Communication - October, 2006
from Jerry Baldasty, chair

[Download a Microsoft Word version of the October, 2006 "Communication"]

Research

John Gastil and his colleagues at Yale University and the University of Oregon have received a grant for $282,975 from the National Science Foundation to continue the research on culture and politics that they began in 2003. Their research to date has clarified the extent to which people’s cultural orientations shape their views on public policy issues, and the present funding will make possible a series of experiments using national samples to test the social and psychological processes through which cultural bias operates.

Tema Milstein's paper "'Somethin' Tells Me It's All Happening at the Zoo:' Discourse, Power, and Conservationism in the Contemporary Zoo" will be presented in the Top Paper session of the Environmental Communication Division at the National Communication Association in November in San Antonio, TX. Tema wrote this paper for Deb Kaplan's course titled COM 554 Discourse and the Politics of Resistance.

Phil Howard’s recent book, New Media Campaigns and the Managed Citizen. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006, won the best book award from the Communication & Technology section of the American Sociological Association.

Tony Chan. "Radical Media in Asian Canada: Historical Revision, the Asianadian and Rikka," Asian Profile, 34:4, August 2006, 387-398, with Laura K. Larson.

Tony Chan. "Revisiting Anna May Wong," Orian's Cinemaya, 1:1-2, 2006, 50-54.

Valerie Manusov & Miles Patterson. (2006). The Handbook of Nonverbal Communication. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Lance Bennett. (forthcoming) Democracy at Risk: The Press, Power and Political Accountability During the Iraq Years. Chicago: U. of Chicago Press.

Doug Underwood. “Depression, Drink, and Dissipation: The Troubled Inner World of the Famous Journalist-Literary Figures and Art as the Ultimate Stimulant.” In press, Journalism History.

Fahed Al-Sumait, “Media consumption, (mis)representations, and Muslim stereotypes: A triangulated investigation.” International Conference on Fundamentalism and Media, at the Center for Media, Religion and Culture, at Colorado (Boulder).

Doug Underwood. “The Would-Be Novelist as Disgruntled Journalist: The Relationship between Literary Ambition and Journalists’ Job Satisfaction in the Newsroom.” Newspaper Research Journal. Spring 2006. First author with Dana Bagwell.

Kevin Coe (MA, 2004) David Domke, Sheryl Cunningham, Anna Fahey, and Nancy Van Leuven Hyper-masculinity as ideology and strategy: George W. Bush, the “War on Terrorism,” and an echoing press. Journal of Women, Politics, and Policy. (accepted for publication)

Gendelman, I. and Aiello, G. “Archiving the City”. Paper part of the refereed panel session “Semiotic landscapes, tourism, mobility and globalisation” (organized by Prof. Adam Jaworski, Cardiff University). Sociolinguistics Symposium 16. July 2006, University of Limerick (Ireland).

Aiello, G. “Theoretical advances in critical visual analysis: perception, ideology, mythologies and social semiotics”. Visual Studies Division, International Communication Association Convention. June 2006, Dresden (Germany).

Meghan Dougherty, Ph.C., Communication, developed Wayfinder, a personalizable interface for the Web Campaigning archive. Wayfinder users create personal accounts to browse the large political Web archive referenced in the Web Campaigning book, and can tag and annotate objects from the archive to populate their own collection. Archive readers can learn from each other by browsing all the notes about objects referenced in the Web Campaigning text and add others to their Contacts list to share ideas. With Wayfinder, users can browse and tag the archive to build their own representations and find their way through others’ ideas.

Doug Underwood.“The Problem with Paul: Seeds of the Culture Wars and the Dilemma for Journalists.” Journal of Media and Religion. 5:2 (2006):71-90.

Docan, T. (2006, November). “Deception detection training research (DDTR) meets the needs centered training model: Advantages, shortcomings, and future directions of DDTR for police officers.” National Communication Association.

Meghan Dougherty. "Wayfinder: A tool for tagging the ethnography to equalize sense-making opportunities." Poster presented at the KNAW-Virtual Knowledge StudioVirtual Ethnography in Contemporary Social Science Workshop, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, September 27-29, 2006.

David Domke, Erica S. Graham, Kevin Coe, Sue Lockett John & Ted Coopman.“Going Public and Moving Fast: The Bush Administration, an Echoing Press, and Passage of the Patriot Act.” Political Communication 23, 291-312.

Meghan Dougherty. "Preservation in the Digital Visual Resources Collection." Paper to be presented at the Visual Resources Association Annual Conference, Kansas City, MO, March 2007.

Doug Underwood, "Newspapers as Launching Pads for Literary Careers: A Study of How Today’s Literary-Aspirants in the Newsroom Feel about Daily Journalism’s Role in Developing Literary Talent” (first author with Dana Bagwell), Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, San Francisco.

Gerry Philipsen will travel in early November to the Palais de Nations in Geneva to participate in the first meeting of a small working group that will be advising the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research on in-country research for security needs assessments. This group, which also includes two department Ph.D. graduates, Donal Carbaugh and Tamar Katriel, will be working on incorporating research approaches, that have for many years been developing in this department, into the fieldwork research of the UN. This will be an application of basic research and theory applied to pressing issues of disarmament and security.

Kate Dunsmore, “Counseling African American youth: Drawing on discourse.” Race and Pedagogy National Conference, University of Puget Sound, Tacoma, WA, September 14-16, 2006.

Sue Lockett John, “The Green River Confession: News Treatment of Victims and Co-victims” scholar-to-scholar presentation, Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, Media Ethics Division, 2006 (Finalist for division’s Top Student Paper).

Aiello, G., with Gendelman, I. “Urban Archives”. Invited presentation for “Connecting with the Community: An Institute on the Public Humanities for Doctoral Students, Simpson Center for the Humanities, University of Washington. September 2006.

Morgan, S. J. (2006). Transcending the “barriers” of race and ethnicity: A postethnic and multicultural view of adoption agency websites. International and Intercultural Communication Division: Top Student Paper. Annual Conference of the National Communication Association, San Antonio, TX. November 2006.

Gendelman, I. (Jul. 2006) "The Romantic and Dangerous Stranger," M/C Journal,9(3).

Crispin Thurlow has been awarded a UW Royalty Research Grant ($25,000) to undertake a one-year research project titled "Global mobilities: Super-elite travel and the discursive production of luxury, privilege and class inequality".

Richard Kielbowicz. "The Role of News Leaks in Governance and the Law of Journalists' Confidentiality, 1795-2005," San Diego Law Review (in press for fall 2006 publication).

