Communicating with Our Families: Continuity, Interruption, and Transformation examines how communication technologies are shaping childhood, parenthood, and families by exploring topics such as parental loneliness, family storytelling, family technology rules, mindful technology usage, multigenerational communication, and community. The scholars in this volume work from a human communication perspective and use various research modes of inquiry including quantitative, qualitative, and interpretive methods. Perhaps the most significant question implied by our contributors in this volume is whether the introduction of new communication technologies will fundamentally alter familial forms and if those new groupings that emerge will resemble what has been generally assumed for several millennia.
Section I: Continuity Chapter 1: Zooming through Change: The Role of Communication Technologies in Intergenerational Family Transitions during the COVID-19 Pandemic – Elizabeth B. Jones Chapter 2: Narrative Wisdom: Implications from Literature for Family Communication Technology – Janie Harden Fritz Chapter 3: Rhetorical Constructions of the Reset: Video Games and Family Connections – Paul Lucas Chapter 4: The Role of Communication and Information Technology in Health Information Seeking – Patty Wharton-Michael Chapter 5: With Great Power Comes Ethical Communication: Technology, Superheroes, and Family Conversations in Communication Ethics – Christina L. McDowell Marinchak and Tyrell J. Stewart-Harris Section II: Interruption Chapter 6: Cellular Television and the Reallocation of Familiar Attention – Joel S. Ward Chapter 7: Formative Media Consumption: Utilizing Media as Grammatical Foundations of Families – Anthony M. Wachs Chapter 8: Motherhood and Loneliness: The Social Media Dilemma – Maryl R. McGinley and Jill K. Burk Section III: Transformation Chapter 9: “According to Science, This Is Who I Am”: Personal Genome Testing and Adoption Reunions – Melissa Rizzo Weller Chapter 10: Family Communication Disrupted by Incarceration and the Role of Technology: An Overview – Tiffany Petricini Chapter 11: Strengthening Families through Web-Based Interventions: Developing and Assessing Feasibility of the “REAL Parenting: Talking About Alcohol” Program – Michelle Miller-Day, Anne E. Ray, Michael L. Hecht, and Rob Turrisi Chapter 12: Embracing the Transition to Social Media in Parent-Teen Communication – Melissa Rizzo Weller, Angela M. Hosek, and Jessica Cherry
Maryl R. McGinley is associate professor at the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown. Jill K. Burk is associate teaching professor and program chair of he communication arts and sciences program at Pennsylvania State University, Berks. Joel S. Ward is associate professor of communication at Geneva College.
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Communicating with Our Families: Technology as Continuity, Interruption, and Transformation, is a collection of essays that explore the impact, influence, and consequences of new and emergent communication technologies on familial communication, familial relationships, and communicative action in the world. The editors are guided by the assumption that how human beings live in familial relationships can model how we relate to others and engage in the world around us—extending communicative practices beyond familial ties. Considering all of the polarization, incivility, and disruption in our communities, our governments, and our generalized public sphere today, this text reminds us to look toward our families to learn how we might transform our public spaces with healthier communicative engagement. -- Annette M. Holba, Plymouth State University
