Digital Commons Network^™

"Leaning Into The Wyrd: Confessions Of A Recovering Basic Writer", Cheryl Hogue Smith

Publications and Research

This essay examines the breakthrough one academic had in negotiating her fear of failure with writing and discusses how that breakthrough affected the way she teaches her community college composition courses.

Mitakuye Oyasin : Pedagogy And Design In Composition I, Jody Lee Rust

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Mitakuye Oyasin, an Oceti Sakowin (Lakota/Nakota/Dakota) phrase that translates as “All My Relations,” is a philosophy that means all things created on earth and in the universe are related and inhabit a shared space. Because all things are related and share space, they all have a purpose and a responsibility to discover and serve that purpose to ensure all of our relatives thrive in our shared space. This relational thinking influences the way the Oceti Sakowin interact with the world, including the way they teach. In this thesis, I analyze the way composition theories shape the curriculum and pedagogy of …

Rhetoric Of Surrogacy: Re-Considering Agency Through Embodied Performance, Ann Kitalong-Will

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Surrogacy as a medical practice goes back, in a practical sense, to 1988, when the court case, “In the Matter of Baby M, A Pseudonym for an Actual Person,” was tried in the Supreme Court of New Jersey. At the heart of the issue, was the question of who Baby M’s legally-recognized mother was in the relationship between the contracting parents and the woman who gestated and gave birth to Baby M. Using this case as a jumping off point, this dissertation traces a history of surrogacy as a global industry. This project explores rhetorical agency in the embodied performance …

The Request Is Not Compatible: Competing Frames Of Public Lands Discourse In The Lolo Peak Ski Resort Controversy, Philip A. Sharp

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Sharp, Philip, A., M.A., Spring 2022

Communication Studies

ABSTRACT

The Request Is Not Compatible: Competing Frames of Public Lands Discourse in the Lolo Peak Ski Resort Controversy

Co-Chair (in absentia): Steve Schwarze Co-Chair: Joel Iverson

In mid-2003, the United States Forest Service (USFS) received a pre-application for a Special Use Permit to build and operate an all-season ski resort on public lands near Missoula, Montana. The ensuing public deliberation over the possible use of protected lands for outdoor commercial recreational purposes provides a site of rhetorical inquiry. In this rhetorical criticism I analyze and evaluate arguments presented by the USFS, …

Anti-Racist Pedagogy: A Practical Means Of Building Bonds Between Marginalized Students And Instructors In The Composition Classroom, Santa-Victoria Pérez

English (MA) Theses

Framed by the existing scholarship in anti-racist pedagogy, this thesis is inspired by Charise Pimentel and Octavio Pimentel’s dream of building coalitions with marginalized students, Steven Alvarez’s framework for academic biliteracy, and Marcos del Hierro’s advocacy for incorporating discussions about contentious social issues in the classroom. This research draws mainly from works by rhetoricians and compositionists of color who report that working through and pushing past the discomfort and tensions of politically charged topics in the classroom are crucial for an anti-racist writing program (Prendergast, 1998; Villanueva, 1999; Clary-Lemon, 2009; Inoue, 2015; García de Müeller and Ruiz, 2017). By reflecting …

Theological Practices For Sustaining Community Renewal At Speedway Church Of Christ, Kent A. Ellett

Doctor of Ministry Theses and Dissertations

This project assembled a group of potential small-group facilitators for the purpose of drafting a small-group discussion guide to be used at the Speedway (Indiana) Church of Christ. The guide was intended to aid the discernment of missional practices which sustain the renewal of the wider community. Focusing on the Gospel of John, the intervention attempted to recover a temple Christology, construing the incarnation, ministry, death, and the lifting up of Jesus within the larger story of the temple’s ongoing re-creation of the world. In bestowing his glory upon the church, Jesus sends the church into all the world, as …

Shopping For A Cause: Social Influencers, Performative Allyship, And The Commodification Of Activism, Emily Mckellar

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Since the early 2010s, social media has been a powerful tool for protestors and activists throughout the world. In times of crisis and political uprisings, users have pulled out their phones and taken to platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and, more recently, Instagram, to capture “the revolution” in real time. Although originally intended for networking purposes, social media has provided people with a digital space to share their stories, disseminate resources, and broadcast live, allowing them to share their efforts with millions.

