Family Communication and Cultural Transformation: (Re)Awakening Legacies of Equality, Social Justice, Freedom, and Hope

Building on their past work in race and family communication, Rhunette C. Diggs and Thomas J. Socha gather in this volume contemporary theory and research concerning ways that families use communication to transform inherited cultural legacies for the better (Communication 3.0).

The book expands the field of communication’s understanding of the life-long impact that family communication has on the managing diverse and clashing cultural relationships, identities, meanings, and communication practices. It spotlights the economically disenfranchised alongside the economically secure, the systematically oppressed next to beneficiaries of Whiteness, and those actually or metaphorically killed and or threatened by violence and hateful systems outside of home. Together, the contributions address omissions of diverse family contexts in family communication research and reconsider qualitative and quantitative approaches that bring respect and equality to the participant-researcher relationship.

This book is suitable as a supplementary text for courses in family communication, family studies, race and ethnicity in communication, and intergroup communication.

Rhunette C. Diggs is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Communication at Johnson C. Smith University and an Adjunct Instructor at Rowan Cabarrus Community College, USA.

Thomas J. Socha is Professor of Communication at Old Dominion University, USA.