- Dept of Communication
The University of Oklahoma
Burton Hall, Room 227
610 Elm Avenue
Norman, OK 73019-1081 - (405) 325-5946
James O Olufowote
University of Oklahoma, Communication, Faculty Member
- Health Communication, Organizational Communication, Leadership, Informed Consent, Global Health, Medical Education: Professionalism, Ethics and Communications, and 14 moreDoctor-patient communication, Research Ethics, Education Research Ethics, Cross Cultural Research, Value Exchange, Value Ethics, Bioethics, Sociology of Religion, Religion and Social Work, Community Development, Community Organizing, Faith Based Organizations, Non Profit Organizations, and Organizational Dynamicsedit
- James O. Olufowote (PhD, Purdue University) is an associate professor in the Department of Communication at the Univ... moreJames O. Olufowote (PhD, Purdue University) is an associate professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Oklahoma (OU) and an adjunct of the Department of International and Area Studies at OU.
He conducts research largely at the intersections of health communication and organizational communication. At these intersections, he earlier focused on physician preparation and practice of healthcare ethics. He now focuses on topics that revolve around the public health of marginalized communities: community-based organizing, the culture(s) of marginalized communities, and health activism. He primarily pursues these topics through two research projects on sub-Saharan Africa: polio vaccine resistance in northern Nigeria and HIV/AIDS prevention in Tanzania.
He is currently serving on the editorial boards of the following academic journals: Communication Studies, Frontiers in Health Communication, Health Communication, and Management Communication Quarterly.
His research is published in academic journals such as Communication Quarterly, Health Communication, Howard Journal of Communications, Qualitative Health Research, Management Communication Quarterly, Western Journal of Communication, and Journal of Language and Social Psychology.
Dr. Olufowote teaches undergraduate and graduate courses such as Health Communication, Communication and Public Health, and Communication in Health Organizations.edit
In this chapter, I reflect on my journey with the PEN-3 cultural model, from my initial PEN-3 encounter, through the teaching and research experiences that developed my understanding of PEN-3, to anticipations of future uses. I initially... more
In this chapter, I reflect on my journey with the PEN-3 cultural model, from my initial PEN-3 encounter, through the teaching and research experiences that developed my understanding of PEN-3, to anticipations of future uses. I initially encountered PEN-3 during my doctoral studies at Purdue University, and I met Dr. Collins Airhihenbuwa when he came to Purdue to lead a seminar on global health. I continued learning about PEN-3 through a decade of leading a doctoral seminar at the University of Oklahoma and through HIV/AIDS prevention research in Tanzania. I came to understand PEN-3 as an alternative entry point into health communication research that centralizes the socio-cultural contexts and viewpoints of marginalized groups and identities. In light of the COVID-19 pandemic and other public health risks facing communities at local and global margins, I anticipate continuing to use PEN-3 in health communication research (HIV/AIDS, risk and crisis communication). Furthermore, drawing also on communication theory that bridges speech communication and mass communication, I anticipate using PEN-3 to analyze narratives, traveling from local and global margins, that are embedded in mass media and social media platforms.
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Although health communication research on the effects of a radio soap opera on HIV/AIDS prevention in Tanzania was groundbreaking, it was conducted from individualistic and Western perspectives that either ignored Tanzania’s cultural... more
Although health communication research on the effects of a radio soap opera on HIV/AIDS prevention in Tanzania was groundbreaking, it was conducted from individualistic and Western perspectives that either ignored Tanzania’s cultural context or implicitly conflated it with barriers to health; furthermore, adult HIV/AIDS prevalence rates in Tanzania and other nations of Africa remain the highest in the world. This study of HIV/AIDS prevention in Tanzania drew on the PEN-3 cultural model to foreground the cultural contexts of HIV/AIDS. Interviews with 36 leaders of community-based HIV/AIDS nongovernmental organizations in Dar es Salaam pointed to the PEN-3 dimension of ‘nurturers’ (i.e., cultural practices in families and marriages). Through a PEN-3 assessment that crossed this dimension with the ‘cultural empowerment’ domain, the study found the positive nurturers of changing circumcision practices and rites of passage before marriages, the existential nurturers of privacy in the African extended family and grandparents caring for people living with HIV/AIDS, and the negative nurturers of families (e.g., female genital mutilation), marriages (e.g., arranged marriages of young girls), and late-night celebrations. The study concludes with implications for research and practice.
