Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Coaching Critically: Engaging Critical Pedagogy In The Forensics Squad Room, Adam W. Tyma

Communication Faculty Publications

During my first few years as a high school speech coach, I worked with an oratory student who was also a policy debater. During one particular coaching session, she mentioned that she and her partner were "running Foucault" as a case in policy. "What do you mean you are 'running' Foucault,'' I asked? She then informed me how the work of Foucault and other critical and cultural theorists was being employed in the competitive policy debate world as "kritiks." My student explained that she and her partner were using Foucault because it was "the way" to win rounds: "all of …

"The Gallery": An Experiential Approach To Visual Aid Construction And Analysis In The Classroom, Adam W. Tyma

Communication Faculty Publications

Objective(s): Students will create ballots based on established criteria and critique visual aids

Course(s): Public Speaking, Introduction to Human Communication, Business and Professional Communication, Persuasive Speaking

Editors’ Note: The Expansion Of The Media Literacy Research Agenda, Jeremy Harris Lipschultz, Michael L. Hilt

Communication Faculty Publications

Studies in Media & Information Literacy Education (SIMILE) in 2007 published a range of articles in three specific areas of study: secondary education, visual literacy, and critical examination of media.

Centered But Not Caught In The Middle: Stepchildren's Perceptions Of Dialectical Contradictions In The Communication Of Co-Parents, Dawn O. Braithwaite, Paige W. Toller, Karen L. Daas, Wesley Durham, Adam C. Jones

Communication Faculty Publications

The researchers adopted a dialectical perspective to study how stepchildren experience and communicatively manage the perception of feeling caught in the middle between their parents who are living in different households. The metaphor of being caught in the middle is powerful for stepchildren and this metaphor animated their discourse. A central contribution of the present study was to understand the alternative to being caught in the middle and what this alternative means to stepchildren. Reflected in the discourse of stepchildren is that to feel not caught in the middle is to feel centered in the family. Stepchildren's desire to be …

Bereaved Parents' Negotiation Of Identity Following The Death Of A Child, Paige W. Toller

Communication Faculty Publications

This study examines changes in bereaved parents’ identities following the death of a child. The bereaved parents in this study experienced two dialectical contradictions of identity, which are: (a) a parent without a child to parent and (b) I’m an outsider- I’m an insider. Results describe how parents used communication to negotiate these contradictions of identity. Implications for the study of parental bereavement, communication, and identity are discussed.

The American Hegemonic Responses To The U.S.-China Mid-Air Plane Collision, Dexin Tian, Chin-Chung Chao

Communication Faculty Publications

This paper examines the major documents of the American side concerning the U.S.- China mid-air plane collision incident, which occurred April 1, 2001. Through the hegemonic theoretical lens of Robert Cox’s frame of action and via the research method of hermeneutics of the selected rhetorical artifacts, we aim to shed light on the understanding of the incident and provide insightful implications for handling similar international conflicts in the future. Our findings indicate that the United States has preserved the most resourceful material capabilities and established all the necessary human institutions to implement its shared notion of American hegemony all over …

Public Relations Through A New Lens—Critical Praxis Via The Excellence Theory, Adam W. Tyma

Communication Faculty Publications

The “Excellence Theory” (J.E. Grunig et al., 2002) was initially developed, and is continually being tested, in order to demonstrate what makes for public relations practices that are both efficient and ethical for all parties involved. There is criticism which purports that such a normalizing theory is no longer relevant for current social, political, or corporate realities encountered by the public relations practitioner or researcher. This essay presents the “Excellence Theory” as a critical inquiry paradigm, allowing for the creation of spaces accessible by otherwise marginalized publics by the public relations practitioner.