Scott Sellnow-Richmond’s research while affiliated with Southern Illinois University Edwardsville and other places

Public health experts have studied global pandemics long before the COVID-19 outbreak of 2020. Since the worldwide spread of HIV, SARS, H1N1, and Ebola among others, scholars have focused on identifying best practices for risk mitigation and reaching disparate publics to engage in appropriate risk mitigation behaviors. The 2019 measles outbreak in Washington, USA flourished in large part due to the viral spread of misinformation on social networking platforms. Due to intended openness of these platforms, antivaccination messaging became prominent, and the U.S. among other countries to have eradicated measles saw a number of outbreaks. In the U.S. in 2019, many of these occurred in Washington state. These outbreaks served as an impetus for social media platforms to reconsider their role in spreading health misinformation and its contribution to real world danger. This analysis considers open media ethics to understand social media platforms’ initial decisions to allow vaccine misinformation and the role of communication scholars and practitioners have in understanding, and acting on misinformation. Using a case study approach, this article examines online discourse about the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine, policy measures related to vaccine exemption, and social media organization formal responses in 2019 directly related to the increase in U.S. measles outbreaks. Using an open media ethics framework, findings from this study illustrate the ways in which these organizations initially intended to have an open platform for health-related discussions. Further analysis demonstrates that these organizations focused on existing terms of use to put in place protective measures that would prevent further spread of this mis- and disinformation. However, conclusions draw illustrate that placing the onus on the social media organizations alone is insufficient to prevent outbreaks such as this to occur, and as the COVID-19 pandemic began the following year, the implications of this study continue to pose questions about social media misinformation management.

Social stigma can have negative mental and physical health repercussions for those who experience it. The LGBTQ+ community is one group demonstrative of this finding. Much of the research on stigmatization and the LGBTQ+ community focuses on stigmatization toward this group from broader society. Social psychology research has demonstrated the prevalence of in-group stigmatization within the community. For this study, 22 participants who identify as members of the LGBTQ+ community were interviewed. Findings illustrate both enacted and perceived stigmatization that participants experience within the community related to behavioral, bisexual, and, Trans stigmatization, and demonstrate remaining work regarding how communities communicate about themselves, among their members, and the complex relationships that constitute them.

One year into the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. had lost over a half million lives to the virus. Organizations had to shift the way they operated, requiring effective communication to help employees transition. This study examines two important time periods during the pandemic: early May, just after stay-at-home orders began to be lifted, and late November, as infection rates soared. This study quantitatively examines the role of perceived severity, organizational trust, reputation, and credibility on participants employed during the pandemic expectations of leadership at the organizational, state, and federal levels. Then, participants were interviewed to understand perceptions of leadership. Results illustrate the relationship between perceived severity of the threat and trust in leadership and uncertainty about mitigation measures from state and federal levels.

This chapter explores how new fathers living in the United States communicatively negotiate the tensions surrounding their decision to take paternity leave, which often runs counter to dominant American cultural norms. More specifically, we examine data collected through in‐depth interviews with 18 new fathers who chose to take paternity leave through the theoretical lenses of the communication theory of identity (CTI) and stigma. The results give rise to several important conclusions, implications, and practical applications. Foremost, they provide a roadmap for new fathers to follow as they successfully negotiate competing identity frames, identity frame gaps, and stigmatization when they make paternity leave decisions that run counter to dominant American norms. In addition, they reveal communication strategies for family, friends, and co‐workers to abide by as they strive to change culturally biased perceptions about how fatherhood is defined and enacted in the United States. Finally, they point to the need to adopt federal policies focused specifically on paternity leave as a means to further shift the dominant American cultural norms of masculinity surrounding motherhood and fatherhood.

Geographically dispersed family members utilize frequent and diverse modes of communication to maintain their relationships. In transnational families separated by national boarders, family members may face constraints on channel selection due to cultural and/or structural factors. We draw from media multiplexity theory (MMT) and the cultural dimensions model to examine how transnationalism, societal individualism-collectivism (I-C), family allocentrism, and relational closeness influence the use of information communication technologies (ICTs) to maintain long-distance family relationships (LDFRs). Whereas results of the analysis provide cross-cultural support for MMT’s predictions regarding closeness and ICT frequency, the analysis reveals little support for MMT’s predictions regarding closeness and ICT variety. This study extends MMT by including culture in the study of relational closeness and ICT use, highlights the importance of family allocentrism when applying MMT to LDFRs, and demonstrates how transnational families can have frequent communication to maintain close, long-distance ties despite limited channel variety. Keywords: Culture, Immigrants, Information Communication Technologies, Long Distance Families, Relational ClosenessThis work was supported by the Humanities Center Faculty Fellowship program at Wayne State University.

Gender and sexuality have a complex relationship to one another and a profound impact on an individual's sense of self and their relationships. These concepts are influenced by many factors, including one's family unit, where understandings of gender and sexuality begin. Gender has historically influenced expectations of one's sexuality and vice versa. There are several key approaches to understanding the relationship between gender and sexuality, each worthy of understanding as they illuminate different perspectives and assumptions about these two interconnected concepts.