Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Ethnicity in Communication Commons^™

Communicating Across Eternal Divides: Conceptualizing Communicated Acceptance During Parent-Child Religious Difference, Toni Morgan, Jody Koenig Kellas

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

Significant religious difference in the family has become increasingly prevalent in recent years. While religious difference may be challenging for families to negotiate, the manner in which family members communicate about it seems to be helpful in promoting positive interactions between parents and children. The purpose of this study was to conceptualize a parental communicated (non) acceptance continuum in the context of significant parent-child religious difference. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 44 adults who identified a significant religious difference with their parent. The results suggested that communicated (non)acceptance occurred along a continuum with four ranges of behaviors: communicated nonacceptance, ambivalence, …

Symbolic Annihilation And Stereotyping Of Native American Women In News: A Content Analysis Of Health, Safety, And Economic Status Related News, Shreyoshi Ghosh

College of Journalism and Mass Communications: Professional Projects

This is an exploratory study on the safety, economic, and health challenges of Native American women who constitute about 1.5% of the American population. With the symbolic annihilation and stereotyping of Native American people and women of color, there was a need to study the portrayal of Native American women in news. The findings indicated there was a growth in news coverage during 2018-19 and safety, including missing and murdered, emerged as a key topic. But symbolic annihilation in health and economic status including pay gap news was significant. Health news mostly covered maternal health and deaths but excluded most …

Protector And Friend: Turning Points And Discursive Constructions Of The Stepparent Role, Bailey M. Oliver, Dawn O. Braithwaite, Vincent R. Waldron, Robert Hall, Lucas Hackenburg, Braedon G. Worman

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

Objective: To understand turning points (TPs) in the development of positive stepparent–stepchild communication and relationships.

Background: Scholars stress the importance of communication in co-constructing healthy stepparent–stepchild relationships. The researchers focused on positive stepparenting via understanding transformational turning point (TP) events across time. Research questions explored how stepparents with an overall positive relationship with a stepchild characterize TPs and the discursive constructions of the stepparent role.

Method: The team analyzed 877 pages of data from 37 in-depth interviews with stepparents who described self-identified TP events, reflected in visual graphs of 279 TPs.

Results: Data were coded into 11 TP types, focused …

Pants On Fyre: Parasitic Masculinity And The Fyre Festival Documentaries, Kristen Hoerl, Casey Ryan Kelly

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

The documentaries Fyre Fraud and FYRE: The Greatest Party that Never Happened recount the fraudulent and imprudent decision-making process that led up to the ill-fated Fyre Fest. These documentaries represent the music festival’s failure through depictions of white masculinity that seek parasitic attachment and proximity to the hegemonic ideal of masculine authority in the neoliberal marketplace. We argue that these movies map the operations of an imitative form of white masculine subjectivity that thrives in precarity, even as they recuperate the status of late-stage neoliberalism by symbolically removing parasitic masculinity from the neoliberal social order that it feeds on.

Paths To Positivity: Relational Trajectories And Interaction In Positive Stepparent-Stepchild Dyads, Vincent R. Waldron, Dawn O. Braithwaite, Bailey M. Oliver-Blackburn, Brianna L. Avalos

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

Stepfamilies are inherently complex family systems, marked by change, flexible boundaries, and early conflict. But the developmental pathways by which long-term stepparent relationships become positive require more study. We interviewed 38 stepchildren who had reached adulthood, to understand how their relationships with a stepparent became positive. Four relational trajectories defined these positive relationships: punctuated, consistent positive, progressive incline, and modulated turbulent. Distinctive communicative practices were associated with each trajectory, such as communicating assurances, “siding,” or revelations of character. In addition, the trajectories shared three common processes: responsiveness to stepchild vulnerability, stepparent “adding value” to the family, and maturation/ reframing of …

The New American Dream: Neoliberal Transformation As Character Development In Schitt’S Creek, William Joseph Sipe

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

This article contextualizes the popular sitcom Schitt’s Creek within an era of unprecedented economic inequality and growing distain for the ultrawealthy. Via its over-the-top and self-effacing humor, the program invites audiences to discipline the Rose family for their former life of leisure and ultimately celebrate as each character is transformed into an ideal neoliberal subject via economic precarity and entrepreneurism. Through an analysis of the show’s 6 seasons, this essay articulates how the myth of the American Dream has adapted to neoliberal ideology that prizes precarity as a state of possibility and rejects leisure as laziness. Schitt’s Creek is emblematic …

