SU Communication Arts Department

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Now showing 1 - 8 of 8

Taking care, bringing Life: A post-structuralist feminist analysis of maternal discourses of mothers and dais in India
(2017-02-03) Agarwal, Vinita
My poststructuralist feminist reading of the antenatal and birthing practices of women (N=25) living in a basti in India makes visible how the meanings of maternal experiences constituted as our ways open discursive spaces for the mothers and dais as procreators to: challenge (i.e., question the authority of), co-opt (i.e., conditionally adopt), and judge (i.e., employ sanctioned criteria to regulate) competing knowledge production forms. In critiquing maternal knowledge as feminist discourse, the women’s strategies contribute theoretically to an integrative construction of care by reclaiming displaced knowledge discourses and diversity in meaning production. Pragmatically, consciousness-raising collectives comprising the mothers and dais can co-create narratives of our ways of maternal experiences articulated in public discourse to sustain equitability of knowledge traditions in migrant urban Third World contexts.
Investigating the convergent validity of organizational trust
(2013) Agarwal, Vinita
Purpose: Organizational trust is an important construct for organizational and public relations scholars and practitioners for its influence on key organizational outcomes yet the convergent validity of organizational trust instruments has not been investigated by any study. Design/Methodology/Analyses: IRB approval was obtained for a cross sectional study design gathering self-reports from participants through an online data gathering system of a large Midwestern university in the USA. Correlational matrices along with exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses adapting the multitrait-multimethod matrix were employed for data analysis (Campbell and Fiske, 1959). Findings: The three trust measures demonstrate mixed evidence of convergent validity with each other and with a theoretically correlated construct, organizational identification demonstrating that while the three measures share the same conceptual ground, there is a need to clarify their underlying theoretical specification, especially with respect to organizational identification. Research Limitations/Implications: Future large scale studies can extend the findings based on a student population by employing multiple and diverse data sets as well as investigate method variance. Practical Implications: Recommendations to improve convergent validity include: (a) increasing item parsimony to decrease redundancy, (b) revise item construction, and (c) improved theoretical specification investigating the conceptual boundaries organizational identification with trust. Originality/Value: The study provides empirical evidence for the need for greater conceptual and operational clarification of the theoretical bases of trust. It is the first to advance research on trust in organizations by providing empirical support for the convergent validity of organizational trust measures assessed from organizational, interpersonal, and public relations perspectives.
A/H1N1 vaccine intentions in college students: An application of the theory of planned behavior
(2014-04-29) Agarwal, Vinita
Objective: To test the applicability of the theory of planned behavior (TPB) in college students who have not previously received the A/H1N1 vaccine. Participants: Undergraduate communication students at a metropolitan southern university. Methods: In January—March 2010, students from voluntarily participating communication classes completed a hard-copy survey assessing TPB and clinically significant constructs. Hierarchical regression equations predicted variance in vaccine intentions of students who had not received a flu shot (N = 198, 70% Caucasian). Results: The TPB model explained 51.7% (p < .001) of variance in vaccine intentions. Controlling for side effects, self-efficacy and perceived comparative susceptibility predicted intentions when entered in the first block, while attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control significantly contribute when entered in the second block. Conclusions: For students who have not previously received a flu vaccine, vaccine communication should utilize self-efficacy and perceived comparative susceptibility to employ the TPB to promote vaccine intentions.
Communicative re-construction of resilience labor: Identity/Identification in disaster-relief workers
(2015-10-02) Agarwal, Vinita; Buzzanell, Patrice M.
Drawing from the structurational theory of identification (Scott, Corman, & Cheney, 1998) and resilience theory (Buzzanell, 2010), our inquiry provides insight into the sustainability of disaster-relief worker involvement and the discursive processes whereby workers overcome emotional and physical challenges to create resilience labor. Analyzing 23 semi-structured interviews with disaster-relief workers of a non-profit organization, we define resilience labor as the dual-layered process of reintegrating transformative identities and identifications to sustain and construct ongoing organizational involvement and resilience. The identification frames align with familial, ideological, and destruction-renewal network ties that empower individuals to construct their identities in transformative ways. The frames can guide non-profit managers and volunteers working in extreme contexts characterized by societal conflicts or disruption to sustain themselves as they construct resilience labor.
Mainstreaming disaster-relief service-learning in communication departments: Integrating communication pedagogy, praxis, and engagement
(2016) Agarwal, Vinita
