Romantic Partners’ Use of Facework and Humor to Communicate About Sex

Communication about sex can be challenging, even in committed romantic relationships. This study explored verbal communicative behaviors that partners use to overcome discomfort associated with talking about sex. Data collected from 22 in-depth interviews revealed that relational partners used face-saving and humor to communicate about sex. Implications for the findings, limitations, and areas for future research are discussed.     

Motherhood as Contested Ideological Terrain: Essentialist and Queer Discourses of Motherhood at Play in Female–female Co-mothers' Talk

Framed by relational dialectics theory (Baxter), this investigation considered the meaning(s) of motherhood in female–female co-motherhood. Analysis identified two competing discourses: (1) discourse of essential motherhood (DEM) and (2) discourse of queer motherhood (DQM). Speakers' invocation of the DEM reinscribes the mainstream US cultural discourse that children can have only one authentic (i.e., biological) mother, whereas invocation of the DQM denaturalizes the DEM's presumptions of authentic motherhood as biological, interrupts monomaternalism, destabilizes the patriarch, and troubles the equation of biological with moral motherhood. Whereas interpenetrations of the DEM and DQM were typically sites of adversarial discursive struggle, in a few instances, the DEM and DQM rose above their antagonistic relationship, combining to create new meanings of motherhood.     

A new normal? Competing national cultural discourses and workers’ constructions of identity and meaningful work in Norway

We examine how conceptions of identity and meaningful work are influenced by a nation's changing economic and political environment. We collected research in Norway – a country with a rich economy that has heavily relied upon oil production since the 1980s. Yet depleting oil resources are prompting an economic transformation. Twenty-seven interviews and a thematic analysis revealed how Norwegian workers safeguarded their traditional, collective workplace values, yet were simultaneously confronted with modern – more masculinized – workplace performances ushered in with the oil era. We contribute to theory by suggesting that work's meaningfulness is constructed by competing national cultural discourses that evolve over time. These discourses become narratives that citizens draw upon to evaluate work and to negotiate their personal and professional identities.     

Accuracy and Bias in Newlywed Couples’ Perceptions of Conflict Styles and the Association with Marital Satisfaction

Styles of handling conflict are highly consequential to marital success. The behavioral model predicts that spouses’ accuracy in perceptions of each other will be associated with marital quality, whereas the benevolent perception model predicts that benevolent perceptions, even when objectively inaccurate, will be associated with marital quality. To investigate the role of perceptions of marital conflict styles, 194 couples married for less than five years completed self- and partner-reports of conflict styles and marital satisfaction. Results indicated that spouses were both accurate (i.e., seeing the self the same as one's partner sees the self) and biased (i.e., seeing the partner the same as one sees the self) in their perceptions of each others’ conflict styles. Little support existed for the accuracy model of perception and marital satisfaction, but more consistent support was obtained for the benevolent perception model in which more positively toned perceptions, regardless of their consistency with partners’ self-perceptions, were associated with higher marital satisfaction. Results of actor–partner interdependence analyses revealed numerous actor effects for conflict styles and satisfaction, and partner effects for the styles of conflict engagement and withdrawal and partners’ marital satisfaction.     

Mapping contentious discourse in China: activists’ discursive strategies and their coordination with media

Discursive strategy in social movements in China has received limited scholarly attention. This paper systemically examines the way in which contentious discourse in China is informed by its cultural repertoire and illustrates how activists strategically frame their culturally informed discourse in coordination with the usage of media platforms. We analyzed 143 slogans and banners from 22 environmental and land requisition protests, and found that activists in China draw heavily on Chinese cultural repertoire. They embed family values in a rank system that is mapped onto two axes – space vs. time and us vs. them – with family/self at the center, to frame diagnostic, motivational, and prognostic collective action frames. In order to unpack the dynamic process of strategic framing, we paid special attention to activists’ coordination mechanisms with media in our analyses drawn from extensive participatory observation and interviews in two protest cases. We found strategic framing (such as frame bridging, amplification, extension, transformation and borrowing) was used in coordination with both traditional and new media in an effort to adjust their contentious discourse to achieve consensus mobilization, action mobilization, and social mobilization at various stages of protest. This study brings cultural repertoire back into the study of contentious discourse in China and highlights the dynamic nature of strategic framing that is often practiced in coordination with media.     

