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theses

Whereas the topic of job loss has garnered much scholarly interest in the fields of management and psychology, it has yet to capture the attention of communication scholars despite their traditional interest in contexts of work. This dissertation aims to mitigate the dearth of communication-based scholarship on employment loss and encourage theoretical and empirical examinations of this topic by making two contributions. First, this research challenges the cognitive and rational assumptions of extant job loss models (e.g., Latack et al., 1995; Leana & Feldman, 1988) and offers an alternative perspective on job loss and coping that foregrounds the constitutive role of communication (e.g., Fairhurst & Putnam, 2004; Putnam & Nicotera, 2009) as a guiding ontology. Drawing on the theories of sensemaking (Weick, 1979, 1995), structuration (Giddens, 1984, 1991), and dialectics (Bakhtin, 1981; Baxter & Montgomery, 1996), the proposed framework reconceptualizes job loss as a situated, emergent, and contested experience, and casts displaced workers as agents whose quest to cope with their circumstances is both constrained and enabled. This dissertation also makes an empirical contribution by using its proposed framework to examine the practice of blogging as a means of coping with job loss. Through in-depth analysis of interview transcripts and blog posts spanning six months, and using a grounded theory approach (Charmaz, 2006), this research probes the blogging practices of four laid-off professionals and identifies the coping tensions they grappled with, as well as the discursive strategies they used to navigate them. Findings reveal that blogging was problematized both as a routine and a practice by the dialectic interplay of two overarching coping imperatives, namely the need to reverse job loss (Resolution) and the need to weather it in the meantime (Endurance). On one hand, bloggers grappled with the appropriateness of committing to a blog instead of dedicating themselves fully to their job search (Productivity vs. Distraction). In addition, they tried to harness the coping benefits of blogging while making sure that looking back on their experiences did not ultimately hold them back as well (Looking Back vs. Moving Forward). To manage these tensions, participants deployed a variety of transcendence and integration strategies (Seo et al., 2004). Specifically, productivity displays and legitimization logics enabled them to transcend tensional dynamics by reframing blogging, in turn, as a public record of productive time use and as a legitimate part of a productive routine. On the other hand, humor, disclosure logics, and distancing tactics proved useful for mitigating the constraining effects of blogging on participants’ ability to move on emotionally and professionally from their job loss, while still allowing them to reap its coping benefits.

ETD_8522

Ph.D.

Includes bibliographical references

by Sally A. Abdul Wahab

doi:10.7282/T3WD43P1

ETD doctoral

The author owns the copyright to this work.