Bloomsbury Academic Communicating with the Public: Conversation Analytic Studies

This book offers a collection of conversation analytic investigations, focusing on the efforts of one US-based philanthropic organization to communicate its mission of improving public health through its funding of health-related research and programming. In contrast to big speeches and news interviews, much communication with the public involves routine communications undertaken by institutional representatives: this book considers through conversation analysis how this can be done most effectively. Communicating with the Public broadens the scope of conversation analysis by unveiling the interactive, multi-party, and multi-modal nature of institutional messaging that may have otherwise been construed as scripted, monologic undertakings. To this end, it features a diverse array of contemporary platforms, including webinars, podcasts and television interviews, as well as face-to-face conversations after conference talks and panel discussions. The chapters in this volume reveal how both foundation representatives and their interlocutors target messaging to specific audiences that may or may not be (physically) present, manage the logistics of delivering such messaging, and position themselves as credible experts or a unified institutional collective. Review "Never has there been a more important time to understand how organizations communicate with the public in the context of improving their health. Waring and Reddington's collection of chapters show in close detail how public relations are manifest across interactional settings, and provide important insights into the conversations that take place between the public across the many modalities of contemporary life." --Elizabeth Stokoe, Professor of Social Interaction, Loughborough University, UK"This volume breaks new ground as the first sustained investigation of a philanthropic organization's public outreach efforts from the vantage point of everyday language practices in media interviews, panel discussions, podcasts, and webinars. The findings will be of interest to a wide range of language and communication scholars and public relations professionals." --Steven Clayman, Professor of Sociology, University of California, Los Angeles, USA"The volume provides fresh insight into how institutions communicate with the public. Using conversation analysis as a lens, the authors delve into both oft-studied and burgeoning issues in such communication, offering new perspectives on the former, and innovative discourse studies on the latter. This is an important read for scholars of communication and discourse studies, as well as workers in public health." --Catherine DiFelice Box, Lecturer in Educational Linguistics, University of Pennsylvania, USA About the Author Hansun Zhang Waring is Associate Professor of Linguistics and Education at Teachers College, Columbia University, USA.Elizabeth Reddington is an Instructor in Applied Linguistics & TESOL at Teachers College, Columbia University, USA.