Wisdom Narratives: Communicated Sense-Making In Emerging Adulthood Autoimmune Disease, Jacqueline Gunning

Department of Communication Studies: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Under the umbrellas of Communicated Sense-making (CSM, Koenig Kellas & Kranstuber Horstman, 2015), the current study explored 25 stories of illness told by assigned female at birth individuals with autoimmune disease. Using both the Theory of Memorable Messages (ToMM, Cooke-Jackson & Rubinsky, 2021) and Communicated Narrative Sense-making Theory (CNSM, Koenig Kellas, 2018), findings reveal helpful and harmful interpersonal memorable messages received across their illness journeys, as well as lessons learned and wisdom gained from disruptive chronic illness onset at a young age. Participants identified messages of belief, support, and interest as helpful while navigating disease, whereas they saw messages of …

Hazardous Weather Communication En Español: Challenges, Current Resources, And Future Practices, Joseph E. Trujillo-Falcón, Orlando Bermúdez, Krizia Negrón-Hernández, John Lipski, Elizabeth Leitman, Kodi Berry

National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration: Technical Reports and Related Materials

According to recent Census data, the Hispanic or Latino population represents nearly 1 in 5 Americans today, where 71.1% of these individuals speak Spanish at home. Despite increased efforts among the weather enterprise, establishing effective risk communication strategies for Spanish-speaking populations has been an uphill battle. No frameworks exist for translating weather information into the Spanish language, nor are there collective solutions that address this problem within the weather world. The objective of this article is threefold. First, the current translation issue in Spanish is highlighted. Through research conducted at the NOAA/NWS Storm Prediction Center, situations are revealed where regional …

Techniques And Forces And The Communicative Constitution Of Organization: A Deleuzian Approach To Organizational (In)Stability And Power, Jennifer J. Mease (Also Peeksmease)

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

This article introduces five principles of Deleuzian ontology and the conceptual framework of techniques and forces into emerging CCO scholarship addressing (dis)organization and power. By introducing Deleuzian concepts of (1) the virtual, (2) mutual (in)stability of meaning and materiality, (3) forces (and techniques), (4) communication, and (5) power, this essay builds a relational ontology that centers communication, speaks across existing theories of CCO, and offers a more detailed emphasis on power. In doing so, it enhances the explanatory power of CCO in general, as a set of theories useful for describing how organizational constitution and power play out in an …

Examining And Evaluating Multilevel Communication Within A Mixed-Methods, Community-Based Participatory Research Project In A Rural, Minority–Majority U.S. Town, Angela L. Palmer-Wackerly, Maria S. Reyes, Sahra H. Ali, Kimberly Gocchi Carrasco, Patrick Habecker, Kristen Houska, Virginia Chaidez, Jordan Soliz, Julie A. Tippens, Kathryn Holland, Lisa M. Pytlikzillig, Kali Patterson, Kirk Dombrowski

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

Community-based participatory research (CBPR) has been shown to improve health and social well-being by including diverse, marginalized community voices within academic–community partnerships. Although CBPR has gained in popularity, an explicit examination and evaluation of communication processes and outcomes throughout an entire CBPR project is lacking. Here, we analyze interviews with 10 stakeholders (i.e. 4 academic and 6 community partners) about their experiences in a three-phase, mixed-methods project exploring Hispanic and Somali community members’ perceptions of healthcare needs and access in a rural U.S. community. Results reflect that CBPR endeavors include communication challenges, successes, and ongoing tensions not simply between the …

Ethnic–Racial Socialization Mapping In Ethnic–Racial Minority Populations: Exploring The Efficacy Of An Intervention To Increase Well-Being And Secure Ethnic–Racial Identity, Mackensie Minniear

Department of Communication Studies: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

In this dissertation, I explore the benefits of developing an intervention entitled ethnic-racial socialization mapping. Previously, researchers have developed the importance of establishing a secure ethnic-racial identity in ethnic-racial minority populations, as it is tied with increased well-being. Additionally, researchers have called for interventions that highlight the role of ethnic-racial socialization in minority populations, as this process is connected with a secure ethnic-racial identity. I answer these calls by reviewing current research, leading to the creation of ethnic-racial socialization mapping as an identity intervention. In chapter 1, I explore how ethnic-racial identity and ethnic-racial socialization has been conceptualized, as well …

Incels, Compulsory Sexuality, And Fascist Masculinity, Casey Ryan Kelly, Chase Aunspach

