community dialogue: osu-cascades creating non-polarized scenes for engaging contested topics natalie...

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Community Dialogue: OSU-Cascades Creating Non-polarized Scenes for Engaging Contested Topics Natalie Dollar, PhD

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Dissenting views USAmericans hold them and should express them Widely accessible communication forms  Discussion  Debate  Deliberation  Argument  Public meetings

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Page 1: Community Dialogue: OSU-Cascades Creating Non-polarized Scenes for Engaging Contested Topics Natalie Dollar, PhD

Community Dialogue: OSU-Cascades

Creating Non-polarized Scenes for Engaging Contested Topics

Natalie Dollar, PhD

Page 2: Community Dialogue: OSU-Cascades Creating Non-polarized Scenes for Engaging Contested Topics Natalie Dollar, PhD

Expressing self in public, a deeply felt USAmerican belief• “that one can and should speak, one can and

should speak about self, its history, experiences, and opinions; and that one should not let others inhibit the willingness to speak in public” (Carbaugh, 2005, p. 22)

• “a civil routine where information is produced, and differences among people are both a warrant and theme of its productions” (p. 45)

Page 3: Community Dialogue: OSU-Cascades Creating Non-polarized Scenes for Engaging Contested Topics Natalie Dollar, PhD

Dissenting views

• USAmericans hold them and should express them

• Widely accessible communication forms Discussion Debate Deliberation Argument Public meetings

Page 4: Community Dialogue: OSU-Cascades Creating Non-polarized Scenes for Engaging Contested Topics Natalie Dollar, PhD

Cultural Communication Crisis,Revisiting the context, April 2003• “I haven’t felt this way since well I’m not sure

I’ve ever felt this way. This is America and I am scared to voice my opinion.” (community member, March 2003)

• “I certainly don’t want to bring up Iraq unless I’m talking to my most trusted friends and they tend to think like me. How in the world am I going to understand their perspective if everyone is terrified to talk about it, especially in public and at work?” (community member March 2003)

Page 5: Community Dialogue: OSU-Cascades Creating Non-polarized Scenes for Engaging Contested Topics Natalie Dollar, PhD

Communication obligation

• To create a communication scene where members of our community could come together and respectfully communicate with others, who likely held differing opinions and beliefs, during this time of crisis.

• Manage “dueling identities” communication forms

Page 6: Community Dialogue: OSU-Cascades Creating Non-polarized Scenes for Engaging Contested Topics Natalie Dollar, PhD

War & Peace: A Series of Dialogues, Spring 2003• Community Dialogue Workshop

OSU-Cascades and Central Oregon partnership 4 workshops, 5th offered February – March 2008

• Community Dialogue Project (research and outreach) Series of studies Campus dialogue workshops Participant application

Page 7: Community Dialogue: OSU-Cascades Creating Non-polarized Scenes for Engaging Contested Topics Natalie Dollar, PhD

“Getting below the Sound Bite” by Engaging the Betwixt and

BetweenStudy 1

Community Dialogue Workshop 1

Page 8: Community Dialogue: OSU-Cascades Creating Non-polarized Scenes for Engaging Contested Topics Natalie Dollar, PhD

USAmerican public “expressive order”1. Lack of depth in content

2. Absence of incurring future interactional obligations

3. Absence of attention to consequences of communication for both local and global communities

4. Absence of silence as a powerful resource for understanding other, identifying mutuality, and building trusting relationships

Page 9: Community Dialogue: OSU-Cascades Creating Non-polarized Scenes for Engaging Contested Topics Natalie Dollar, PhD

Research Questions:

1. Can we transform an educational and public scene supporting polarized, expert-driven communication, to a scene prioritizing “non-polarized discourse of substance”?

2. What communication practices facilitate this transformation?

3. What communication practices inhibit this transformation?

Page 10: Community Dialogue: OSU-Cascades Creating Non-polarized Scenes for Engaging Contested Topics Natalie Dollar, PhD

Methods1. Phase 1 – across 4 workshops• Audio recordings of CDW• Review recordings weekly

2. Phase 2 – specific workshop• Review of audio-tapes, participant evaluations, focus

group, research journal • Transcription of each 2-hour workshops• Cultural pragmatics and cultural themes analysis

Communication profile Communication strategies/practices Focus on participants’ communication

Page 11: Community Dialogue: OSU-Cascades Creating Non-polarized Scenes for Engaging Contested Topics Natalie Dollar, PhD

Findings:

1. River metaphor - our emergent “optimal communication form”

Exemplar workshop

Ebbs and flows

Both necessary

Page 12: Community Dialogue: OSU-Cascades Creating Non-polarized Scenes for Engaging Contested Topics Natalie Dollar, PhD

Findings continued:2. Engaging the dialogic moment – engaging the complexity

Recognizing dialogic moments• Dialogic listening • Building trust• Getting to know participants’ communication styles

Negotiating the narrow ridge• Personal and communal• Emotion and rationality• Linear and non-linear• Process and product

Tension of holding one’s own while engaging other

Page 13: Community Dialogue: OSU-Cascades Creating Non-polarized Scenes for Engaging Contested Topics Natalie Dollar, PhD

Findings continued:

3. Inhibiting dialogic moment

Prism of dialectical tensions• USAmerican cultural values & dialogic sensibilities

Preference for talk

Page 14: Community Dialogue: OSU-Cascades Creating Non-polarized Scenes for Engaging Contested Topics Natalie Dollar, PhD

Communicative agency

• Requires the presence of appropriate rules, resources, and motives

• If we intentionally create places where persons who disagree and misunderstand one another are encouraged to interact, dialogic moments are likely to occur.

Page 15: Community Dialogue: OSU-Cascades Creating Non-polarized Scenes for Engaging Contested Topics Natalie Dollar, PhD

Suggestions:• Make sure dialogue is the appropriate communication

form and provide dialogue scene

• Start with a set of rules for your dialogue

• Clarify dialogue’s relationship to other communication forms such as decision-making

• Teach listening as essential skill

• Recognize and embrace the situatedness of each interaction and relationship

• Not all participants will engage in dialogue at the same time