Shiv Ganesh
Massey University, Communication, Journalism & Marketing, Faculty Member
Contemporary surveillance occurs in the context of communicative abundance, where visibility is not only easy but relentless: never ending, far reaching, and ceaseless. Managing surveillance therefore has considerable implications for... more
Contemporary surveillance occurs in the context of communicative abundance, where visibility is not only easy but relentless: never ending, far reaching, and ceaseless. Managing surveillance therefore has considerable implications for democratic politics, workplace control, economic practices, cultural politics, and individual subjectivity. This article identifies surveillant individualism, or the pivotal role that individuals play in surveillance and countersurveillance, as a major feature of contemporary surveillance management. It seeks to clarify current research trajectories on digital surveillance management and to chart a course for organizational research on surveillant individualism.
Research Interests:
This essay highlights some key issues involving Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in the context of third world development by analyzing the growth and development of ICTs in a Non-Government Organization (NGO) in India,... more
This essay highlights some key issues involving Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in the context of third world development by analyzing the growth and development of ICTs in a Non-Government Organization (NGO) in India, over a four-year period. Specifically, it aims to understand the nature of connection and communication enabled by ICTs over this period, as well as ways in
Research Interests:
ABSTRACT Decades of critical research have established that economic and political ideolo-gies permeate and shape thought, text and action, and academic knowledge production is no exception. This article examines how ideologies might... more
ABSTRACT Decades of critical research have established that economic and political ideolo-gies permeate and shape thought, text and action, and academic knowledge production is no exception. This article examines how ideologies might permeate academic texts, by ...
Research Interests:
The last several decades have witnessed the proliferation and popularity of volunteering both as a means for individuals to connect with social issues and as a way of sustaining nonprofit organizations; indeed, it dominates contemporary... more
The last several decades have witnessed the proliferation and popularity of volunteering both as a means for individuals to connect with social issues and as a way of sustaining nonprofit organizations; indeed, it dominates contemporary discussions about civic engagement. Whereas some social theorists have promoted volunteering as a benchmark to assess democratic
participation, civic-mindedness, social capital, and trust (Putnam, 2000), others have questioned the uncomplicated associations among volunteering, civic engagement, and community (Ganesh & McAllum, 2009). Like Snyder (2001), we position volunteering as a “hybrid strain of helping” (p. 16309) that falls between spontaneous bystander intervention and highly obligated caregiving. Specifically, we propose that volunteering involves sustained identity investments by volunteers performed and realized in organizational settings.
participation, civic-mindedness, social capital, and trust (Putnam, 2000), others have questioned the uncomplicated associations among volunteering, civic engagement, and community (Ganesh & McAllum, 2009). Like Snyder (2001), we position volunteering as a “hybrid strain of helping” (p. 16309) that falls between spontaneous bystander intervention and highly obligated caregiving. Specifically, we propose that volunteering involves sustained identity investments by volunteers performed and realized in organizational settings.
Research Interests:
Public discourse often promotes volunteerism as a novel and empowering solution to social problems, and it is a significant international phenomenon. In this essay, we engage in an interdisciplinary review of the literature on the topic.... more
Public discourse often promotes volunteerism as a novel and empowering solution to social problems, and it is a significant international phenomenon. In this essay, we engage in an interdisciplinary review of the literature on the topic. We begin by clarifying three key terms around which we organize our review: volunteer, volunteering, and volunteerism. We take an explicitly discursive approach in our review, treating academic research on volunteerism as instantiations of discourses of representation, understanding, suspicion, and vulnerability (Mumby, 1997), and we use this framework to identify key areas of research and their possibilities and limitations. We conclude with some suggestions for future study.
Research Interests:
The Occupy movement is said to represent a new generation of post-Seattle protests, driven by social networking, and denoting a break from organizing practices in previous eras. This study analyzes the Occupy Wellington protest to shed... more
The Occupy movement is said to represent a new generation of post-Seattle protests, driven by social networking, and denoting a break from organizing practices in previous eras. This study analyzes the Occupy Wellington protest to shed light on the role of protests in an era of digital media ubiquity. Based on participant observation as well as 76 brief interviews, the study explores how activists used digital media, and examines the broader institutional logics that shaped organizing dynamics at the protest. The analysis discusses digital media saturation and the multiple institutional logics that activists drew from in their organizing, including collective action, connective action, aggregation, and networking. It argues that digital ubiquity marks the onset of a profound hybridity in activist organizing practice.
Research Interests:
It has only been in the last decade or so that organizational communication scholarship has truly ventured outside workplaces and engaged substantively with community groups, activist organizing and social justice organizations as worthy... more
It has only been in the last decade or so that organizational communication scholarship has truly ventured outside workplaces and engaged substantively with community groups, activist organizing and social justice organizations as worthy subjects of study. Our objective is to consolidate this diverse and emerging investment in studies of community organizing, social movements, and collective action with reference to a key problematic in organizational communication research: that of the organization-society relationship. While the relationship between organizations and their communities is complex, multifaceted, and reciprocal, we trace how studies have historically embodied at least one of three perspectives, each of which conceives of communities and the role of organizations in distinct ways: organization as community outsiders, organizations as constitutive of the community, and organizations as insiders.
