The theme of the conference, “Un-Convention-al,” encourages participants “to examine communication within the discipline, society or world through a literal, metaphorical, or virtual lens.”
USC Annenberg faculty participants include:
Communication professor emeritus Walter Fisher is a respondent in the Nov. 23 session "Rhetorics of Globalization: Conceptual and Contextual antecedents from Political Economy," which is part of the unit "Rhetorical and Communication Theory Division."
Other graduate and doctoral students representing Annenberg and presenting papers at the NCA Conference include:
Amelia Arsenault, Patrick W. Belanger, Christopher Chavez, Jae Eun Chung, Marcia A. Dawkins, Fan Dong, Ryan Gillespie, Elizabeth Gotha, Jonathan Gratch, Deborah Hanan, Searle Huh, Shawna Kelly, Zoltan P. Majdik, Matthew D. Matsaganis, Robert McCann, Eleanor G. Morrison, Lauren Bree Movius, Shuya Pan, Gregory H. Patton, Joe Jin Phua, Carrie Anne Platt, Shawn Powers, Steven F. Rafferty, Robindra Ratan, Stephen R. Robertson, William Scott Sanders, Janel S. Schuh, Courtney Schultz, D. Travers Scott, Nupur Sen, Cuihua Shen, Paolo Sigismondi, Ha Yeon Song, Laurance Paul Strait, Nikki B. Usher, Don J. Waisanen, Cara Wallis, Diana M. Winkelman, Li Xiong.
Doctoral candidates Scott Sanders, Christopher Chavez, D. Travers Scott and Ryan Gillespie had the opportunity to practice their presentation in front of a panel of communication experts, including Monge, Ball-Rokeach, Goodnight and School of Communication director Larry Gross at USC Annenberg on Nov. 17.
Sanders, whose paper explores the role of social-networking Web sites in the development of relationships, hopes that his research will effectively examine the information-seeking strategies that lead to “uncertainty reduction” on sites such as Facebook.
“Rather than turning to sites as repositories of social information or to identify other people who might be able to tell the user about the person,” said Sanders, “social-networking sites’ importance appears to lie in its role as a channel of interaction with others.”
Chavez, who is presenting two papers at the NCA conference – as is Travers Scott – is focusing on both the consumer and spiritual activity of Latino communities. The first, 'Beyond the Binary: A Meaning Based Approach to Hispanic Advertising,' will be presented as part of a top papers panel in Latina/o Communications Studies division and deals with how Latino consumers actively interpret Hispanic advertising messages. The second, 'Storytelling Parish: An Examination of Catholic Parishes as Sites of Community Discourse in Latino Immigrant Neighborhoods,' addresses the role that Catholic parishes play as sites of community storytelling in ethnically mixed communities.
“Both papers are part of my research program that looks at important narrative systems in bilingual and bicultural communities,” said Chavez. “I'm particularly interested in these groups because they are often in the position of negotiating dual, sometimes contradictory meaning systems. My goal going into this conference is not only to share my work with other scholars working in this area but also to gain new insights into the topic.”
Scott’s papers, "The Postfeminist User: Interactivity, Agency, and Gender" and "Sounds of Sickness: Audio-Technology Diseases and the Gendered Technological Subject," are designed to complement his dissertation research – and, in the case of his feminist theory paper, to revise another ready-for-publication piece on postfeminist culture and its interaction with communication technologies like film and television. Travers will use as media examples the Final Destination film series and the reality series Big Brother. “The Sounds of Sickness” paper, said Travers, looks at “perceived associations” between electric communication technologies and mental and physical illness as a way to examine expectations and ideals of technological usership, while “The Postfeminist User” is being revised for publication in the journal Feminist Media Studies.
“With both papers I hope to have useful dialogue and feedback that will further help me refine my thinking and research on these related projects," Scott said.
Annenberg Fellow and Ph.D. student Gillespie looked at the interplay of power and resistance in his paper, “Resistance is Submission: Love, Subject[ion] and the Unconventional in the Age of Global Capitalism.” In it, Gillespie said, unconventional approaches to communication theory will be examined.
"My paper analyzes and critiques the power/resistance formulation that maintains a hegemony in communication studies,” Gillespie said. "It is a view that leaves agents caught between a nonviolent multiplicity of resistances on the one hand, which often forces fragmentation that forecloses on critical mass to effect change, or, legitimating violence in the name of progressivism, morality, equality, etc. on the other hand. In using the conference theme, I suggest that an unconventional approach to theorizing subjection might shift focus away from power-centric discursive or psychoanalytic formations by instead positing a nondiscursive view of love in which service is a mindful, willful act of submission.”
Said Gillespie: “I was very grateful for the opportunity to give a preview of my presentation at the Annenberg Research Seminar. Presenting my paper to our world-class faculty and doctoral students was a humbling experience, and I now feel more prepared to give my talk at the conference."