Kathleen Fearn Banks’ book, Crisis Communications: A Casebook Approach (3rd edition), with teacher's manual and student workbook, is due to be released in November by Lawrence Erlbaum. The new edition includes more theory and chapters on communication programs to fight AIDS in African countries, communications and miscommunications after Hurricane Katrina, Wendy's and the Finger in the Chili, and Columbine High School's shooting incident as well as updated chapters.

Irina Gendelman, “Sex and Politics in Public Bathrooms.” Refereed paper to be presented in the Language and Social Interaction Division and “Faces of Cities” co-authored with Giorgia Aiello, to be presented at the Urban Communication pre-conference of the National Communication Association. San Antonio, TX. 2006

Gina Neff was awarded a grant from the UW Harry Bridges Center for Labor Studies for her project, "Workforce Challenges and Emerging Labor Structures in the U.S. Video Game Industry."

Kirsten Foot. Web Campaigning, the culmination of a 5-year study by Kirsten Foot and Steve Schneider (SUNY Institute of Technology), will be published by MIT Press in October. Drawing on hundreds of archived Web sites, the book integrates perspectives from the fields of political communication and science and technology studies to trace the ways U.S. electoral campaigns evolved in their use of the Web over the 2000, 2002, and 2004 elections-- and point to future trends. Foot and Schneider have also produced an innovative digital installation (available at MIT Press) which illustrates core concepts discussed in the text of the book with examples drawn from archived campaign Web sites. Visitors to the installation have the opportunity to search these concepts in the context of fully operational campaign sites, recreating the Web experience of users during the election periods covered in the book.

Kirsten Foot and Steve Schneider (SUNY Institute of Technology) will present papers at two conferences this fall based on their Web-based research and software development. "Representing Ethnographic Knowledge Online" will be presented at a workshop on online ethnography at the Virtual Knowledge Studio in Amsterdam on October; "Studies of the Web: Empowered by WebArchivist?" will be presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Social Studies of Science and Technology in Vancouver, B.C. in November.

Irina Gendelman, “The City as a Spectacle, Laboratory and Text.” Audiovisual presentation at the Diversity Research Institute’s Place Matters: Seeking Equity in a Diverse Society Conference. 2006

Irina Gendelman, “Archiving the City.” Participated in a competitively selected panel at the Sociolinguistics Symposium 16 at the University of Limerick. Limerick, Ireland. 2006.

Randal A. Beam (2006). “Organizational Goals and Priorities and the Job Satisfaction of U.S. Journalists.” Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly 83 (1, Spring 2006): 169-185. This article was part of Research You Can Use, a new feature of Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly. According to journal, “Several articles in issues of Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly have been highlighted in press releases for industry and other educational groups.”

The journal’s email summarized the article briefly: “Journalists tend to be less satisfied with their jobs if they perceive they work for organizations they believe are strongly profit-oriented, a study finds in the current issue of Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly. And they are more satisfied with their jobs if they think their employers value good journalism. These relationships, however, vary by job role. In a survey of 1,149 print, broadcast and online journalists, researchers found that rank-and-file journalists were more inclined to think that their news organizations place strong emphasis on business goals and priorities.”

Gina Neff's research has been quoted in the New York Times recently in an opinion article on unpaid summer internships as well as in a feature on internships in high school.

Ralina Joseph was awarded an IESUS award of $7,392 for her project, “The New Model Minority: Representations of Mixed-Race African American Women and the Neo-Conservative Fight for “Colorblindness.”

Giorgia Aiello was a panelist in the session “Providing mentored experiences that address graduate students’ instructional interests” (with Donald H. Wulff, Director of the UW Center for Instructional Development and Research, Associate Dean of the UW Graduate School; Elizabeth Feetham, Associate Dean of the Graduate School; Angela Linse, Director of the Teaching and Learning Center at Temple University). Professional and Organizational Development Network in Higher Education Conference. Portland, OR.

Irina Gendelman, “Four questions for the study of Communication and Public Spaces.” Refereed paper presented in the Philosophy of Communication Division of the International Communication Association Conference. Dresden, Germany, 2006

Julie Homchick, "A Comparative Analysis of the Definition of 'Science' within Past and Present Debates over Science and Creationism, " British Society for the History of Science conference on Scientists and Social Commitment, presented at the Science Museum in London, United Kingdom.

Aiello, G., with Gendelman, I. “Alignment in experiential learning: collaborating with undergraduates in a technology-based project”. Roundtable discussion. Professional and Organizational Development Network in Higher Education Conference. Portland, OR.

Aiello, G., with Gendelman, I. and Dobrowolsky, T. “The City as a Spectacle, Laboratory and Text”. Audiovisual presentation at the UW Diversity Research Institute’s Place Matters: Seeking Equity in a Diverse Society Conference. October 2006.

Lynne M. Baab with Robert Stephen Reid, “Art Has its Reasons: The Emerging Role of the Arts in Protestant Congregations, Academy of Homiletics conference, December 2006. Lynne notes, “This analysis uses Bakhtin's concept, heteroglossia. Robert Reid, MA 1990, Ph.D., 1994, UW Speech Communication, is now at the University of Dubuque.

Edith Manosevitch (2006). "Democratic Values, empowerment and giving voice: children's media discourse in the aftermath of the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin," Learning, Media and Technology. 31(2), 163-179.

Aiello, G. “Advancing discourse about online identity through Stuart Hall and Judith Butler’s theories of identification”. Refereed paper. Critical and Cultural Studies Division, National Communication Association, November 2006, San Antonio, TX.

Aiello, G. “Glimpses of the new Europe? Imag(in)ing European identity in visual discourse.” Invited speaker at the Second Workshop organized by the Network of European Studies Centres in Asia (NESCA), The EU’s new identity and its perception in Asia: Responding to the 7th Framework Programme “Europe in the World’’. July 2006, The National Centre for Research on Europe at the University of Canterbury, Christchurch (New Zealand).

To attend this conference Giorgia received a grant from the University of Washington European Union Center and the University of Canterbury National Research Center on Europe covering all air travel and accommodation expenses. In addition, following her presentation, the Asia-Europe Foundation’s European Studies in Asia Network (which is based in Singapore) asked Giorgia’s permission to reprint hers and Crispin Thurlow’s article “Symbolic capitals: visual discourse and intercultural exchange in the European Capital of Culture scheme” in the second issue of their newsletter ESiA eMonitor.

People

Doug Underwood was elected secretary of the new International Association for Literary Journalism Studies, formed by a group of international scholars interested in the study of journalism's role in the development of the global literary tradition. They met in Nancy, France, last May to create the organization. He will also be serving on the editorial board of the association’s new journal to be published through Routledge called Literary Journalism Studies Journal.

