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Full-Text Articles in Communication
In Search Of Solidarity: Identification Participation In Virtual Fan Communities, Jaime Shamado Robb
In Search Of Solidarity: Identification Participation In Virtual Fan Communities, Jaime Shamado Robb
USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations
This study questions the way sports fans create (a sense of) community through online conversations. Here, ‘community’ and ‘internet’ are seen as invitational terms that suggest an authentic social interaction. By examining the language used by fans to sustain a sense of solidarity in the virtual realm, this study questions the ways in which rhetoric frames the situation. Participation in the virtual space relies on practices of identification derived from physical engagements. By using a rhetorical approach, this study illuminates the way individual participants operationalize a rhetoric in virtual conversations that spiritualize the fan’s experience at the base of a …
Community As Metaphor: Dialectical Tensions Of A Racially Diverse Organization, Joseph Jacob Jenkins
Community As Metaphor: Dialectical Tensions Of A Racially Diverse Organization, Joseph Jacob Jenkins
USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations
In recent years, a sense of community has declined throughout the United States. Common Point Community Church has responded to this trend by prioritizing "community" as an organizational metaphor. The present study explores how this metaphor is co-constructed through the communication practices of current organizational leaders and members. I begin this process, first, by positioning the study within existing literature on institutional theory, institutional legitimacy, community, community of practice, social construction of race, sensemaking, organizational metaphor, tension-centered approach, and dialectic theory. Building upon more than three years of ethnographic field work, I then outline the study's context and methodology. Next, …
Constructing Alternative Christian Identity: An Ethnography Of Jesus People Usa's Cornerstone Festival, Brian Johnston
Constructing Alternative Christian Identity: An Ethnography Of Jesus People Usa's Cornerstone Festival, Brian Johnston
USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations
This dissertation examines processes through which alternative Christian identities are constructed, maintained, and performed at the annual Cornerstone Festival in Bushnell, Illinois. Organized and managed by Jesus People USA (JPUSA), an urban commune in Chicago, Illinois, the festival includes non-traditional methods of religious expression including rock music, making camp, play, and community-building. Cornerstone Festival attracts and includes members of the Christian faith who would not otherwise be included in traditionally organized Christian groups and fosters interaction between these less enfranchised members and more traditionally minded and socialized Christian practitioners. JPUSA appropriates the festival format as a method of religious expression …