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

Incel, the now-widely circulated portmanteau for involuntary celibacy, denotes a growing community of mostly cisgender men who are unable to find sexual partners or forge romantic relationships. Organizing in online networks, these men blame their exile from sexual relations on everything from feminism and sexual liberation to genetics and natural laws of attraction. In this essay, we offer an asexual critique of compulsory sexuality in online incel communities to illustrate how the sexual imperatives that animate fascism and the politics of the alt-right rest on myths of an insatiable male sex drive. We argue that incel discourse repurposes liberal conceptions …

Communicated Perspective-Taking (Cpt) And Storylistening: Testing The Impact Of Cpt In The Context Of Friends Telling Stories Of Difficulty, Jody Koenig Kellas, Jonathan Baker, Megan Cardwell, Mackensie Minniear, Haley Kranstuber Hortsman

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

Grounded in communicated narrative sense-making theory (CNSM), the purpose of the current study was to test the effects of storylisteners’ communicated perspective taking (CPT) on storytellers’ well-being and evaluations of storylisteners’ communication skills in the context of telling stories about difficulty. Pairs of friends (n = 37) engaged in a storytelling interaction in which one person told a story of a difficult life experience (DLE). Listeners’ CPT was rated by observers using the Communicated Perspective-Taking Rating System (CPTRS) and tellers reported on listeners’ behaviors and their own psychosocial health. Results indicate that observed CPT relates positively to tellers’ perceptions …

Critical Incidents In The Development Of (Multi)Ethnic-Racial Identity: Experiences Of Individuals With Mixed Ethnic-Racial Backgrounds In The U.S., Megan Cardwell, Jordan Soliz, Lisa Crockett, Gretchen Bergquist

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

Secure ethnic-racial identity (ERI) is tied to well-being, especially for minority individuals; however, there is still little consensus on the key processes and optimal outcomes of various multiethnic-racial (ME-R; i.e., individuals with parents from different ethnic-racial groups) identity development models. In this study, we examine the critical incidents in personal and social relationships that are central to ME-R identity development. Twentynine ME-R individuals provided retrospective accounts of incidents and conversations they self-perceived to be critical to their ERI development. Four major themes emerged: incidents and conversations surrounding intergroup contact, confrontation, heritage, and appearance were all recalled as …

Donald J. Trump And The Rhetoric Of Ressentiment, Casey Ryan Kelly

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

This essay contributes to and reframes the preliminary scholarly assessments of President Donald J. Trump’s appeals to rage, malice, and revenge by sketching the rhetorical dimensions of an underlying emotional-moral framework in which victimization, resentment, and revenge are inverted civic virtues. I elaborate on the concept of ressentiment (re-sentiment), a condition in which a subject is addled by rage and envy yet remains impotent, subjugated and unable to act on or adequately express frustration. Though anger and resentment capture part of Trump’s affective register, I suggest that ressentiment accounts for the unique intersection where powerful sentiments and self-serving morality are …

Communication Accommodation And Identity Gaps As Predictors Of Relational Solidarity In Interfaith Family Relationships, Toni Morgan, Jordan Soliz, Mackensie Minniear, Gretchen Bergquist

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

Guided by Communication Accommodation Theory (CAT) and Communication Theory of Identity (CTI), the purpose of this study was to investigate how families communicatively negotiate religious differences and how that negotiation is related to parent-child relational solidarity. Specifically, we examined the direct effects of (non)accommodative communication on relational solidarity and indirect effects via identity gaps. Using a cross-sectional survey from emerging adult college students (N = 234), we found nonaccommodative communication is indirectly related to lower relational solidarity through increased identity gaps. Accommodative communication is indirectly related to higher relational solidarity through decreased identity gaps. When parents use accommodative strategies, they …

Contextualizing Transgender Individuals' Discourses About Health Insurance, Jonathan Troy Baker

Department of Communication Studies: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Transgender individuals face a variety of disparate health outcomes compared to cisgender individuals within the United States. Additionally, 23% to 52% of transgender individuals do not have health insurance, meaning transgender individuals are two to five times more likely than the general population to lack access to health insurance coverage. Extant research typically treats health insurance as a quantitative (yes/no) variable; thus, we do not know what (not) having insurance contextually means for transgender individuals. The current study addresses this gap by privileging the voices of 17 transgender individuals through in-depth, semi-structured interviews. Using the Culture-Centered Approach (CCA), I conducted …

