Adrienne P. Lamberti, Anne R. Richards - Communication and Conflict Studies - Disciplinary Connections, Research Directions-Palgrave Pivot (2019)

Communication and
Conflict Studies
Disciplinary Connections,
Research Directions
Edited by
Adrienne P. Lamberti
Anne R. Richards
Communication and Conflict Studies
Adrienne P. Lamberti · Anne R. Richards
Editors
Communication
and Conflict Studies
Disciplinary Connections, Research Directions
Editors
Adrienne P. Lamberti Anne R. Richards
University of Northern Iowa Kennesaw State University
Cedar Falls, IA, USA Kennesaw, GA, USA
ISBN 978-3-030-32745-3 ISBN 978-3-030-32746-0 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-32746-0
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Contents
1 Dynamic Connections: Interdisciplinary Approaches

to Conflict and Communication 1
Anne R. Richards and Adrienne P. Lamberti
2 Are There Ways That Digital Technologies Break Down

Walls of Communication During Conflict? Lessons
from Leaders of a Women’s Movement in Egypt 19
Ziaul Haque and Joseph G. Bock
3 Is Mediation Too “Feminine” for Him? Men and

Masculinity During Mediation Communication 41
Brett H. Butler and Aza Howard Butler
4 The Conflict of Genre: Disciplinary Terminology

and Conceptual Overlap in the Context
of the Annual Report 57
Marcy Leasum Orwig and Anish Dave
Index 71
v
Notes on Contributors
Joseph G. Bock, Ph.D. is the Director of the School of Conflict

Management, Peacebuilding, and Development at Kennesaw State
University. He has twelve years of humanitarian experience with both
Catholic Relief Services and American Refugee Committee. Dr. Bock
also has been a consultant to the World Bank and the Asia Foundation.
Aza Howard Butler, CDS is a Negotiator/Mediator with Aza Butler
Mediation and Conflict Resolution Service.
Brett H. Butler, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor of Professional Writing
at Morgan State University, with a focus on gender discourse analysis. In
addition to his teaching and research, Dr. Butler conducts seminars and
workshops for professionals on how to improve their oral and written
discourse to maximize company efficiency by using clear, effective com-
munication skills.
Anish Dave, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor in the Department
of English and Modern Languages at Georgia Southwestern State
University. He teaches in the department’s Professional Writing pro-
gram and has published articles in Research in the Teaching of English,
Technical Communication Quarterly, and Business Communication
Quarterly.
Ziaul Haque, M.Sc. is a Doctoral Candidate in International Conflict
Management at Kennesaw State University, and an Assistant Professor in
Peace and Conflict Studies at Dhaka University.
vii
viii NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
Adrienne P. Lamberti, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of Languages

and Literatures at the University of Northern Iowa, where she also
directs the university’s Professional Writing program. Dr. Lamberti has
published extensively on the rhetoric of professional communication
and technical writing, especially regarding the production side of agri-
culture. Her most recent publication is Cultivating Spheres: Agriculture,
Technical Communication, and the Publics (Open Library of Humanities,
2019).
Marcy Leasum Orwig, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor in the College
of Business at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. She has published
work in Business and Professional Communication Quarterly, Journal of
Communication Inquiry, and Kairos: A Journal of Rhetoric, Technology,
and Pedagogy. Her research interests include archival methodology and
genre theory.
Anne R. Richards, Ph.D. is a Professor of English and Interdisciplinary
Studies at Kennesaw State University, where she directs the Peace Studies
program. Dr. Richards’ recent publications include Muslims in American
Popular Culture (co-edited with Iraj Omidvar; Praeger, 2014) and
Historic Engagements with Occidental Cultures, Religions, Powers (also
edited with Omidvar; Palgrave, 2014). She has served as a Fulbright
Teaching Fellow in Sfax, Tunisia and as a Fulbright Specialist in Davao
City, Philippines.
List of Figures
Fig. 2.1 One example of HarassMap in action

(https://harassmap.org/en/) 27
Fig. 2.2 An analytical framework of digital peacebuilding 30
ix
CHAPTER 1
Dynamic Connections: Interdisciplinary

Approaches to Conflict and Communication
Anne R. Richards and Adrienne P. Lamberti
Abstract This chapter illustrates that how one thinks about communica-
tion must shape how one approaches conflict, and vice versa. Individuals
hoping to transform conflict not only must apply the tools and strategies
of their field but must do so in the context of communicating to specific
and often widely divergent audiences. Likewise, not only must communica-
tors create documents to help ensure that work is accomplished effectively,
efficiently, and safely, but they must deal with their own and others’ con-
flicts. This chapter highlights research and practice in a range of contexts,
including the roles of social media in war, of gender in alternative dispute
resolution, and of genre during times of industrial crisis.
A. R. Richards (B)
Kennesaw State University, Kennesaw, GA, USA
e-mail: Anne_Richards@kennesaw.edu
A. P. Lamberti
University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls, IA, USA
e-mail: lamberti@uni.edu
© The Author(s) 2019 1

A. P. Lamberti and A. R. Richards (eds.),
Communication and Conflict Studies,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-32746-0_1
2 A. R. RICHARDS AND A. P. LAMBERTI
Keywords Communication Studies · Conflict Studies ·

