Interpersonal and Small Group Communication Commons^™

Building Before: Community Resiliency As Emergency Management, Alexandria Rinne

Honors Theses

This project seeks to address gaps in emergency preparedness education related to tornado response. Through an examination of current research about best practices for tornado emergency management response and an examination of the needs of FEMA Regions 7 and 8, the author has identified key strategies and stakeholders to increase positive outcome through building community engagement and resiliency. Three presentations were created for delivery to key community stakeholders—local government officials; non-governmental organizations, social networks, and associations; and individual private citizens. The project offers an overview of background research and provides presentation slide decks, scripts, and discussion guides, all created with …

Reflections Of The Bentley Ombuds, Eliane S. Markoff

Office of the Ombuds

The Ombuds Office hears your grievances and can help you resolve a conflict. Conflicts can be within yourself or between you and others, making you feel anxious, not appreciated or worse.

During the past several years at Bentley, I have been given the opportunity to mediate, conduct workshops and provide you with advice to empower you to constructively resolve conflicts on your own. It has been especially rewarding to receive feedback on the progress many of you achieved after a challenging situation. Learning that someone has taken the time to resolve a conflict, apologize for being unfair, or change behavior …

Pathway To Promote Diversity Within Public Transit Workforce, Mehri Mohebbi, Sumita Raghuram, Ahoura Zandiatashbar

Mineta Transportation Institute Publications

There are many aspects of the transportation industry that can be focused on, but the lack of resiliency is one of the most urgent. Enhancing resiliency and creative problem-solving is essential to the industry’s growth and survival. But it cannot happen without building a more diverse workforce. Women still make up a small fraction of transportation workers, and African American and Hispanic employees are even less represented. These disparities are increasingly pronounced in many senior positions, particularly in STEM fields. Meanwhile, the public transportation industry is experiencing a severe and worsening workforce shortage and many agencies have reported substantial difficulty …

Calls For Change: Seeing Cancel Culture From A Multi-Level Perspective, Tomar Pierson-Brown

Articles

Transition Design offers a framework and employs an array of tools to engage with complexity. “Cancel culture” is a complex phenomenon that presents an opportunity for administrators in higher education to draw from the Transition Design approach in framing and responding to this trend. Faculty accused of or caught using racist, sexist, or homophobic speech are increasingly met with calls to lose their positions, titles, or other professional opportunities. Such calls for cancellation arise from discreet social networks organized around an identified lack of accountability for social transgressions carried out in the professional school environment. Much of the existing discourse …

Democratic Innovations In North America, Christopher F. Karpowitz, Chad Raphael

Communication

This chapter assesses the state of democratic innovations in North America, including the United States, Canada, and English-speaking countries of the Caribbean. We begin by setting these innovations in the contexts of democracy on the continent, which includes both established democracies and countries that have only recently decolonised. We go on to discuss major trends in democratic innovations over the past two decades in North America, including referendums and initiatives, mini-publics and collaborative governance, and digital participation in political and civic life. We note the broad range of issues addressed by these innovations and their effects on democratic institutions at …

Movement For A Gasfield Free Northern Rivers And Its Applicability To Other Movements, Mariah Thomson

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The Gasfield Free Northern Rivers campaign evolved into a broader social movement opposing unconventional gas extraction in the Northern Rivers, New South Wales, Australia. This movement manifested the Bentley blockade in which thousands of people collaborated to resist the invasive gas industry. This movement was successful in getting all gas exploration licenses in the region bought back by the NSW government, thus achieving the goal of keeping the Northern Rivers Gasfield Free. In this study I investigate how the GFNR campaign reached the scale of the Bentley blockade, and what aspects of this campaign and the broader movement are applicable …

Recent Advances In The Understanding Of Relationship Communication During Military Deployment, Steven L. Sayers, Galena K. Rhoades

Psychology: Faculty Scholarship

In recent decades, there has been a dramatic increase in the ability of service members and their intimate partners to communicate while the service member is deployed to a combat zone. Communication among partners is a crucial aspect of intimate relationships that has been demonstrated to be highly associated with couples’ satisfaction. In addition, it is often cited by unhappy partners as a primary relationship problem. This special section of the Journal of Family Psychology presents five articles investigating deployment communication among service members and their intimate partners. The studies address the content and goals of deployment communication, the relations …

Peacemaking Embodied: Dance As A Connecting Thread Weaving Senegalese Ethnicities, Rachel Ulrich