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Communication research on public health organizations and people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) have paid insufficient attention to PLWHA organizations. These organizations, constituted and operated by PLWHA, advocate on behalf of PLWHA... more
Communication research on public health organizations and people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) have paid insufficient attention to PLWHA organizations. These organizations, constituted and operated by PLWHA, advocate on behalf of PLWHA with more powerful institutions in society and serve as sources of empowerment and support. I drew on the culture-centered approach to health communication and institutional perspectives on health organizations to explore PLWHA organizations in Tanzania, namely their cultural and structural contexts, agency, and dialogue. Tanzania has 1.5 million PLWHA and a 5.3% adult prevalence rate that ranks it as 12th highest in the world. Through interviews with leaders of 10 PLWHA organizations, I found a cultural context of HIV stigma and discrimination, a structural context consisting of corruption and bureaucratic politics in governing bodies as well as lack of access to resources, agency to impact PLWHA and members of society in a variety of ways, and processes of dialogue within advocacy networks of PLWHA organizations and in network collaborations with the government. I conclude with implications for improving the organizations’ interactions with their structural context and for developing the contribution from the culture-centered approach to health communication on structures-as-health-organizations-and-systems.
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Symbolic Convergence Theory (SCT) is a communication-centered theory that resonates with time-tested organizational communication foci such as narratives and storytelling, shared and collective meanings, rhetoric, and the grapple with the... more
Symbolic Convergence Theory (SCT) is a communication-centered theory that resonates with time-tested organizational communication foci such as narratives and storytelling, shared and collective meanings, rhetoric, and the grapple with the relationship between little “d” and big “D” discourse. This entry on SCT contextualizes it in the broader history of Communication studies, remembers its central ideas, explains its resonance with organizational communication studies, identifies organizational communication criticisms of SCT, discusses how organizational communication theories can improve SCT, examines how a reformulated SCT is influencing organizational communication studies, and considers future directions for SCT-based works.
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Polio eradication has received greater attention in medicine and public health than communication studies. In the context of a Northern Nigerian vaccination stoppage by Islamic faith-based organizations (FBOs), this study—informed by the... more
Polio eradication has received greater attention in medicine and public health than communication studies. In the context of a Northern Nigerian vaccination stoppage by Islamic faith-based organizations (FBOs), this study—informed by the inter-organizational collaboration literature—focused on the FBOs. Through analyses of 119 statements by 19 FBO spokespersons in Nigerian newspapers, the study found the FBOs claimed an identity of concern for the people’s representation and safety; constructed the identity of federal government organizations (FGOs) as unjust, unethical, and unresponsive; constructed the identity of global north organizations (GNOs) as preoccupied with depopulation, operating above the law, and as bullies; and described FGO/GNO communication practices as authoritarian, closed, and deceptive.
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Communication research studies (such as an experiment, an interview study, or survey research) and their results are oftentimes reported in a 25-page double-spaced report. This research report could be a research assignment for an... more
Communication research studies (such as an experiment, an interview study, or survey research) and their results are oftentimes reported in a 25-page double-spaced report. This research report could be a research assignment for an undergraduate or graduate course in Communication studies, a research paper that is being presented at a panel of an academic conference, or a published research paper in an academic journal. “Limitations of research” is a section in the standard research report (the research report is usually divided into the major sections of introduction, literature review, methodology, findings or results, discussion, and conclusion). The “limitations of research” section is oftentimes one to two paragraphs in length, and is usually placed after the discussion section and before the final conclusion section. In this section, the researcher seeks to achieve several objectives by simultaneously addressing three audiences: the peer reviewers, the interested readers, and the writers/researchers. In what follows, the entry addresses the researchers’ objectives with each of these three audiences.