Chinese Children’s Book Market and the German Experiences in Cooperation with Chinese Publishers

A summary overview of the children’s and young adult publishing industry in China with a focus on the size of the market, ten major publishing houses, copyright and trends. Special emphasis has been placed on specific transaction for the sale of translation rights from German language publishers to China and minimal activities of German rights sold to Chinese publishers.

Making do with media: teachers,technology, and tactics of media use in American classrooms, 1919–1946

In the last century, teachers have come under pressure to incorporate new media technologies into their lessons. Comparing educational research, press coverage, and teachers' firsthand accounts of mediated instruction between 1919 and 1946, this article highlights a historic discrepancy between anticipated and actual uses of media in classrooms. Drawing on de Certeau's theory of “making do,” the author argues that teachers' efforts to balance high technologies with simpler, more do-it-yourself varieties of media in their lessons constituted critical forms of participation in educational media culture and small acts of resistance against industrial, top-down efforts to streamline, modernize, and technologize their work.     

Playing with LEGO®, Learning about the Library,and “Making” Campus Connections: The Rutgers University Art Library Lego Playing Station,Part One

ABSTRACT

As libraries continue to grow and change in the 21st century, we are seeing an increased emphasis on outreach, engagement, creativity, and innovation for academic libraries. These ideas are crucial to the future of academic libraries and makerspaces are one way for academic libraries to realize these ideas. Makerspaces can be affordable, don't need to take up a lot of space, and have potential to be catalysts for creating partnerships within one's community. Engaging making events can stimulate broader conversations among library patrons and library employees as well as a way for library liaisons to connect with their faculty, students, and staff.     

Player one,playing with others virtually: what’s next in game and player studies

This essay describes current research in player studies, focusing on how play is a social activity, and how sociality is mediated and performed in a variety of settings. It starts by explaining the concept of tandem play and then moves to an exploration of gameplay that is performed for differently sized audiences via the Twitch.tv platform. Our research finds that even single-player gameplay can very often be a social activity. Additionally, how we perform gameplay is contingent on multiple factors, including where we and others are physically located, whether play is professional or amateur, and how particular play platforms shape our expectations for play and spectatorship actions.     

Training Tech Services’ Student Employees Well: Evidence-based Training Techniques in Conjunction with Coaching and Mentoring Strategies

Librarians in higher education who work in technical services must frequently rely on student employees to accomplish tasks previously assigned to professional staff. Hiring, training, managing, and mentoring student workers for the performance of high-level library functions can prove challenging. However, working side-by-side with student employees can be a positive experience when evidence-based training techniques and effective coaching and mentoring strategies are utilized. This article focuses on training techniques integrated with ongoing coaching and mentoring strategies to promote a positive work environment and motivated, successful student employees.     

Learn after reading: effects of news framing and responsibility attribution on Chinese college students’ perceived efficacy in identifying others and themselves with depression

Depression is now one of the most severe public health threats in China and among Chinese college students. To examine the effects of depression news coverage on Chinese college students’ mental health literacy, focusing on their perceived efficacy in recognizing depression symptoms, a 2 (news framing: episodic vs. thematic)?×?2 (responsibility attribution: individual vs. societal)?×?2 (gender: female vs. male) between-subjects experiment was conducted among 187 students at a large research university in China. The key findings, after controlling for depression issue involvement, include: (1) the main effects of attribution on perceived efficacy in identifying others (friends and family members) with depression; (2) the association between gender and perceived efficacy in identifying family members with depression; and (3) the three-way interactions on how framing, attribution, and gender jointly affect not only perceived efficacy in identifying others but also themselves with depression. These findings provide insights on how depression news coverage can help enhance mental health literacy and build stronger depression symptom resilience among Chinese college students. Implications for health journalists and public health communication professionals in China are discussed.