Framing processes in public commentary on US federal tobacco control regulation

Governmental health policy officials increasingly seek to promote public participation in expert and technical decisions regarding health regulation. The issues of what r?le the public plays in regulatory processes, and how health policy officials orient to public opinion, matter especially in the US context, where public commentary is a requisite component of federal rule-making. This paper examines written commentary as one specific, institutionalized form of public participation. To understand the relationship between scientific evidence and public commentary in public health regulation, we examine a US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulation, proposed in 1995, to restrict the promotion and sale of tobacco products to minors. We use recent work on collective action frames to analyse how the FDA framed the proposed regulation as a rational, science-based policy; the discursive practices employed in the public commentary either to embrace or to contest the FDA's framing; and how the agency presented the final version of its rule as responsive to that public commentary. Our content analyses reveal a significant disparity between the FDA's emphasis on scientific evidence and the commentators' emphases on political and ideological frames, which we analyse in terms of counter-framing. An orientation to the dynamics of framing and counter-framing contributes to an understanding of the relationship between scientific evidence and public commentary in the formulation of controversial health policy regulations.     

Cultivating consubstantiality with the land institute: Organizational rhetoric and the role of place-making in generating organizational identification

This essay examines the organizational rhetoric of the Land Institute in order to address the ways place-making contributes to the inducement of organizational identification (OI). In addition to defining place-making as a practice of cultivating arrangements, the essay unpacks two ways in which a strategically arranged place facilitates OI: (a) materializing the places and times imagined in textual materials, and (b) generating encounters with OI targets. By analyzing the Land Institute’s Prairie Festival alongside discursive materials, the essay also demonstrates how organizations take control of place’s inherently inventive character and thoroughly distributed rhetoricity in order to achieve organizational ends. In order to make these arguments, the essay employs a critical method that operates through both field immersion and textual criticism.     

“More alike than different”: learning about diversity from people with disabilities

Courses: Interpersonal Communication, Health Communication, Intercultural Communication

Objectives: After completing this semester-long activity students, should be able to (1) apply course concepts (i.e., stereotypes, identity, listening, language, and conflict) to diverse real-world scenarios; (2) explain the utility of intergroup contact theory in relationship to communication and social diversity; (3) critically reflect on social diversity explored through communication behaviors; and (4) develop communication competence toward diverse others, specifically persons with disabilities (PWDs).     

Experiences,activities, and personal characteristics as predictors of engagement in STEM-focused summer programs

Out-of-school-time programs for youth that are focused on STEM content are often seen as affording opportunities to increase youth engagement, interest, and knowledge in STEM domains, yet we know relatively little about how youth actually experience such programs. In this article, we explore how experiences and activities employed in the delivery of summer STEM programs are associated with youth engagement during programming, and whether youth characteristics moderate these relationships. Data were collected from 203 youth (ages 10–16) in nine summer programs using multiple methods including video, experience sampling, and surveys. Through the use of cross-classified, multi-level models, we found that youth reported higher engagement in program activities they perceived to be more challenging and relevant, and in activities, they perceived to have more affordances for learning or developing skills. Gender moderated these relationships such that the positive relationships observed among males were muted or nonexistent for girls. We further identify that program activities are differently associated with fostering challenge, relevance, and learning. Findings have implications for out-of-school STEM programming for youth.     

Seeding subversion and the Christian reformed church’s study report on “homosexuality”

ABSTRACT

This essay develops and uses a critical lens of “seeding” to read the Christian Reformed Church’s 1973 report on “homosexuality.” Although the report maintains a seemingly conservative stance and has been used to marginalize GLBTQ people, it contains and promotes affirming beliefs about same-sex relationships that constitute the groundwork necessary to argue for denominational transformation. The report invites and empowers resistance against its own ostensible conclusions. This essay deepens understanding about how evasive rhetorics enable change and how critics can intervene to promote the transformation invited by subversive seeds.     

Terra Populus: Workflows for Integrating and Harmonizing Geospatial Population and Environmental Data

The Terra Populus project (TerraPop) addresses a variety of data management, curation, and preservation challenges with respect to spatiotemporal population and environmental data. In this article, we describe our approaches to these challenges, with a particular focus on geospatial data workflows and associated provenance metadata. The goal of TerraPop is to enable research, learning, and policy analysis by providing integrated spatiotemporal data describing people and their environment. To do so, TerraPop is assembling a globe-spanning and temporally extensive collection of high-quality population and environmental data, ensuring good documentation, and developing a Web-based data access system that enables users to assemble customized integrated data sets drawing on a variety of data sources and formats. We describe TerraPop's collection strategies, detail the geospatial workflows involved in preparing data for ingest into the project database and those used to transform data across formats for dissemination, and discuss the system used to capture and manage provenance metadata throughout the project. A key aspect of the project is the development of global current and historical administrative unit boundaries that can be linked to census data. These boundaries serve as the linchpin of TerraPop's data integration strategy, and constitute an important data set in their own right.     

Speech Is Dead; Long Live Speech

EARLY REAGAN: THE RISE TO POWER. By Anne Edwards. New York: William Morrow &; Co, Inc., 1987; pp. 491 + appendices. $21.95.

DOCUMENTARY AND THE MASS MEDIA. Edited by John Corner. Baltimore, MD: Edward Arnold Publishers, 1986; pp. xiv + 178. Paper $19.95.

THE ETHICS OF READING: KANT, de MAN, ELIOT, TROLLOPE, JAMES, AND BENJAMIN. By J. Hillis Miller. New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 1987; pp. 138. $20.00.