Tony Chan is a screenwriter for a Beijing/Toronto co-production on a 20 episode television narrative drama. On a similar front, a screenwriter, Marla Cukor has now been assigned to write the bio pic of Anna May Wong, to be produced by Silver Dream Production, Pasadena, CA. Last September 2005, Silver Dream took a film option of Tony’s book, Perpetually Cool: The Many Lives of Anna May Wong, 1905-1961.

Tim Pasch received a US Department of Education Foreign Language and Area Studies Grant, 2006-2007, Inuktitut. This was the first grant awarded for a first nations language. He is part of the 2006-7 cohort in the certificate program in Information Assurance and Cybersecurity. Information School, is a Communication Software Consultant: Center for Social Scientific Computation and Research (CSSCR), Savery Hall (with a focus on Atlas.ti, SPSS, nVivo, Endnote), did audio composition and post-production for the department’s video on the 2007 Western States Communication Association conference (shown at the WSCA conference in Palm Springs), was instructor of record, COM300, Concepts in New Media in summer 2006 and is a new father. Tim and his wife, Saori Tanaka Pasch, are also celebrating the birth of their son, Kai, who was born September 20. Congratulations

Meghan Dougherty will participate in the Museum Computer Network Annual Conference: Digits Fugit! Preserving Knowledge into the Future; November 2-5, 2006, Boston, Massachusetts and also participated at the George Eastman House and Image Permanence Institute at RIT Annual Workshop on Preservation: Preserving Photographs in a Digital World, Rochester, NY, August 19-24, 2006.

Crispin Thurlow was in Copenhagen in September as a keynote speaker for the 2006 Kommunikations- og Sprogforum (Language and Communication Forum); his talk was "The Power of Images – Transnational Communication and Visual Discourse." While in Denmark, he was also invited to give a talk at the University of Copenhagen where he presented "Fabricating privilege: Super-elite mobility and class inequality." Crispin also gave a talk at the University of Copenhagen's sociolinguistics seminar; the title of this talk will be"Fabricating privilege: Super-elite mobility and the language of exclusivity."

Congratulations to Saskia Witteborn (Ph.D., 2005) who received the outstanding dissertation award for the International and Intercultural Division of the National Communication Association for her work, “Collective identities of people of Arab descent: an analysis of the situated expression of ethnic, panethnic, national, and religious identifications.” The reviewers unanimously praised the dissertation for its contribution to the field of intercultural communication, especially "the theoretical backing, the rigor of research, and the nuances the dissertation provides of convergent and divergent aspects of identities, their rules, and how they are invoked." Saskia is a member of the faculty of the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Congratulations, too, to her dissertation chair, Gerry Philipsen.

Donal Carbaugh, a Professor at the University of Massachusetts (Ph.D., 1984) won the NCA International and Intercultural Division Division's award for the outstanding scholarly book in intercultural Communication for his Cultures in Conversation (2005). Donal is a member of our Department Alumni Hall of Fame and was a featured speaker in our Ways of Speaking lecture series this past Spring.

Jerry Baldasty is serving as chair of the Faculty Council on Instructional Quality this year, as well as continuing as the director of the UW Teaching Academy. Jerry also led two workshops on grading for the graduate student/TA workshops organized by the Center for Instructional Development and Research. He is also serving on a UW Libraries committee on digital newspapers and on a Leadership Advisory Team for the UW’s Leadership, Communities and Values Initiative. Valerie Manusov is also serving on the LCVI advisory team.

Lance Bennett is supervising the Becoming Citizens Program, which has enrolled 12-15 students to work in community youth programs this fall.

Irina Gendelman is a member of the Colman Neighborhood Association, working as a consultant and organizer of various community art projects for the neighborhood traffic circles.

Taso Lagos conducted the "Athens Communication & Leadership Seminar" in Greece over the summer. During the program students interviewed several individuals as part of their ethnographic field work. Some of the notable individuals interviewed were Bill Kiritsis of Democrats Abroad; Pigi Dania, a health-care psychiatrist and Knut Odegaard, head of the Norwegian Institute and cultural attache to the Norwegian Embassy in Greece. The students followed up their ethnographies with a content analysis of media discourse about democracy and democratic participation. With all the research complete, the students presented their findings at the Metamorphosis Conference at the Hellenic-American Union.

Nancy Rivenburgh is on sabbatical autumn and winter quarter. She is working on a book that investigates the concept of 'peace' as presented in international media.

Kathleen Fearn Banks, was a panelist at the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication on "It'll Never Happen Again," on boosterism and the reframing of disasters (such as Katrina).

Phil Howard and Gina Neff recently gave talks in Australia at Curtin University of Technology in Perth and at the University of Technology, Sydney. Addition they were honored dinner guests at Trinity College, The University of Melbourne, where Phil met with students to discuss politics and information technology.

Leah Ceccarelli will be giving an invited talk for the Science Seminar at the University of Puget Sound, on 5 October 2006, titled: "Stumbling on the Frontier: E. O.Wilson’s Rhetorical Choices in Arguments for Sociobiology and Biodiversity.”

Jason McBride, UW student, recently finished his journalism internship with The Cambodia Daily in Phnom Penh. The paper’s editor, Kevin Doyle, explained that when Jason arrived he immediately began reporting on mass evictions taking place in Phnom Penh as part of a government plan to move the urban poor from areas of high real estate value. Doyle stated, “Many of the evictions involved very complex legal proceedings and completely opaque decisions by the municipality of Phnom Penh. Thousands of families were trucked to the outskirts of the city and basically dumped in fields. Jason was a short time in Cambodia when he found himself reporting on a page one article focused on the plight of these people.”

Doug Underwood participated in a panel discussion in Bellingham in May in support of efforts to get a shield law passed in Washington state to protect reporters’ sources.

Leah Ceccarelli will be serving as the local host for the Rhetoric Society of America’s next conference. The conference will be held in Seattle in the spring of 2008.

Congratulations to Nancy Bixler, and her husband, Tom, on the birth of their son, Luke. Nancy reports, “All of us are doing very well indeed.”

This autumn, Giorgia Aiello will be a volunteer mentor for Youth in Focus, a no-profit organization whose mission is to empower urban teens through the teaching and practice of photography as an art and a profession. As part of this program, Giorgia will mentor a teen photography student towards the creation of images for a final exhibit that will take place in December 2006.

Sara Morgan received a Designated Scholarship, Korean American Scholarship Foundation (2006). Congratulations.