Communication is the primary mode through which students inculcate critical thinking skills for (re)construction of social reality and engagement with communities in need (Craig, 1989). Thus it is well-suited to disaster-relief service-learning approaches that provide a pathway for democratic engagement with the material consequences of inequality evidenced in disasterstruck communities. Communication administrators can advocate for disaster-relief servicelearning programs by aligning theoretically-informed student input in faculty–administration partnerships to construct transformative learning experiences sustaining trusting relationships. This study is the first to employ the theory of planned behavior (Ajzen, 1986) to identify themes comprising student composite disaster-relief volunteering belief-structure and disaster-relief volunteering intentions elicited by surveys (N=352) and theme analyses of qualitative data. The findings center the role of communication administrators in integrating disaster-relief pedagogies and advocating for institutional initiatives that bridge “thought to action, theory to practice” (Boyer, 1994, p. A48) around the vital social issues evoked by disaster-relief contexts.
Breaking boundaries: Complementary and alternative medicine provider framing of preventive care
(2017-08-26) Agarwal, Vinita
This textual examination extends understandings of how complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) providers constitute preventive care in their discourse by identifying the frame of breaking boundaries referencing relational, structural, and philosophical orientations in their practice with their clients. Analysis of semistructured, in-depth interviews with CAM providers (n = 17) reveals that the frame of breaking boundaries was comprised of three themes: finding one’s own strength; I don’t prescribe, so I’m exploring; and ground yourself, and have an escape route. The themes describe preventive care by identifying how CAM providers negotiate their relational positionality in connecting with clients, structural positionality within the field of health care, and philosophical positionality within the ontological understandings that guide how health is defined and conceptualized. The study contributes toward enhancing diverse understandings of constituting preventive care in practice and suggests pragmatic implications for addressing biomedical provider communication with their patients seeking CAM care alongside conventional treatments.
The provider’s body in the therapeutic relationship: How complementary and alternative medicine providers describe their work as healers
(2018-06-20) Agarwal, Vinita
Although the body is central to health outcomes, the provider’s body has been largely absent in the provider–patient relationship. Drawing upon semi-structured interviews with complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) providers (N = 17), this study examines how CAM providers use their body to characterize their work as healers. The findings suggest the provider’s self-reflexive awareness of their own body’s illness and faith experiences informs their understanding of the patients’ experience of health and disease. The study foregrounds the intersubjective nature of the provider–patient relationship as an embodied interaction in the mutual construction of therapeutic goals. Provider reflection on their own bodies to make sense of their patients’ experiences emphasizes provider–patient coproduction of meaning and suggests ways for including the provider’s self-reflexive awareness of their own body in a patient-centered healthcare relationship in ways that benefit both the patient and the provider.
Complementary and alternative medicine provider knowledge discourse on holistic health
(Frontiers in Communication, 2018-04-12) Agarwal, Vinita
Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) promises a wide array of therapies employed increasingly by consumers for disease prevention and health promotion. Despite this increasing use, however, CAM and biomedical paradigms are often not combined effectively in the US. The lack of coordination negatively impacts several aspects of patient care including CAM and biomedical provider-patient relationships and the practice of integrative medicine (IM). The goal of this study is to understand how CAM providers position their knowledge and practice of holistic health within the healthcare landscape in the US. In-depth interviews with CAM providers (N = 17) sampled from practices in the mid-Atlantic region of the US were analyzed for provider descriptions of holistic health. Discourse analysis of CAM provider interviews identifies the three themes employed by CAM providers to describe holistic health as comprising the: (a) epistemologies of legitimization and identity, (b) epistemologies of sense and intuition, and (c) epistemologies of environment and community. The three epistemologies define holistic health by organizing diverse knowledge foundations through reconciling and integrating differences, including diverse modes of evidence such as non-empirical forms of whole body experiences, and privileging the relational praxis through integrating the individual's biological and sociocultural environment. The epistemologies illuminate how CAM knowledge and practice is positioned as alternative within the sociocultural context of the participants and reflect CAM providers' challenges in carving out a distinct knowledge space reflecting their professional identity. CAM providers' discourse encompasses the ontological and experiential-relational praxis to foreground health as a mutually constitutive, ongoing process of granting legitimacy to diverse sense-making ontologies of medicine within a continuum of provider-patient meaning-making. Theoretically, CAM knowledge of holistic health integrates the experiential praxis of the patient's spiritual and physiological self and the relational praxis of the patient's biological-sociocultural-epigenetic relationships in the conceptualization and delivery of health outcomes. The study findings recommend including CAM knowledge discourses to inform the epistemological foundations of basic medicine. Pragmatically, the study recommends support for efforts to include credentialing of CAM practitioner teaching within allopathic healthcare institutions, faculty development within existing allopathic health professional schools, and incorporation of CAM content in allopathic medical education and practice.

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