Other Communication Commons^™

Basic Communication Course Annual Vol. 28

Basic Communication Course Annual

Full issue (222 pages, 8.5 MB)

Informational Efficiency And The Reaction To Terrorism: A Financial Perspective, Nicholas Roland

Honors Undergraduate Theses

The purpose of this study is to measure the message terror organizations hope to convey using the financial markets as a proxy of measurement to determine patterns within the marketplace and the effects on the terrorists’ ability to deliver a desired message due to the increased use of digital devices and access to instantaneous news, seen over the past decade. Using death count, geographic location, and event type, this study identified 109 attacks between 1985 and 2015 to be analyzed against 5 market indices and 5 securities. Measuring the effects within a 10-day sample window from the time of the …

Factors Impacting Older Adults' Adoption Of Mobile Technology In Emergency Communications, William A. Scerra

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

An increasing number of older adults must continue working, which requires that they maintain their competencies and work skills, including use of mobile technology (MT). However, little is known about older adult adoption of MT in relation to work. This study used Rogers's diffusion of innovation theory and Davis's technology acceptance model as a framework. The purpose of this exploratory sequential mixed methods study was to examine the experiences of older adults' who adopted MT in the emergency communications (EC) field. Participants came from an emergency services LinkedIn group. Data sources included surveys completed by 85 respondents and interviews of …

A Cultural Approach To Emotional Disorders: Introduction, E. Deidre Pribram Ph.D.

Faculty Works: COM (1993-2016)

In her latest contribution to the growing field of emotion studies, Deidre Pribram makes a compelling argument for why culturalist approaches to the study of emotional "disorders" continue to be eschewed, even as the sociocultural and historical study of mental illness flourishes. The author ties this phenomenon to a tension between two fundamentally different approaches to emotion: an individualist approach, which regards emotions as the property of the individual, whether biologically or psychologically, and a culturalist approach, which regards emotions as collective, social processes with distinctive histories and meanings that work to produce particularized subjects. While she links a strong …

Chance Or Choice? An Analysis Of Assumed Biological Sex-Based Differences In Undergraduate Public Relations Course Teaching Distributions, Damion Waymer, Douglas Cannon, Joshua Street

Journal of the Association for Communication Administration

In this study the authors explore the observed differences among the courses taught by public relations faculty at Carnegie doctoral institutions based on faculty members’ assumed biological sex. The findings indicate that rank faculty (assistant, associate, and full professor) females teach significantly more upper division courses than their male counterparts. The rank faculty males are teaching more introductory (100 and 200 level) courses than their female counterparts. If one follows the logic that upper division courses are more time and effort demanding for faculty, then these findings indicate that females are disproportionately represented as the primary instructors of record for …

Complete Issue, Volume 35, Issue 1

Journal of the Association for Communication Administration

This is the complete issue for Volume 35, Issue 1 of the Journal of the Association for Communication Administration.

Mission Statements As Naming Proposals: An Rsi Approach, Susan K. Opt

Journal of the Association for Communication Administration

This study explores the communication process used to generate and express communication program mission “names.” It argues that the process that underlies the creating, maintaining, and changing of names, ranging from the specific to the ideological, also generates academic unit “mission.” Viewing mission texts through the lens of the rhetoric of social intervention model reveals how the texts reason rhetorically as they propose and provide evidence for the “appropriateness” of a unit’s constituted mission name. Awareness of the rhetorical-reasoning pattern can help unit members make sense of mission-building or -revising work and provide a practical way for them to organize …

Creating Clusters Of Excellence Within Graduate Programs In Communication, Tatyana Dumova

Journal of the Association for Communication Administration

Effective recruitment and retention of graduate students by small-size colleges and universities requires innovative solutions, as they find themselves operating in an increasingly competitive market. Creating clusters of excellence within existing graduate programs offers a way to develop a competitive edge. By integrating high-impact educational practices such as faculty-guided research, small schools are uniquely positioned to make an impact on the quality of their students’ overall educational experiences. The author seeks to start a conversation about the challenges facing graduate programs in communication offered by small colleges and universities and discusses a strategy for potential solutions.

