OCMC 2024 Schedule
Friday
workshops
| Time | Event | Location |
| 2 PM – 4:30 PM |
Workshop #1 Dr. Yingdan Lu, Annie Chu Faces to Soundwaves: Unpacking Organizational Communication through Computational Multimodal Analysis |
Frances Searle Building, Dean’s Conference Room |
|
Workshop #2 Dr. Ignacio Cruz, Dr. Duri Long, Sara Abdulla Communication Design for Broader Impact: Bridging Research, Theory, and Public Engagement |
Frances Searle Building, FSB 3-417 | |
| 5:30-8 | Reception | Hokkaido Ramen & Sushi Bar |
Saturday
| Time | Event | Location |
| 8:15 AM – 9:00 AM | Light Breakfast; Check-in | Ford Motor Company Engineering Design Center (HIVE) |
| 9:00 AM – 9:15 AM | Introductions/Welcome | Technological Institute. L211 |
| 9:15 AM – 10:30 AM |
Doing Justice through Organizational Communication In Nonprofit Madeline Pringle. Exploring Horizons of Possibility: An Ethnographic Study of an LGBTQ+ Nonprofit Volunteer Organization. Slides Yohanna Tesfai. Shaping Tomorrow with Yesterday: The Temporal Structuring of Organizational Memory. Gertrude Misornu Nartey. Mentorship towards leadership capacity building for women in non-profit organizations. Slides R. Ryan Beaty. Constitutive Communication and Social Entrepreneurship: The Case of Sole Mission. Slides. |
|
| 10:30 AM – 10:45 AM | Break | Ford Motor Company Engineering Design Center (HIVE) |
| 10:45 AM – 11:50 AM | Poster Session 1 | |
| 11:50 AM – 12:00 PM | Break | |
| 12:00 PM – 12:50 PM | Lunch | |
| 12:50 PM – 13:00 PM | Break | |
| 1:00 PM – 2:15 PM |
Communication, Power, and Organizational Politics Sydney Graham. The essence(s) of multilevel marketing: Industry stigma and multiple discourses. Slides David Barnhart. Exploring the Complexities of Crafting New Normality Through Collaborative Situated Resilience Practices between High-Containment Laboratories and Communities. Slides Rachel M. Acosta. Collaborative Governance and Interconnected Tensions in Large Bureaucratic Organizations Samuel Taylor. Deconstruction and Disidentification: An Analysis of U.S White Millennials’ Exodus From Organized Evangelical Christianity. Slides Dani R. Soibelman. An Otherwise Archive: Perceivability as a Trans Alternating Practice In Neoliberal Academia. Slides |
Technological Institute. L211 |
| 2:15 PM – 2:20 PM | Break | Ford Motor Company Engineering Design Center (HIVE) |
| 2:20 PM – 3:20 PM | Poster Session 2 | |
| 3:20 PM – 3:30 PM | Break | |
| 3:30 PM – 4:40 PM |
Technologies and Work in Organizational Communication Carsyn Endres-Patton. Remote Workers and Unobtrusive Control Theory:A Qualitative Study of Employees and Virtual Surveillance Yifan Xu. Imaginaries of a Robotics Future: Material Discursive Organizing to Achieve Robotic Autonomy Nitzan Navick. Boundary Management in the Era of Remote Work: A Sociomaterial Analysis Across Remote Work Models Jasmine Wu. Time Speaks: Temporal Regularity in Communication at Work and Individual Attainments |
Technological Institute. L211 |
| 4:40 PM – 5:00ish PM | Announcements from the community: job posts, special Issues, and much more | |
| 5:30 PM – 8:00 PM | Dinner | Louis Room (North 2-204 & South 2-232) in Norris University Center |
Sunday
| Time | Event | Location |
| 8:00 AM – 8:30 AM | Light Breakfast available | Ford Motor Company Engineering Design Center (HIVE) |
| 8:30 AM – 9:40 AM |
Communicative Dynamics in Organizational and Community Contexts Lauren Buisker. “There Isn’t Moving Forward if You Don’t Start with the Assumption of Belief”: Theorizing Belief Biographies in Nonprofit Sexual Violence Organizing Jiayu Sun. Organizing Memories: Communicative Dynamics of Hyperlocal Disaster-related Decision Making in Communities. Slides Rebecca J. Greer. Moving from Plural to Multicultural Organization: The Case of SafeHarbor International. Slides Evgeniya Pyatovskaya. From Crisis to Continuity: Communicative Resilience in a Nonprofit Organization During the COVID-19 Pandemic |
Technological Institute. L211 |
| 9:40 AM – 9:55 AM | Break | Ford Motor Company Engineering Design Center (HIVE) |
| 9:55 AM – 11:15 AM |
Artificial Intelligence and Organizational Communication Eugene Lee. AI Technology and Worker Dynamics in the Digital Era: Algorithmic Management and Gig Workers’ Well-being. Slides Casey Randazzo. Organizing in the Age of AI: LLMs in Post-Disaster Collective Action Jordan Duran. Ethical Sensemaking in AI Development: Navigating Tensions and Advocacy in Big Tech Organizations Stephanie Menhart. Adoption And Adaptation Of Generative Artificial Intelligence Tools For Communication Professionals. Slides |