Research Interests:
This chapter focuses on the emergence of a global perspective in organizational communication research. Basing our review on the most commonly referenced issues inside our discipline, our account privileges work published by... more
This chapter focuses on the emergence of a global perspective in organizational communication research. Basing our review on the most commonly referenced issues inside our discipline, our account privileges work published by organizational communication scholars but acknowledges theoretical contributions from scholarship outside the field. We identify three generations of organizational communication research that focus specifically on globalization: (1) the generation of uncertainty, (2) the generation of connectivity, and (3) the generation of ubiquity. Each generation represents a unique perspective and set of assumptions about organizing, communicating, and globalizing.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
This article provides a systematic description of various positions on dialogue and their implications for understanding activism and social change. It describes three orientations toward dialogue—collaboration, co-optation, and... more
This article provides a systematic description of various positions on dialogue and their implications for understanding activism and social change. It describes three orientations toward dialogue—collaboration, co-optation, and agonism—which are differentiated by
assumptions regarding the pervasiveness of dialogue, the role of difference, and conceptions of power. We argue for a multivocal, agonistic perspective on dialogue that centers issues of power and conflict in activism. Such a perspective illuminates a broad range of activist tactics for social change instead of privileging consensus-oriented methods. These approaches are illustrated with two ethnographic case studies that highlight the importance of lay theories of activism and dialogue.
assumptions regarding the pervasiveness of dialogue, the role of difference, and conceptions of power. We argue for a multivocal, agonistic perspective on dialogue that centers issues of power and conflict in activism. Such a perspective illuminates a broad range of activist tactics for social change instead of privileging consensus-oriented methods. These approaches are illustrated with two ethnographic case studies that highlight the importance of lay theories of activism and dialogue.
Research Interests:
The objective of this study is to understand key aspects of contemporary discourse surrounding telecommunications development in Aotearoa New Zealand after the privatization of telecommunications in the late 1980s. We identify various... more
The objective of this study is to understand key aspects of contemporary discourse surrounding telecommunications development in Aotearoa New Zealand after the privatization of telecommunications in the late 1980s. We identify various characteristics of global discourse on competition and telecommunication and trace how a range of actors in the debate about broadband development employed competition discourse as a rhetorical resource to achieve economic, political and cultural goals. In particular, we argue that a race metaphor undergirded discussions about competition in broadband development. The race metaphor itself was raced inasmuch as it tapped into national anxieties about Aotearoa New Zealand’s place in the “developed” world in order to motivate action on broadband policy. We also found that competition discourse in relation to broadband policy exhibited inherent contradictions in both promoting control, in the form of increased regulation, while simultaneously promoting freedom, in the form of “unbundling.” Implications for understanding broadband growth as well as competition discourse itself are discussed.
Research Interests:
Scholarly commentary has underscored the importance of new information and communication technologies (ICTs) in organizing the Global Social Justice Movement (GSJM). This study examines key communicative assumptions regarding technology... more
Scholarly commentary has underscored the importance of new information and communication technologies (ICTs) in organizing the Global Social Justice Movement (GSJM). This study examines key communicative assumptions regarding technology and activist participation in the GSJM by asking three research questions: (a) what impacts of ICT-enabled brokerage are evident in the GSJM in Aotearoa New Zealand; (b) how are activists' attitudes embedded in the metaphors they use; and (c) what concerns do activists express about ICTs? Findings suggest strong associations between GSJM activists' conceptualizations of communication and their highly diverse attitudes toward and engagement with ICTs. Contrasts between activists and scholarly discussions of ICTs and the GSJM are highlighted.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
This essay addresses the need for organizational communication scholarship to come to terms with the contested nature of globalization through analyses of collective resistance. We argue that organizational communication has largely... more
This essay addresses the need for organizational communication scholarship to come to terms with the contested nature of globalization through analyses of collective resistance. We argue that organizational communication has largely situated the study of resistance at the level of the individual, and characterized it as an element of micro-politics located within organizational boundaries. Thus, resistance has been considered in localized, interpersonal terms, without full appreciation of its political and ideological significance. This essay builds a case for reconsidering resistance in order to study “globalization from below” and highlights protest movements as exemplars of transformative resistance. Finally, the essay advances a study of organizational communication with expanded disciplinary engagement with respect to globalization.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Discourses of entrepreneurship and research on women entrepreneurs have proliferated in the last two decades. This study argues that a particular conception of an entrepreneurial self underlies much literature on women entrepreneurs and... more
Discourses of entrepreneurship and research on women entrepreneurs have proliferated in the last two decades. This study argues that a particular conception of an entrepreneurial self underlies much literature on women entrepreneurs and their empowerment, and identifies several key assumptions of this entrepreneurial self. The study then assesses the motivations and experiences of several white women entrepreneurs in a northwestern state in the United States, finding that aspects of the entrepreneurial self are most evident in the reasons that women provide about why they became entrepreneurs. However, the experiences the women narrate reveal a more constraints-centered discourse, which features a particular interpretation of the frontier myth of the American West, and bears traces of an emergent, collective notion of empowerment. The authors explain such empowerment from critical and feminist perspectives, offering the concept of bounded empowerment as a lens through which to examine entrepreneurship and gender, and discussing its practical implications.