Larry R. Frey - Böcker

This book examines the concept of "community," focusing on how communication practices help manage the tensions of creating and sustaining everyday communal life amidst the crisis of human loss. While acknowledging how the contradictory and inconsistent nature of human relationships inevitably affects community, this intimate and compelling text shows how community is created and sustained in concrete communication practices. The authors explore these ideas at Bonaventure House, an award-winning residential facility for people with AIDS, where the web of social relationships and the demands of a life-threatening illness intersect in complex ways. Facing a life-threatening illness can defy meaningful social connections, but it can also inspire such ties, sometimes in ways that elude us in the course of daily life. By understanding how collective communication practices help residents forge a sense of community out of the fragility and chaos of living together with AIDS, we are able to better understand how communication is inexorably intertwined with the formation of community in other environments.Based on seven years of ethnographic research including participant-observation, in-depth interviews, and questionnaires, this book weaves together narratives and visual images with conceptual analysis to uncover the ongoing oppositional forces of community life, and to show how both mundane and profound communication processes ameliorate these tensions, and thereby sustain this fragile community. Because the average length of stay for a resident is seven months -- in which time he or she moves from being a newcomer to a community member to someone the community remembers -- the text reflects this short, but crystallized life, starting with the day a new resident opens the door to the day he or she passes away.The writing is rich -- intimate, engaging, personal, compelling, and vivid. The stories told discuss such deeply personal topics as the dilemmas of romantic relationships in a context fraught with many perils; issues of power, authority, and control that enable and constrain social life; and communicative practices that help residents cope with bereavement over the loss of others as well as their own impending deaths. The text concludes by examining the lessons learned from Bonaventure House about creating and sustaining a health community, and serves as an inspiration for strengthening interpersonal relationships and communities in other environments.

This book examines the concept of "community," focusing on how communication practices help manage the tensions of creating and sustaining everyday communal life amidst the crisis of human loss. While acknowledging how the contradictory and inconsistent nature of human relationships inevitably affects community, this intimate and compelling text shows how community is created and sustained in concrete communication practices. The authors explore these ideas at Bonaventure House, an award-winning residential facility for people with AIDS, where the web of social relationships and the demands of a life-threatening illness intersect in complex ways. Facing a life-threatening illness can defy meaningful social connections, but it can also inspire such ties, sometimes in ways that elude us in the course of daily life. By understanding how collective communication practices help residents forge a sense of community out of the fragility and chaos of living together with AIDS, we are able to better understand how communication is inexorably intertwined with the formation of community in other environments.Based on seven years of ethnographic research including participant-observation, in-depth interviews, and questionnaires, this book weaves together narratives and visual images with conceptual analysis to uncover the ongoing oppositional forces of community life, and to show how both mundane and profound communication processes ameliorate these tensions, and thereby sustain this fragile community. Because the average length of stay for a resident is seven months -- in which time he or she moves from being a newcomer to a community member to someone the community remembers -- the text reflects this short, but crystallized life, starting with the day a new resident opens the door to the day he or she passes away.The writing is rich -- intimate, engaging, personal, compelling, and vivid. The stories told discuss such deeply personal topics as the dilemmas of romantic relationships in a context fraught with many perils; issues of power, authority, and control that enable and constrain social life; and communicative practices that help residents cope with bereavement over the loss of others as well as their own impending deaths. The text concludes by examining the lessons learned from Bonaventure House about creating and sustaining a health community, and serves as an inspiration for strengthening interpersonal relationships and communities in other environments.

This volume provides real-life studies of groups in the setting where they form. The book is designed for use as a text in courses on group communication and as a reference for group communication scholars.

This volume provides real-life studies of groups in the setting where they form. The book is designed for use as a text in courses on group communication and as a reference for group communication scholars.

These two texts showcase how scholars have engaged in communication activism to assist individuals, groups, organizations, and communities to secure social reform. Volume 1 presents research studies that promote public dialogue, debate, and discussion and that demonstrate how communication consulting can be used to accomplish needed social change. Together, these two volumes demonstrate the significant effects that communication scholars, working from many different theoretical and methodological traditions, can have on promoting social change, especially for those who are most marginalized, when they engage in communication activism.

These two texts showcase how scholars have engaged in communication activism to assist individuals, groups, organizations, and communities to secure social reform. Volume 1 presents research studies that promote public dialogue, debate, and discussion and that demonstrate how communication consulting can be used to accomplish needed social change. Together, these two volumes demonstrate the significant effects that communication scholars, working from many different theoretical and methodological traditions, can have on promoting social change, especially for those who are most marginalized, when they engage in communication activism.

These two texts showcase how scholars have engaged in communication activism to assist individuals, groups, organizations, and communities to secure social reform. Volume 2 focuses on research studies that show how media can be managed to promote social change and how performance can serve as an important form of communication activism. Together, these two volumes demonstrate the significant effects that communication scholars, working from many different theoretical and methodological traditions, can have on promoting social change, especially for those who are most marginalized, when they engage in communication activism.