Interdisciplinarity · Intersectionality · Technology · Conflict Resolution
Communication and Conflict Studies: Disciplinary Connections, Research

Directions has been edited by communication studies (ComS) and conflict
studies (CS) scholars who believe that substantial insights are possible when
scholars from our disciplines deeply converse. We share Bray and Rzepecka’s
(2018) assumption that how one thinks about communication shapes how
one thinks about conflict: Their Communication and Conflict in Multiple
Settings, which characterizes the connection between the fields as reflexive
and symbiotic, is just one of many contemporary works studying “conflict as
an essential outworking of communication” (p. 1). We offer here a synthesis
of representative scholarship in these mutually illuminating fields and a
contextualization of the three chapters on which this book is based.
Writers in many conflict-oriented disciplines have noted the lack of schol-
arly attention paid to overwhelming cultural changes wrought by rapidly
diffusing communication technologies. Students of sociology and crimi-
nal justice, for instance, are entreated to pay closer attention to the role
of communication in transforming conflict. Collins (2012) has theorized
that, regardless of scope or intensity, conflict occurs in three chronological
phases: Explosion, plateau, and dissipation. Taken together, these phases
constitute what others have referred to as the arc of conflict. Collins’s early
research did not take into account the potentially complicating effect of
social media on this model. In response, Roberts, Innes, Preece, and Roger
(2017) explored the effects of cyber hate speech disseminated through
social media. They cited a debt to researchers whose studies of the grisly
murder of fusilier Lee Rigby by Islamic extremists in Woolrich, United
Kingdom employed “high resolution empirical evidence to warrant their
claims through collecting and analyzing social communication from an
array of social media platforms” (p. 435). Collins’s explosion phase was
present in the early aftermath of Rigby’s murder, and this phase was fueled
by public use of social media to ascertain facts about the event.
Simultaneously communicating on social media, ideologically oriented
groups were more likely to remain active on social media after the first
phase of conflict had passed. The plateau phase was interrupted by “surges”
and “upswings” in relevant social media activity that accompanied addi-
tional related conflicts and focal events such as Rigby’s funeral (p. 441).
1 DYNAMIC CONNECTIONS: INTERDISCIPLINARY APPROACHES … 3
Although the murder of Rigby was carried out by Islamic extremists, the
violence that followed was generated, in the main, by extremists of the far
right. Roberts and his colleagues concluded that “[c]ontemporary crim-
inological accounts of the workings of informal social control, certainly
need to accommodate [the] digital dimension” (p. 452).
Lee, Gelfand, and Kashima (2014) explore the role of communication
in conflict acceleration, specifically in the context of third-party conflict
contagion, or the spread of conflict “[b]eyond the initial disputants to
involve a multitude of others” (p. 68). In this framework, individuals who
affiliate with a party to conflict but are not themselves directly involved may
share distorted information in order to gain support for their positions. The
resulting effect is magnified as inaccurate information is shared repeatedly,
and such sharing is made exponentially more possible through social media.
Individuals producing traditional media (newsprint, radio, television)
have been obliged to gather much of their material from social media sites
in the case of the Syrian Civil War, for the region is a fatal one for journal-
ists. According to Herrero-Jiménez, Carratalá, and Berganza (2018), social
media have also influenced European parliamentary agenda-making with
respect to that conflict. Such sites can provide access to sensational mate-
rial and have been mined for news not only about the Syrian Republic, but
about the Syrian opposition and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant
(ISIL). In the first phase of the integration of social media and the Syrian
conflict, social media were useful to European parliament members with
an international agenda who leveraged electronic discourse to gain traction
in traditional media. In the second phase, however, social media became
increasingly disruptive as ISIL and other terrorist organizations used them
to coordinate attacks, including some on European soil.
The Internet has played an expanding role in disseminating news and
information about war since Kosovo, the first “internet war” or “web war”
(1988–1989; Terzis, 2016), and it is difficult to imagine a major con-
flict in the early years of the twenty-first century that would not be at least
partly mediated and shaped through information and communication tech-
nologies (ICTs). “Engagement in virtual interaction rituals seems to be an
important component of conflict dynamics,” writes Roberts et al. (2017).
“In this sense, the contemporary ‘arc of conflict’ is increasingly enabled
and digitally performed” (p. 452).
Given media’s global implications, it is understandable that scholars such
as Savrum and Miller (2015) have lamented the absence of a body of inter-
national relations research that would reflect the importance of traditional
media as well as ICTs and social media in conflict generation and transfor-
mation. Media “not only [provide] information but [shape] the way people
perceive issues,” they write. “Media not only have the ability to influence
how people act in regards to issues” (p. 13) but may contribute to the dete-
rioration of “ethnic relations, intercultural relations, and conflict resolution
in situations where [they heighten] negative impressions of conflict reso-
lution proposals” (p. 14). Introducing a special issue on communication,
technology, and political conflict for the Journal of Peace Research, Weid-
mann (2015), too, notes that scholars of international studies “have been
relatively silent when it comes to examining the effect of ICT on conflict
mobilization and escalation” (p. 263).
Although communication’s centrality to conflict in our historical
moment is being studied with newfound zeal because of the expanding
capacities of ICTs, it is important to emphasize that the relation between
communication and social change of all types is by necessity integral. That
is, not only is communication by definition social, but social life and thus
social change are enabled through communication. The series of histori-
cal instances discussed below, including the birth of nonviolent movements
and their energizing of grassroots support, as well as specific communicative
moves such as irony to calibrate social movements’ public reception, illumi-
nates communication’s power to shape conflicting ideologies, a potential
that is at the root of any political position. For instance, communication
plays a central role in comparatively nonviolent social change movements—
beginning with the role of consensus in achieving their aims. Thomas,
McGarty, Stuart, Smith, and Bourgeois (2018) are among those scholars
interested in the broad topic of the role of communication in promoting
social transformation. Rather than study a specific instance of protest or
a specific “real world” event, they study the role of consensus in building
commitment to change.
According to Thomas et al., individuals must possess a sense of self-
determination, or personal identity, before committing meaningfully to
a cause. Another requisite is social identity, which takes into account an
interest in beings and things outside of self, family, and friends. Without
an expanded identity, there can be no meaningful commitment to a social
movement. These researchers also assert that individuals must develop a
sense of shared values and positions if they are to become motivated to
act on behalf of themselves and others: “Such commitment is likely to
be predicated on social knowledge about what relevant others think and
intend to do, and this is knowledge that can only be obtained through
communication” (p. 616).
Studying approximately 140 Australian students aged 15-20, Thomas
and her colleagues created small groups in order to study the usefulness
of consensus in developing commitment to social change—in this case,
the hypothetical provision of sanitation and safe drinking water, which is
among the United Nations 2015 Sustainable Development Goals. When
small-group communication was able to generate consensus on the topics
of what type of change to pursue and how to pursue it, participants were
helped to develop a social identity. Subsequently, participants could “in-
ternalize pursuing that agenda as intrinsically worthwhile and satisfying ….
This internalized motivation was associated with increased commitment to
the cause (social identification)” (p. 624). Crucially, the more strongly par-
ticipants felt that the discussion task was something they wished to do, for
instance because it was important to them or gave them pleasure in some
way, the more meaningful they felt the consensus process had been and the
more committed they became to acting in the interest of social change.
Also exploring the role of small-group communication and grass-roots
consensus building on behalf of nonviolent change is Holtan’s research
(2019). Studying the birth control movement in mid-twentieth-century
Iowa, Holton briefly discusses noteworthy leadership by Violet Spencer, a
working-class woman who corresponded with Margaret Sanger (the indi-
vidual most closely associated with the national movement) and was a
prominent advocate at the beginning of the Iowa movement.1 The individ-
ual on whom Holton focuses, however, was a Des Moines socialite who was
instrumental in shifting, mainly alongside other “socially well-connected
white women,” public opinion about the appropriateness of discussions of
family planning. According to Holtan, although national figures like Sanger
were at times involved in the Iowa Maternal Health League (later Planned
Parenthood of Iowa), “they were not heavily or directly involved in the
details of establishing the birth control clinic. Local human and financial
resources were sufficient to establish and support a public birth control
clinic in Des Moines” (p. 269).
The Comstock Laws of the late nineteenth century had defined birth
control discussions and devices as obscene and made it illegal to send them
through the mail service. What is more, Iowa was among a dozen or so
states with especially draconian obscenity laws. Because selling, loaning, or
giving away birth control devices or information was punishable by a fine
of as much as one thousand dollars and/or a year in jail, discussions of the
importance of birth control took place at first in private. A 1934 meeting