Discrete And Looking (To Profit): Homoconnectivity On Grindr, Chase Aunspach

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

The queer dating and hookup app Grindr evidences a technological and economic intensification in queer spaces online. The dominant modality of capitalist power is no longer consumerist norms but the collection and analysis of data. Grindr’s participation in datafication distributes increased risks upon its queer users and necessitates a renewed politics of queer privacy beyond homonormativity. I name this arrangement of power homoconnectivity and detail four techniques that capitalism deploys to capture and monetize queer social production. Ultimately, this article unpacks how Grindr designs experiences that move users to log into the app while hiding its engagement with multi-sided markets. …

Infertility Patient-Provider Communication And (Dis)Continuity Of Care: An Exploration Of Illness Identity Transitions, Angela L. Palmer-Wackerly, Heather L Voorhees, Sarah D’Souza, Edward Weeks

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

Objective: To identify how and why infertility patients’ communication with health care providers relates to their continuity of care within infertility treatment.

Method: A grounded theory analysis was conducted for 25 in-depth interviews across three coding phases, where we remained open to all themes present in the data, narrowed to most prominent themes, and found the connections between the themes.

Results: Based on our identified themes, we created a conceptual model that explains why infertility patients (dis)continued care with one or more clinician. Through this model, we describe two infertility identity transitions for patients: Transition 1: “Infertility as Temporary” to …

Constructing Lumbersexuality: Marketing An Emergent Masculine Taste Regime, Mark A. Rademacher, Casey R. Kelly

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

This article examines the online retailer Huckberry.com as a singular, centralized authority responsible for marketing “lumbersexuality” as an emergent, gender-normative taste regime. As an evolution of the devalued hipster marketplace myth, analysis reveals Huckberry promotes an adaptable taste regime to its young, educated, urban, White male clientele that unites goods, meanings, and practices across multiple fields of consumption that reconnect indie consumption and taste with a fantasy of “authentic” masculinity. We argue that Huckberry offers men semiotic resources that merge the urban with the outdoors in a way that enables the enactment of a fraught though seemingly durable masculine identity …

Applied Tensional Analysis: Engaging Practitioners And The Constitutive Shift, Jennifer Mease (Also Peeksmease)

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

This article introduces applied tensional analysis as a methodological framework that integrates constitutive ontologies (that depict organizations as processes in constant states of emerging or becoming) with the applied need for practitioners to understand and navigate the everyday exigencies of their organizational experiences. Applied tensional analysis centers analysis on tensions as the key to understanding organizational becoming in contrast to approaches that assume organizations are stable entities and consequently focus on patterns, themes, or laws. The applied tensional analysis framework offers four analytical foci (context, tensions, enacted responses, and repertoires) organized into two loops (analytical and change) as guides for …

Coalitions Matter: Citizenship, Women, And Quota Adoption In Africa, Alice J. Kang, Aili Mari Tripp

Department of Political Science: Faculty Publications

We provide new theory and evidence of the role of domestic women’s coalitions in the adoption of gender quotas. Previous research has shown the importance of women’s movements to policy change. We show that specific types of mobilization, often multiethnic in character, are a more precise way of describing these influences. Using a new dataset of coalitions in 50 countries in Africa (1989–2014), we first examine where coalitions are likely to emerge. Controlling for factors that correlate with their formation, we find that when domestic women’s organizations form a coalition for quotas, governments are more likely to adopt them and …

The Wounded Man: Foxcatcher And The Incoherence Of White Masculine Victimhood, Casey Ryan Kelly

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

American cinema has recently favored representations of white men as victims of socioeconomic and political change. Recent scholarship on white masculinity suggests that representations of male victimhood enable white men to disavow that hegemonic white masculinity still fundamentally structures society. This essay argues that Hollywood’s wounded man similarly provides white masculinity with stable footing. I illustrate how the unintelligibility of screen masculinity evades criticism and, further, how melancholic male dramas nurture a traumatic attachment to victimhood. Examining the film Foxcatcher (2014), I show how unmasked portraits of white male victimhood function as counterparts to the hard-bodied action hero. The filmmaker’s …

What Is My Role In Changing The System? A New Model Of Responsibility For Structural Injustice, Robin Zheng

Women's and Gender Studies Program: Faculty Publications

What responsibility do individuals bear for structural injustice? Iris Marion Young has offered the most fully developed account to date, the Social Connections Model. She argues that we all bear responsibility because we each causally contribute to structural processes that produce injustice. My aim in this article is to motivate and defend an alternative account that improves on Young’s model by addressing five fundamental challenges faced by any such theory. The core idea of what I call the Role-Ideal Model is that we are each responsible for structural injustice through and in virtue of our social roles, i.e. our roles …

Resilience In American Indian And Alaska Native Public Health: An Underexplored Framework, Nicolette I. Teufel-Shone, Julie A. Tippens, Hilary C. Mccrary, John E. Ehiri, Priscilla R. Sanderson

Department of Child, Youth, and Family Studies: Faculty Publications

Objective: To conduct a systematic literature review to assess the conceptualization, application, and measurement of resilience in American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) health promotion.

