Master Classes: This Month Featuring Knapp and McLeod
In each Newsletter leading up to the conference, we will highlight two of the fascinating master classes that have been planned for Phoenix. Master lecturers will feature Mark Knapp (U of Texas-Austin), Chin-Chuan Lee (City U of Hong Kong), Dafna Lemish (Southern Illinois U-Carbondale), Jack McLeod (U of Wisconsin), James Curran (U of London), and Stan Deetz (U of Colorado-Boulder).
This month, learn more about lecturers Mark Knapp and Jack McLeod and what they have planned for Phoenix.
Doing It Interpersonally
by Mark Knapp
As a prelude to a spirited interaction with the audience, I will review some of the early aspects of my career, omitting the especially salacious and illegal moments. Along the way I will offer items that may be of some historical interest concerning interpersonal communication as I perceived it in the Stone Age. This journey will necessitate me telling the story of my own twisted career trajectory from interpersonal to organizational and back to interpersonal. The articles I published while the field was searching for its identity and what I personally have in common with the books I’ve written on nonverbal communication, relationships, and deception may only serve to cement the idea that for 45 years I had a helluva good time at work as well as after work. In a final effort to inject some substance into this session, I will bare my biases for studying interpersonal communication and take a stab at what the future may have in store.
Mark L. Knapp is the Jesse H. Jones Centennial Professor Emeritus and a Distinguished Teaching Professor Emeritus at the University of Texas at Austin. He received his PhD from Pennsylvania State University in 1966. Prior to his appointment at the University of Texas he was employed by the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Purdue University, the State University of New York at New Paltz, and the University of Vermont. He was the editor of Human Communication Research (1980-83); an Eastern Communication Association Scholar (1982-83); an ICA Fellow (1980); and an NCA Distinguished Scholar. The Mark L. Knapp Award for career contributions to the study of interpersonal communication is awarded annually by the National Communication Association. He received teaching awards from two professional associations and four different universities. He was the President of ICA (1975-76); NCA (1989-90); the Association for Communication Administrators (1996-97); and the University of Texas chapter of the Phi Kappa Phi honor society (2001-03). He chaired the Department of Communication Studies at the University of Texas from 1989-1996 and 2000-2001. His published research explored a wide variety of message types in interpersonal transactions. Four of his books are: Nonverbal Communication in Human Interaction; Interpersonal Communication and Human Relationships; Lying and Deception in Human Interaction; and the Handbook of Interpersonal Communication.
Media and Citizenship: Searching for "Fairness and Balance" in Times of Increasing Inequality
by Jack McLeod
I will begin by summarizing how chance events and limited decision-making combine to shape our professional career paths. I will illustrate this with a number of life-course events that developed my research concerns with inequalities in knowledge and participation in civic life and the possibility that communication could play a role in reducing disparities based on education, income, race and ethnicity, and gender. I will also reflect on how these events influenced the development of strategies for teaching and the conduct of research.
Next we will discuss how current trends in media use and the US political system have combined with the severe economic system to produce a crisis in political communication. Implications of the crisis and of the growth of the digital and online media forms will be examined in terms of their effects on knowledge and participation gaps.
Finally, I will show a communication mediation model, O1 --- S --- O2 --- R, where O1 represents pre-exposure orientations that mediate the effects of exogenous demographic variables and media exposure. These orientations can include various types of beliefs (e.g., worldviews) and values (e.g., normative goals) that act as mediators or moderators. S is media exposure and attention and O2 orientations mediate the effects of media S on various effects (e.g., political and civic knowledge and participation). O2 orientations can include various types of information processing strategies. I will ask the class participants to help with suggestions as to which variables can be added, which need to be reconceptualized so as to understand better the influence processes affecting civic engagement.
I will allocate a substantial amount of time at the end for questions not only about what was presented but also regarding topics from the list of recent chapters listed below.
Jack McLeod is Professor Emeritus of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Wisconsin, Madison. His ICA awards are: ICA Fellow (1988); B. Aubrey Fisher Mentorship Award (1991); ICA-APSA Murray Edelman Award for Career Achievement, with Steven Chaffee (2001). His recent co-authored book chapters include: Multilevel designs for comparative communication research (2012); Social networks, public discussion, and civic engagement: A socialization perspective (2012); The role of methods in advancing political communication research (2011); Communication and Education: Creating competence for socialization into public life (2010); Levels of analysis in communication science (2010); Political communication effects (2009); and US election coverage (2008). His current writing project is co-authoring a text, Communication and Public Opinion.