While social media has helped assemble protests, amplify marginalized voices, and educate the public, it has also become a …

Memetic Rhetorical Theory: An Analytic Model For The Spread Of Information Online, Carleigh J. Davis

English and Technical Communication Faculty Research & Creative Works

Modern discourse is often characterized by such extreme polarization that participants operate from entirely different sets of facts. These alternative facts represent a new line of inquiry for rhetoricians, who must determine how false facts gain credibility. This article outlines Memetic Rhetorical Theory (MRT), a model for understanding how information evolves to become credible in a given environment.

Institutionally Speaking: Speech Departments And The Making Of A Philippine Eloquent Modernity, Oscar Tantoco Serquina Jr.

Akda: The Asian Journal of Literature, Culture, Performance

This essay initiates a historiographical account of speech departments in the University of the Philippines (UP) and Silliman University. Founded in 1959 and 1965, respectively, these academic formations are the two existing bastions for the comprehensive and disciplinary study and practice of speech/speech communication in the country and the rest of Asia. This essay explores a) the use of speech as the organizing principle of scholarly inquiry in the Philippine modern university, b) the pedagogies composing Philippine speech curricula, c) the performances enacted by speech programs in UP and Silliman University, d) the speaking subjects that speech departments seek to …

Representation Of Terror And Terrorism In Two Arab Films: Paradise Now (2005) By Hany Abu-Assad And Horses Of God (2012) By Nabil Ayouch, Mustapha Hamil

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

Middle Eastern violence and terrorism are not novel subjects in world cinema, especially American cinema. The Arab or Muslim other in these films is always presented as someone who epitomises a culture of violence, directed mostly against innocent civilians. Against the backdrop of Hollywood’s stereotypical representation of Middle-Easterners as advocate of indiscriminate terror and terrorism, Arab filmmakers have turned in recent years to the representation of terror and religious extremism. Paradise Now (Abu Assad 2005) and Horses of God (Ayouch 2012) address the controversial issue of suicide bombing with the same motivation: to examine the choice of suicide bombing within …

Resisting Pacification: Locating Tension In G'Ebinyo Ogbowei's Poetry, Niyi Akingbe, Paul Ayodele Onanuga

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

No abstract provided.

Where Are The Women?: An Ecofeminist Reading Of William Golding’S Lord Of The Flies, Hawk Chang

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

The absence of female characters and their voices in William Golding’s Lord of the Flies (1954) has been previously examined. On the surface, this fiction focuses on the struggle and survival of a group of boys who are left alone on a Pacific island against the background of nuclear warfare. The only presence of women in the story seems to be the aunt via a boy’s narration. However, when approaching the fiction through the lens of ecofeminism, we can find a range of feminized entities which are metaphorically embodied in the natural surroundings of the secluded island. The boys’ interactions …

‘Convicted Of Patricide?’: Robert Frost’S Nationalism In The Eyes Of Contemporary Arab-American Women Writers, Eman K. Mukattash

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

Given the culturally expansive nature of the American literary tradition of today, the question of the relevance of Robert Frost’s poetry to the poetry of contemporary Arab-American women writers is an issue worth digging into. Writing almost one hundred years ago does not make Frost’s poetry out of date. Frost’s poetry is as relevant to today’s America as it has been to the America of his days. And this can be ascribed to the multiplicity of perspectives he presents in his poetry as he examines crucial questions lying at the core of America’s “grand narrative of national development.” (Westover 2004: …

This Ain't Yo' Mama's Composition Class: Addressing Anti-Blackness By Implementing Anti-Racist Pedagogy, Sharanna B. Brown

Northwest Journal of Teacher Education

Kyoko Kishimoto writes that those who practice anti-racist pedagogical practices are not only required to teach about race, but instead "teach about race and racism in a way that fosters critical analytical skills, which reveal the power relations behind racism and how race has been institutionalized in U.S. society to create and justify inequalities" (541). This is the work. And I have chosen to do it.