at the home of Magdalon Grahl, the wife of Iowa’s Adjutant General, for
instance, consisted of Grahl and her houseguest, Elizabeth Grew Bacon, a
member of the national birth control movement. Grahl then introduced
Bacon to Elizabeth Cowles, who had founded the Iowa Birth Control
League in collaboration with 12 prominent like-minded Des Moines res-
idents. Meeting in the Cowles’s home, the 13 had signed “an agreement
to create the league and pledged their support, an act potentially contrary
to Iowa’s obscenity law” (p. 278).
Holtan’s research demonstrates, among other things, the importance
of small-group communication to the flourishing of social change move-
ments. To recall the framework of Thomas and colleagues, the dozen or
so individuals who led the birth control movement in Iowa clearly consid-
ered the issue deeply meaningful, were practiced in the art of consensus
building among their ranks, and, as a result, experienced high levels of
commitment to social action, levels so high that they were willing to risk
fine, imprisonment, and social disgrace.
Additionally, Holtan’s research demonstrates how effective change-
groups leverage communication to achieve their ends. By 1936, propo-
nents of the national movement claimed to have printed 135,000 docu-
ments promoting family planning; and in March 1937, the Iowa Maternal
Health League claimed to have distributed nearly 5000 documents at its
first display during the Iowa State Fair. These figures are telling, but the
real story is that Elizabeth Cowles was the wife of John Cowles, publisher
of The Des Moines Register, whose father had grown the paper into “Iowa’s
premier news organization” (p. 281). In the 1930s, the Cowles family was
“one of the most influential families in the state” (p. 277).
Although the advocacy of working-class women was vital to the Iowa
birth control movement, and Violet Spencer had been a prominent early
figure, it was women with “unusual influence with the local newspapers”
who “cultivated positive public opinion about their clinic activities. That
circumstance allowed them to stave off legal and religious opposition and
gave them an advantage that was perhaps unique in the birth control
movement” (p. 292). The status of the leaders of Iowa’s family planning
movement, insofar as that status was connected to an editorial power-
house, proved a key advantage in a state with especially stringent laws and
entrenched opinions against the promotion of family planning.
Also profoundly dependent on publicity to drive awareness of a nonvi-
olent social movement were the Standing Rock Sioux and their supporters
who began protesting the Dakota Access Pipeline in August 2016. The
No Dakota Access Pipeline (NoDAPL) movement attempted to halt the
construction of a project that would ship more than a half million barrels
of oil from North Dakota to Illinois daily.2 The movement integrated a
wide variety of rhetorical strategies to disseminate its message, including a
viral Facebook check-in that drew more than a million off-site supporters
from around the world. How a popular T-shirt in support of the noDAPL
protest circulated is the subject of Smith’s 2019 research.
The so-called “Homeland Security” T-shirt incorporates an image of
three Native Americans—the Apache warrior Geronimo; his son Chappo;
another fellow warrior, Yanozha; and his half-brother, Fun. All the men are
armed and regard the photographer (viewer) directly. Above and below this
image, which reproduces a photograph taken when the warriors were cap-
tured by the U.S. government, is the tagline “Homeland Security: Fight-
ing Terrorism Since 1492.” Colleen Lloyd (Tuscarora) created the design
more than a decade before the NoDAPL protest. Originally, she placed it
on a poster. Later, she transferred the design to T-shirts and other prod-
ucts whose profits she donated to charities dedicated to Native American
concerns.
The “Homeland Security” T-shirt is an example of visual, verbal, and
embodied rhetorics that highlight irony and parrhesia, or free or confronta-
tional speech. Both rhetorical figures are used widely in political critique,
not infrequently together. Because its effects are typically achieved when a
statement’s literal meaning is contrary to a deeper intended meaning, irony
is often understood as having two audiences—first, those who hear only the
literal meaning and, second, those who hear the literal and the hidden, or
at times subversive, message. The usefulness of irony to critique is obvious
when one considers that activists can endanger themselves as they employ
parrhesia. The “Homeland Security” T-shirt is both ironic and confronta-
tional, using “the wearer’s body as its entry into public discourse” and
representing a form of “public performance” (p. 346). As Smith explains,
“When someone chooses to wear such a shirt, there is a performance that
will possibly result in interactions with the public; whether it is stares, com-
ments, or questions, it can evoke immediate reactions” (p. 346). These
reactions, we note, may also be violent.
NoDAPL protestors’ decision to wear the “Homeland Security” T-shirt
gave rise to a novel rereading of the original design insofar as Lloyd had
been referring to a centuries’ long history of U.S. government relations
with Native Americans, not to a specific instance of abuse, let alone to the
NoDAPL movement. Because irony requires the simultaneous assertion