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In this paper, a meticulous analysis of visual motifs in Islamist terrorism is conducted based on Conceptual Metaphor Theory (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980a), a theory using three key categories of metaphors (structural, orientational, and... more
In this paper, a meticulous analysis of visual motifs in Islamist terrorism is conducted based on Conceptual Metaphor Theory (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980a), a theory using three key categories of metaphors (structural, orientational, and ontological metaphors). These metaphors are applied to three case studies to show how visual motifs can be used by Islamists to manipulate their audiences.
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In the aftermath of the Newtown massacre, the U.S. is engaging in public deliberations that will reshape future mental healthcare policies, practices, and systems. We know little about the clergy’s contributions to these deliberations.... more
In the aftermath of the Newtown massacre, the U.S. is engaging in public deliberations that will reshape future mental healthcare policies, practices, and systems. We know little about the clergy’s contributions to these deliberations. Clergy, as with psychiatrists and mental health specialists, are members of the helping professions (see Miller & Considine, 2009) and are regarded as frontline mental health workers and gatekeepers to mental health services. To consider clergy contributions, we drew on Entman’s (1993) framing perspective to study sermons given in the state of Connecticut after the Sandy Hook shootings. We examined 73 posted full-text sermons and performed the constant comparative method on 20 that made references to mental illness. We discovered clergy used “social support” and “social system” frames. Upon developing these frames, we discuss the study’s contributions by considering clergy silence, their use of frames to delineate between the secular and the spiritual, their mitigation and promotion of mental illness stigma, and their incomplete social system frame.
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Communication research on physician socialization has been silent on physician preparation in medical ethics. To develop knowledge in this area, I drew on a tension-centered model from organizational studies to analyze transcripts of... more
Communication research on physician socialization has been silent on physician preparation in medical ethics. To develop knowledge in this area, I drew on a tension-centered model from organizational studies to analyze transcripts of interviews with 20 behavioral science course directors at 11 medical schools. I found participants describing ethics as situational dilemmas requiring resolution and as the equipping of students with the resources of ethics skills and, to a lesser extent, ethical character. I also found actors managing tension between the ethics-as-skill and ethics-as-character institutions of medical ethics education through a strategy of separation where skills were discussed as short-term course outcomes and character as long-term visions of who participants hoped students would one day become beyond their pre-clinical training. I conclude with discussions on the study’s substantive and theoretical contributions and the implications for future research and the training of medical students.
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Although the multidisciplinary research on physician socialization has focused on areas such as developments in learners’ ideological commitments and ethics knowledge and skills, the literature on physician virtues has been anecdotal. To... more
Although the multidisciplinary research on physician socialization has focused on areas such as developments in learners’ ideological commitments and ethics knowledge and skills, the literature on physician virtues has been anecdotal. To contribute empirical knowledge of virtue development during socialization, I performed constant comparisons on interviews with 20 directors of pre-clinical behavioral science courses. In discussing their courses, participants revealed foci on virtues involved in making intimate connections with patients (e.g., empathy) and “being professional” with colleagues (e.g., trustworthiness). To cultivate virtues for intimate connections, participants used the strategies of learner engagement with patients’ narratives of illness, service in underserved communities, and shadowing and observing role models. To develop virtues for being professional, participants used the strategy of small learner groups, which consisted of discussions, project collaborations, and group evaluations. I conclude with implications for training students of various health sciences and managing healthcare teams.
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This entry reviews several subtopics pertaining to the topic “Organizations and Health.” I first address traditional organizations through the subtopics of physician assimilation into medicine and managed care. Lastly, I examine... more
This entry reviews several subtopics pertaining to the topic “Organizations and Health.” I first address traditional organizations through the subtopics of physician assimilation into medicine and managed care. Lastly, I examine alternative organizations through the subtopic of community organizing and health by considering both nongovernmental organizations and faith-based organizations.
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"Nigeria is a unique African country with positive health traditions as well as health challenges that can be met with health communication theory and practice. We review the uniqueness of Africa’s most populous country, describe its... more
"Nigeria is a unique African country with positive health traditions as well as health challenges that can be met with health communication theory and practice. We review the uniqueness of Africa’s most populous country, describe its positive health traditions, discuss some health issues and challenges, and consider health communication theory and practice as uniquely capable of responding to these challenges."
