Sara Baker

Ph.D. student in Organizational Communication
B.A. from Virginia Tech
M.A. from San Diego State University

Research interests:

Additional Information:
Research Opportunities

Raymond Blanton

M.Div. from Westminster Theological Seminary

Research interests: visual rhetoric, identity/authenticity, social class studies, cultural/media studies, religion/faith, and the rhetoric of humility.

Work in progress:

Blanton, R.L. (2012, August). "Bowling Overhand: The Big Lebowski & Bowling as Representative Anecdote.

Blanton, R.L. (2012, April). "American Dream(s): Shepard Fairey's Obama Hope as Visual Ideograph.

Blanton, R.L. (2012, April) "Colored Collars and Identity Seams: American Myth, <Blue Collar> Rhetoric, and "Work Shirt" Ideology

Joshua Ewalt

B.S., Northern Michigan University
M.A., University of Nebraska

Publications:

Ewalt, J.P. (2011). Mapping injustice: The world is witness, place-framing, and the politics of viewing on Google Earth.
Communication, Culture, and Critique, 4(4), 333-354 (lead article).

Ewalt, J. (2011). A colonialist celebration of national <heritage>:
Verbal, visual, and landscape ideographs at Homestead National
Monument of America. Western Journal of Communication 75(4), 367-385.

Ewalt, J. (2011). The pain and exultation of representing place:
Google Earth, environmental rhetoric, and the postmodern sublime.
Aether: The Journal of Media Geography, 8a, 25-41.

Current Interests:

Cartography as a method for mapping rhetorical spatiality

Biopolitics and the public sphere

Darrel Farmer

Ph.D. Student at the University of Nebraska Lincoln
B.A. Central Michigan University
M.A. Central Michigan University

Research Interests: Deliberative discourse, civic engagement in a networked society, argumentation and debate

Farmer, D. (2011). Police incongruity and the framing of arrest reports: The Henry Gates Jr. arrest as a case study of portrayals of race. Paper presented at the National Communication Association.

Farmer, D. (2011). Beyond the classroom: The challenges and opportunities of mentoring a debate team. Paper presented at the Central States Communication Association.

Farmer, D. (2011). When I play, does civic engagement disappear? Final Fantasy and the counter culture narrative. Paper presented at the Central States Communication Association.

Getachew Dinku Godana

Research interests: rhetoric of community participation

Work in progress:

The Construction of the "the people" in Charity Singles-"We are the World" and "Do They Know It's Christmas?"

Amanda Holman

Research interests: communication and sense-making in family, adolescent, and personal relationships, storytelling of taboo topics in family relationships, nar rative development in adolescence, connection between communication, identity, and emotional/physical well-being.

Holman A. & Sillars A. (in-press). Talk about "hooking up": The influence of college student social networks on non-relationship sex. Health Communication

Stephenson-Abetz, J. & Holman, A. (2011, November). "Home is Where the Heart is": Facebook and the Negotiation of Old and New Relationships and Selves During the College Transition. Paper will be presented at the annual meeting of the National Communication Association, New Orleans, LA. [Top Four Student Paper, Human Communication and Technology Division].

Carr, K., Holman, A., Stephenson-Abetz, J., Koenig Kellas, J., Vagnoni, E. (2011, November). Giving Voice to the Silence: Attributional Variations for Parent-child Estrangement. Paper will be presented at the annual meeting of the National Communication Association, New Orleans, LA.

Work in progress:

Parent-adolescent communication and intergroup, female adolescents' narrative "possible-self" identity in science, technology, engineering, and math, narrative development in adolescence.

Sarah Jones

Research interests: gender, rhetorical theory and criticism, resistance, transnational feminism, globalization from below

Jones, S.L. (2011, February). Emotional invention: An inquiry. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Western Communication Association, Monterrey, CA. [Top Student Paper].

Jones, S.L. (2011, February). Gendered location: A genealogical approach to agency.” Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Western Communication Association, Monterrey, CA. [Top Paper Award].