of contradictory meanings, the language of the T-shirt could always have
been read in extremely different ways. Ultimately its language was mas-
saged into a set of knock-off T-shirts, some with little or no connection
to Native American history. Creators of the Palestinian Resistance Home-
land Security T-Shirt incorporated an image of Palestinian fighters and the
tagline “Homeland Security: Fighting Terrorism since 1948,” a reference
to the creation of the State of Israel. Smith also discusses what she refers to
as the “pro-Confederacy” T-shirt, which incorporated an image of Nathan
Bedford Forrest, Jefferson Davis, Stonewall Jackson, and Robert E. Lee,
along with the tagline “Original Homeland Security: Established in 1861.”
The final T-shirt she describes is the “NRA Homeland Security” T-shirt,
which incorporated the tagline “The Second Amendment: America’s Orig-
inal Homeland Security.” Instead of images of individuals, an image of the
Bill of Rights, which the NRA has a special eagerness to appropriate, is
emblazoned on the shirt.
Appropriation of a design by and for Native Americans is one of the many
sophisticated rhetorical strategies that have been used by the NRA to craft
its messages about gun ownership in the United States. Dawson (2019)
illustrates how the association has, since the 1970s, increasingly linked
guns to Christianity and nationalism. Her work provides insights into how
groups dedicated to social transformation are continuously reimagining and
reforming themselves. The NRA has not always been associated primarily
with gun rights: until the 1970s and the rise of the Moral Majority and
the Christian Right, the association acted primarily as a shooting club. Like
the discourse of Lloyd’s T-shirt, whose meanings shifted as it was appro-
priated by one audience and then another, the discourses of Christianity
and of nationalism have been appropriated by the NRA, and in a man-
ner that many Christians find uncomfortable. During this process, NRA
membership has reconstituted itself in ways its founders could not have
foreseen.
Through a discourse analysis of American Rifleman, the official journal
of the association, Dawson “demonstrate[s] how the NRA has increas-
ingly used religious language to shape its argument in favor of the Second
Amendment—that is, that the right to bear arms is part of God’s covenant
with America” (p. 2). Since adopting “Moral decline,” a focus of the Chris-
tian Right, as a touchstone, the association has used the supposed moral
disintegration of America to justify the necessity of gun ownership and to
link it to God’s plan for national rehabilitation.
Insistently voicing Christian and nationalist rhetorics, the NRA has been
able to shift political views on the Second Amendment of the U.S. Con-
stitution from the secular realm to the religious one and subsequently to
impose a sense of religious obligation on millions of citizens. Although the
NRA is a lobbying organization, its discursive practices call into question
whether politicians have authority over something the association asserts is
God’s purview. The association boldly draws support for this position by
tapping into the widely held but rather inexplicable belief among Amer-
icans that the Constitution is a species of Holy Writ. Dawson concludes
that in a dazzling rhetorical sleight-of-hand, “[t]he NRA’s use of religious
nationalist discourse [elevates] the Second Amendment beyond the reach
of the state” (p. 11).
Communication and Conflict Studies ’ three examples of interdisciplinary
scholarship begin with Ziaul Haque and Joseph G. Bock’s “Are There Ways
That Digital Technologies Break Down Walls of Communication During
Conflict? Lessons from Leaders of a Women’s Movement in Egypt.” Con-
flict resolution scholarship, the authors argue, should expand its focus to
include conflict-inciting myths and attitudes in the context of ICT usage.
Their study describes the digital platform HarassMap, an Egyptian NGO
that enables reporting of gender-based violence. Aggregating data and
revealing areas where gender-based violence is prominent, the software
makes visible those social structures, such as entrenched attitudes towards
women in the public sphere, that can feed violence. [The authors] argue
that mobile technologies have the potential to disrupt entrenched social
structures and so to facilitate styles of communication that can help trans-
form conflict.
Achieving power sharing among elites, as the previously described his-
torical events demonstrate, will not in itself result in a participatory democ-
racy or, for that matter, the transformation of conflict. Indeed, one of the
reasons that communication’s significance to the study of conflict has been
difficult to ascertain is researchers’ historical emphasis on dialogue among
elites. Diplomatic discourse frequently occurs in private, and, if such dis-
course fails, all sides have a vested interest in reporting on the discussion
to reflect positively on themselves (Eisenkopf, 2018, p. 121). Savrum and
Miller (2015) assert that because a liberal approach to peace has been char-
acterized by the top-down structuring of citizen action by means of control
of information through traditional media, the approach has, regrettably,
cast into shadow the
[m]ulti-level communication processes that are essential for conflict trans-