Distributed Cognition In Cancer Treatment Decision Making: An Application Of The Decide Decision-Making Styles Typology, Janice L. Krieger, Jessica L. Krok-Schoen, Phokeng M. Dailey, Angela L. Palmer-Wackerly, Nancy Schoenberg, Electra D. Paskett, Mark Dignan

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

Distributed cognition occurs when cognitive and affective schemas are shared between two or more people during interpersonal discussion. Although extant research focuses on distributed cognition in decision making between health care providers and patients, studies show that caregivers are also highly influential in the treatment decisions of patients. However, there are little empirical data describing how and when families exert influence. The current article addresses this gap by examining decisional support in the context of cancer randomized clinical trial (RCT) decision making. Data are drawn from in-depth interviews with rural, Appalachian cancer patients (N = 46). Analysis of transcript …

Age Differences In Cancer Treatment Decision Making And Social Support, Jessica Krok, Angela L. Palmer-Wackerly, Phokeng M. Dailey, Julianne C. Wojno, Janice L. Krieger

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

Objective: The aim of this study was to examine the decision-making (DM) styles of younger (18-39 years), middle-aged (40-59 years), and older (≥60 years) cancer survivors, the type and role of social support, and patient satisfaction with cancer treatment DM.

Method: Adult cancer survivors (N = 604) were surveyed using Qualtrics online software.

Results: Older adults reported significantly lower influence of support on DM than younger adults. The most common DM style for the age groups was collaborative DM with their doctors. Younger age was a significant predictor of independent (p < .05), collaborative with family (p < .001), delegated to doctor (p < .01), delegated to family (p < .001), and demanding (p < .001) DM styles.

Discussion: Despite having lower received social support in cancer …

“I’M Here To Do Business. I’M Not Here To Play Games.” Work, Consumption, And Masculinity In Storage Wars, Mark A. Rademacher, Casey Ryan Kelly

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

This essay examines the first season of Storage Wars and suggests the program helps mediate the putative crisis in American masculinity by suggesting that traditional male skills are still essential where knowledge supplants manual labor. We read representations of “men at work” in traditionally “feminine” consumer markets as a form of masculine recuperation situated within the culture of White male injury. Specifically, Storage Wars appropriates omnivorous consumption, thrift, and collaboration to fit within the masculine repertoire of self-reliance, individualism, and competition. Thus, the program adapts hegemonic masculinity by showcasing male auction bidders adeptly performing feminine consumer practices. Whether the feminine …

Religious Pluralistic Language In A Computer-Mediated Context: Effects Of Intergroup Salience And Religious Orientation, Jennifer Kienzle, Chad M. Wertley, Jordan Soliz

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

This study investigated the degree to which religious pluralistic language varies as a function of the intergroup salience of a context and religious orientation. Based on a 2 (Religious Salience of Context) × 3 (Religious Salience of Topic) experimental design, participants (N = 239) were instructed to compose an e-mail to an interactional partner based on the randomly assigned condition. Messages were coded for religious pluralistic language, and participants completed measures of religious orientation and evaluations of the conversational partner. Modest effects were found for both intergroup salience of the context and topic as well as religious orientation.

The Man-Pocalpyse: Doomsday Preppers And The Rituals Of Apocalyptic Manhood, Casey Ryan Kelly

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

This essay argues that recent male performances of disaster preparedness in reality television recuperate a preindustrial model of hegemonic masculinity by staging the plausible “real world” conditions under which manly skills appear necessary for collective survival. Representations of masculinity in uncertain times intensify the masculinity-in-crisis motif to cultivate anticipation of an apocalyptic event that promises a final resolution to male alienation. An examination of Nat Geo’s Doomsday Preppers illustrates how these staged performances of everyday life cultivate a dangerous vision of apocalyptic manhood that consummates a fantasy of national virility in the demise of feminine society.