Steeped in anti-racist pedagogy “This Ain’t Yo’ Mama’s Composition Course” aims to explore the ways that writing classrooms can affirm students’ autonomy while simultaneously equipping them with skills that equate to “cultural capital.” Anti-racist …

Iluqata: All Of Us, Cana Uluak Itchuaqiyaq

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The field of technical and professional communication (TPC) is solidly within the social justice turn that encourages TPC practitioners and scholars to consider how their work, if left unchecked, could perpetuate oppressive societal norms, such as racism. Increasing awareness of how technical communicators can combat oppression through coalitional action and through centering multiply marginalized and underrepresented (MMU) voices and experiences through inclusive research methodologies are important components towards equity in TPC. This dissertation presents five accepted publications that demonstrate how narrative methodologies and coalitional work function to enhance scholarly activism and work towards equity. These five publications are thoroughly introduced …

What Can Asian Eyelids Teach Us About User Experience Design? A Culturally Reflexive Framework For Ux/I Design, Jennifer Sano-Franchini

Journal of Rhetoric, Professional Communication, and Globalization

The proliferation of web applications in recent years has brought about conversations among technology designers about user experience (UX) and user interface (UI) design’s role in propagating and reaffirming cultural bias, and in facilitating race-based discrimination. At times, such conversations have demonstrated how taking stock of racialized and cultural bias during the design process can challenge widely held design assumptions. For example, in 2015, Nextdoor, a neighborhood-based social network, was reported to have facilitated racial profiling when users began posting to the application’s Crime and Safety section reports of “suspicious” persons on the basis of racialized appearance, as opposed to …

Achieving Cultural Community Through Rhetorical Means: A Study Of Culture In The Bologna Process Documentation, Diane Martinez

Journal of Rhetoric, Professional Communication, and Globalization

An interesting point to consider when studying the Bologna Process, Europe’s contemporary initiative to reform the higher education systems among the 47 member countries, is how culture is represented in the official Process documentation. The official documentation contains layered definitions of culture that become problematic when determining the progress or the success or failure of this reform effort. For example, in the Sorbonne Joint Declaration (1998), the originating document of the Bologna Process, education ministers emphasized a large, overarching, definition of culture—a European culture—when they wrote that the Bologna Process is an opportunity “where national identities and common interests can …

Cultural Polysemy: Exploring Cultural Codes Through Digital And Non-Digital Practices, Anirban Ray

Journal of Rhetoric, Professional Communication, and Globalization

Culture is a coherent entity we use for describing our cooperative interests with others in political, social, and historical contexts. Culture is functional in that it is defined through individual and collective articulations in time and space. Its representations occur through macro categories of nations, race, habits, practices, and values as embodied in the following models: contexting (Hall, 1976); value orientation (Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck, 1961); cultural dimension (Hofstede, 1996); Seven-Dimensions of culture (Trompenaars & Hampden-Turner, 1997); Seven Value Types (Schwartz, 1999). Culture also gets defined in terms of its situatedness based on specificity of contexts and practices: social constructionist approach …

Operationalizing Culture With Design Cards In Cross-Cultural Design: Translating Critical Knowledge Into Provocative Insights, Huatong Sun

Journal of Rhetoric, Professional Communication, and Globalization

Operationalizing culture is “one of the most fundamental issues cross-cultural researchers face” (Matsumoto & Jones, 2009, p. 324), as stated in The Handbook of Social Research Ethics. Inconsiderate research design could “ignore the large degree of individual differences that exist in human behavior” (p. 325) and eventually “vindicate” cultural stereotypes the researchers mean to avoid.