formation and are central to major phrases of social transformation. They
overlook the factors that support participatory democracy … and fail to rec-
ognize the role of communication as its “most important dynamic force.”
(pp. 19–20, quoting Giddens [2005]; emphasis ours)
To achieve such ends, multi-voiced, peer-to-peer, and “bottom-up” com-

munication, such as Haque and Bock discuss, must be robust. The ease with
which e-activists communicate broadly and publicly can be problematic for
proponents of traditional top-down communication, as they historically
have depended on a strong capacity to shape public opinion through the
appropriation of traditional news media; the capacity to control narratives
about conflict has certainly been troubled by the proliferation of ICTs and
social media.
HarrassMap is an example of peace media, or genres that interfere with
elite efforts to control narratives of conflict. These genres can help balance
the asymmetry highlighted by Pratt (1991) in her work on contact zones
and can “be an important factor in the process of conflict prevention, con-
fliction resolution, reconciliation and confidence building” (Terzis, 2016,
p. 109). Because peace media are “an essential component of the infras-
tructure of peace,” freedom of the media “is a fundamental building block
for a liberal democracy” (Savrum and Miller, 2015, p. 19).
According to the liberal peace agenda, elites are expected to resolve con-
flicts; according to the democratic peace agenda, citizens are. In Savrum
and Miller’s study, traditional Greek news media were shown to focus on
structural issues and on the actions of elites of various kinds to the exclu-
sion of what the authors refer to as “social-psychological healing” among
the citizenry (p. 22). Social media and other peer-to-peer communication
technologies, in contrast, offer individuals an “alternative public sphere”
in which long disregarded or underexplored topics can be surfaced and
where the civic discussions often necessary for conflict transformation can
occur (p. 24). This sphere can allow individuals affected by conflict to “en-
gage in a way that positively influences perceptions, attitudes, and values,
[reduces] antagonism and prejudice, [and] helps to transform competition
into cooperation” (p. 26).
Individuals asserting a wide range of perspectives can leverage social
media in order (1) to position themselves as credible alternatives to jour-
nalists within traditional media, (2) to disseminate information through
interactive media directly accessible to their audiences, and (3) to assist in
organizing. These functions are identified by Dimitrakopoulou and Lenis

