Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Salvaging, Surrendering, And Saying Goodbye To My Leg, Laura L. Ellingson

Women's and Gender Studies

Nearly 20 years after my diagnosis with osteogenic sarcoma—a virulent, fist-sized tumor in my right femur just above the knee—my surgeon and I made the difficult decision to amputate my leg. After 12 reconstructive surgeries on my leg (and several on my chest and abdomen), 13 months of chemotherapy, three major staph and/or strep infections in my knee, and a promise that yet another surgical reconstruction of my leg would necessitate a lifetime on daily antibiotics and give me a knee that would almost certainly cease to function within a couple years, I was done. I had a good cry, …

Deliberative Democracy And Inequality: Two Cheers For Enclave Deliberation Among The Disempowered, Christopher F. Karpowitz, Chad Raphael, Allen S. Hammond Iv

Communication

Deliberative democracy grounds its legitimacy largely in the ability of speakers to participate on equal terms. Yet theorists and practitioners have struggled with how to establish deliberative equality in the face of stark differences of power in liberal democracies. Designers of innovative civic forums for deliberation often aim to neutralize inequities among participants through proportional inclusion of disempowered speakers and discourses. In contrast, others argue that democratic equality is best achieved when disempowered groups deliberate in their own enclaves (interest groups, parties, and movements) before entering the broader public sphere. Borrowing from each perspective, the authors argue that there are …

The Influence Of Being "Out" On Perceptions Of Managerial Credibility And Positive Affect, Justin P. Boren, Mary B. Mcpherson

Communication

The purpose of this study was to determine if the revelation of sexuality by a gay man or lesbian manager would affect potential employees' perceptions of that manager. Using EVT, three hypotheses predicted that the manner in which information is revealed about the manager influences perceptions of that revelation as a violation, as well as perceptions of managerial credibility and positive affect. Employed participants (N = 470) completed surveys about a hypothetical manager. Results showed that the manner in which managers' sexuality was revealed influenced levels of expectedness. Mixed results were found for credibility and positive affect. The relationship between …

Kissing In Marital And Cohabiting Relationships: Effects On Blood Lipids, Stress, And Relationship Satisfaction, Justin P. Boren, Kory Floyd, Annegret F. Hannawa, Colin Hesse, Breanna Mcewan, Alice E. Veksler

Communication

Affection exchange theory and previous research suggest that affectionate behavior has stress-ameliorating effects. On this basis, we hypothesized that increasing affectionate behavior would effect improvements in physical and psychological conditions known to be exacerbated by stress. This study tested this proposition by examining the effects of increased romantic kissing on blood lipids, perceived stress, depression, and relationship satisfaction. Fifty-two healthy adults who were in marital or cohabiting romantic relationships provided self-report data for psychological outcomes and blood samples for hematological tests, and were then randomly assigned to experimental and control groups for a 6-week trial. Those in the experimental group …

Broadcast Network Documentaries, Chad Raphael

Communication

Documentaries are nonfiction programs that convey experience, provide information, and offer analysis. Many memorable and respected programs in American television journalism were documentaries. In part this is because documentaries offer journalists the luxury of more airtime to explore a single topic in greater depth than the shorter-format evening news or newsmagazine programs. In addition, documentarians are often freer to express their own conclusions on controversial issues than beat reporters, who are more constrained by the demands of objectivity and balance.

Although the line between documentary and docudrama is often blurry, documentaries are less likely to dramatize or re-enact events. In …

Libel, Chad Raphael

Communication

Defamatory statements are those which harm an individual’s reputation in the eyes of the community. The law distinguishes between slander (spoken defamation) and libel (written or broadcast defamation). Libel law attempts to balance the interests of journalists and others with the rights of individuals and organizations to protect themselves against false and injurious attacks. American libel law has changed significantly since the 1960s, offering greater freedom to journalists to criticize public figures. At the same time, libel law has also become more complex, creating ongoing uncertainty about when journalists are on safe ground. Libel lawsuits are still the most common …

The Political-Economic Origins Of Reali-Tv, Chad Raphael

Communication

From the sea change in American television in the 1980s emerged a programming trend variously described as “infotainment,” “reality-based television,” “tabloid TV,” “crime-time television,” “trash TV,” and “on-scene shows.” The welter of terms created by television critics to describe these new programs masked their underlying connection as a response to economic restructuring within the industry. In this essay I offer a rough categorization of these programs, sketch the industrial context from which they emerged, and point to the economic problems they were meant to solve. I focus mostly on the distinctive conditions of prime-time series, putting aside made-for-TV docudramas and …

Spirituality Within The Comprehensive Geriatric Assessment Process, Laura L. Ellingson

Communication

In this chapter, Ellingson argues that the comprehensive geriatric assessment ( CGA) , which is used in the development of treatment plans for elderly individuals in poor health, has failed to acknowledge the import of some aspects of the elderly patient's life experiences. Ellingson uses case study analysis to demonstrate the significance of spiritual and religious beliefs and practices and suggests that the CGA model should be expanded to include explicit coverage of spirituality and religious issues.

The Poetic Is Political….And Other Notes On Engaged Scholarship, Lynn M. Harter, Laura L. Ellingson, Mohan J. Dutta, S. Norander

Communication

Instrumental and objectivist logics maintain a hegemonic place in Western scholarship, reasoning skills powerfully equipped to address certain dilemmas even as they may obscure other ways of knowing. In this chapter, we enlarge dominant notions of rationality by offering an aesthetic view of knowledge as vital for engaged communication scholarship. Our interest in aesthetic logics parallels concerns that have led scholars to develop feminist practices of inquiry (e.g., Harding, 1998; Hesse-Biber, 2007), interrogate the aesthetics of representations in West-centric knowledge structures from postcolonial and Subaltern Studies standpoints (e.g., Broadfoot & Munshi, 2007; Dutta, 2007, 2008), focus on autoethnographic and poetic …