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"Successful global health initiatives are executed on the recognition that globalization involves simultaneous pulls between global unification and fragmentation. This article responds to the need for more understanding of the role of... more
"Successful global health initiatives are executed on the recognition that globalization involves simultaneous pulls between global unification and fragmentation. This article responds to the need for more understanding of the role of fragmentation in global health initiatives through analyses of 52 northern Nigerian newspaper reports of the 2003–2004 northern Nigerian stoppage of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative. By 2009 the stoppage had resulted in an epidemic in Nigeria and polio importations in 20 previously polio-free countries. Findings pointed to beliefs in contemporary forms of Western control and abuse through global organizations (nongovernmental organizations and for-profits), understandings of the “philanthropy” of the West and global organizations as self-serving and malevolent, and doubts about the polio vaccine product."
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"Informed consent to treatment (ICT), designed to honor patient autonomy, has been an important subject of inquiry in many disciplines. To foreground the dynamic and dilemmatic tendencies of ICT practice implied by previous inquiries, I... more
"Informed consent to treatment (ICT), designed to honor patient autonomy, has been an important subject of inquiry in many disciplines. To foreground the dynamic and dilemmatic tendencies of ICT practice implied by previous inquiries, I advanced relational dialectics theory into the realm of physicians’ experiences with ICT. On performing a dialectical analysis of transcripts from focus group discussions with radiologists, I found them experiencing four primary tensions: (a) between simple and complex ICT; (b) between radiologist and patient control; (c) between standardized and idiosyncratic practice (involving struggles between documentation and conversational process, and between vague and detailed language use); and (d) between withholding and disclosing alternatives. Moreover, I drew on concepts from relational dialectics theory to capture the various ways radiologists negotiate these dialectics. I conclude with practical applications for physician and patient training and interprofessional coordination."
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"Informed consent to treatment (IC) is designed to protect patient autonomy and control through disclosures and shared decisions. However, many malpractice claims suggest patients perceive problems with its handling (e.g., information... more
"Informed consent to treatment (IC) is designed to protect patient autonomy and control through disclosures and shared decisions. However, many malpractice claims suggest patients perceive problems with its handling (e.g., information withholding). Moreover, previous studies of IC lack the nuance of discursive perspectives, theoretical grounding, and recognition of IC's sociohistorical context. Drawing on a structurational perspective, which conceives of IC as constituted by contradictory sociohistorical structures (discourse formations) representing different groups' interests in controlling IC, this study examines how the structure representing physicians' interests is (re)produced in practice. Focus group accounts reveal how radiologists—drawing upon interpretive schemes of patients as fearful, ignorant, and easily controlled—discursively and skillfully manipulate IC language and information in engineering patients' decisions."
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"Informed consent (IC) to treatment honors patient autonomy and bodily integrity. Yet, it is a leading reason for patient litigation, it has not been examined from discursive or theoretical perspectives, and its sociohistorical context is... more
"Informed consent (IC) to treatment honors patient autonomy and bodily integrity. Yet, it is a leading reason for patient litigation, it has not been examined from discursive or theoretical perspectives, and its sociohistorical context is ignored. In a previous analysis of American IC law and the IC literature, structuration theory guided a reconceptualization of IC as unfolding amid contradictory sociohistorical structures or discursive formations—traditionalism, liability, and decision making—representing interests favoring a group’s (physicians, states and administrative entities, and patients, respectively) control of IC. This study’s focus groups with radiologists found them (re)producing these structures in their interpretive schemes of patients’ reactions to IC, IC as protective paperwork, and IC as a patient- and relationship-centered process."
