Thesis (D. Min.)--Denver Conservative Baptist Seminary, 1998. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 135-151).

Thesis (D. Miss.)--Western Seminary, Portland, Or., 2000. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 202-212).

Thesis (D. Min.)--New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, 1999. / Includes abstract and vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 76-79).

Thesis (D. Min.)--Northern Baptist Theological Seminary, Lombard, Ill., 2001. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 169-177).

Thesis (M.A.)--York University, 2002. Graduate Programme in Psychology. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 46-55). Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL: http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/yorku/fullcit?pMQ71578.

This study employed a qualitative approach to explore the factors that contribute to positive change and growth following a natural disaster. The qualitative methodology included narrative interviews and family group interviews that were conducted with six families in Florida that had experienced two or three hurricanes within six weeks in 2004. Narrative analysis and thematic analysis were used to discover what factors contributed to participants experiencing positive growth. Participants described the experience of surviving and coping with the hurricane. Participants reported that preparation before a hurricane was a three-part process that involved physical, mental, and emotional preparation. Four actions were referred to as helpful to stay positive during a hurricane: (a) drawing on family, friends, and neighbors for continual emotional support; (b) keeping occupied with a fun activity; (c) leaning on religious faith; (d) and listening to up-to-date information. Families described nine sources of support that enabled them to cope after the hurricane: (a) the government, (b) charitable organizations, (c) homeowner's insurance, (d) family, (e) friends, (f) religious faith, (g) stories, (h) life perspective, and (i) music. Participants reported eight factors that encouraged adversarial growth. Communicating emotional support within relationships was the most commonly cited factor in recovery and growth after a hurricane, followed by worldview, appreciation, religious faith, patience, self-reliance, teamwork, and creativity. A holistic approach to disaster planning that includes consideration of those elements that contribute to positive growth for the survivor is recommended. Further research is needed to understand how to facilitate adversarial growth among disaster survivors through emotional support and interpersonal networks.

We live in a frantic, fractured, ever-quickening, and violent world that is at the end of the era in which we will be able to talk with survivors of the Shoah. To date, there have been approximately 100,000 recorded interviews of Holocaust survivors. The vast majority of these interviews--such as the 52,000 done for Steven Spielberg's and USC Shoah Foundation Archive--have used traditional, single-session, and "neutral" methods of oral history interviewing to "capture" and "preserve" the legalistic, historical "testimonies" of survivors. The present study responds to this situation and unique moment in time by slowing down, listening, speaking repeatedly and intimately, forming interpersonal relationships, and storytelling with three Holocaust survivors in the Tampa Bay area: Salomon Wainberg, Manuel Goldberg, and Sonia Wasserberger. I do this in order to see those I work with as experiential authorities able to help me address the classic and post-modern issues of human meaning, connection, and value in the post-Holocaust world. I first contextualize this work within extant and related research in the field of communication. Then I situate this project in the broader intersections of work on the history of the Holocaust and Holocaust survivors. This is followed by an outline of the particular collaborative oral history and ethnographic theories and methods that influence this work. These contexts lead to three chapters, the ethnographic stories of each survivor I have worked with for the past three years. Each story focuses on: a) the oral history and ethnographic significance of sharing particularities of each survivor's experience through our dialogues together; b) broader insights and explorations of the central themes (compassion, identification, and affinity) that emerged from our interviews and relationships. The final chapter concludes by reflecting on and synthesizing the values and limitations of this project. As a whole, this dissertation cultivates and exemplifies: a) a unique understanding of humane and humanistic approaches to ethnographic methods in the fields of communication and oral history; b) compassion, identification, and affinity as important lenses and motives to consider in research with individuals (in particular individual survivors of mass atrocities); c) the historical value and need to continue developing diverse approaches to scholarship that centralize personal stories, dialogue, peace, wisdom, and work that represents marginalized experiences and experiences of marginalization in a violent, oppressive world. This dissertation is offered as a token of remembrance of the Holocaust and to those who shared their stories with me.

