St. Norbert Collaborative - Connections

St. Norbert College senior Morgan Johnson and Communication and Media Studies faculty member Jim Neuliep are in the process of a collaborative communication research project funded by the SNC Collaborative. Their cross-cultural comparative study focuses on various communication components—power-distance, enthocentrism, face, facework, and conflict style—that exist among Ecuadorians and Americans. Power-distance refers to the degree members of a society are aware and accept that power is distributed unequally. Enthocentrism is the tendency to place one’s own group or ethnicity in a position of centrality and worth, while creating negative attitudes and behaviors toward other groups. Face refers to a person’s public image. Facework describes the communicative strategies employed to manage one’s own face or to support or challenge another’s face during human interaction. Conflict style evaluates the types of communicative behaviors used to manage conflict.

After translating all English documents into Spanish, Johnson used the Collaborative funding to travel to Ecuador over long weekend to research at two different universities—Universidad Tecnológica Equinoccial and Universidad San Francisco de Quito, with whom SNC has a study abroad partnership. She had direct contact with Ecuadorian students, faculty and administration as she personally administered the surveys in classroom settings—giving directions and answering questions in Spanish, her second language and major at SNC. Johnson stayed with Isa Viteri, a past SNC communication study abroad student. When research concluded Johnson was able to explore the Ecuadorian culture first-hand with Viteri as guide. Below are Johnson and Viteri at the Ecuador-Venezuela soccer game.

In addition to the academic goal of this project—contribute to the discipline of Intercultural Communication—Johnson and Neuliep will write a paper which will be submitted to various communication journals. Plans to present the findings next year either at the National Communication Association conference in Orlando and/or the International Communication Association conference in Phoenix are in the works.

By: Morgan Johnson, '12 Communication & Media Studies