A Grounded Practical Theory Reconstruction of the Communication Practice of Instructor-facilitated Collegiate Classroom Discussion

Instructor-facilitated collegiate classroom discussion (IFCCD) is a highly valued yet undertheorized instructional practice. Research examining the structure of classroom interaction, scholarship advocating rationales for discussion-based pedagogy, and an investigation of a related interactive classroom communication practice provide an informative backdrop for this study. The data in the study were collected using action-implicative discourse analytic techniques throughout a semester in three classrooms at the same university. Reconstructing the three levels of the practice through grounded practical theory—the problem/dilemma level, the normative situated ideals level, and the talk/discourse techniques level—provides some insight into why in two of these cases of IFCCD, engaged and participatory discussion was accomplished. The shared dilemma of the practice is reconstructed as the problem of engagement in which both individual engagement with curricular content and shared engagement in co-creation of the discussion are valued. The dilemmatic nature of the practice is explored specifically in terms of traditional and nontraditional teacher talk and associated participation structures. Significant similarities and differences across the three cases are found and examined in the reconstructions of instructor situated ideals and third-turn facilitation techniques. Initial conclusions are incorporated in the discussion of discourse-based applications for practitioners interested in facilitating discussion in college classrooms.     

The Discourse of Crisis in Public Meetings: Case Study of a School District's Multimillion Dollar Error

School districts are both big businesses and a form of local governance that is part of American democracy. When a crisis makes a district's democratic face relevant, the organization will experience a dilemma that does not occur in business-only organizations. This study examines the public meetings of a school board in the western United States as it confronted a multimillion dollar error. After reviewing the organizational crisis literature, background is provided on the district, the crisis, and the method—action-implicative discourse analysis. The district's crisis, the paper shows, was constructed through six discursive practices. Each is identified and illustrated. Because school boards are democratic bodies, they depend on having citizens willing to attend and speak out in public meetings, and they depend on a smaller set of citizens willing to run for and serve in these elected, unpaid school board positions. In crises, these two groups of citizens will have partially competing needs. As a result, local governance organizations will experience a dilemma regarding how to design their public participation. The paper concludes with suggestions for future research on organizational crisis and public meetings, and practical implications for citizens and elected officials.     

The Discourse of Crisis in Public Meetings: Case Study of a School District's Multimillion Dollar Error

School districts are both big businesses and a form of local governance that is part of American democracy. When a crisis makes a district's democratic face relevant, the organization will experience a dilemma that does not occur in business-only organizations. This study examines the public meetings of a school board in the western United States as it confronted a multimillion dollar error. After reviewing the organizational crisis literature, background is provided on the district, the crisis, and the method—action-implicative discourse analysis. The district's crisis, the paper shows, was constructed through six discursive practices. Each is identified and illustrated. Because school boards are democratic bodies, they depend on having citizens willing to attend and speak out in public meetings, and they depend on a smaller set of citizens willing to run for and serve in these elected, unpaid school board positions. In crises, these two groups of citizens will have partially competing needs. As a result, local governance organizations will experience a dilemma regarding how to design their public participation. The paper concludes with suggestions for future research on organizational crisis and public meetings, and practical implications for citizens and elected officials.     

Voting alone: the decline of bodily mass communication and public sensationalism in presidential elections

The congregational crowd was a powerful mode of political communication in the nineteenth-century US until banished by the imposition of literate modes on popular electoral politics by Progressive reformers. We examine its major channels of expression, bodily mass communication and public sensationalism, within a framework of class-based struggle, observing that the practice of live bodily assembly created broad points of entry into political life, socialized the young, and successfully conveyed the importance of voting. A text-based normative model of the informed deliberative voter, we argue, offers too narrow a conception of participation compared to a more spaciously conceived democratic community.     

The Creation of Defensiveness in Social Interaction II: A Model of Defensive Communication among Romantic Couples

This investigation extends the work of Stamp, Vangelisti, and Daly (1992 Stamp, G. H., Vangelisti, A. L. and Daly, J. A. 1992. The creation of defensiveness in social interaction. Communication Quarterly, 40: 177–190. [Taylor & Francis Online] , [Google Scholar]) and others by explicating the multifaceted process of defensive communication among romantic couples. Qualitative data were derived from self-reports about a distinct episode of defensive communication in individual interviews, as well as direct analysis of couples’ communication in joint interviews. The proposed theoretical model reflects a more comprehensive, holistic, and precise framework that accounts for the triggers, core episode, outcomes, and contexts of defensive communication. The detailed model, which draws attention to interactive and person-centered features of defensive communication, is illustrated through the narrative account of one couple. Eleven data-based postulates are offered to fuel and focus subsequent investigations.     

