Bakhtin Applied: Employing Dialogism to Analyze the Interplay of the Ideologies of Individualism and Community Within the Discourse of Alcoholics Anonymous

An ongoing debate regarding the nature of therapeutic communities concerns the extent to which these communities reinforce the ideologies of individualism and community. This article engages this discussion through a process of social text analysis informed by the dialogism theory of Russian philosopher and literary scholar Mikhail Bakhtin. Dialogism seeks to understand the multiple voices interpenetrating particular utterances, revealing an emergent social construction of meaning. Applying this approach to examples of discourse from a prominent therapeutic community, Alcoholics Anonymous, illustrates how meaning in the discourse of this movement can be understood to emerge among the interplay between the ideologies of individualism and community as expressed within the movement's narrative practice.     

Forschungs- und Entwicklungsprojekte

Zusammenfassung. Information ist der wichtigste Grundbegriff der Informatik. Ein semantischer Ansatz erklärt Information als Bedeutung einer Nachricht für ihren Empfänger. Als Folge davon hängt der Informationsgehalt einer Datei, einer Datenbank, eines Buches oder eines Filmes von der Interpretation ab, die ein Nutzer vornehmen kann oder gerade vornimmt. Informationsmaße werden sowohl von der Lesbarkeit einer Nachricht als auch von der Qualität des Interpreten bestimmt. Information kann neu entstehen, verloren gehen oder verändert werden.CR Subject Classification: E.4, H.1     

Organizational Power and the Institutional Review Board

In this essay, we respond to the narratives and essays in this issue by examining organizational power issues related to researchers and institutional research boards (IRBs). Rather than taking a singular perspective on power, we use multiple perspectives and suggest that the cumulative analyses provide the best understanding of IRBs and organizational power.     

Online Celebrity Bashing: Wrecking Ball or Good for You? Adolescent Girls’ Attitudes Toward the Media and Public Bashing of Miley Cyrus and Selena Gomez

Journalists and readers of celebrity news regularly bash celebrities online, a behavior that is easily accepted among adolescents. This study investigates whether these attitudes of acceptance differ according to the perpetrator of the bashing (media versus public) and the likeability of the involved celebrity (liked versus disliked). Using a vignette study, we examine adolescent girls’ attitudes toward media (journalists’) and public (readers’) bashing of a generally disliked celebrity (Miley Cyrus) and a generally liked celebrity (Selena Gomez). All participants read an identical negative news story (media bashing) and two related negative reader comments (public bashing). Participants were randomly assigned to read this information about either Miley Cyrus or Selena Gomez. Results of a mixed-design ANOVA showed that the girls had less negative attitudes toward media bashing compared with public bashing. Moreover, they more easily accepted the bashing of a disliked celebrity than the bashing of a liked celebrity.     

The Motivations of Book Publishers in Germany and Australia: An Empirical Comparison

Our study compares the motivations of Australian and German book publishers. The results demonstrate remarkable similarities, but also a significant difference regarding the effects of the publishers’ self-concept. In the German case the publishers with a dominant economic orientation are more proactive than the publishers with a dominant cultural orientation. In the Australian case, this correlation does not exist. The same difference holds for the relationship between the economic orientation and extrinsic motivation. We discuss these results and examine empirical evidence and theoretical suggestions to explain the differing findings. The data stem from surveys conducted in the two countries with responses of 196 (Germany) and 54 publishers (Australia).     

The Librarian BFF: A Case Study of a Cohort-Based Personal Librarian Program

This case study presents the development and implementation of a personal librarian program for a cohort-based, executive-style higher education administration doctoral program. Librarians and the program director collaborated to create a student-centered program based on individual research needs. The personal librarian program was designed to build a close relationship between the librarian and individual students; to help identify their research knowledge gaps; and to identify resources to meet each individual students' research needs.     

Teaching PEACE: A plan for effective crisis communication instruction

Courses: This unit activity is intended for public relations (PR), crisis communication, or journalism courses.

Objectives: The purpose is to equip future PR professionals with critical thinking skills and experience to manage crises. Students demonstrate mastery in two ways: by crafting clear crisis response messages and materials in a narrow time frame, and by applying a crisis communication heuristic to manage a simulated crisis event.