In the field of cross-cultural design, a big challenge is how to inform and guide the design process with a sophisticated understanding of culture. This design challenge is a contextualized problem of operationalizing culture in practice. Insensitive design recommendations could end up strengthening the cultural …

Towards A Contingent Intercultural Methodology: The 2012 QuéBec Student Strikes And The Rhetorics Of Universality, Nathan Franklin

Journal of Rhetoric, Professional Communication, and Globalization

In the following article, I argue that speculative realism offers intercultural researchers heuristics to observe intercultural spaces without having to pay exclusive attention to the relationships present within those spaces. In other words, intercultural spaces can be considered independent of the researcher’s mind, because they are co-created by intercultural researchers (Cummings, 2014, p. 129). Following Gabriel (2014), perspectives on intercultural spaces are just as real as the spaces themselves. It is intellectually unproductive, however, to compile a list of all possible perspectives on an intercultural space to know what it truly is, which is what the local only approach to …

Metadiscourse In Book Reviews In English And Brazilian Portuguese: A Corpus-Based Analysis, Luciana Junqueiria, Viviana Cortes

Journal of Rhetoric, Professional Communication, and Globalization

Book reviews play different roles in academia. They are used in the selection of what books to read and purchase (Carvalho, 2001) and as a vehicle for publication and visibility, especially for graduate students and novice scholars (Hyland, 2000; Motta-Roth, 2001). Scholars and graduate students must do a great amount of reading in order to stay up to date in any given field, as scientific knowledge has become more and more widespread. This task is undeniably challenging given the amount of time and resources needed for such updating (Carvalho, 2002; Suárez & Moreno, 2008). Academics need to be selective about …

Methodological Journey: Lessons Learned From A Student-Led Intercultural Pilot Study, Ryan James Price, Rebecca Walton, Matthew Petersen

Journal of Rhetoric, Professional Communication, and Globalization

New technical communication scholars face the challenge of developing cultural competence in order to effectively and appropriately carry out intercultural research. With interculturally competent technical communicators in increasingly high demand, instructors wrestle with the challenge of preparing students for cross-cultural work environments (Melton, 2011; Smith & Mikelonis, 2011; St.Amant, 2011). The field has adopted a wide variety of globalization-driven, culture-conscious educational practices over the past few decades, but a knowledge gap still persists regarding how to equip new scholars with training and tools that are necessary for building cultural competence, particularly as it relates to designing and conducting research. In …

Digital Ethnography For Intercultural Professional Communication: Some Best Practice Principles, Michael Madson

Journal of Rhetoric, Professional Communication, and Globalization

With global compressions of time and space, intercultural contact is heightening. Digital networks are converging. Perhaps more than ever before, professional communicators require cultural and technical savvy, allowing them to navigate, in a principled manner, digitally-mediated contexts (Spilka, 2010). Since no mediation is value neutral, digital technologies can spark intercultural friction (Thatcher, 2004; Warshauer, 2003, p. 6), blur ethical codes (Capurro, 2008; Himma, 2008), and perpetuate colonial relations (Ess & Sudweeks, 2012, p. xvi). How to operate in such complex, power-laden environments is a central concern in intercultural professional communication (IPC) and merits additional inquiry.

Methods And Meanings: Reflections On Reflexivity And Flexibility In An Intercultural Ethnographic Study Of An Activist Organization, Natasha M. Jones

Journal of Rhetoric, Professional Communication, and Globalization

In this article I argue that organizations are cultures and, as such, when we study organizations, we should employ integrative intercultural ethnographic research methods that are reflexive and flexible. More specifically, through an intermingling of narratives, my personal reflections, and secondary scholarly research, this article briefly details my ethnographic study and explores the importance of viewing organizations through an intercultural lens. I also argue for including the study of organizations in considerations of intercultural communication. In addition, I examine two concepts that are important for intercultural communication studies, the concepts of reflexivity and flexibility in ethnographic research, and I thereby …