Peg Achterman will be participating in a conference in October (26-29) coordinated by the Institute for Educational Inquiry. She was a fellow in the Institute’s Journalism, Education and the Public Good program a few years ago and was invited to return for a 3-day conference that will continue to look at issues of press coverage of public education.

Amoshaun Toft helped to organize the recent Northwest Community Radio Summit that took place September 15th-17th in Seattle Washington. The conference was aimed at establishing a network of community radio stations in the Northwest. Amoshaun also worked with Lea Werbel to analyze survey data from participating stations during Spring of '06 in preparation for the founding conference.

Edith Manosevitch recently began a one-year ABD position at the Charles Kettering Foundation, as a research associate.

Giorgia Aiello’s syllabus for COM 495 Theoretical and Methodological Approaches to Visual Communication is featured on CIDR’s website as an example for their Planning the Course Syllabus resource section.

Lea Werbel recently was in Africa, and she describes work she’s doing for her own thesis and in collaboration with Phil Howard: “The first area focused on the Eastern Africa Submarine Cable System, which is scheduled to run from South Africa to Sudan and has the potential to bring cheaper and faster internet connections to Eastern and Southern Africa. We were interested in seeking out more information about Zambia's position in this endeavor, especially since they are a landlocked country. The next project had to do with the proliferation of cell phones throughout Africa. Not only are cell phones a growing market, but in South Africa and the Congo a company called Celpay offers banking services through subscriber's cell phones. They have expanded to other countries, Zambia being one of those countries, and so we were curious to learn more. While I was there, I was also able to visit two local community radio stations in preparation for my own thesis research. My research interest focuses on the potential of community radio stations, which are owned and operated by the community, to empower citizens, increase political participation and involvement, and address local development concerns faced by the community. I spent time at a very successful community radio station, which has sustained itself for almost 7 years, as well as at the University of Zambia's teaching/community station.

Congratulations to Matt McGarrity - 2006 National Speakers Association Outstanding Professor

The press release from the NSA:

National Speakers Association Announces Outstanding Professor Award Winners

(TEMPE, Ariz. – August 2, 2006) The National Speakers Association (NSA), the leading organization for professional speakers, recently awarded two professors with the Outstanding Professor Award for their commitment to speech communication.

NSA's annual Professor Awards, given through the NSA Foundation, are designed to recognize and reward two outstanding speech or communication professors. NSA looks for full-time educators within a department of speech communication in an accredited university who: demonstrate an academically oriented commitment to the understanding of the spoken word by the individual and society; show commitment through effective undergraduate or graduate teaching courses in public speaking, presentations, public speaking ethics, etc.; and through communications-related research.

NSA's 2006 Outstanding Professor Award winners are Matt McGarrity, Ph.D, University of Washington, Seattle, Wash. and Marty Val Hill, SPHR, Utah Valley State – School of Business, Orem, Utah.

Matt McGarrity, PhD, recipient of the Robert Henry Outstanding Professor Award, is a professor in the Communication Department at the University of Washington in Seattle, Wash. He has been honored by several organizations, including the National Communication Association, Rhetorical Society of America Institute and the Western States Communication Association.

The National Speakers Association (NSA) is the leading organization for professional speakers. NSA's thousands of members include experts in a variety of industries and disciplines, who reach audiences as trainers, educators, humorists, motivators, consultants, authors and more. Since 1973, NSA has provided resources and education designed to advance the skills, integrity and value of its members and speaking profession. Visit NSA's Web site.

Deborah Bassett, PhC, took part in the 2006 Institute on the Public Humanities, sponsored by the Simpson Center for the Humanities and the UW Graduate School. The intensive week-long Institute introduces twenty competitively selected doctoral fellows to the questions, challenges, and practices of publicly-engaged scholarship. Now in its fourth year, the Institute has been recognized as one of the "Best Practices in Graduate Education" by the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation's The Responsive Ph.D. project.

Alicia Woods, Native Voices' graduate, received a significant award-- "Best Documentary Award" -- at the 2006 ImageNation Film Festival in Vancouver, for her film American Red and Black.

Alumni

Bryan Monroe, B.A. 1987, began working as editorial director of Ebony/Jet magazines on August 1.

The Chicago Defender reported (July 10, 2006): “As editorial director, Monroe told the Defender Sunday that he will be responsible for helping unite both Ebony and Jet to work in a more cohesive and unified manner. He said he will also work closely with Johnson Publishing's website designers to help give the publications a stronger presence, more content and a better look on the Internet.

"Like many in the African American community, I have read Ebony and Jet all of my life, and to work there in some capacity has always been a dream job to have," said Monroe, who is also president of the National Association of Black Journalists.

Not only has Monroe, 40, landed his dream job, but he also will bring a fresh approach to the largest selling magazines geared toward the African American community. Ebony boasts a monthly circulation of 1.4 million, and for Jet, more than 950,000 weekly.

He also has been recognized by Presstime magazine as one of the top 20 American journalists under 40 years old, and was named by MediaWeek magazine as one of the nation's "Media Elite."

Eve-Anne Doohan , PhD 2004, recently began her third year as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication Studies at the University of San Francisco. She is currently teaching one of USF’s foundational classes, Communication and Everyday Life (an introductory course in interpersonal communication) and an upper-division course in Nonverbal Communication. In the spring semester she will be teaching two upper-division courses, Interpersonal Communication and Family Communication. She serves as the faculty advisor to the USF chapter of the National Society of Collegiate Scholars and the co-advisor to the Communication Studies honor society, Lambda Pi Eta. Last semester she was elected to the College Curriculum Committee.

Eve recently had a paper entitled, “Nonverbal listening behaviors of married couples: An exploration into presentation to a relational outsider” accepted for publication in the International Journal of Listening.

Marilyn Fancher, MA 1988, is senior vice president and creative director at APCO Worldwide, manages the StudioAPCO creative team and has extensive experience as an award-winning director and producer of advertising campaigns and broadcast media.

She works with clients including several Fortune 500 corporations, professional and industry associations, museum and foundation capital campaigns, and political issue and grassroots campaign organizations.

From 1989-1993, Marilyn served as director of broadcast services at the Republican National Committee (RNC), where she oversaw the GOP-TV television and radio production studios and staff. She has produced broadcast programs featuring hundreds of elected officials and candidates, including the president, vice president, senators, congressmen, governors, mayors, two first ladies, Cabinet secretaries, and other White House and administration officials. She also served as director of regional media at the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York; as director of network affiliate television, Cable Television, and Radio for the 2000 Republican National Convention in Philadelphia; and as RNC Satellite Network director for the 1992 Republican National Convention in Houston, Texas.

