Communication
Permanent URI for this communityhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/2223
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Item The Issue with Issues Management: An Engagement Approach to Integrate Gender and Emotion into Issues Management(2016) Madden, Stephanie; Sommerfeldt, Erich; Communication; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Using sexual assault on college campuses as a context for interrogating issues management, this study offers a normative model for inclusive issues management through an engagement approach that can better account for the gendered and emotional dimensions of issues. Because public relations literature and research have offered little theoretical or practical guidance for how issues managers can most effectively deal with issues such as sexual assault, this study represents a promising step forward. Results for this study were obtained through 32 in-depth interviews with university issues managers, six focus groups with student populations, and approximately 92 hours of participant observation. By focusing on inclusion, this revised model works to have utility for an array of issues that have previously fallen outside of the dominant masculine and rationale spheres that have worked to silence marginalized publics’ experiences. Through adapting previous issues management models to focus on inclusion at the heart of a strategic process, and engagement as the strategy for achieving this, this study offers a framework for ensuring more voices are heard—which enables organizations to more effectively communicate with their publics. Additionally, findings from this research may also help practitioners at different types of organizations develop better, and proactive, communication strategies for handling emotional and gendered issues as to avoid negative media attention and work to change organizational culture.Item Boosting the Mythic American West and U.S. Woman Suffrage: Pacific Northwest and Rocky Mountain Women's Public Discourse at the Turn of the Twentieth Century(2013) Lewis, Tiffany; Maddux, Kristy L; Communication; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This project examines how white women negotiated the mythic and gendered meanings of the American West between 1885 and 1935. Focusing on arguments made by women who were active in the public life of the Pacific Northwest and Rocky Mountain States, these analyses illustrate the ways the mythic West shaped the U.S. woman suffrage movement and how Western women simultaneously contributed to the meaning of the American West. Through four case studies, I examine the ways women drew on Western myths as they advocated for woman suffrage, participated in place-making the West, and navigated the gender ideals of their time. The first two case studies attend to the advocacy discourse of woman suffragists in the Pacific Northwest. Suffragist Abigail Scott Duniway of Oregon championed woman suffrage by appropriating the frontier myth to show that by surviving the mythic trek West, Western women had proven their status as frontier heroines and earned their right to vote. Mountaineer suffragists in Washington climbed Mount Rainier for woman suffrage in 1909. By taking a "Votes for Women" pennant to the mountain summit, they made a political pilgrimage that appropriated the frontier myth and the turn-of-the-century meanings of mountain climbing and the wilderness for woman suffrage. The last two case studies examine the place-making discourse of women who lived in Rocky Mountain states that had already adopted woman suffrage. Grace Raymond Hebard, a Wyoming historian and community leader, participated in the pioneer reminiscing practices of marking historic sites. Hebard's commemorations drew on the agrarian myth and Wyoming woman suffrage to domesticate Wyoming's "Wild West" image and place-make Wyoming as settled, civilized, and progressive. When Jeannette Rankin was elected as Montana's U.S. Representative in 1916, she introduced herself to the nation by enacting her femininity, boosting Montana's exceptionalism, and drawing on the frontier myth to explain Western woman suffrage. As I conclude with an analysis of Henry Mayer's "Awakening" cartoon, I illustrate the ways place-based arguments for woman suffrage and the boosting of Western woman suffrage worked together to construct the meaning of the West as a place of gender equality in the early twentieth century.Item Situating Organizational Participation, Discourse, and Development at Two Key Global Maternal Health Conferences: A Critical-Cultural Analysis(2012) Hobler, Mara R.; Aldoory, Linda; Communication; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation studied discourse produced by development organizations for and about the global maternal health problem (GMH). Discourse analysis was conducted to answer two research questions: How did distinctive organizations engage in the Women Deliver and Global Maternal Health conferences; and how did the organizations represent the problem of GMH at the conferences (Carvalho, 2008)? This analytic inductive study considered distinctions between GMH organizations and examined how organizations exhibited constitutive (reified) understandings. The global development community