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Constructing "Community" in a Changing Economy: A Case Study Analysis of Local Organizing in the Rural United States

Wiederhold, Anna M.
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1363286559

Abstract Details

2013, Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, Communication Studies (Communication).
Disaster can sometimes be a time of opportunity: for reflection, reevaluation, and readjustment--for questioning the status quo. Through a case study of Wilmington, Ohio, a small Ohio town in the midst of a self-described economic disaster, I consider how organizational networks and communities constitute each other in efforts to redefine a sense of place and local identity amid large-scale unplanned change. As I explore the ways in which "community" is named and placed in micro, meso, and macro-level discourses, I am guided by the following broad questions: How do component organizations in a transorganizational network demonstrate and defend their legitimacy? How do they communicatively construct and maintain a shared vision for the future towards which to mobilize a collectivity of individuals? What opportunities for and obstacles to collaboration do community organizers encounter in their efforts to redefine the communal spaces of a town? By analyzing transorganizational narratives of crisis, disaster, and opportunity, this study strives to engage communication studies more deeply in understanding the inextricable relationship between individual, organizational, and community identity.
Laura Black, Ph.D. (Advisor)
251 p.
Communication
organizational communication; community; disaster policy; rural sustainability; economic development; mass localism; rhetoric; space and place; qualitative research; discourse tracing; narrative

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Wiederhold, A. M. (2013). Constructing "Community" in a Changing Economy: A Case Study Analysis of Local Organizing in the Rural United States [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1363286559

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Wiederhold, Anna. Constructing "Community" in a Changing Economy: A Case Study Analysis of Local Organizing in the Rural United States. 2013. Ohio University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1363286559.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Wiederhold, Anna. "Constructing "Community" in a Changing Economy: A Case Study Analysis of Local Organizing in the Rural United States." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio University, 2013. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1363286559

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

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© 2013, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by Ohio University and OhioLINK.