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"Informed consent (IC) to treatment enables physician disclosures (e.g., risks, benefits) and shared decisions, and honors patient autonomy and bodily integrity. Unfortunately, litigation and rising physician malpractice insurance suggest... more
"Informed consent (IC) to treatment enables physician disclosures (e.g., risks, benefits) and shared decisions, and honors patient autonomy and bodily integrity. Unfortunately, litigation and rising physician malpractice insurance suggest a need to reexamine IC. To initiate this, problems plaguing prior studies of IC interaction—lack of discursive and theoretical perspectives, neglect of IC's sociohistorical context—must first be addressed. Structuration theory, which overcomes these problems, guided analyses of IC law, resulting in discovery of three sociohistorical systems of meaning or discourses representing interests that favor different groups' (physicians, states and administrative entities, patients) control of IC's meaning and ideal practice. The article then works toward blending IC's sociohistorical context with struggles in contemporary practice by reexamining the literature on IC interaction for (re)productions of these discourses."
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"Symbolic Convergence Theory (SCT)—an explanation of the process and consequences of human symbolizing—has enjoyed popularity in communication studies but, in organizational communication, its appeal has declined, perhaps because of... more
"Symbolic Convergence Theory (SCT)—an explanation of the process and consequences of human symbolizing—has enjoyed popularity in communication studies but, in organizational communication, its appeal has declined, perhaps because of perceptions of its irrelevance to complex and contemporary concerns. To develop SCT’s appeal as well as its possible resurgence, this article rouses and redirects it. In rousing SCT, the article reviews its central statements, remembers its uses, and lays bare some weaknesses (i.e., explaining why humans narrate reality and share dramas, restrictive convergence assumptions, and restrictive assumptions about membership in rhetorical communities). In redirecting SCT, the article relaxes and complements its assumptions with ideas from organizational
communication theories (i.e., sensemaking, power and politics, bona fide groups, and multiple identifications) and points a reinvigorated SCT toward exploring coalition action in response to leader behaviors at Harvard Business Review and the University of Colorado."
communication theories (i.e., sensemaking, power and politics, bona fide groups, and multiple identifications) and points a reinvigorated SCT toward exploring coalition action in response to leader behaviors at Harvard Business Review and the University of Colorado."
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The current work explores the generalizability of a revised analysis of face and facework (Wilson, Aleman, & Leatham, 1998) by investigating the potential face threats that concern young adults as they seek to initiate, intensify, or end... more
The current work explores the generalizability of a revised analysis of face and facework (Wilson, Aleman, & Leatham, 1998) by investigating the potential face threats that concern young adults as they seek to initiate, intensify, or end romantic relationships. Participants in Study 1 (N = 141 students) read three hypothetical scenarios in which they might attempt to (re)define a romantic relationship, and responded to open-ended questions regarding both parties' identity concerns and emotions. Emergent themes were utilized to develop a questionnaire assessing the extent to which participants in Study 2 (N = 274 students) associated unique potential face threats with initiating, intensifying, or ending
romantic relationships, and varied what they said when pursuing these three goals in light of relevant potential face threats. Results indicated that people associate very specific sets of potential face threats with each of the three romantic (re)definition goals. This research advances understanding of how individuals utilize face-management strategies in romantic relationships and offers directions for future research.
romantic relationships, and varied what they said when pursuing these three goals in light of relevant potential face threats. Results indicated that people associate very specific sets of potential face threats with each of the three romantic (re)definition goals. This research advances understanding of how individuals utilize face-management strategies in romantic relationships and offers directions for future research.
Research Interests:
This investigation explores employee use of upward influence tactics with supervisors during role making. The study first examines employee reported uses of upward influence tactics with supervisors in achieving pivotal, relevant, or... more
This investigation explores employee use of upward influence tactics with supervisors during role making. The study first examines employee reported uses of upward influence tactics with supervisors in achieving pivotal, relevant, or peripheral role changes that differentially benefit the individual or organization. Next, how tactic use varies under high and low-leader member exchange (LMX) relationships is considered. Results of stepwise regressions indicate that among high LMX employees, rationality and coalition tactics are associated with successful role changes benefiting the individual or the organization. In turn, low LMX employees tend to use exchange of benefits, upward appeals, and coalition tactics during successful role changes. Both high and low LMX employees reported avoiding the use of ingratiation tactics during role change.