Communication
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Item Mental Health Advocates as Cultural Intermediaries: A Sociocultural Perspective of Advocacy and Legitimacy(2021) Aghazadeh, Sarah Abigail; Aldoory, Linda; Communication; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This study sought to understand how advocacy as a public relations activity can give voice to marginalized publics and how/if mental health advocates perceive their advocacy work as influencing culture as it relates to mental health. This study incorporated the theoretical frameworks of fully functioning society theory (FFST) and the circuit of culture. Additionally, this study investigated the concepts of advocacy, legitimacy, cultural intermediation and discourses as they entangle with and within FFST and the circuit of culture. The juxtaposition of these theories helped to uncover both culturally situated best practices of advocacy and interrogate the frames that underpin the rhetorical ideals of a fully functioning society. This study employed qualitative, in-depth interviews with 38 mental health advocates who communicated a variety of perspectives about mental health and illness. Some themes that emerged include: advocacy as both education and empowerment, legitimacy as authority that can derive from both lived and learned experience, the multiple subcultures within the field of mental health advocacy, and the variety of mental health discourses. Furthermore, two overlapping, but distinct missions of advocacy exist including 1) general mental health for all of society and 2) advocacy for people who have experienced significant challenges to daily life and/or harm (e.g., prejudice, discrimination) because of a psychiatric diagnosis. This dissertation extended FFST and the circuit of culture to present a culturally embedded conceptual model of advocacy and theoretical propositions to help guide future theory building. The theoretical propositions outline how advocacy is a vehicle for voice to change status quos, how dysfunction and marginality are parallel within FFST, and how legitimation and cultural intermediation align in the context of culturally situated responsible advocacy. The findings also contributed to the existing theories by applying those theories to a specific context of mental health advocacy, which illuminated the importance of questioning normalized values within FFST and approaching intermediation with reflectiveness. This research considers the consequences of advocacy for people with lived experiences and situates advocacy within social justice contexts to inch closer towards the ideals of FFST.Item Relationship Management and Member Retention: A Case Study of an Advocacy Organization(2007-12-05) Derville, Tiffany Lynn; Aldoory, Linda; Communication; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)A case study of a grassroots advocacy organization was conducted to test and expand relationship theory and to explore perceptions about the relationship between members and the organization. The case study included interviews with 39 staff members at national, state, and affiliate levels; 58 members; and 5 former members, for a total of 102 participants. Additional methods included 49 hours of participant observation and an examination of both internal and external documents. The primary relationship type between the organization and its members was communal, and strategies were presented to cultivate communal relationships. This study empirically justified the critic's perspective for classifying relationship types due to one case in which three relationship types emerged, depending on whether the former member's, affiliate staff member's, or my interpretation was used, which also resulted in a new relationship type. Due to these differences in perceptions, this study used the terms intended and perceived when identifying relationship types, which is a clarification for future studies to use. Cultivation strategies were organized in a new way by classifying them as either organizational management strategies or as interpersonal strategies. This study also discussed cultivation strategies by characterizing some as particularly important to either the early stage of the relationship or to the mature stage of it. Several new cultivation strategies were presented, such as priming, problem parking, and insulation. This study also opened a new area for relationship theory through a conceptualization and exploration of relationship stresses. This category is organized by stresses that are internal to the organization and those that are external to it. Examples of relationship stresses include the emotion tax, relationship speeding, and relationship stalling. Cultivation strategies are suggested for mitigating relationship stresses. In addition, this study produced significant insights outside of the research questions by identifying new relationship outcomes, such as co-production, and by claiming capacity to be a higher goal than survival for systems theory. Furthermore, this study clarified the difference between an advocacy and an activist organization. This study also provided rich insights for public relations practitioners, such as presenting strategies to diversify an organization's membership.