She currently produces an issue advocacy ad campaign for a coalition client (TV, radio, print, online) designed to target members of Congress and opinion leaders. She is also working on a video about the economic and social impact of Hurricane Katrina for a meeting of U.S. CEOs.

Rene Guioguio, PhD 1980, accepted a one year post at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Secretariat based in Jakarta, which he started in May 2006. He helps coordinate the HIV and AIDS program in the 10-member countries of ASEAN. He says, “My training at UW had served me in good stead in this area of health communications.”

Todd Kelshaw, PhD 2002, is starting his fifth year on the Communication Studies faculty at Montclair State University in Montclair, NJ. Since 2005 he has served as the Graduate Program Coordinator for the MA program, and is presently spearheading a complete curricular/program renovation focusing on crisis and conflict communication in global-organizational contexts. He teaches a range of course topics with emphasis on group and organizational communication topics.

He is particularly active with experiential- and service-learning pedagogies. His community-based instructional initiatives are informed by his work as a Service-learning Fellow with the campus's Center for Community-based Learning, past chair of the Experiential Education Committee of the University Senate, inaugural member of the American Democracy Project Steering Committee, and past coordinator of the Department of Communication Studies' Internship Program.

His scholarship is tied to his concern for community-based activity, with research conducted in contexts of community organizing. He is presently working on a team that's assessing a HUD-funded Community Outreach Partnership Center (COPC) project in which various community stakeholders have worked to devise affordable housing public policy in the Township of Montclair. An initial report will be published by Community-Campus Partnerships for Health--an association that is centered, interestingly enough, at the University of Washington.

His recent and forthcoming publications include: Natale, D., Brook, K, & Kelshaw, T. (in press). Critical reflections on community-campus partnerships: Promise and performance. Partnership Perspectives, 4(1).

Other recent/in press publications include a pedagogy piece: Kelshaw, T. (in press). Community issues forum facilitation. In L. W. Hugenberg & B. Hugenberg (Eds.), Teaching ideas for the basic course: Vol. 10. Dubuque: Kendall/Hunt Publishing, and a chapter in a book that was co-edited by another UW alum, Jeffrey St. John: Kelshaw, T. (2006). Communication as political participation. In G. J. Shepherd, J. St. John, and T. Striphas (Eds.), Communication as: Stances on theory. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Karan Dawson, PhD 2003, is currently involved in a collaborative effort with schools of pharmacy and professional organizations in Indiana, Iowa, North Carolina, Washington and Wisconsin to pilot test a certificate program in continuing professional development (CPD). The profession is considering moving to a CPD model to foster continuing professional competence. The pilot project is the first pass at gauging the receptivity and logistics of such a move toward CPD. Her research group is beginning the implementation process this month by recruiting study participants. In addition, Karan is designing an interview guide to use with preceptors as part of an overall approach to developing a quality management program in experiential education.

In 2005 her project with colleagues resulted in successfully competing for an RFP sponsored by the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP). The project was to develop and present a national invitational conference on experiential education. Their goal was to define for AACP what needed to be done to improve experiential education in pharmacy and develop action plans that would lead to those outcomes. Representatives from multiple schools of pharmacy, professional organizations, employers, regulators, students, and other stake holders in experiential education came and worked hard for two days in addition to completing the pre-conference work. Karan and colleagues facilitated the work groups using the same quality and creative tools that the Institute of Medicine used in developing its seminal work. The conference was held in Chicago, June 17-18, 2005 and was rated highly successful by participants and, thankfully, AACP. Karan said, “The project was lots of work but also lots of fun. I especially enjoyed facilitating the small groups with the quality and creative tools.”

Joanne Harrell, BA 1976 , MBA, 1979 (Marketing) has worked as the General Manager of Executive Relationship Programs, Enterprise and Partner Group at Microsoft since October 2005. She works with Microsoft's top executives in developing strategies programs that leverage their interactions with global customers, partners and external third-party groups within Microsoft's Enterprise segment. Ms. Harrell has been with Microsoft since 2001 and prior to that was a senior vice president at InfoSpace, a CEO at United Way and spent ten years at U.S. West Communication (her final position being CEO of the Omaha, NE office). Ms. Harrell is the 1997 recipient of the African American Achievement Award, Omaha, NE. and the 1992 recipient of the "Women of Achievement Award", Seattle, WA. She has a long list of board service; her current positions include Director, REI, Compensation Committee Chair and Trustee, Evans School of Public Affairs, University of Washingtbr> She is also Vice-Chair for AAA of Washington and a member of the International Women's Forum (IWF).

Danielle Endres, PhD 2005, now an assistant professor at the University of Utah continues to work on a project that explores the rhetoric of nuclear waste siting decisions, focusing particularly on the Yucca Mountain site in Nevada and the Skull Valley sitee inUtah. In order to pursue this project she was awarded the Research Professorship in the Environmental Humanities, a fellowship funded by the College of Humanities and Kendeda.

The grad student recognition web page has been updated for 2006 with awards, publications, conference presentations, and photos from the June 1st event.

Events

Crispin Thurlow is coordinating the 2nd Critical Inquiry Symposium November 4 (10 am to 4 pm). “Critical Inquiry: Whys, Hows, and Whats.” Please let Crispin (thurlow@u.washington.edu) know if you would be interested in participating in the symposium. The deadline for signing up will be Friday 6 October (there’s no fee; but lunch arrangements require advance signup).

The Department is a co-sponsor of the World Health Cinema film series; the screening of The Agronomist will be Tuesday, November 14 (location to be announced later). The film is a profile of Haitian radio journalist and human rights activist, Jean Dominique. It includes historical footage of Haiti's vivid and tumultuous past interviews with Dominique, himself, and incorporates footage shot before Dominique's assassination on April 3, 2000. Discussion will follow the film and will be led by local UW faculty, staff and students.

Colloquia

Sarah Banet-Weiser from the Annenberg School for Communication at USC will be visiting the department Nov 1-2.

Joseph E. Stiglitz discusses his new book, Making Globalization Work, on Tuesday, October 17, 3:30 to 5 pm, William Gates Hall 138. Globalization has led to prosperity for some, but not for all. Can equity be reached? Joseph E. Stiglitz believes it can. Stiglitz draws from his experiences in government and as former Chief Economist of the World Bank to discuss new policies that could work in our global conomy. Stiglitz, winner of the 2001 Nobel Prize, is University Professor at Columbia University. Sponsored by UW departments of Communication, Economics, and Geography

Brady Kiesling, "Diplomacy Wars: Dissenting Voices and U.S. Foreign Policy - Where Does Democracy Begin and End?" October 20, 4-6 pm, Communications 126. Kiesling was a career diplomat with the U.S. Embassy in Athens when he resigned in February 2003 over the invasion of Iraq. His actions have raised many questions about dissent and democracy in the US and abroad. In his talk such questions are framed in the context of the on-going fight against terrorism and its impact on daily life.

