Annis G. Golden

An Organizational Communication Challenge to the Discourse of Work and Family Research: From Problematics to Empowerment

Using a discourse perspective, we articulate four problematics, (a) boundaries, (b) identity, (c) rationality, and (d) voice that underlie work-family theory, research, and practice. We situate existing interdisciplinary research within each problematic, showing how such research examines outcomes and effects rather than the process of constructing such outcomes. We supplement these studies with emerging communication research to illustrate new ways of thinking about each problematic. We highlight the role of daily microlevel discourses as well as macrodiscourses of organizations and families in creating the current processes, structures, and relationships surrounding work and family. We link each problematic with an agenda for empowerment through (a) questioning boundaries, (b) integrating identity, (c) embracing practical knowledge and emotionality, (d) seeking diverse voices, and (e) developing a communal orientation.

Work-Life Research from Both Sides Now: An Integrative Perspective for Organizational and Family Communication

This article uses work-life interrelationships as a lens through which to identify communication concepts that span the traditional “division divide” between organizational and family communication and to identify potential substantive contributions to worklife research that might be made from integrative perspectives. We review extant worklife research within the communication discipline to identify themes and methodological approaches represented to date; we also identify lines of research in both organizational and family communication that have not yet been tied to work-life research but that have strong potential connections. We explore three theoretical perspectives for bridging workplace and private-life frames of reference: structuration, systems, and relational dialectics. Within each perspective, we identify integrative directions for future research. We conclude with me tadis cursive reflections on obstacles to and pathways for spanning division divides.

Interventions to Address Reproductive Health Disparities among African-American Women in a Small Urban Community: the Communicative Construction of a “Field of Health Action”

Guided by communication infrastructure theory (CIT) and based on analyses of multiple sources of data gathered as part of a four-year intervention to address reproductive health-care disparities among African-American women in a small, disadvantaged urban community in the northeastern USA, this mixed-methods study advances understanding of challenges that such health interventions face in smaller urban settings. Findings suggest that factors in residents’ material environment and their social construction of that environment interact to produce a “field of health action,” within which health-care seeking behavior is enabled and constrained. Four factors emerged as salient: actual availability of and perceptions of access to health-care resources, transportation options, communication resources (including interpersonal, media, and organizational) that aid health-care seeking, and privacy concerns around reproductive health-care seeking. The findings are discussed with regard to their implications for future research and health communication interventions that promote reproductive health-care seeking in small urban communities.

Permeability of public and private spaces in reproductive healthcare seeking: Barriers to uptake of services among low income African American women in a smaller urban setting

This study was undertaken in partnership with a publicly funded reproductive healthcare organization to better understand barriers to utilization of its services as perceived by low income African American women in its community and how those barriers might be managed. The study uses a place-based, ecological perspective to theorize privacy challenges across different levels of the communication ecology. Analysis of participant observation, interviews, and focus group data identified three key public-private problematics in African American womens experience of reproductive healthcare seeking in a smaller urban setting: a public-private problematic of organizational identity, of organizational regions, and of organizational members. Potential strategies are identified for managing these problematics by the organization and community members.

Interpretative repertoires that shape low-income African American women's reproductive health care seeking: "don't want to know" and "taking charge of your health".

In the context of reproductive and sexual health, African American women have higher incidence of disease and poorer outcomes on key indicators when compared with White women. In this study, we used discourse analysis to identify and examine the workings of two clusters of interpretive resources (“interpretative repertoires”) associated with reproductive/sexual health care seeking among low-income African American women who participated in semistructured interviews as part of a health promotion initiative. Interpretative repertoires are ways of accounting for engaging in or refraining from engaging in actions, which are shared by people in a community. We labeled the two interpretative repertoires “Don’t Want to Know,” and “Take Charge of Your Health.” Within the “Don’t Want to Know” repertoire, that testing would lead to threatening findings was assumed, a chain of devastating consequences was imagined, and a preference for uncertainty over certain knowledge was expressed. Conversely, the “Take Charge of Your Health” repertoire valued certainty over uncertainty, though in both interpretive frameworks, knowledge-based and emotion-based decision-making were intertwined. We conclude that health promotion initiatives—if they are to succeed in encouraging women to obtain valuable preventive health care services—must respond, in their choices of language and outreach strategies, to the expressed dilemma of wishing for reassurance but fearing bad news, to the intertwining of emotional reasoning and technorationality in health decision making, and to the particular relational experiences of African American women. Failure to do so will contribute to the continuation of reproductive and sexual health disparities.

A Communicative Analysis of a Sexual Health Screening Intervention Conducted in a Low-income Housing Complex.

Providing free HIV screening within public housing sites offers the potential for increased participation of at-risk populations. Residential-based screening, however, raises concerns about privacy because of the stigma attached to HIV/AIDS and even to the testing for HIV. This study examined the effectiveness of offering HIV screening within a public housing high-rise in upstate New York. Through interviews with both women who obtained testing and those who did not, this study explored the tension between convenience and privacy concerns. The findings suggest that offering HIV screening where people live could encourage participation in the screenings, as well as lead to a destigmatization of HIV testing over time. Some women chose to eschew the convenience of on-site testing in favor of a more private venue for screening, whereas some women responded positively to the accessibility of on-site testing, using communicative strategies to manage privacy concerns.