Chastity For Democracy: Surplus Repression And The Rhetoric Of Sex Education, Casey Ryan Kelly

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

Moving from opposition to participation, the Adolescent Family Life Act (1981) and the development of abstinence education marks the conservative movement’s pivot to a rhetorical strategy of tolerance that enabled it to coopt the public culture of sex discourse. Working from Herbert Marcuse’s theory of “surplus repression,” I argue that the New Right seized the liberationist argument for open public discourse about sexuality to sublimate libidinal desires into a national project of familial (re)productivity. The AFLA is significant in the rhetorical history of sex education because it demarcates the transition to a productive form of biopolitics that sought to manage …

Camp Horror And The Gendered Politics Of Screen Violence: Subverting The Monstrous-Feminine In Teeth (2007), Casey Ryan Kelly

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

This essay argues that Mitchell Lichtenstein’s film Teeth (2007) is an exemplary appropriation of the femme castratrice, a sadistic and castrating female figure that subverts the patriarchal mythologies undergirding the gendered logics of both screen violence and cultural misogyny. The film chronicles Dawn’s post-sexual assault transformation from a passive defender of women’s purity to an avenging heroine with castrating genitals. First, I illustrate how Teeth intervenes in the gendered politics of spectatorship by cultivating identification with a violent heroine who refuses to abide by the stable binary between masculine violence/feminized victimhood. This subversive iteration of rape-revenge cinema is assisted by …

American Indians And The Rhetoric Of Removal And Allotment (Book Review), Casey Ryan Kelly

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

With the recent inflection in rhetorical scholarship on theorizing citizenship, Jason Edward Black’s American Indians and the Rhetoric of Removal and Allotment is a timely reminder that the early formation of U.S. civic identity was predicated on the erasure of indigenous sovereignty, culture, and identity. Black’s project also disabuses readers of the historical misconception that this erasure was a unidirectional process wherein indigenous peoples ultimately succumbed to the onslaught of Western colonization. Instead, Black begins with the assumption that U.S. public culture is, in part, the outcome of a dialectical struggle between Euro-Americans and American Indians over the meaning of …

Mitt Romney In Denver: “Obamacare” As Ideological Enthymeme, Justin Ward Kirk

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

This paper argues that surface-level analysis of political argument fails to explain the effectiveness of ideological enthymemes, particularly within the context of presidential debates. This paper uses the first presidential debate of the 2012 election as a case study for the use of “Obamacare” as an ideological enthymeme. The choice of a terminological system limits and shapes the argumentative choices afforded the candidate. Presidential debates provide a unique context within which to examine the interaction of ideological constraints and argument due to their relatively committed and ideologically homogenous audiences.

Embracing Discursive Paradox: Consultants Navigating The Constitutive Tensions Of Diversity Work, Jennifer Mease (Also Peeksmease)

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

This article addresses how diversity consultants manage the dual demands of social justice and organizational goals or priorities. I suggest that navigating this “discursive paradox” is one of—if not the—defining feature of diversity work. To investigate this discursive paradox, I analyze diversity work as a process (rather than a collection of products) as evidenced in interviews with 19 diversity consultants. The results offer two derivative discursive paradoxes that emerged in consultants’ talk about diversity work: the tension between broad and narrow constructions of human differences and the tension between emphasizing change at the organizational and individual levels. Rather than …

Editor's Page, Joseph M. Valenzano Iii

Basic Communication Course Annual

We are now in the 28th volume of the Basic Communication Course Annual, a testament to the dedication of those concerned with the introductory course in communication. Over the years these pages have been graced with significant work that has influenced the nature of the basic communication course, thereby impacting the lives of thousands of students across the country. That said, I am struck by the fact we have no “motto,” no phrase that captures our feeling about this important educational experience. I would like to muse about what might work as a motto for what we do and teach.

Basic Course Strength Through Clear Learning Outcomes And Assessment, W. Bradford Mello

Basic Communication Course Annual

Former NCA President Richard West, writing in Spectra during his presidential year, lamented that the basic course in communication lacked national cohesion, especially compared to other disciplines like psychology, political science, or sociology (West, 2012). Some, including myself, may quibble with the comparison to other disciplines, arguing that History 101, Political Science 101 or Sociology 101 do not necessarily look the same at all institutions around the nation.

However, West’s call for examination of the basic course was a welcome one:

• I believe it is time for our organization to undertake a thoughtful examination of the basic course and ascertain …