Tarleton Gillespie, Cornell Communication Department, “Wired Shut: Copyright and the Shape of Digital Culture.” Nov. 6, 3:30 to 5 pm, Room 126

Gillespie’s first book, Wired Shut: Copyright and the Shape of Digital Culture, slated to be published by M.I.T. Press in spring 2007, addresses this “legal turn to technology” and the political and cultural arrangements it requires.

The Dart Center

An excerpt from the Seattle Times, on Bruce Shapiro, the new Executive Director of the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma:

A different take on trauma
By Florangela Davila
Seattle Times staff reporter

A longstanding mantra in newsrooms everywhere: If it bleeds, it leads. That mantra may or may not still ring true, depending on your point of view and your preferred media outlet. But one undisputed fact: a new field of study has emerged that looks at the intersection of journalism and trauma. And one of this field's foremost leaders is based in our own backyard.

The Dart Center for Journalism & Trauma, based at the University of Washington, is equal parts advocate, educator and think-tank. Its mission is to improve the quality of reporting on trauma and conflict while also raise awareness in newsrooms of the science and psychology such coverage has on the journalists telling the stories.

Now Bruce Shapiro, a veteran journalist who's currently a contributing editor at The Nation, has taken the helm at the seven-year-old center. What's truly remarkable about Shapiro's background, though, is this: In August 1994, Shapiro was stabbed and seriously wounded while he had gone out for coffee with some friends.

A man named Daniel Silva entered the New Haven, Conn., coffee bar and pulled out a hunting knife, randomly stabbing seven people. Everyone survived, and Shapiro later wrote about the stabbing, its press coverage and the politics of the crime-victim movement in an essay that was a finalist for the National Magazine Award.

Shapiro, 47, who will be shuttling between Seattle and his home in New Haven, spoke recently from an office at the UW's Department of Communication.

Q: How did the stabbing affect your journalism?

A: "I had been writing about crime and criminal justice. I suddenly went from being a reporter to being the story, which is kind of a profound experience. But it also gave me a certain sense of what it's like to be one of the people who we tell stories about, and what it's like to put your story in the hands of a journalist and have it either told well or told badly.

"I had both kinds of experiences. Some reporters were respectful and others called me in the hospital. It made me think a lot about the power of journalists, especially when it comes to somebody who has been traumatized.

"The first story I wrote [for the University of Chicago's school paper] was about someone who died in pretty awful circumstances. And no one ever said to me, 'Here's how you talk to the family members, her friends. Here's how you take care of yourself.' "

Q: So how should journalists report on crime victims?

A: "Journalists do not need to have cut-and-dried questions and formulas for talking to every victim in every circumstance. But there's a set of questions we should be asking so we avoid re-traumatizing people, so we gain trust and reward it. It makes better journalism.

"[After the stabbing] I came to realize that if you build a relationship of trust with people, if I gave my subjects a certain kind of control, asking, 'Do you mind if I start taking notes? Do you mind if I now talk about the crime?' you are almost always rewarded with far more information. This isn't about being nice and sensitive, but it's also about getting a much better story."

In the Media: Mike Henderson

Mike Henderson has written several columns recently for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Two of these:

Mike! hopes to make a point!
By Mike Henderson

The neighbor pulled her car into the driveway the other day and from a distance I thought I saw on her bumper sticker that Mike McGavick had altered his first name. This wouldn't have been a big surprise, given that Christine Gregoire became Chris during the 2004 election cycle. James Earl Carter became Jimmy. Daniel J. Evans was Dan. Other than the fact that he doesn't really seem Russian, why couldn't Mike McGavick go with "Mikel"?

As I squinted, though, I could see that it wasn't supposed to be "Mikel" but Mike! McGavick. Driving around later that day, I noticed that the punctuated name of the U.S. Senate candidate practically yells itself from yard signs and bumper stickers, and why not?

Doesn't the exclamatory approach have recent precedent? Another Republican, former Secretary of Education Lamar Alexander, became Lamar! for the purposes of winning his party's presidential nomination a decade ago. Ten years is an eternity in politics. McGavick's handlers can be excused for forgetting that Tennessee's Alexander actually lost his '96 bid, though he would win a Senate seat in 2002 -- possibly by forgoing the exclamation mark.

In any case, the McGavick strategy seems bent on energizing the campaign with the enthusiasm suggested by the exclamation mark. The approach could work. The "!" has been indispensable, after all, in adding special emphasis to literature ranging from advertising copy ("Come in for our once-weekly sale!!") to letters home from summer camp ("The baked beans here are awesome!!!").

It's worth noting that, as elections loom, the Mike! campaign is pretty much stuck with the punctuation mark. The official McGavick Web site has references to "open mike!" events as well as video beckoning visitors to "watch now!" Anyway, if McGavick suddenly went back to being just plain Mike, election-race arbiters probably would conclude that the campaign had lost its enthusiasm.

The McGavick punctuation ploy may already have given Mike! an early advantage against Democratic incumbent Maria Cantwell. At this late date she can't very well add Maria! to her campaign literature. Pundits would just reiterate the similarities between the two candidates: "Same stances on Iraq; same approaches to punctuation."

Maybe she'd be better off defining herself with a different punctuation mark. She could exploit the oft-chorused rhetorical Oscar Hammerstein refrain ("How do you solve a problem like Maria?") simply by going with Maria? Cantwell. Or she could borrow Howard Dean's favorite punctuation mark while simultaneously emphasizing her incumbency: Maria Cantwell@U.S. Senate. Better still, Cantwell could go on the punctuation offensive: "A vote for Mike! is just another vote for that @#$%&! Bush."

With more you get less on local TV news
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
By Mike Henderson

It was apparent that the national nattering about Katie Couric's not-quite history-altering CBS news-anchor job had about subsided two weeks into the gig when a radio pundit wondered whether Couric's dental structure shows "too much gum." This being the level of discourse, there was zero hope that anyone might seize upon the supposed accomplishment of Couric (and, among others, Barbara Walters, Phyllis George, Carole Simpson, Campbell Brown, Elizabeth Vargas and nearly every woman ever hired by CNN) to have a discussion about the content of TV news. Better to conduct a meditation on that timeless aesthetic imponderable: Does Katie look better in a white suit or a black dress?