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Senegal remains one of the more peaceful, stable countries in Sub-Saharan Africa with little to no ethnic conflict or racial tension. Numerous social factors are credited with promoting this peace, ranging from political decisions to friendly jokes between different ethnic groups. Some artists claim that dance promotes positive relations between ethnicities; however, little to no academic literature reflects this social dynamic. Thus I have used formal interviews, informal interviews, observation, and participant observation to explore if Senegalese dance serves to promote peace between ethnic groups and, if so, why it has the power to serve this purpose. Through connecting the …

Here We Are Now, Entertain Us: Defining The Line Between Personal And Professional Context On Social Media, 35 Pace L. Rev. 398 (2014), Raizel Liebler, Keidra Chaney

UIC Law Open Access Faculty Scholarship

Social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram allow individuals and companies to connect directly and regularly with an audience of peers or with the public at large. These websites combine the audience-building platforms of mass media with the personal data and relationships of in-person social networks. Due to a combination of evolving user activity and frequent updates to functionality and user features, social media tools blur the line of whether a speaker is perceived as speaking to a specific and presumed private audience, a public expression of one’s own personal views, or a representative viewpoint of an entire …

Introduction To Deliberation, Democracy, And Civic Forums: Improving Equality And Publicity, Chad Raphael, Christopher F. Karpowitz

Communication

Innovative forums that integrate citizen deliberation into policy making are revitalizing democracy in many places around the world. Yet controversy abounds over whether these forums ought to be seen as authentic sources of public opinion and how they should fit with existing political institutions. How can civic forums include less powerful citizens and ensure that their perspectives are heard on equal terms with more privileged citizens, officials, and policy experts? How can these fragile institutions communicate citizens' policy preferences effectively and legitimately to the rest of the political system? Deliberation, Democracy, and Civic Forums proposes creative solutions for improving equality …

Good Publicity: The Legitimacy Of Public Communication Of Deliberation, Chad Raphael, Christopher F. Karpowitz

Communication

Although deliberative democratic theory values the principle of publicity, few empirical studies systematically assess the public communication of civic groups that deliberate over policy. The proliferation of such groups in contemporary politics, and of uncertainty about their legitimacy, suggests the need for such study. Drawing on contemporary deliberative theory, we derive a set of legitimate publicity indicators for assessing how well groups report their deliberative processes and policy conclusions. We demonstrate the reliability and utility of these measures in a comparative content analysis of the final reports of three common kinds of deliberative bodies: a governmentstakeholder task force, an activist …

Changing Minds: The Work Of Mediators And Empirical Studies Of Persuasion, James H. Stark, Douglas N. Frenkel

All Faculty Scholarship

The use of mediation has grown exponentially in recent years in courts, agencies, and community settings. Yet the field of mediation still operates to a considerable extent on folklore and opinion, rather than reliable knowledge. Mediator attempts at persuasion are pervasive in a wide variety of mediation contexts, yet “persuasion” is, for some, a pejorative word and a contested norm in the field. Perhaps as a result, there has been little, if any, evidence-based writing about what kinds of persuasive appeals might be effective in mediation, how they might operate, and how they might be experienced by disputants. In an …

Sectarianism In Northern Ireland: Youth Work And The Art Of Having The Difficult Conversation, Dan Knishkowy

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This report is the outcome of a month-long exploratory study on youth work in Northern Ireland regarding sectarian issues. It is an investigation of how sectarianism transfers from generation to generation, and how this often results in cycles of violence. The goal of this exploration was to find out what efforts are being made to combat this cycle at a youth level, and gain a more nuanced understanding of how these efforts can be effective. Data was obtained through literature, structured interviews, and participation and observation in a youth workshop. It is concluded that cross-community contact at a youth level …

Free Speech And The Myth Of The Internet As An Unintermediated Experience, Christopher S. Yoo

All Faculty Scholarship

In recent years, a growing number of commentators have raised concerns that the decisions made by Internet intermediaries — including last-mile network providers, search engines, social networking sites, and smartphones — are inhibiting free speech and have called for restrictions on their ability to prioritize or exclude content. Such calls ignore the fact that when mass communications are involved, intermediation helps end users to protect themselves from unwanted content and allows them to sift through the avalanche of desired content that grows ever larger every day. Intermediation also helps solve a number of classic economic problems associated with the Internet. …

Pay It Forward: Career Advice From An Aspa Member, Christine G. Springer

Public Policy and Leadership Faculty Publications

As a practitioner, a business woman and an academic in the public service, I often serve on interview panels and also am asked to assist students and practitioners with getting or changing their job in these challenging times. I have discovered that many qualified workers are changing jobs and changing organizations and that doing so successfully requires that they focus on what they truly want to do with their lives. When I have conversations with students and new and experienced professionals about moving ahead in their careers, I usually attempt to get them to focus on the following five key …

