Miscarriage occurs in roughly one in five pregnancies in the United States. Although it is largely considered a "women's issue," non-miscarrying spouses also endure the mental and relational health effects of the loss. Drawing on communicated narrative sense-making (CNSM) theory, we interviewed heterosexual, cisgender, mostly white, married men (n = 45) to solicit their stories of their spouse's miscarriage. Six types of memorable messages (i.e., messages that affect the values, behaviors and/or beliefs of the receiver) from social network members emerged - have faith, brush it off, this (pain) is your fault, silence, I'm so sorry, and this happens a lot. These messages illuminate the importance of context in memorable message meaning-making; highlight the complexity of "message gaps" in narratively processing difficulty; and uncover ethical issues with attending to men's experiences with miscarriage. We explore how these findings inform memorable messages theorizing and research.

Despite being a distinctive workplace relationship, little research has focused on whether or not certain employees are more prone to forming a work–spouse relationship and the organizational outcomes associated with them. Guided by theorizing on self-monitoring and affective organizational commitment, we analyzed data from 439 employees—167 (38.0%) who currently have, 111 (25.3%) who previously had, and 161 (36.7%) who have never had a work spouse—to examine the influence of self-monitoring on an employee’s propensity to develop a work–spouse relationship and explore the association between having a work spouse and affective organizational commitment. Our findings indicated that the development of a work–spouse relationship was independent of employees’ (a) sexuality, (b) romantic relationship status, and (c) nationality. With regard to self-monitoring, while our initial findings indicated that higher self-monitors were more likely to report having never formed a work–spouse relationship, this relationship was no longer significant when controlling for gender. Last, individuals currently in a work–spouse relationship reported greater affective organizational commitment than individuals who were not. Overall, the findings from this study provide a foundation for future research on the work–spouse relationship and have implications for managers as they try to better understand this unique relationship.

While more researchers have begun to study the work-spouse relationship and made claims that it is unique, scholars have yet to specifically examine how, if at all, communication in the work-spouse relationship is different from that with other coworkers. Facework was used as a theoretical lens to analyze data from 41 in-depth interviews with work spouses. Findings highlight how participants presented themselves in unique ways within the work-spouse relationship, how work spouses (co)managed positive and negative face needs within the relationship, and the distinctive communication that serves as the basis for these work-spouse relationships. Finally, this relational context provides evidence for the complexity of Facework Theory in close, ongoing relationships, particularly in the blurring of preventive and corrective facework.

Despite the prevalence of work spouses, scarce empirical research has focused on the communication occurring within these relationships, leaving managers with little understanding as to whether organizations can or should communicate support for employees forming these relationships and how privacy is navigated among work spouses. Building on McBride and Bergen’s conceptualization of the work-spouse relationship, we used Communication Privacy Management theory (CPM) to understand what, if any, privacy rule decision criteria individuals used as they negotiated disclosures within their work-spouse relationships. Analysis of interviews with 41 people in work-spouse relationships suggests that participants recognized both their own core privacy rule decision criteria and when these criteria were similar to or different from the criteria influencing their work spouse’s. Furthermore, work-spouse relationships formed despite organizational efforts to keep them at bay. Theoretically, the findings add to CPM theory, such that they establish the need to examine catalyst criteria as current and previous, as well as argue for the addition of confirming criteria to account for situations in which catalysts reinforce routinized privacy rules. Overall, the findings from this study advance the literature on communication in the work-spouse relationship and CPM theory and highlight the role that workplaces play in fostering these types of relationships.

M. Chad McBride, immediate past president of the Central States Communication Association and Chad Edwards, past executive director share thoughts about helping navigate CSCA through troubling times whether it was the pandemic of 2020 or the dire situation the organization was in related to our nonprofit and organizational status. The aim of this address is that it might serve to help future leaders of CSCA through tough times and provide hope during the darkest days. Clear communication and transparency, swift and deliberative action, and flexibility were keys to keeping CSCA surviving. Relationships are what will make CSCA thrive.