Jones, S.L. (2010). Thinking globally, acting locally: Northern Ugandan women and The Open Cage. Women & Language, 33(2), 55-70.

Jones, S.L. (2010, Summer). Howard Zinn and the history of the American empire. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Rhetoric Society of America, Minneapolis, MN.

Zantel Nichols

B.A. University of Iowa

Lucas, K., Nichols, Z., Rick, J. M., & Westling, A. (2010, November). How-to and must-do messages: A comparison of first- and continuing-generation college students' family messages. Paper presented at annual meeting of the National Communication Association, San Francisco, CA.

Ward, J. W., Campbell, K. D., & Nichols, Z. D. (2009). Essentials of business and professional communication. Southlake, TX: Fountainhead Press.

Nichols, Z.D. (in progress). Communicating organizational identity in grassroots organizations associated with stigma. IRB approval granted, data collection Spring 2011.

Audra Nuru

Research interests: the communicative negotiation of conflicting identities, parent-child messages in multi-ethnic families, how families communicate about stressful/traumatic life changes

Nuru, A. K. (2009, October). Misconceptions About Silence and Passivity: How American Students Perceive Asian International Students' Use of Passivity in the Classroom. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Florida Communication Association, Lake Buena Vista, FL. [Top Graduate Paper].

Work in progress:

Nuru, A.K. Unable to escape: investigating the effects of social networking and cyberbullying on perceptions of self-esteem and perceived homophily.

Nuru, A.K. Understanding how multiethnic children raised in single-parent, monoethnic households, communicate a multiethnic identity.

Jessy Ohl

Ph.D. student in Rhetoric & Public Culture B.S. from Kansas State University
M.A. from The University of Alabama

Research interests: political communication, public memory, war rhetoric, rhetorical theory

Ohl, J. (2011, November). "Speaking for the Dead: The Rhetorical Construction of the Pat Tillman Death Narrative." Paper presented at the annual meeting of the National Communication Association Conference. New Orleans, LA.

Ohl, J. (2011, March). "Awaiting Madame Vice President: Gendered Representations of Geraldine Ferraro and Sarah Palin in United States News Media." Top Paper Panel at the annual meeting of the Central States Communication Association, Milwaukee, WI.

Work in progress:

"Picturing the Past: The (Re) Appropriation of Lynching Photographs in Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America."

Jenna Stephenson Abetz

Ph.D. student in Interpersonal & Family Communication
B.A. from James Madison University
M.A. from San Diego State University

Research Interests: the social construction of gender identity and identity work, work and family socialization, feminist theories

Stephenson Abetz, J. (2012). Everyday activism as a dialogic practice: Narratives of feminist daughters. Women's Studies in Communication, 35, 1-22.

Stephenson Abetz, J., & Holman, A. (2012). Home is where the heart is: Facebook and the negotiation of "old" and "new" during the transition to college. Western Journal of Communication, 76, 175-193.

Stephenson Abetz, J., & Alemán, M. W. (2012). Creating a consciousness of leadership: A case study of a university women's CR group. In A. Holba & E. Ruminski (Eds.) Communicative understandings of women's leadership development: From ceilings of glass to labyrinth paths (p. 113-134). Lexington Books: Lanham, MD.

Rachel Stohr

Research interests: organizing for social justice, rhetorical approaches to citizenship, gendered discourses of organizational culture and politics, dialogic communication

Schuetz, J. & Stohr, R (2011). Cyber Advocacy and the Evolution of the Tea Party Movement. In Reasoned Argument and Social Change, Proceedings of the 2011 Alta Conference (Annandale, VA: NCA).

Stohr, R.A. (November, 2011). Organizing dialogical citizenship: A pluralistic alternative to exclusionary liberalism. Paper accepted for presentation to the Peace and Conflict Communication Division at the National Communication Association's annual convention, New Orleans, LA. [Top-four Paper]

Stohr, R.A. (November, 2011). Asserting contested power: Exploring the control-resistance dialectic in the World Trade Organization's discourse of globalization. Paper accepted for presentation to the Organizational Communication Division at the National Communication Association's annual convention, New Orleans, LA.