(2018) as constituting the primary roles of social media in the context of
dissent. In light of the goals of peace media identified by Dimitrakopoulou,
social media may be especially suited to conflict resolution practices that
approach parties in order to educate them about the other, defuse stereo-
types and rumors about the other, rehumanize the other, and provide
opportunities for constructive emotional release. By adapting their work
to the affordances of social media, students of ICTs have an opportunity
to consider the role of communication in assisting those who do not walk
the corridors of power.
Although early researchers often staked a triumphalist position in regard
to the affordances of both ICTs and social media, it should be noted that
contemporary research is more likely to ascribe no fixed quality to their
uses (see Terzis, 2016). The notion that ICTs are destined to be “lib-
eration technologies” under authoritarian regimes is dubious. Rød and
Weidmann (2015), for instance, find that while authoritarian regimes are
especially likely to allow Internet coverage to expand, this expansion can-
not be linked to enhanced democratization. In short, it can be argued that
instead of being technologies of liberation, ICTs are actually technologies
of oppression.
Yet it no longer is necessary for activists such as those who created Har-
rassMap to create hand-help posters or plan marches, to navigate city ordi-
nances or police barricades, or to undertake financial outlays beyond those
required to purchase a computer, software, and Internet service: As Terzis
writes, the Internet has “created new opportunities for peace activism and
conflict management” (p. 105). Illustrations of such opportunities were
found across North Africa and Western Asia in the early part of the second
decade of the twenty-first century, for instance. And indeed, the omnipres-
ence of social media led some to describe certain instances of civil unrest as
Facebook and Twitter revolutions. By now, however, triumphalist voices
have become muted across many disciplines, including our own.
In the second chapter of Communication and Conflict Studies , “Is
Mediation Too ‘Feminine’ for Him? Men and Masculinity During Medi-
ation Communication,” Brett H. Butler and Aza Howard Butler address
the relevance of intersections between the study of conflict transforma-
tion and interpersonal ComS in terms of how normatively gendered men
may respond to mediation. Citing literature from masculinity studies and
male studies, the authors describe how gender identity may cast the medi-
ation process as marginalizing from the perspective of male participants,
no matter the gender of the mediator. The authors suggest ways in which
alternative dispute resolution (ADR) practitioners might shape their com-
munication with participants in order to ensure a mediation experience that
encourages full engagement and is likely to result in perceptions of fairness.
The mediation examples included in their chapter emphasize the cen-
trality of audience and the importance of allowing or even inviting audi-
ence participation when communicating during conflict and crisis situa-
tions. Butler and Butler’s argument for audience attentiveness asserts that
while communication educators and practitioners obviously call upon dis-
ciplinary methods to teach and convey a message as successfully as possible,
the receiving audience—specifically, certain men in the context of media-
tion—may not be capable of responding or willing to respond to these
methods.
White, Rumsey, and Amidon (2016) analyze how communication’s
well-known field journals and educational texts tend to gender certain
communication approaches and to handle gendered topics in workplace
communication situations. A conflicting perspective regarding audience,
as both a fixed, passive entity and a changeable population deserving its
own voice, is a common phenomenon across ComS literature. As White
and others conclude, disciplinary texts often problematically
perpetuate the myth that … we’ve somehow evolved beyond stereotypes

and sexism. Instead, might we not focus our pedagogy on those changing
communication patterns, on context and Kairos … rhetorical strategies that
enable us and our students to adapt ourselves to a variety of situations, con-
texts, and audiences[?] (pp. 52–53)
We note that whereas many researchers have focused on negative attitudes

and behaviors that tend to affect cisgender women and whereas Butler and
Butler focus on negative attitudes and behaviors that might affect cisgender
men, across the globe transgender people are arguing fiercely for the right
to determine how they will be addressed. This remarkable social movement
is further evidence of audience’s key role in studies of communication and
conflict.
Butler and Butler’s research reflects many years of experience in the field
of mediation and a rather rare focus on the psychological reactions of cer-
tain men to divorce mediation. Yet research on gender is undergoing a
revolution, and we recommend that a binary (male/female, man/woman)
framework, and especially any framework proposing that communication
style arises “naturally” from gender, be approached critically. We encour-

age readers who have not done so yet to explore contemporary discus-
sions on gender in its complexity. Academic readers of this collection might
enjoy Goldberg and Kuvalanka’s (2018) research on how nonbinary trans
people support each other and are helped to flourish in college (p. 106).
LeMaster (2019) offers a multifaceted exercise for students and teachers
interested in “transing” gender communication. Transing, an act described
as “an improvisational, creative, and essentially poetic practice … that situ-
ates ‘trans’ in relation to transgender yet moves beyond the narrow politics
of gender identity” (p. 221), can, among other things, demonstrate how
gender is more than genetics or socialization, or a combination of the two.3
In the final piece in Communication and Conflict Studies , “The Conflict
of Genre: Disciplinary Terminology and Conceptual Overlap in the Con-
text of the Annual Report,” Marcy Leasum Orwig and Anish Dave look
to two industry cases during the recent U.S. automotive industry’s finan-
cial crisis: Ford Motor Company and Toyota Motor Corporation. Their
research is in the vein of that by ComS scholars who have generated a
large body of historical research about conflicts, crises, and disasters in the
workplace, including Brockman’s (2004) Twisted Rails, Sunken Ships: The
Rhetoric of Nineteenth Century Steamboat and Railroad Accident Investi-
gation Reports, 1833–1879 and Johnson’s (2008) The Language of Work:
Technical Communication at Lukens Steel, 1810 to 1925. Indeed, the orga-
nizational/corporate and social/political roles of communication during
periods of transformation have long been an important topic of inquiry in
ComS (see Rodamer, 2012).
Orwig and Dave’s scholarship concerns corporate communication such
as that explored by Kugler and Brodbeck (2014), for example, a mission
statement or annual report , “which organizations use to inform and express
their culture—including their conflict culture” (p. 266). Kugler and Brod-
beck are especially interested in how top-down communication from upper
management affects employee perceptions of the institution’s ability to
manage conflict. The extent to which discourse reflects and integrates a
diversity of opinions and positions is key to successful communication of
this type and is referred to as integrative complexity (IC), or, in the case of
the workplace, institutional organizational integrative complexity (p. 267).
The authors hypothesize that “[w]hen differences and contradictions are
differentiated and integrated (that is, high levels of organizational IC),
more cooperation should be present on the one hand; when black-and-