Data Sources: We searched 9 literature databases to document how resilience is discussed, fostered, and evaluated in studies of AIAN health promotion in the United States.

Study Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria: The article had to (1) be in English; (2) peer reviewed, published from January 1, 1980, to July 31, 2015; (3) identify the target population as predominantly AIANs in the United States; (4) describe a nonclinical intervention or original research that identified resilience as …

Asset, Liability, Possibility: Metaphors Of Human Difference And The Business Case For Diversity, Jennifer J. Mease (Also Peeksmease), Brittany L. Collins

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

Purpose – This analysis draws on interviews with 19 self-identified US diversity consultants and 94 diversity statements posted on corporate websites. The findings challenge existing literature that characterizes the business case for diversity as monolithic and wholly problematic for the way it constructs understandings of human difference. The authors accomplish this using metaphor analysis to demonstrate how business case arguments incorporate three metaphorical systems for thinking and speaking about human differences – as asset, as liability and as possibility. Given this diversity of metaphors, the business case does not construct human difference in a monolithic way, but in a variety …

The Use Of Zingari/Nomadi/Rom In Italian Crime Discourse, Theresa Catalano

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

This study examines the use of the metonymies zingari/nomadi/rom [Gypsies/Nomads/Roma] in Italian media discourse, in order to critically reflect on their relation to the perception of Roma. The author analyses the frequency of these terms in general discourse and crime discourse, as well as the way they are used in context. The findings reveal that nomadi and rom are used to directly and indirectly index Roma, and have a sig­nificant impact on their ethnicization and criminalization. In addition, the episodic framing of crime events, combined with the use of these metony­mies, erases the Italian government’s responsibility for the conditions of …

“Feeling Warmth And Close To Her”: Communication And Resilience Reflected In Turning Points In Positive Adult Stepchild–Stepparent Relationships, Dawn O. Braithwaite, Vincent R. Waldron, Jordan Allen, Bailey Oliver, Gretchen Bergquist, Katie Storck, Jaclyn S. Marsh, Nathan Swords, Carol L. Tschampl-Diesing

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

With the goal of understanding the development of positive stepchild–stepparent relationships, the researchers focused on turning points characterizing the interaction of adult stepchildren who have a positive bond with a stepparent. Engaging a relational turning points perspective, 38 stepchildren (males and females, ages 25 to 52 years old) who reported a positive stepparent relationship were interviewed, generating 269 turning points which were categorized into 15 turning point types and coded by valence. Turning points occurring most frequently were: prosocial actions, quality time, conflict/ disagreement, changes in household/family composition, and rituals. Findings are discussed, including implications for developing and enacting resilient …

“Say Something Instead Of Nothing”: Adolescents’ Perceptions Of Memorable Conversations About Sex-Related Topics With Their Parents, Amanda Holman, Jody Koenig Kellas

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

This study examined adolescents’ (n = 389) perceptions of parent– adolescent communication about sex, including what their parents say about sex, what types of conversations adolescents report as memorable, the degree to which messages are perceived as effective, and how parental messages predict adolescents’ sexual attitudes and behaviors. Six conversation types emerged: underdeveloped, safety, comprehensive talk, warning/ threat, wait, and no talk. When adolescents were asked to report how those could have been improved, five types emerged from the analysis of their responses: no change, be more specific/provide guidance, talk to me, appropriateness, and collaborate …

Community Health Worker Employer Survey: Perspectives On Chw Workforce Development In The Midwest, Virginia Chaidez, Angela L. Palmer-Wackerly, Kate Trout

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

A statewide Community Health Worker Employer Survey was administered to various clinical, community, and faith-based organizations (n = 240) across a range of rural and urban settings in the Midwest. At least 80% of participants agreed or strongly agreed that items characterized as supervisory support were present in their work environment. Thirty-six percent of respondents currently employed CHWs, over half (51%) of survey respondents reported seeing the need to hire/work with more CHWs, and 44% saw the need for CHWs increasing in the future. Regarding CHW support, a majority of respondents indicated networking opportunities (63%), paid time for networking (80%), …