‘The feeling of exclusion’: Young peoples' perceptions of art galleries

This article first looks at the relationship between museums and art galleries and their potential audiences and, in particular, the under-represented sector of young visitors. It examines the main findings from the limited research available on young visitors, and goes on to discuss theories delineating the differences between the cultures, identities and values of culture consumers and culture providers. The second part of the article looks at what specific museums have done towards being more inclusive in their appeal, and then reports the findings of a survey of young people in relation to New Zealand's Auckland Art Gallery. The survey found that young people's ideas of what constitutes modern, relevant art do not match standard art criteria, and that most exhibitions and marketing methods do not mesh with their worldview. The article concludes by using data from the survey to suggest ways of engaging more young people with public art galleries.     

Disciplined freedom,branded authenticity,and dependable independence: how tensions enact flexibility in lifestyle blogging careers

Analyzing 219 blog posts from 52 self-employed women lifestyle bloggers in North America, this study shows how these digital professionals navigate tensions and communicatively constitute work flexibility. In their narratives, women bloggers employed tension management approaches such as reframing, continual connections, and reflective practice in response to tensions in enacting temporal–spatial, identity, and financial flexibility. Specifically, women followed oxymoronic constructions – disciplined freedom, branded authenticity, and dependable independence – to embrace and transform competing poles of fluidity?structure, authenticity?marketability, and independence?interconnection. Expanding work–life research to the self-employed digital labor context, this study responds to recent calls to uncover more-than tension management strategies in empirical settings and contributes to a tension-centered, contextual, and processual analysis of workplace flexibility construction.     

The impact of coworker support and stigma on breastfeeding after returning to work

This study assessed the impact of coworker support on lactating mothers’ breastfeeding self-efficacy after maternity leave. A cross-sectional survey of 1000 working adults assessed effects of perception of fairness, coworkers’ support for breastfeeding colleagues, and ick response on willingness to help mothers needing breaks to pump breastmilk at work. The study also examined how coworker support affected mothers’ self-efficacy to continue breastfeeding. One out of four coworkers showed moderate to strong stigma, saw breaks to pump breastmilk as unfair, and showed less intention to help new mothers. These results suggest that while the majority of coworkers are generally supportive, lactating women are likely to encounter disapproving coworkers who may discourage them from continuing to breastfeed. The data showed that the majority of organizations included in this study have only passively fostered mother-friendly workplaces and could do more to encourage employees to be supportive of lactating colleagues.     

Relational turbulence and perceptions of partner support during reintegration after military deployment

The transition from deployment to reintegration can be stressful for returning military personnel and at-home partners, and support plays a key role in their ability to transition effectively. We draw on relational turbulence theory to advance predictions about how parameters of the relationship between returning service members and at-home partners predict their perceptions of their partner’s support during the post-deployment transition. We surveyed 235 individuals (117 returning service members, 118 at-home partners) who had experienced the transition within the past 6 months. Findings consistent with the theory indicated that relational turbulence partially mediated the negative associations that relational uncertainty and interference from a partner shared with partner support. Partner uncertainty was a direct negative predictor of partner support as well. We consider how these results extend theory, research, and practice.     

Institutional policy process improvement: using structurating activity theory to inform practice

Organizational communication scholars are increasingly called upon to use theoretical knowledge to address problematic processes in public institutions. This article reports a process improvement project focused on a university conflict of interest (COI) policy as an example of how scholars can engage theory to improve ongoing policy processes. The project team included communication scholars and research administration staff who designed, implemented, and evaluated the mixed-methods project guided by structurating activity theory. Baseline survey results were used to design the process improvement project. Results of the follow-up survey indicate that researchers who participated in some aspect of the process improvement project (i.e. attending a policy café, using the redesigned website, or reading the new Quick Reference Guide) reported higher levels of policy communication and knowledge and more positive attitudes toward the COI policy than researchers who had not engaged with process improvement efforts. We offer theoretical and practical implications of results for organizational communication scholars and practitioners.