Special Issue of Democratic Communiqué: Discourse about labor and unionization on digital media platforms in the new era of Musk and Trump 2.0. Deadline for full consideration is June 30, 2025 Labor rights and unionization efforts have attracted attention over the past few years through several high-profile events, including wildcat strikes in K-12 and higher education in California, the successful unionization efforts at Amazon’s Staten Island fulfillment center, the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, Starbucks stores, legacy and digital news outlets, and graduate student unions across the United States, in addition to many others. Whereas digital media platforms, especially social media, have been studied for their ability to facilitate communication about the varied causes of social justice and pro-labor movements, Elon Musk’s ownership and control of X (along with his known anti-union sentiments and close relationship to Donald Trump who is returning to the White House in 2025) make these and other historical and contemporary cases ripe to understand the potential impacts of social media and other digital platforms on this type of discourse. This special issue of Democratic Communiqué invites critical analyses of coverage of labor rights and unionization efforts and discourse about these endeavors on digitally platformed news and social media. (fb)

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