Certainly no one would attempt the great leap downward from national-level news broadcasting to the local/regional level, where the ill-informed polity's real problems can be found. Local TV news seldom is discussed, possibly because many feel there's nothing worth mentioning. It would be like saying: "I ate a McDonalds hamburger the other day." By necessity the "conversation" stops right there. Besides, bringing up the subject also would be a tacit admission that the speaker had actually seen a local-news broadcast within the past, say, 14 years.

I use that number advisedly. It marks the time between now and that afternoon in 1992 when the suits from A.H. Belo stood up on hind legs and swore to those of us at a Seattle press conference that the acquisition of King Broadcasting by the Dallas-based corporation meant the quality of KING-5 TV -- news and programming -- would never decline, not under Belo's stewardship. Gradually, of course, every program (music appreciation, diversity issues, etc.) that had made KING the national gold standard of local TV during the Dorothy Bullitt family ownership was excised. The unkindest cut came when the news division was forced to shelve "Top Story." Weeknights from 6:30 to 7 p.m. Channel 5 had offered an exhaustive take about a single major issue of the day. Family ownership can afford such an expenditure of resources. Corporate owners know shareholders would never tolerate such profligacy.

Seven years later, KING wasn't appreciably better than or different from its competitors of nearly half a century. TV-station employees at KING, KOMO and KIRO took great umbrage when an independent national study concluded that Seattle's big three had mediocre to poor news operations. The Project for Excellence in Journalism graded the stations C (KING), D (KOMO) and -- get this -- F+ (KIRO). KING-5 scored high circa 1999 for giving multiple points of view in news stories. A couple of years later this strength was something to be ignored.

That was the case, at least, with a ratings-sweeps piece about "hidden taxes" in Washington. Five minutes (a fraction of one "Top Story" broadcast) were devoted to the deathless expose. Afterward I called the station to see if I could chat with the reporter. This couldn't be arranged so I was put through to the producer, who seemed to assume I'd called to praise the effort. Instead I told him that those of us in the ivory tower feel compelled to stress certain standards to journalism students. One is to offer definitions, imperfect as they may be. "News" I define as "what happens measured by how much it affects and/or interests us." That quantifies and qualifies news, accommodating everything from the use of cruise missiles to the elusive Suri Cruise. It also minimizes crime and car-wreck reports, the staples of local-TV "news."

The other imperative is balance. "You spent five minutes telling viewers all about 'hidden taxes,' " I noted, "but you never bothered to tell them where the money goes." In the absence of that, they're left to surmise that nefarious government ops abscond with the revenue.

The producer seemed genuinely astonished that I even raised the point, which I contemplated the other night while wading through the traffic mishaps, house fires, homicides and other "news" several local 5 p.m. broadcasts were offering as the region's major stories of the day. Then I switched to MSNBC's Keith Olbermann: peripheral entertainment while I skimmed the local newspaper Web sites for updates (online newspapers, mercifully, have made TV "journalism" more expendable than ever).

An irony is that there's more TV time than ever before devoted to local news, even if more equals much less than the quality during the Bullitt years. Often at 10 p.m., just before slumber, I flip on the opening minute of KONG-6 or KCPQ-13 news. It's just to see whether there's been a major development (there always has been, though it's usually another traffic accident in Spanaway). Then, blissfully ignorant, I hit the off button. For lack of anything substantive to contemplate, perhaps I drift away subliminally wondering whether he/she at the anchor desk would have looked better in black/white that night.

In the media: John Gastil

Parting the Cascade curtain: Rethinking the state's cultural fault line
July 18, 2006
By John Gastil
Special to The Times

Conventional wisdom in Washington politics holds that our state divides between east and west along the "Cascade curtain." As it turns out, this east-west stereotype is both real and illusory.

Thanks to the generosity of Stuart Elway, the director of The Elway Poll, we can look more closely at the contours of our state's cultural divide.

In October 2005, Elway asked 514 registered Washington state voters a series of questions developed by the Pew Center for the People and the Press. The Pew questions asked state residents how they thought society and government should function.

I used 16 of these items as measures of two cultural dimensions. My approach, adapted from the work of anthropologist Mary Douglas, distinguishes cultural groups along the two dimensions, the poles of which have apt labels.

First, a hierarchical viewpoint claims that society works best with strong, traditional authority and clear social distinctions, whereas the egalitarian view favors reducing virtually all socioeconomic differences.

Second, the individualist believes individuals should fend for themselves free of social or governmental control, whereas communitarians value strong social ties and collective action to protect shared resources and the least fortunate members of society.

This conception of culture has worked well in a variety of countries and across long stretches of history. In our nation, the central cultural conflict occurs between two orientations — the hierarchical individualism that blossomed fully in the Reagan era, versus the communal egalitarianism that traces back to the New Left of the 1960s, if not as far as FDR's New Deal.

Does the "Cascade curtain" hang over this same cultural fault line? I compared average scores on both cultural dimensions for the six geographic areas conventionally used in The Elway Poll: Seattle, King County (excluding Seattle), Pierce and Kitsap counties, North Sound (Snohomish County to Whatcom County), Western Washington (the other western counties as far east as Lewis, Cowlitz, and Clark), and Eastern Washington (all remaining counties). The accompanying graph plots each of these geographic areas in terms of its standardized deviation from the statewide average score on both cultural dimensions.

The results show not a broader east-west divide but, rather, a stark contrast between only Eastern Washington and Seattle. Statistically speaking, these two areas differ significantly on both cultural dimensions, but there is no significant difference among the remaining areas, all of which cluster around the center of the graph.

To get a sense of the size of this difference, consider two sample items. Seattle's egalitarianism comes out clearly with 72 percent of the city's respondents believing "Homosexuality is a way of life that should be accepted by society." By contrast, only 47 percent of Eastern Washington respondents agreed with the same statement.

On the individualist-communitarian dimension, 46 percent of those east of the Cascades believe that "Stricter environmental laws and regulations cost too many jobs and hurt the economy." Only 20 percent of Seattleites surveyed shared that view.

Does this mean Seattle and Eastern Washington have irreconcilable worldviews? Hardly. After all, the gap between them sometimes falls on the same side of an attitude scale, such as when 69 percent of Eastern Washingtonians — along with 59 percent of Seattleites — agree with the individualist conviction that "Most people who want to get ahead can make it if they're willing to work hard." Similarly, 71 percent of Seattleites held the egalitarian view that "It is not necessary to believe in God in order to be moral and have good values," and 50 percent of those east of the Cascades agreed.