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 Convergence Of Broadcasting And Telephony: Legal And Regulatory Implications, Christopher S. Yoo

All Faculty Scholarship

This article, written for the inaugural issue of a new journal, analyzes the extent to which the convergence of broadcasting and telephony induced by the digitization of communications technologies is forcing policymakers to rethink their basic approach to regulating these industries. Now that voice and video are becoming available through every transmission technology, policymakers can no longer define the scope of regulatory obligations in terms of the mode of transmission. In addition, jurisdictions that employ separate agencies to regulate broadcasting and telephony must reform their institutional structures to bring both within the ambit of a single regulatory agency. The emergence …

Strategic Management In A Networked World, Christine G. Springer

Public Policy and Leadership Faculty Publications

The article provides guidelines to an effective approach of managing employees in the U.S. These include the ability to both detect a problem and to effectively respond to it. It is also considered important when strategies are adopted, where a collaborative action among network partners can be promoted. The author also stresses the importance of valuing and nurturing organizational learning and development.

Technology-Aided Participative Methods In Environmental Assessment: An International Perspective, Ainhoa Gonzalez, Alan Gilmer, Ronan Foley, John Sweeney, John Fry

Articles

Provisions for citizen involvement in the assessment of potential environmental effects of certain plans, programmes and projects are present in current legislation. An international survey revealed that public participation is common practice in European and some other countries worldwide. However, a number of issues are observed to affect public involvement in EIA/SEA processes and expert opinion differs when evaluating the effectiveness of existing participative methods. Results suggest that technology-aided methods can improve traditional participation processes. In particular, GIS has the potential to increase community knowledge and enhance involvement by communicating information more effectively. Variable accessibility to technology and data quality …

Social Entrepreneurship In The Practice Of Deliberation And Dialogue, Roger A. Lohmann

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

Advocates of public deliberation and sustained dialogue, like other change agents, often embrace roles as social entrepreneurs and engage in entrepreneurial efforts in promoting their cause. In particular, this may involve locating the resources necessary to establish and engage in programs of D & D, seeking to establish the costs and benefits of such programs, and furthering research into their effectiveness.

Deliberation And Dialogue In The Pracademic Commons, Roger A. Lohmann

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

There is a strong connection between deliberation and dialogue and commons theory Deliberative activity generally takes place within group settings that approximate the defining conditions of a commons. In addition, social capital, in the form of trust and a sense of mutuality, and construction of a new or reconstituted normative outlook typically result from successful deliberation and dialogue efforts. This poses several lessons for the practice of the practice of such discussions.

Communication Counts, Christine G. Springer

Public Policy and Leadership Faculty Publications

The author discusses the necessity of communications in a business setting. She cited the implementation of Plain Talk by the Annie E. Cassey Foundation which proves the fact that policy works best when decision makers, community residents and citizen customers communicate effectively. She also revealed that to surely achieve success in the business, it is suggested to never underestimate the emotional power of human nature and build a sense of community through continual communication.

Managing Conflict To Build Consensus, Christine G. Springer

Public Policy and Leadership Faculty Publications

The article discusses views on dealing with conflict to build consensus in strategic management. Fostering conflict to improve decision making while building consensus so essential to effective implementation demands the stimulation of debate, keeping conflict constructive, ascertaining that the process is fair and legitimate and being able to reach closure.

Teaching Communication Skills In The Context Of The World Of Work: A Pilot Project, Barbara L. Brilhart

Publications

The survey of projects was initiated by Miss Kessler, who located sources pertaining to work-orientation in the junior high school, remedial programs for drop-outs, and programs in which language skills were taught in the context of teaching units and courses in occupations. A form was mailed to various cities to obtain curricula and reports on projects.

During the summer of 1968, the author read 200 articles, curricula and project reports in an effort to gain insights into objectives, activities and evaluations of work-orientation programs. The result of this survey will be reported in three sections: (1) concepts of work-orientation; (2) …

Rhode Island's Committee Of Correspondence, Bertha Douglass Tucker

Student and Lippitt Prize essays

An essay exploring the men who maintained the liberties of Rhode Island during the Revolution by forming the Committee of Correspondence in 1773. The appointments included Stephen Hopkins, Metcalfe Bowler, Moses Brown, John Cole, William Bradford, Henry Marchant and Henry Ward to form the committee in its entirety.