Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Communicating Individual And Collective Mindfulness: Understanding Listening And Sensechecking At Work, Leanna Hartsough

Theses and Dissertations--Communication

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, many organizations made workplace changes, which added an additional challenge to employees’ communication. However, mindfulness may help members strengthen their workplace interactions. Mindfulness is an intentional open awareness to the present moment (Shapiro, 2009). The theoretical framework of collective mindfulness includes organizational mindfulness, which is mindfulness from a top-down approach and mindful organizing, which is a bottom-up approach to mindfulness at work. This dissertation extends research on collective mindfulness by including listening, individual mindfulness aspects, and sensemaking to examine how collective mindfulness members make meaning of changes due to COVID-19. I observed 26 meetings and interviewed …

“It’S Hard To Get Your Head Around Something Like This”: Figurative And Intense Language For Sensegiving During Severe Weather Coverage, Robert W. Prestley

Theses and Dissertations--Communication

During high-impact weather events like Hurricane Harvey, broadcast meteorologists take on the role of sensegiver, as they develop frameworks to help their viewers make sense of the storm. These frameworks are communicated through rhetorical choices evident in the language the meteorologists use to describe the storm’s threat and impact. This study investigates the rhetorical choices of KHOU broadcast meteorologists during Hurricane Harvey in order to make sense of the disaster, using an inductive thematic analysis. The results indicate that the KHOU broadcasters framed Harvey figuratively as an all-encompassing monster and a heat-seeking machine. The meteorologists used emotionally intense language to …

Sensemaking, Stakeholder Discord, And Long-Term Risk Communication At A Us Superfund Site, Anna Goodman Hoover

Preventive Medicine and Environmental Health Faculty Publications

Introduction: Risk communication can help reduce exposures to environmental contaminants, mitigate negative health outcomes, and inform community-based decisions about hazardous waste sites. While communication best practices have long guided such efforts, little research has examined unintended consequences arising from such guidelines. As rhetoric informs stakeholder sensemaking, the language used in and reinforced by these guidelines can challenge relationships and exacerbate stakeholder tensions.

Objectives: This study evaluates risk communication at a U.S. Superfund site to identify unintended consequences arising from current risk communication practices.

Methods: This qualitative case study crystallizes data spanning 6 years from three sources: 1) local newspaper coverage …

The Idea Model: Designing Earthquake Early Warning Messages Using Instructional Risk Communication, Nigel D. Haarstad

Theses and Dissertations--Communication

The goal of risk communication is to inform people about the risks they face and to encourage them to take appropriate action in response to that threat. To achieve this goal, risk communication scholars continuously examine the messages surrounding crises and disasters, and engage in message-testing to evaluate theory-driven message designs. Recent communication scholarship recommends that messages should including instructing information (Coombs, 2012), and should take into consideration established pedagogy based on instructional communication research (Sellnow & Sellnow, 2010). This dissertation continues to build on research which applies instructional communication scholarship to risk communication messaging. Using message-testing, this dissertation examined …

Testing The Message: Making Sense Of Converging Multimodal Messages In A Foodborne Illness Outbreak, Bethney A. Wilson

Theses and Dissertations--Communication

The goal of risk and crisis communication is to reduce and contain the harm inherent in a threat. In order to achieve this goal, risk and crisis scholars call for continued testing of messages surrounding these events; specifically, messages that address the needs of the at-risk message receiver. Previous scholarship suggests that these messages should include adapting and instructing information (Coombs, 2012), and should be designed using pedagogically sound instructional approaches (Frisby, Sellnow, Sellnow, Lane, & Veil, 2011; Sellnow & Sellnow, 2010). In order to meet this call, this dissertation tested an instructionally sound message that includes both adapting and …

Organizational Communication, Social Media, And Sensemaking During A Cascading Crisis: Tokyo Disney And The 2011 Japan Earthquake/Tsunami/Nuclear Crisis, Holly Ann Roberts

Theses and Dissertations--Communication

This study examines the connection between organizational crisis communication and sensemaking. In particular, the research focuses on messages of instructing, adjusting and reputation management and the use of social media in distributing these messages through and by the Tokyo Disney Resort during the earthquake/tsunami/nuclear crisis that hit Japan in 2011. Case study methods are used to analyze news coverage, Twitter and YouTube videos, informed by personal interviews and documentation related to the crisis and the Tokyo Disney Resort. The analysis found that the Tokyo Disney Resort provided messages of instructing, adjusting and reputation management in order to effectively foster the …