white thinking is encouraged (that is, low levels of organizational IC), com-
petition should be predominant….” (p. 267). And, indeed, the researchers
find that managers should use a communication style that actively mod-
els “a complex understanding of differences, multidimensional issues, and
ultimately conflict” (p. 276).
Orwig and Dave pose the Ford and Toyota cases as examples of how con-
flict transformation may be understood when seen through the disciplinary
lens of CS. Closely reading the companies’ annual reports, the authors
demonstrate how this long-used, largely unchanging industry genre throws
into relief a commonplace conflict: The audience’s cognitive dissonance
when reading the reports’ continually confident tone while possessing
awareness of alternative financial realities. The authors argue that insti-
tutional discourse associated with acknowledging readers’ intrapersonal
conflict may help generate a more transparent and persuasive approach
to handling and transforming such conflict.
Hung and Lin’s (2013) work focusing on communication in the busi-
ness environment can help contextualize Orwig and Dave’s focus on a
form of conflict well understood by practitioners and scholars in the fields
of ADR or conflict management: Task conflict (which in Hung and Lin’s
research refers to “disagreements in viewpoints, ideas and opinions between
a salesperson and a purchaser” [p. 1224]) and relationship conflict (or “in-
terpersonal incompatibilities between a salesperson and a purchaser, such
as tension, animosity or annoyance” [p. 1224]). Hung and Lin found that
high levels of communication may have both negative and positive effects
on relationships between buyers and sellers, and the more mature, or estab-
lished, the relationship, the more destructive task conflict can be. According
to their research, although written communication in the form of policy
can be useful, it is not especially suited to addressing interpersonal conflict
(p. 1225). Hung and Lin summarize the importance of communication
to mediating conflict in the business world: “Effective communication,”
they write, “is associated with higher perceived relationship effectiveness,
a low conflict state, because it reduces ambiguity, facilitates dialogue, and
provides the opportunity for healthy constructive discussion” (p. 1226).
Ultimately, there is a need for professional writers to compose a variety of
workplace communications that not only help ensure work is accomplished
effectively, efficiently, and safely, but also help to manage subtler consid-
erations such as the perceptions of practitioners, gatekeepers, and parties
involved in disputes and conflicts. To that end, we believe it would benefit
ComS scholars to make a clearer distinction between conflicts and crises, so

that the latter is used consistently to refer to paradigmatic shifts in under-
standing, for example, the space shuttle Challenger crisis, whereby public
faith in the space program was severely tested. We also suggest that it would
benefit scholars in ComS to apply a more fine-grained approach to distin-
guishing among workplace conflicts by striving to employ the definitions
of conflict that guide ADR research and practice—that is, to understand
this useful rubric of conflict possible in professional settings. Finally, we
believe that study of expert professional communicators by scholars of CS
can illuminate how discourse is adapted to a range of media and audiences,
thereby enhancing our ability to study, facilitate, and achieve justice.
An approach to scholarship that blends lenses, frameworks, concepts,
terms, and methods from the fields of communication and conflict studies
can, we believe, fruitfully guide investigation into countless broad topics of
mutual interest, of which the following are but a few:
• Rhetorical strategies for communicating with marginalized or geo-

graphically distant or peripheral audiences.
• Delivery and diffusion of messages through social media, the Internet,
and traditional media.
• Construction of multimodal discourses (verbal, visual, and/or audio
texts).
• Creation and diffusion of professional ethics guidelines.
• Pedagogical potentials of cross-pollinating ComS and CS disciplinary
approaches.
• Addressing conflict in the production of crisis, environmental, legal,
health-care, business, administrative, and technical communication.
• Public relations and marketing in situations of conflict.
Notes
1. Although Holton cites correspondence between Spencer and Sanger in which
“Spencer’s comments might be interpreted as having eugenicist impulses” and
in which “Sangers’ replies did not” (sic; 276), the fact that Sanger’s complex
interactions with the eugenics movement is in this way elided is, in our view,
regrettable.
2. The pipeline was built and is in use.
3. LeMaster strongly encourages cisgender people interested in facilitating

dialogue about, between, or including transgender people to read “Sug-
gested Rules for Non-Transsexuals Writing about Transsexuals, Transsexu-
ality, Transsexualism, or Trans” (https://sandystone.com/hale.rules.html).
The statement should be of assistance to mediators as well.
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CHAPTER 2
Are There Ways That Digital Technologies

