“Connecting Through More Than Words”: How Advertisements Redefine the Role of Privatized Telecommunications in Public Prisons

Location

Bent Corridor, Science Center

Document Type

Poster - Open Access

Start Date

5-1-2026 12:00 PM

End Date

5-1-2026 2:00 PM

Abstract

This study investigates how advertisements shape understandings of the relationship between private telecommunications companies and U.S. jails and prisons. Drawing on Goffman’s (1958) interactional framework and Foucault’s (1979) concept of biopolitics, we examine how these advertisements shape the “definition of the situation”; simultaneously managing impressions among audiences with diverse relationships to the carceral system, while also building legitimacy as surrogate managers of the carceral population. To do this, we find that these companies simultaneously present incarcerated persons as a fragile population in need of care and an endemic security threat. At the same time, system-impacted groups are presented as subjects under monopolistic control over “connection.” These tensions become most clear when they occupy the same verbal-visual space. We argue that depictions of the “care-control” continuum in advertisements constitute a core site where telecommunications companies define their role in capturing correctional responsibilities from public carceral facilities. These findings help us understand the micro-foundations of the prison-industrial complex by drawing attention to how media is used to manage impressions more broadly.

Keywords:

Advertisements, Prisons, Sociology, Theory

Notes

Presenter: Ethan Rosen

Major

Sociology; Politics

Project Mentor(s)

Alexander B. Kinney, Sociology

2026

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May 1st, 12:00 PM May 1st, 2:00 PM

“Connecting Through More Than Words”: How Advertisements Redefine the Role of Privatized Telecommunications in Public Prisons

Bent Corridor, Science Center

This study investigates how advertisements shape understandings of the relationship between private telecommunications companies and U.S. jails and prisons. Drawing on Goffman’s (1958) interactional framework and Foucault’s (1979) concept of biopolitics, we examine how these advertisements shape the “definition of the situation”; simultaneously managing impressions among audiences with diverse relationships to the carceral system, while also building legitimacy as surrogate managers of the carceral population. To do this, we find that these companies simultaneously present incarcerated persons as a fragile population in need of care and an endemic security threat. At the same time, system-impacted groups are presented as subjects under monopolistic control over “connection.” These tensions become most clear when they occupy the same verbal-visual space. We argue that depictions of the “care-control” continuum in advertisements constitute a core site where telecommunications companies define their role in capturing correctional responsibilities from public carceral facilities. These findings help us understand the micro-foundations of the prison-industrial complex by drawing attention to how media is used to manage impressions more broadly.