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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Reframing Rhetorical Theory And Practice Through Feminist Perspectives (Book Review), Kristen Hoerl Oct 2002

Reframing Rhetorical Theory And Practice Through Feminist Perspectives (Book Review), Kristen Hoerl

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

In Feminist Rhetorical Theories, Karen Foss joins Sonja Foss and Cindy Griffin to provide deeper insight into the origins of their critique of rhetoric and their advocacy of invitational rhetoric by reviewing the backgrounds of and arguments made by several feminist theorists who suggest that patriarchal values are embedded within the core tenets of traditional rhetorical theory. The first two chapters of the book review the core concepts of rhetoric, feminism, and theory and provide a brief overview of feminist scholarship that has been published within communication studies over the past thirty years. Following these introductory chapters, Foss, Foss, …


Monstrous Youth In Suburbia: Disruption And Recovery Of The American Dream, Kristen Hoerl Apr 2002

Monstrous Youth In Suburbia: Disruption And Recovery Of The American Dream, Kristen Hoerl

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

Although the American Dream myth idealizes youth who grow up in suburbia as culture types of imminent success, the Columbine High School shootings demonstrated that all not suburban youth will grow up to succeed. The extensive news media coverage of the tragedy reflects broader anxieties about the declining status of the suburbs in American society. In the wake of the shootings, the news media created a myth of monstrous youth in suburbia that functioned to repair suburbanites’ waning faith in the myth of the American Dream.


Contradictions Of Interaction For Wives Of Elderly Husbands With Adult Dementia, Leslie A. Baxter, Dawn O. Braithwaite, Tamara D. Golish, Loreen N. Olson Feb 2002

Contradictions Of Interaction For Wives Of Elderly Husbands With Adult Dementia, Leslie A. Baxter, Dawn O. Braithwaite, Tamara D. Golish, Loreen N. Olson

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

The researchers used a dialectical framework to examine interviews with wives whose elderly husbands experienced adult dementia from Alzheimer’s disease and related disorders (ADRD), centering on how wives coped communicatively with their husbands’ illness. These “married widows” experienced a primary contradiction between their husbands’ physical presence and cognitive/emotional absence. Interwoven with the presence-absence contradiction were three additional contradictions: certainty-uncertainty, openness-closedness, and past-present. Results describe the ways these wives communicatively negotiated the web of contradictions as they interacted in the present with husbands they once knew. Applications for practitioners and caregivers working with ADRD patients and their wives, including formal and …


“The Policy Exists But You Can’T Really Use It”: Communication And The Structuration Of Work-Family Policies, Erika L. Kirby, Kathleen J. Krone Feb 2002

“The Policy Exists But You Can’T Really Use It”: Communication And The Structuration Of Work-Family Policies, Erika L. Kirby, Kathleen J. Krone

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

Although work-family benefits are increasingly important organizational policies, limited research addresses the impact of communication on benefit utilization. However, communication is significant because the perceived appropriateness of work-family benefits emerges through interaction. For example, when coworkers complain about “picking up the slack” for those using family leave, their discourse may impact future decisions of other workers regarding whether they utilize the work-family benefits available to them. We apply Giddens’ (1984) Structuration Theory to examine organizational members’ discursive responses to conditions (and contradictions) present in utilizing work-family benefits in a governmental organization. We argue the daily discursive practices of individuals can …


“Married Widowhood”: Maintaining Couplehood When One Spouse Is Living In A Nursing Home, Dawn O. Braithwaite Jan 2002

“Married Widowhood”: Maintaining Couplehood When One Spouse Is Living In A Nursing Home, Dawn O. Braithwaite

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

When a marital partner moves to a nursing home, how do community-dwelling spouses, labeled “married widows,” adapt and cope with changes in the relationship and their own marital roles? The first goal of this study was to explore the role additions and deletions for community-based wives whose husbands moved to a nursing home. The second goal was to examine how these women discursively represent their own self-identity and the relationship they have with their husband who is living in a nursing home. Data were drawn from in-depth, face-to-face interviews with 21 wives whose husbands resided in a nursing home. A …


Performing Marriage: Marriage Renewal Rituals As Cultural Performance, Leslie A. Baxter, Dawn O. Braithwaite Jan 2002

Performing Marriage: Marriage Renewal Rituals As Cultural Performance, Leslie A. Baxter, Dawn O. Braithwaite

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

This interpretive study examined how the marriage renewal ritual reflects the social construction of marriage in the United States. Two culturally prominent ideologies of marriage were interwoven in our interviews of 25 married persons who had renewed their marriage vows: (a) a dominant ideology of community and (b) a more muted ideology of individualism. The ideology of community was evidenced by a construction of marriage featuring themes of public accountability, social embeddedness, and permanence. By contrast, the ideology of individualism constructed marriage around themes of love, choice, and individual growth.