FOUR THEORIES OF MYTH IN TWENTIETH‐CENTURY HISTORY. By Ivan Strenski. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1987; pp. vii + 234. $22.50.

THE RHETORIC OF THE HUMAN SCIENCES: LANGUAGE AND ARGUMENT IN SCHOLARSHIP AND PUBLIC AFFAIRS. Edited by John S. Nelson, Allan Megill, and Donald N. McCloskey. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1987; pp xiii + 445. $24.00.

IMAGING AMERICAN WOMEN: IDEA AND IDEALS IN CULTURAL HISTORY. By Martha Banta. New York: Columbia University Press, 1987; pp. xviii + 844. $50.00.

GLAS. By Jacques Derrida. Translated by John P. Leavey, Jr. and Richard Rand. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1986; pp 262. $40.00.

GLASSARY. By John P. Leavey, Jr. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1986; pp. 320. $40.00.

THE CULTURE OF CRITICISM AND THE CRITICISM OF CULTURE. By Giles Gunn. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987; pp. xv + 216. $24.95.

MEANING AND MORAL ORDER: EXPLORATIONS IN CULTURAL ANALYSIS. By Robert Withnow. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1987; pp. xiii + 435. $38.50.

HOPE AMONG US YET: SOCIAL CRITICISM AND SOCIAL SOLACE IN DEPRESSION AMERICA. By David P. Peeler. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1987; pp. xi + 340. $35.00.

POWER AND COMMUNICATION. By Andrew King. Prospect Heights, Illinois: Waveland Press Inc., 1987; pp v + 153. Paper $8.95.

HANDBOOK OF ORGANIZATIONAL COMMUNICATION. Edited by Fredric M. Jablin, Linda L. Putnam, Karlene H. Roberts, and Lyman W. Porter, Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1987; pp. 781. $59.95.

THINGS HIDDEN SINCE THE FOUNDATION OF THE WORLD. By René Girard, with Jean‐Michel Oughourlian and Guy Lefort. Trans. by Stephen Bann and Michael Metteer. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1987; pp. 469. $30.00.

MACHIAVELLI AND THE HISTORY OF PRUDENCE. By Eugene Garver. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1987; pp. xiv + 238. $28.50.

LANGUAGE AND TRUTH. By Garth L. Hallett. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988; pp. viii + 234. $21.50.

MARCUS GARVEY LIFE AND LESSONS. Edited by Robert A. Hill and Barbara Bair. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987; pp. xv + 451. $19.95.

GIVING GLORY TO GOD IN APPALACHIA: WORSHIP PRACTICES OF SIX BAPTIST SUBDENOMINATIONS. By Howard Dorgan. Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press, 1987; pp. xxvii + 224. $24.95.

LISTENING TO THE CICADAS: A STUDY OF PLATO'S PHAEDRUS. By G.R.F. Ferrari. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987; pp. xiii + 293. $39.50.

ARISTOTLE: THE DESIRE TO UNDERSTAND. By Jonathan Lear. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988; pp. xi + 328. $39.50; paper $12.95.

RENAISSANCE HUMANISM: FOUNDATIONS, FORMS, AND LEGACY. Volume 3: HUMANISM AND THE DISCIPLINES. Ed. Albert Rabil Jr. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1988; pp. xvii + 692. $51.95.

RHETORIC: ESSAYS IN INVENTION &; DISCOVERY. By Richard McKeon. Edited with an Introduction by Mark Backman. Woodbridge, CT: Oxbow Press, 1987; pp. xxxi + 220. $25.00.

IN DEFENCE OF RHETORIC. By Brian Vickers. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988; pp. xvii + 508. $79.00.     

Transgender and Gender-Nonconforming Student Experiences in Christian Higher Education: A Qualitative Exploration

Religion and spirituality are important in the lives of many transgender and gender-nonconforming (TGNC) individuals. Although TGNC students can make unique contributions to Christian colleges and universities (CCUs), many individuals who identify as both religious and TGNC report rejection from nonaffirming religious communities that view TGNC identities and expression as sinful or psychologically disordered. Additionally, previous research has suggested that TGNC college students experience disproportionately high rates of verbal and sexual harassment, threats, physical assault, and anti-TGNC messaging on college campuses. In order to better understand the experiences of TGNC students who attended nonaffirming CCUs, semistructured interviews were conducted with seven TGNC students and alumni regarding their gender identity, religion, spirituality, campus experiences, and perceptions of campus climate. Data analysis was completed using guidelines consistent with Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (Shaw, 2010). Findings revealed four major themes: (a) invisibility of TGNC individuals and identities on campus, (b) rejection within the college environment, (c) ambivalence and psychological conflict about integrating religion, spirituality, and gender identity, and (d) resilience and the importance of campus support systems. Recommendations for creating greater inclusion of TGNC students on CCU campuses are presented. This study also explores clinical considerations for mental health professionals and student services personnel employed at CCUs.     

Many districts left behind: An individual change analysis of inequity in the Kenyan primary educational opportunities (2001–2007)

The study examined variations in district performance in KCPE national examination in Kenya between 2001 and 2007. The individual change model revealed that district poverty rate was not a significant predictor of either the initial district performance (2001) or the rate of change over the seven-year period. The regional context of North Eastern Province had the lowest initial KCPE performance rates followed by the Gusii districts of Nyanza. However, the model revealed that the KCPE performance rates among districts located in the North Eastern Province are predicted to improve at an annual rate of 10.31 percentage points. The study recommends that educators and policy makers seek ways to address educational under-performance and low participation rates in Kenya without over-reliance on poverty reduction programs alone.