Chigozirim Utah

Phd Organizational Comm, Secondary Rhetoric
M.A. Wichita State University
B.A. Angelo State University

Research Interests: civil society, organizational rhetoric and discourse, organizing in the African context, globalization, diaspora, postcolonial perspectives, national identity, community based participatory research.

Okafor, C., Utah, C. (2010) Nigeria: Past, Present and Future presented at the Global Learning Center May program, Wichita, Kansas

Utah, C. (2010) Customer Service in Financial, Communications and Business Service Companies in Nigeria: Impressions of Lagos Industry Executives presented at the Graduate Research and Scholarly Project (GRASP) program, Wichita State University, Wichita, Kansas

Utah, C., Granville, M. (2010) Disaster Preparedness on the Plains: When the Breezes Are Not So Balmy and Light presented at the Sooner Communication Conference, University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma Ballard-Reisch, D.S., Bahner, C., Epp, M., Hale, L., Hanley, R., Kendrick, K., Rogers, M., Rogers, N., Archiopoli, A., Granville, M., Rozzell, B., Utah, C., Williams, K.S. & Radebaugh, T.

(Dec. 2010) Development of the Falling LinKS Toolkit: An Example of a Community-Grounded Health Promotion Initiative. Poster presentation for "Celebrate Aging Research at Wichita State University" poster competition, WSU Regional Institute on Aging, Wichita, Kansas.

Work in progress:

Multinationals and Identity Construction: The Case of Telecommunications Corporations in Nigeria

Reconceptualizing civil society in Nigeria

Alexis Zoe Waters

Ph.D. student in Interpersonal and Family Communication, secondary: Rhetoric
M.A. from Northeastern Illinois University
B.A. from University of Illinois at Chicago

Research interests: How individuals negotiate identity and communicate during times of distress and marginalization.
Primary focuses are in health communication and mediated communication.

Waters, A.Z.  (2010, November). Cancer: The hardest word in the dictionary to say. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the National Communication Association, San Francisco, CA.

Waters, A.Z. (2010, February). The Sex life in your Second Life: An Ethnography Study of the Oversexualization of Women on Second Life. Paper Presented at Popular Culture Association/America Culture Association, Albuquerque, NM.

Work in progress:
The Role of Social Media during Turning Points and Commitment in Romantic Relationships.

Chad Wertley

Ph.D. Candidate in Interpersonal & Family Communication
M.B.A. from Saint Louis University
B.S. from Miami University (Ohio)

Research Interests:
The ways in which people of socially disparate groups use communication to
negotiate, maintain, and enhance their social and personal identity; how
digital media (re)creates ways to express social identity.

Publications and Conferences: Wertley, C. et al. (2012, July). "The culture of Comic-Con: Field studies of fans and marketing." Panel presented at the Comics Arts Conference as part of Comic-Con International, San Diego, CA.

Wertley, C. (2012, March). "Shifting the piracy paradigm from thievery to
consumerism." Paper presented to the Political Communication and Rhetorical Theory Interest Groups at the Central States Communication Association Annual Convention, Cleveland, OH.

Carlson, L., Laczniak, R., & Wertley, C. (2011). "Parental style: The
implications of what we know (and think we know)." Journal of Advertising
Research, 51(2), 427-435.

The UNL Communication Studies Department welcomes our 2012-13 New Graduate Students.

DOCTORAL STUDENTS

Amy Arellano
amyarellano@gmail.com
Jamie Downing
jamieldowning@gmail.com
Elizabeth Flood
elizabeth.flood88@gmail.com
Jennifer Hardy
jen@huskers.unl.edu
Christina Ivey
christina.ivey37@gmail.com
Julia Moore
jmoore@huskers.unl.edu
Allison Ronnau
allison.ronnau8@gmail.com