Technological Institute. L211 |
| 11:15 AM – 11:30 AM | Break | Ford Motor Company Engineering Design Center (HIVE) |
| 11:30 AM – 12:40 PM |
Organizational communication in an age of globalization: Issues, reflections, practices Ali Reza Sarwar. The role of communication during a Complex humanitarian emergency, the case of Operation Allies Refuge (OAR). Slides Bhoopali Nandurkar. Peeling the Onion: Unraveling the Layers of Communicative Visibility through Sociomaterial Practices in Onion Supply Chains in India. Blake Harms. Settler Colonial Organizing: A History Of Utah’s Struggle To Educate The Impure. Chandler Marr. Compassion Beyond Bars: Examining The Co-Construction of Compassion in Parole Officer Interactions. Slides |
Technological Institute. L211 |
| 12:40 PM – 12:45 PM | Closing Remarks | |
| 12:30 PM – | To-Go Lunch and Depart. Goodbye! | Ford Motor Company Engineering Design Center (HIVE) |
Workshops
Communication Design for Broader Impact: Bridging Research, Theory, and Public Engagement
Facilitators:
Ignacio F. Cruz, Northwestern University
Duri Long, Northwestern University
Sara Abdulla, Northwestern University
Jillian K. Kwong, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Description:
Rooted in the mission of the Northwestern Department of Communication Studies to advance social justice through communication design, this workshop is designed for graduate students and early-career scholars aiming to develop research that is mission-driven and socially impactful. The focus will be on crafting research that bridges theory and applied problem-solving, particularly in organizational communication, human-computer interaction, and social justice.
Participants will engage in discussions focused on designing communication interventions that address real-world problems and foster public engagement. They will explore strategies for creating and evaluating these interventions, reflecting on examples to see how mission-driven research can incorporate problem-solving and larger impact. The session will also guide participants on balancing theory-based and problem-driven research, helping them develop actionable outcomes from their work.
By the end of the workshop, participants will leave with practical tools for aligning their research with public engagement, contributing to a broader understanding of communication design as a tool for social change.
Learning Objectives:
- Develop a clear, mission-driven statement to research that emphasizes broader societal impact.
- Explore and exchange innovative design methods used in communication and organizational research.
- Learn strategies for bridging theory and practical problem-solving in research design.
- Collaborate to build a repository of methods that enhance public engagement and communication impact.
From Faces to Soundwaves: Unpacking Organizational Communication through Computational Multimodal Analysis
Facilitators:
Yingdan Lu — Northwestern University
Annie Chu — Northwestern University
Description:
From social media videos to leadership speeches, digital media increasingly afford organizational communication through multimodal formats, where visuals, audio, and text combine to construct messages. At the same time, scholars in computational social science have been developing new methods and frameworks for analyzing large-scale multimodal data to examine important communication concepts. This hands-on, tutorial-based workshop aims to introduce cutting-edge computational methods for multimodal analysis, providing researchers with tools to study organizational communication in multiple modalities.
The workshop will consist of three components. First, participants will engage in visual analysis for aesthetic analysis, facial recognition, and facial attribute analysis (DeepFace and Athec). Next, they will explore audio analysis with the Spotify API and Yamnet. Finally, participants will engage in group discussions on how these visual and auditory analytical frameworks can be applied to more research objectives in organizational communication.
No advanced technical expertise or extensive training in computational methods is required. The coding elements will use Python, and participants with basic Python skills and experience with Jupyter Notebooks will benefit most from the hands-on tutorials.