Regardless, the rest of the state's residents do not fall squarely on either side of the cultural curtain. In fact, after removing Seattleites, King County appears significantly different from both poles. It is more individualist than Seattle, and egalitarian relative to Eastern Washington. King County residents dwelling outside the Emerald City seek the kind of social equality that emerges spontaneously from a liberal society with limited social control. King County shares Eastern Washington's distaste for government interference but eschews the larger region's embrace of traditional mores and social stratification.

The North Sound counties diverge from Eastern Washington on both cultural dimensions but are not as extreme as Seattle. Pierce/Kitsap is more hierarchical than Seattle, but both it and Western Washington represent the political center in terms of individualism.

Some might object to this cultural portrait by arguing that the split between the GOP and Democrats is more important than the cultural divide. According to national data I have collected with colleagues, however, people do not respond principally to party elites. Instead, they more readily pick up on cultural cues sent by cultural peers and leaders, whether they be the culturally like-minded neighbor next door, reverend in the pulpit, or actor in their favorite drama.

The fit between cultural and partisan differences depends on the rhetoric and strategies of the major parties. As it turns out, Democrats and Republicans wage their partisan battle primarily in terms of the hierarchical-egalitarian dimension.

This leaves many people without a secure partisan home. In particular, individualists, such as those in King County, find comfort neither in the GOP's willingness to subvert civil liberties nor in the Democrats' confidence in strong government regulations and social programs. Communitarians who favor maintaining strong community ties over pursuing full equality — perhaps including many in the North Sound — similarly find neither party quite to their liking.

Meanwhile, Western Washingtonians outside Seattle likely find themselves stuck in the middle of what feels like a pitched cultural battle, within which they have difficulty brokering any compromise

Yet, it remains a mistake to view our state as the site of a "culture war." After all, culture orients people — it does not usually motivate them. Most of us vote for public officials and ballot measures that honor our cultural language, symbols and worldview because we hope they will serve our more basic needs and goals, not because they will remake the world in our cultural self-image.

To avoid slipping into an unnecessary cultural war, we need to find ways to work with our cultural differences.

Working around culture requires supplanting ubiquitous cultural signals with alternative influences. We shouldn't try to eliminate cultural signals, but we can aim to reduce people's need for them by promoting public deliberation as a means of working through differences.

Consider this example. To spur its citizens to deliberate about election reform, the British Columbia legislature assembled a representative random sample of 160 citizens to study the issue together before arriving at a final judgment. The 2004 B.C. Citizens Assembly deliberated for a dozen weekends before arriving at a final vote of 146 yea and 7 nay. Had they been polled at the outset, assembly members would have turned to cultural signals for guidance. When given the chance to deliberate, however, they moved past sharp cultural differences to arrive at a near-consensus.

A similar process was presented to the Washington state Legislature this May. The Citizens Initiative Review proposal would create an independent panel of randomly selected citizens for each initiative and referendum appearing on the ballot. Each panel would hear pro and con testimony on a ballot measure, then deliberate and write up a summary statement that would appear in the official voters guide. These deliberative citizen assessments could supplant the relatively simplistic cultural-cueing campaigns that currently dominate initiative elections. This novel idea has gained support from many quarters, including the Washington City/County Management Association and the Association of Washington Cities.

Washington policymakers can take another approach that affirms divergent cultural orientations, then seek a policy that has multiple potential meanings.

Consider public policy regarding guns. When the choice is simply between "gun rights" and "gun control," there is precious little middle ground. Legislators could instead devise a policy package that emphasized both personal responsibility in gun ownership and the generic right to own guns. They could endorse the default principle of gun ownership rights while also denying firearm access to those who fail to demonstrate sufficient self-discipline through misuse, abuse, felony convictions, etc.

To succeed, this approach requires respected leaders from opposite cultural orientations claiming the policy as their own, explicitly drawing out the meanings that resonate with their respective cultural groups. We have seen relatively few bipartisan solutions to culturally contentious issues in our state, but the Legislature has made moves in this direction on transportation issues that extend beyond Puget Sound.

The fact that the bulk of the state occupies the middle of the cultural spectrum helps promote efforts to reach across the cultural divide. It is true enough that Seattle and Eastern Washington stand apart from one another, but their cultural differences are not night and day, but rather midmorning versus dusk. Moreover, this divide encompasses just a third of the state's population.

Even within the polarized regions, the overwhelming majority of Washingtonians are not cultural zealots. They are people of goodwill who want the same things — economic comfort and physical security, with liberty and justice for all — but who follow cultural signals that point to different leaders and symbols.

With structured deliberation and culturally sophisticated policy framing, our cultural differences will not prevent us from governing ourselves effectively as a diverse but united state.

John Gastil is an associate professor in the University of Washington Department of Communication and the co-editor of "The Deliberative Democracy Handbook: Strategies for Effective Civic Engagement in the Twenty-First Century" (Jossey-Bass, 2005).

Urban Archives

Urban Archives was featured in the September 2006 issue of Columns, UW’s alumni magazine.

The magazine reported:

An undergraduate project linked to Urban Archives won the UW Library Research Award. The project, titled “Aurora Avenue: Highway Culture in Transition”, was completed by four students (Naraelle Barrows, Arin Delaney, Edith Fikes, Ingrid Haftel) as a collaboration between the Urban Archives and Giorgia Aiello’s course CHID 270 Photography: Theoretical Reflections and Ethnographic Applications.

Giorgia Aiello and Irina Gendelman were invited to collaborate with General Studies 105 Writing Ready. Irina and Giorgia presented a lecture titled “Reading the city: collecting data for Urban Archives” and facilitated the “Fridays on Foot” field-assignment, which required students to study a neighborhood by means of observation (i.e. taking notes and photographs) and writing. University of Washington. Summer 2006.

Urban Archives was featured in Microsoft’s on10.net, a webcast “for people with both a passion for technology and also a desire to change the world” (from the on10.net mission statement). Irina Gendelman and Giorgia Aiello were invited to speak about the project and present images from the database for a video-interview titled “Photos tagged and organized to create the searchable Urban Archives...your city, yo”.

Urban Archives collaborated with the Seattle Americorps’ City Year program “Young Heroes” (a leadership development program for middle-schoolers) to develop the community expression event “Values, Identity and Choices”. For this initiative, Urban Archives developed a concept and prompts for a photographic urban scavenger hunt regarding cultural identity in different Seattle neighborhoods. Spring 2006.

[Download a Microsoft Word version of the October, 2006 "Communication"]