Part 2: The Determination of Web Credibility: A Theoretical Model Derived From Qualitative Data

Previous research uncovered 12 factors impacting Web credibility judgments: authority, page layout, site motive, URL, crosscheckability, user motive, content, date, professionalism, site familiarity, process, and personal beliefs. These factors are examined in terms of general trends as they pertain to the three groups that provided the data: undergraduate students, graduate students, and faculty. A theoretical model is created from the data to describe the process through which web users make web credibility judgments.     

Managing Patient-centered Communication across the Type 2 Diabetes Illness Trajectory: A Grounded Practical Theory of Interactional Sensitivity

This article uses the theoretical and methodological framework of Grounded Practical Theory (GPT) to provide a lens for analyzing and interpreting discourse as a situated form of social action in routine Type 2 diabetes visits. Drawing on a total data-set of 400 audio-recorded routine visits, we randomly selected 55 visits for qualitative analysis. In this article, we use Conversation Analysis to document communication techniques, which we in turn use as evidence to ground our claims within the GPT framework. We use two single cases of interaction to analyze communication techniques physicians use when recommending a change from oral medication to insulin. We argue treatment intensification is a key moment in health communication to reflect about patient centeredness because physicians can find themselves in an interactional dilemma: while insulin may effectively help control unstable disease, an insulin recommendation may simultaneously counter patient values and treatment preferences. Our analysis suggests that physicians use what we call interactional sensitivity to balance medical need and patient preferences when making medical decisions by tailoring their communication according to the local situation and the patient's larger illness trajectory. We propose that interactional sensitivity is a type of communication work and a quality of patient-centered communication characterized by the theoretical relationship between tailoring communication to the contingencies of the local interaction and the global illness trajectory. Overall, this article contributes to health communication scholarship by proposing a normative model for reflecting on how physicians negotiate challenging interactions with patients during routine chronic illness visits.     

A Call to Educate,Participate, Invoke and Indict: Understanding the Communication of Online Hate Groups

This study analyzes the messages in hate group websites using a grounded theory approach. Through this process of interpretive inquiry we propose four prominent themes—educate, participate, invoke, and indict—that characterize the messages examined in 21 hate groups. These message themes speak to the: (a) education of members and external publics; (b) participation within the group and in the public realm; (c) invocation of divine calling and privilege; and (d) indictment of external groups including the government, media, and entertainment industries, and other extremist sects. In advancing a substantive grounded theory of online hate group communication, we also explore the potential of these themes to ostensibly reinforce the hate group's identity, reduce external threats, and recruit new members.     

Climategate: A Case Study in the Intersection of Facticity and Conspiracy Theory

In 2009, the Climate Research Unit had over 1,000 private e-mails stolen and made publicly available. Quickly, several of the e-mails were widely reported in the media: supposedly providing proof of conspiracy among scientists supporting the Anthropogenic Climate Change hypothesis. Despite the inaccuracy of the accusations, the charge of conspiracy stuck. In this essay, I argue that a set of interrelated variables (existing anti-elitism, the consistency of the charge with existing ideology, the perceived accuracy of the narrative, and the poor rhetorical response by the accused) caused the Climategate conspiracy to resonate even after the charge was proven false. This essay adds to contemporary rhetorical theory about conspiracy theory by considering variables beyond paranoid style and accuracy of the charge.     

Close encounters of the digital kind: A research agenda for the digitalization of public services

This paper contributes to e-government research by presenting a review and discussion on how digitalization of public services has affected the interaction between citizens and government. We argue for a conceptualization and critical reflection on the nature of the underlying interaction between citizens and public officials - the public encounter - that digital public services are developed to support. We apply a qualitative and hermeneutic approach and illustrate that digital public services change public encounters concerning when, where, and how interactions occur, what each actor does, and the skills required of them. By relating these changes to emerging digital technologies (e.g. data mining, machine learning, sensor technology, and service automation), we illustrate that while these new technologies carry the potential to further digitalize service provision and fulfill the democratic goals of digital government, authorities can apply the same technology to restrict, control, and surveil citizens. Based on a critical discussion on what digitalization might entail for society, we identify problem areas arising from this development and propose a research agenda for understanding this phenomenon further. We raise questions and ethical concerns regarding accountability and reskilling of citizens and public officials as public service provision becomes citizen self-service.