According to many, the legal industry is currently suffering from a professionalism problem. The following dissertation is a response to the question, "What can be done about incivility in the practice of law in Florida?" It begins by exploring the literature examining ethics and professionalism, specifically focusing on the role communication plays in the production and reification of patterns of meaning and action. After contextualizing the professionalism problem socio-culturally and historically, the dissertation next provides an overview of some relevant aspects of the Coordinated Management of Meaning (a theoretical communication framework employed to help make sense of the existing state of affairs) and examines how legal scholars and practitioners can begin to communicate their way out of the problem. Following the literature review, the dissertation outlines four research questions and addresses the study's use of the World Cafe design principles and methodology for examining the "professionalism problem." Finally, the dissertation concludes by relating four key findings and an observation as well as addressing five ways in which the research has practical and theoretical implications. In embracing CMM to analyze the conversational patterns and practices of law as they relate to ethics and professionalism, this research theoretically aligns primarily with the sociocultural tradition with some critical and cybernetic overtones. While there are many ways one might examine the professionalism problem, CMM offers an exemplary lens with which to both analyze the problem and proffer a discursive pathway out of the problem. From a communication perspective, the problematics of ethics and professionalism in the practice of law can be understood to originate in the inherent polysemy of language and the incommensurability of moral orders deriving from alternative forms of communication.

Stereotype threat is the cognitive pressure certain individuals feel when they believe their performance on a particular task might confirm a negative stereotype about their group. The purpose of this dissertation was to investigate the possible negative influence of stereotype threat on mixed-sex dyadic encounters by objectively and subjectively measuring their verbal accommodation behaviors. Sex-stereotypes were manipulated (men have greater logical intelligence than women; women have greater social intelligence than men) while participants engaged in multiple mixed-sex interactions. Four patterns emerged when analyzing the presence of both objective and subjective communication accommodation behaviors. First, women were more likely than men to objectively demonstrate accommodation behaviors such as hedges, questions, fillers, and back-channel responses. Second, most participants used less accommodation behaviors over time. Third, comparing the objective and subjective expressions of accommodation behaviors revealed no relationship--in other words, people may report one thing, but third-party accounts point toward different results. Finally, the way people judge a stranger's overall character is highly correlated to their perception of his/her verbal accommodation behaviors. This dissertation concludes with future recommendations for interpersonal communication scholars interested in stereotype threat research. / text

This dissertation is a micro-analysis of one particular type of communicative practice, the "mise-en-scène communication," which emerges as people talk and build scenery in their everyday work experiences in a theater consulting company in Taiwan. This dissertation engages in interaction analyses of participants' naturally occurring talk and face-to-face interaction in the set design meetings. Three findings are documented. First, mise-en-scène communication is multimodal. The participants use visual representations to communicate. These visual representational tools include architectural drawings, scale models, miniature props, and 3-D models and animations. The use of visual representations and communicative resources of language, gestural and postural conduct, the material surround, and physical objects enable the participants to visually communicate, envision, and construct scenes in and through talk and interaction. Second, mise-en-scène communication concerns three key organizing, work practices of creating an entirety of the theatrical space, including the scene-setting practice, the staging practice, and the measuring practice. This study finds that in these three major mise-en-scène practices identified, the theater artists express and formulate scenes and dramatic ideas in their talk. At the same time, they also frequently turn to bodily conduct as a source of insight into configuring, expressing, and formulating dramatic scenes. Third, the architectural drawings, the scale models, the props in miniature, and the computer simulations of theater space provide a material, perceptual field, which shapes embodied interaction systematically performed within it. The architectural drawings enable the participants to project the perceivable space through language and bodily behaviors. The miniature model and objects in a set create a full stage of symbolic communication in which scenes are arranged and dramas are spoken and created. Moreover, the theater artists manage to use language, gestures, and semiotic resources of the computer program, Maya, and its design interface to communicate and build 3-D scenes together. This research concludes that the plurality of channels exists in human communication. The micro-analysis of mise-en-scène communication reveals such a communicative process in which the participants draw on multiple modalities to visually construct theatrical meaning out of the set of visualization objects. / text