a critical analysis of Mexico’s Parque EcoAlberto. Utilizing some of the theoretical work of interdisciplinary scholars who are interested in the study of ‘‘thanatourism,’’ the authors illustrate how this park, with its Caminata Nocturna (night hike), is much more than simply a ‘‘dark’’ tourist attraction that deters those who might travel North to the U.S. border. This study shows how the indigenous Hn ̃a ̈hn ̃u ́ in Mexico have to confront a host of symbolic and material forces that are sometimes hidden in the patriotic metanarratives that swirl around this park.
Research Interests:
Race is important within U.S. society and globally. However, race also plays a significant role in communication, and research on its influence cuts across every conceivable area of the field, ranging from rhetoric to organizational... more
Race is important within U.S. society and globally. However, race also plays a significant role in communication, and research on its influence cuts across every conceivable area of the field, ranging from rhetoric to organizational communication to film studies to health communication. Race is discussed so much within communication that this article, although expansive, cannot refer to all the important work that has been done. Research on race and communication considers a broad range of racial, multiracial, and ethnic groups. Scholarship also ranges from more applied research to purely theoretical work.
Critical and cultural studies work has significantly affected the way scholars think about communication and race. Specifically, concepts developed and explored have provided new lenses through which to understand communication and race. Nationalism, for example is significant. A nation is a collectively shared and discursively constructed identity. In thinking about nations as imagined communities cultural ties (such as language, ethnicity, and shared memories) are part of that identity. For racially marginalized groups, a nation may be a political organization at the same time as it is a collectively identified political group based on racial ethnic ties, ancestry, or simply politics. The concept of transnationalism, on the other hand, relates to cross or " trans " national relations, ties, and processes, processes that globalization has accelerated and strengthened, such as the movement of capital, media, and people which in turn has shaped local happenings and vice versa. When coupled with nationalism and transnationalism, race plays a mediating role, helping to govern and regulate people, relationships, and sometimes the very reason for relationships existing.
Critical and cultural studies work has significantly affected the way scholars think about communication and race. Specifically, concepts developed and explored have provided new lenses through which to understand communication and race. Nationalism, for example is significant. A nation is a collectively shared and discursively constructed identity. In thinking about nations as imagined communities cultural ties (such as language, ethnicity, and shared memories) are part of that identity. For racially marginalized groups, a nation may be a political organization at the same time as it is a collectively identified political group based on racial ethnic ties, ancestry, or simply politics. The concept of transnationalism, on the other hand, relates to cross or " trans " national relations, ties, and processes, processes that globalization has accelerated and strengthened, such as the movement of capital, media, and people which in turn has shaped local happenings and vice versa. When coupled with nationalism and transnationalism, race plays a mediating role, helping to govern and regulate people, relationships, and sometimes the very reason for relationships existing.
Research Interests:
After reviewing traditional approaches to the study of immigrant adaptation, we develop a theory of differential adaptation, which suggests that migrants may adapt in a variety of ways that do not necessitate that they acquiesce to larger... more
After reviewing traditional approaches to the study of immigrant adaptation, we develop a theory of differential adaptation, which suggests that migrants may adapt in a variety of ways that do not necessitate that they acquiesce to larger pressures to assimilate or accommodate the larger society they have joined; moreover, they may change the existing culture and society into which they move. Their experiences are “differential” and require a more complex theoretical framework for researching the relationships among immigration, culture, power, agency, and communication.
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Research Interests:
Intersection: Cultural Studies and Rhetorical Studies details various commonalities between the two fields. His later chapter (9) even implies that rhetorical studies has already anticipated and at times accepted many tenets of cultural... more
Intersection: Cultural Studies and Rhetorical Studies details various commonalities between the two fields. His later chapter (9) even implies that rhetorical studies has already anticipated and at times accepted many tenets of cultural studies scholarship.
Doris Sommer's book, Proceed with Caution, entertains a provocative thesis: sometimes writers purposefully lead readers astray. The “minority writing” Sommer studies strategically averts the undesired gaze of some readers who consciously... more
Doris Sommer's book, Proceed with Caution, entertains a provocative thesis: sometimes writers purposefully lead readers astray. The “minority writing” Sommer studies strategically averts the undesired gaze of some readers who consciously seek out minority texts. Such readers may arrogantly assume they possess the requisite knowledge, background, and language skills with which to make sense of minority writing.