Clima y Caf & eacute; [Climate and Coffee] supports Colombian coffee farmers' adaptation to climate change. The project finds and makes adaptation information available in accessible ways for farmers, while drawing attention to the crisis on a regional, national, and international scale. The website was built through iterative design testing with farmers and is targeted toward local associations that have internet access, are trusted information dissemination hubs, and are reported as central in conversations. Complementary forms of outreach redress internet connectivity challenges facing many farmers and include printed materials, radio segments, podcasts, WhatsApp videos, and in-person seminars. This field report reviews the project's development since its origins in 2018, providing a potential blueprint for other engaged research projects promoting environmental and agricultural outcomes. The report moves chronologically through the project's lifespan, beginning with the formative research that informed its design and moving through project development, external partnerships, leadership transitions, and change management.
Public perceptions of climate change are pivotal, shaping policy support, individual behavioral changes, and societal response to environmental challenges. However, the role of diverse media habits in shaping these views remains under-examined in consensus democracies. This study addresses this applied problem by analysing a nationally representative sample of 3,077 Irish respondents to examine how daily engagement with national, local, and social media influences climate skepticism and perceptions of local harm. Using a contextual media typology framework, the research reveals that while national media consumption reduces skepticism, local media engagement can reinforce skepticism among right-leaning audiences. These findings offer a theoretical contribution to the understanding of selective consumption and political moderation in a non-polarized media environment. Practically, the study provides applied insights for climate communicators, highlighting the necessity of multi-channel strategies that combine science-based national reporting with targeted local interventions and trusted messengers to reach politically aligned groups effectively.
During the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, Healthy Democracy, a nonpartisan civic organization in Oregon, convened the Oregon Citizens' Assembly Pilot on COVID-19 Recovery (ORCA), the first attempt in the United States to conduct a citizens' assembly entirely on a synchronous online video platform. This study examines the tensions ORCA facilitators experienced while facilitating in this new online environment. Drawing on Relational Dialectics Theory and Grounded Practical Theory, we identify several dialectical tensions surrounding facilitator neutrality. Facilitators struggled to balance neutrality with relational connection, felt constrained in using active engagement strategies, and experienced conflicts between personal values and expectations of impartiality. They also navigated tensions between their professional judgment and the convener's expectations. The study highlights the contested nature of neutrality and argues for facilitation approaches that are collaboratively defined and contextually adaptive, offering implications for future research and practice in online deliberation design and facilitation.
This Field Report explains a decade-long, intradisciplinary initiative that drew from communication-based bullying research to develop and implement anti-bullying outreach efforts in three applied contexts (two schools and one health care organization). We begin by describing the origins and evolution of the National Communication Association's Anti-Bullying Project. We then detail the three primary summits we held, reflect on the collaborative process involved in organizing and delivering this training, and spotlight the overall impact this project has had for our community partners. We share these lessons from the field to document our efforts and to explore factors other scholars might consider as they undertake applied translational engagement opportunities.
Much of organizational dissent research has focused on dissenters' experiences. This study examines supervisors' professional and supportive communication strategies during dissent conversations based on an online open-ended questionnaire completed by 256 participants. Results revealed three key communication characteristics that were expected from supervisors: emotional presence, engaging/collaborative communication, and professional conduct/accountability. These findings facilitated the development and modification of the LEADERS: A-PRO model, which provides organizational leaders communicative strategies in upward dissent. The LEADERS: A-PRO is an acronym of recommended communicative practices: (1) Listen to the dissenter; (2) Express empathy; (3) Appreciate the dissenter; (4) Describe your understanding; (5) Explore and collaborate; (6) Revisit the dissenter; (7) Seek extra support; and display (8) Authenticity; and (9) Professionalism. This study is the first to identify communication strategies supervisors can use to engage in dissent, fostering a dissent-welcoming organizational environment and contributing new insights to the dissent literature.
This study explores how questioning functions as a communicative practice in managing everyday problems and negotiating expertise and communication competence in an interprofessional healthcare team. High-quality collaboration in such teams is essential, but hierarchies and time pressures may hinder joint development of competence. Drawing on Grounded Practical Theory and employing Action-Implicative Discourse Analysis, we analyze audio-recorded team meetings and focus group data from a Finnish orthopedic team serving as a positive deviance case. Findings shows that questioning addresses problems related to patient needs, inefficient structures, and voicing expertise in a top-down organization. Three questioning strategies were identified: asking for and answering to the patient, making expertise visible through questions, and questioning the organization. Situated ideals included prioritizing patients, encouraging organizational critique, and allowing the display of inexpertise. Questioning functioned as a key practice for linking organizational levels, constructing collective expertise, and for metacommunicative negotiation of shared communication competence in interprofessional teamwork.
This qualitative study investigated the manifestation of epistemic injustice within Nigeria's healthcare system, examining how patient knowledge was systematically marginalized in clinical interactions. Grounded in the Culture-Centered Approach (CCA) and Fricker's epistemic injustice framework, the research employed Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) of interviews with 20 patients and 7 healthcare professionals in Enugu State. Findings revealed that testimonial injustice occurred as patients' credibility was unfairly dismissed due to linguistic bias and a system-wide over-reliance on diagnostic tests. Hermeneutical injustice arose from colonial legacies that delegitimized indigenous knowledge, leaving patients unable to make their experiences understood. The study also identified 'epistemic double marginalization,' where providers faced a reciprocal discrediting of their authority by communities preferring traditional knowledge. Redressing these injustices requires decolonizing institutional norms and integrating epistemic pluralism for equitable care.