With approximately 20 % of pregnancies ending in loss, miscarriage is a relatively common and stressful occurrence. Because romantic partners' coping efforts are intimately connected, the way one partner copes with the other's miscarriage has important implications for individual and relational well-being. Grounded in the communicated sense-making (CSM) model, the current study investigated how cis-gender men in heterosexual marriages (n = 45) communicatively constructed the meaning of their wife's miscarriage through metaphors. Analysis of interview data revealed two supra-themes-metaphors of miscarriage and metaphors of men's role as a husband. Metaphors of lost gift, cataclysm, death of a loved one, emptiness, and chaotic movement animated husbands' CSM about their wife's miscarriage. Men drew upon discourses of masculinity to make sense of their role as a husband in the miscarriage process as a rock, guard, repair man, and secondary character. We explore these findings in light of the master narrative of birth and propose an expansion of the CSM model to include metaphors as a key CSM device.

Among faculty, assessment is frequently discussed as an added burden that does little to improve student learning, existing to appease administrators and accreditors. In fact, at one of the author’...

When instructors and students enter the classroom, they bring with them (multiple) social identities that influence classroom interaction. A social identity perspective toward instructional communication allows for exploring how interactions in the classroom are impacted by social group similarities and differences between students and their instructor (and vice versa). Being mindful of both social identity categories and intersectionality, we consider the role of multiple social identity categories and the implications of these identities for the people who claim the category, as well for others who "label" them as a part of a particular group. In particular, we look at the social identity(s) of students and instructors as tied to sex/gender, race/ethnicity, age, social class, sexual orientation, and disability. In each section, we review and evaluate relevant research and propose future directions for research in the area of social identity in the education setting.

Despite a spate of media attention in recent years and implications for both work and family relationships, communication scholars have yet to study work-spouse relationships. Since popular press sources have often focused on the nature of and propriety of such relationships, the purpose of this study was to empirically examine how work spouses characterized their relationships. We analyzed 269 participants' open-ended responses to a survey, which yielded five categories: (a) characteristics of a work spouse, (b) conditions for the work-spouse relationship, (c) characteristics of the work-spouse relationship, (d) functions of work spouses, and (e) ways of managing the work-spouse relationship. From this analysis, we construct a definition of the relationship and chart a course of future research for communication scholars.

The goal of the present study was to examine the sites of discursive struggle in the talk of commuter wives and how the interpenetration of discourses construct meaning for those in the commuter marriage. Fifty individual interviews were analyzed using contrapuntal analysis to examine competing discourses. From our analysis, two sites of discursive struggle emerged from the talk of commuter wives about their marital relationships: (a) discursive struggles of integration and (b) discursive struggles of conventionality. The voices of these participants responded to and anticipated both distal (cultural) and proximal (relational) discourses along the utterance chain constructing meaning around what it meant to be in a commuter marriage. Additionally, these data provided theoretical expansion in highlighting the understudied aspects of the distal not-yet-spoken in meaning construction surrounding relationships.

Course: Introduction to Communication Research or Qualitative ResearchObjective: To teach students the purpose and benefits of using a framework for observation.

Given the probability that the death of a family member will occur before a child has reached adulthood, the purpose of this project was to understand what motivates parents to either talk or not talk about a loved one's death with their children. Using Communication Privacy Management to inductively analyze interviews, we found parents were motivated to talk to their children about death because they wanted their children to be informed. This is reflected in the first primary theme, Recalibrating Family of Origin Privacy Orientation Rules: Motivations for Revealing. Two secondary themes further explained parents' motivations to reveal: death as a part of life and modeling grief. Even though parents wanted to inform their children, they also wanted to protect their children and this protection is demonstrated in the second primary theme, Protecting Children: Motivations for Balancing Revealing/Concealing as well as the secondary themes of selective honesty as a rule regulator and religion as a reference point.

Course Introduction to Communication Research or Qualitative Research Objective To teach students the purpose and benefits of using a framework for observation.

For many bereaved parents, talking about their child's death and their grief experiences is a way to cope with grief. Unfortunately, communicating with others often proves difficult for parents and their social networks, often because of face threats. The purpose of the present study is to identify how the face needs of parents and their social network is communicatively negotiated. Fifty-three bereaved parents were interviewed and the data analyzed, resulting in a theme of protection. The findings highlight ways in which both the parents' and others' positive and negative faces were co-managed. These findings highlight the complex nature of facework in social networks at individual, relational, and systemic levels. Notes Numbers represent transcript line numbers. Additional informationNotes on contributorsM. Chad McBrideM. Chad McBride, Department of Communication Studies, Creighton UniversityPaige TollerPaige Toller, School of Communication, University of Nebraska–Omaha.