has sharpened its focus on GMH due to the lack of progress toward the Millennium Development Goals. Goal five (reduction of maternal mortality), is the farthest behind. Estimates suggest that 1,000 women currently die during pregnancy and childbirth daily (WHO, 2011). Correspondingly, organizations have publically expressed renewed commitments. Organizational (Ashcraft & Mumby, 2004), postmodern scholars (Holtzhausen & Voto, 2002), and critical global public relations scholars (Curtin & Gaither, 2007; L'Etang, 2005, 2010) claim that meaning production occurs through hegemonic public relations. The purpose of this dissertation was to extend the field's understanding of manifestations of organizational power and discursive meanings. In total, 72 units of data were analyzed from a purposive sample of six organizations. Codes were assigned 1603 times and reduced using Charmaz's (2006) emergent coding scheme. For validity, member check discussions were conducted with eight individuals. Findings revealed that advocacy was woven into meanings at the conferences; seen through organizational identity, speaker identity, and conceptual identities. Organizations sought recognition and legitimacy, and agreement with other organizations. Power and hierarchy undermined messages of accountability, integrity, and rights. Significantly, development discourse was univocal, as suggested by symbolic representations of organizational roles and identity constructions. Discursive themes of policy, progress, health, and measurement regulated representations. However, divergent meanings did create contradictions between understandings. Consistent with theory, meanings were fluid and unfixed, but had historical and political significance. This dissertation met the need for public relations theorists to embrace the circuit of culture as a means of capturing discrete meanings. The study also offers a three-dimensional model to accommodate interactions by multiple consumers of communication patterns and articulations.Item A Qualitative Examination of Gender and Power in Public Relations(2010) Place, Katie; Toth, Elizabeth; Communication; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Gender and power shape the practice of public relations. Gender contributes to power differences which may, in turn, influence an individual's strategic decisions and communication styles. Because male and female public relations practitioners make meaning of their roles as public relations practitioners differently (Grunig, Toth & Hon, 2001; Krider & Ross, 1997), looking at the profession from the viewpoint of women - and women only - provides unique insight into these differences. The purpose of this study was to examine qualitatively how women public relations practitioners make meaning of gender and power. Additionally, the study examined the overlap of gender and power and the implications they hold for professional practice. Whereas previous public relations scholarship has examined the concepts of gender and power separately, the secondary purpose of the study sought to examine these phenomena together. Literature regarding gender, gender theory of public relations, power, power-control theory contributed to this study. From the literature, three research questions were posed: How do women public relations practitioners make meaning of gender? How do public relations practitioners make meaning of power? and What are the intersections of gender and power in public relations? To best illustrate and describe how women public relations practitioners experience the phenomena of gender and power, I chose a qualitative research method which utilized 45 in-depth, semi-structured, face-to-face interviews with women public relations practitioners guided by an interview protocol. I utilized a grounded theory approach to data analysis. From the data, arose several themes regarding gender, power and their nexus. Results suggested that women practitioners made meaning of gender through contrasting definitions, as a function of a feminized public relations industry, as a function of pregnancy, childbirth and family responsibilities, through expectations and discrimination, and as an intersectional phenomenon involving one's race, age and geography. Participants made meaning of power as a function of influence, a function of relationships, knowledge and information, access, results-based credibility, negative force and empowerment. Women practitioners communicated that gender and power intersected through use of gendered appearances, management style, women's bonding together for power, the queen bee syndrome, leadership, women's self realization and confidence in their choices, and education of others. The data extend our understanding of gender theory of relations and power-control theory of public relations. Results suggest that gender, for public relations practitioners, exists as a socialized and learned phenomenon. Power in public relations exists in a system and empowerment serves as an alternative meaning making model of power. Evidence suggests that gender and power do intersect in the meaning making of practitioners and that future research must focus on examining this overlap and educating students and professionals about gender and gender discrimination.