Editor’S Introduction To The Special Edition On Methodology, Rebecca Walton

Journal of Rhetoric, Professional Communication, and Globalization

Intercultural professional communication (IPC) is a burgeoning research area. New venues have been created to publish work in IPC, including this journal, Rhetoric, Professional Communication, and Globalization, in 2010 and connexions international professional communication journal in 2013. More broadly scoped venues in technical and professional communication also recognize the importance of intercultural work. See, for example, Ding and Savage’s special issue of Technical Communication Quarterly on new directions in intercultural professional communication (2013) and the topics of interest for the ATTW Book Series in Technical and Professional Communication, topics which include the globalization of technical and professional communication, intercultural communication, …

Review Of The Megarhetorics Of Global Development. Eds. Rebecca Dingo And J. Blake Scott. Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh University Press, 2012, 266 Pp., Massimo Verzella

Journal of Rhetoric, Professional Communication, and Globalization

“Development” is an insidious word in that it often provides moral justification for aggressive neoliberal policies. When imposed from above and orchestrated by financial and corporate elites with no understanding of the real needs of ‘undeveloped’ communities, development sanctions a covert form of imperialism that relies on the world accepting the credo of free trade in primis, but also American forms of democracy, law, and governance. With the aim of questioning neoliberal orthodoxies and challenging colonial arguments (accepted as commonsense) about saving the “natives” from their backwardness, a group of scholars have joined forces in the anthology reviewed here to …

The New Scarlet Letter A: An Exploration Of The Power Of Online Informational Websites To Influence And Brand Those Impacted By Autism Spectrum Disorders, Barbi Smyser-Fauble

Journal of Rhetoric, Professional Communication, and Globalization

Technical communication is often perceived by the public as containing objective information that is supported by scientific data. Audiences of such products are unaware of the rhetoric employed within its content that works to perpetuate social constructions of dominant ideologies, including digital texts such as informational websites. This article presents a comparison of the rhetoric employed on two national websites, Autism Speaks and Generation Rescue that convey similar information on Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASDs), but present ASDs differently in terms of language, tone, and lens. Through the acknowledgement of these differences, I posit that web sites affiliated with the medical/scientific …

Grassroots Emergency Health Risk Communication And Transmedia Public Participation: H1n1 Flu, Travelers From Epicenters, And Cyber Vigilantism, Huiling Ding

Journal of Rhetoric, Professional Communication, and Globalization

Grassroots risk reduction tactics took new forms in the era of social media. Chinese netizens mobilized human flesh searches (HFS), or cyber vigilantism, to reduce the risks posed by international travelers who might import the H1N1 flu virus into China. My study suggests that at the beginning of the H1N1 flu epidemic, rigorous transmedia intervention efforts were made to discipline the early irresponsible overseas Chinese who traveled extensively after arriving in China, but much less attention was paid to risks posed by foreign travelers. The grassroots risk tactics employed emotional appeals, valuative judgment, and moral condemnation to criticize the irresponsible …

Editor's Introduction, Nicole St. Germaine

Journal of Rhetoric, Professional Communication, and Globalization

Busy physicians, nurses, and hospital administrators do not have the time to conduct focus groups or in-depth interviews with patients. Researchers in the communication fields, such as the authors whose work is featured in this edition of Rhetoric, Professional Communication, and Globalization, can help fill in these gaps of knowledge and provide insight into some of the best practices and issues that our healthcare professionals need to address to serve these populations more effectively.

Rethinking The Problem Of Linguistic Categorization For Global Search Engines, Matthew Mccool

Journal of Rhetoric, Professional Communication, and Globalization

The fields of social psychology and neuroscience have known for several decades that culture affects the way people carve up the world. This perceptual difference is often, but not always, aligned with similar differences in linguistics categories. If correct, this problem of linguistic categorization may have considerable impact on search algorithms. This paper examines the relationship between culture and linguistic categorization for global search engines. A total of 43 American and Chinese participants completed two classification tests, one derived from social psychology and neuroscience and the other based on a common classification problem for full-text searching. These data suggest that …