Break Down Walls of Communication During
Conflict? Lessons from Leaders of a Women’s
Movement in Egypt
Ziaul Haque and Joseph G. Bock
Abstract Effective communication is fundamental in conflict resolution

insofar as conflicts often begin after communication among belligerent
parties has ended. From Fisher and Ury’s Getting to Yes (1981) to Led-
erach’s The Moral Imagination (2005), decades-long scholarship in con-
flict resolution has unearthed various dynamics of negotiation strategies
Z. Haque (B)
Program in International Conflict Management, School of Conflict Management,
Peacebuilding and Development,
e-mail: zhaque@students.kennesaw.edu
J. G. Bock
School of Conflict Management, Peacebuilding and Development,
e-mail: jbock2@kennesaw.edu

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-32746-0_2
20 Z. HAQUE AND J. G. BOCK
and conflict communication. But the focus by conflict resolution schol-

ars on communication’s behavioral aspects dwarfs inquiry into its struc-
tural aspects (debunking myths and facilitating attitudinal change). Owing
to the proliferation of mobile-based digital technologies and their uses in
social change processes, a new scholarly discourse is slowly emerging which
holds that digital technology can highlight the structural aspects of conflict.
How does this optimism regarding new communication tools resonate in
conflict resolution literature, and what are the transformative impacts, if
any, of mobile-based interactive digital technology in shaping structural
issues in conflict? Drawing on a case study of HarassMap—a social move-
ment NGO in Egypt focused on changing attitudes toward and prevent-
ing gender-based violence—we offer an analytical framework to facilitate
a comprehensive understanding of the evolving potentials of these digital
tools in conflict resolution.
Keywords Social media · Digital technology · Gender-based violence ·

Sexual harassment · Conflict communication
Introduction
The advent of digital technologies—a combination of mobile phones and
interactive websites and other forms of social media, collectively referred to
as Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs)—is transform-
ing the communication and conflict resolution landscape (Castells, 2013;
Larrauri & Kahl, 2013; Mancini, 2013). Offering affordances such as early
warning signs and conflict mitigation strategies, digital technologies offer
new possibilities for gathering information about conflicts and for engag-
ing in conflict transformation (Bock, 2012; Coyle & Meier, 2009; Stauf-
facher, 2005). For instance, powerful ICT platforms such as CrowdMap
and Magpi (to name just a couple) enable local peacebuilders to use text
messaging, crisis mapping, and crowdsourcing in real-time, thereby facili-
tating contact among people who are otherwise outside negotiation chan-
nels.
The enthusiasm for new tools and opportunities offered by technology
has resulted in a plethora of tech-based social change campaigns to fos-
ter alternative discourses and behaviors. Universities are setting up labs—
such as the Peace Innovation Lab at Stanford—to design and use ICTs for
promoting peace through real-world interventions. The leveraging capa-
bilities of these powerful communication platforms enable local conflict
2 ARE THERE WAYS THAT DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES BREAK DOWN … 21
resolution workers to bring new voices and a grassroots perspective into

the public domain. For instance, in Israel, PeaceFactory, a social media-
based digital community, is connecting people across the Middle East to
promote mutual friendship among groups of people who have historically
been in conflict (PeaceFactory, 2018). Ushahidi, a Kenyan text messag-
ing and digital mapping initiative originally developed by journalists for
tracking election violence, is now being used for many other purposes all
over the world, including efforts to promote respectful gender relations.
Groundviews, another web-based citizen journalism platform being devel-
oped in Sri Lanka, fosters alternative perspectives on governance, human
rights, and peace.
Where communication ceases or becomes limited substantially between
belligerents, negotiations either do not take place or tend to fail, and ongo-
ing conflicts become stagnant. Digital technologies offer hope for our abil-
ity to overcome such limited communication by connecting broad audi-
ences from all sides, potentially enabling a collective alternative vision for
peace. Owing to the proliferation of digital initiatives and their various
uses in social change processes, a new communication discourse is slowly
emerging which holds that digital technology can be a powerful vehicle
in debunking social myths and facilitating attitudinal change among con-
flicting parties. In fact, thousands of crowdsourced texts, images, videos,
and audios are creating horizontal flows of information, afforded by ICT
platforms, to promote a sense of shared problems and to create opportu-
nities for collaboration among conflicting parties. Digital technologies are
connecting people, building awareness, and bringing belligerents together
where they have been divided by seemingly intractable conflicts.
Profoundly consequental in terms of surpassing barriers to communica-
tion in conflict resolution processes, ICTs can help nurture a new interactive
space by connecting individuals and groups in conflict settings. Digital cha-
trooms, blogs, crowdmaps, and networking platforms help people reflect
on their grievances and mutual wounds and can be used to facilitate a col-
lective expression of positive solutions.
Still, in view of the enthusiasm and scope of digital activism for righting
relationships, we are surprised by the lack of scholarship in conflict resolu-
tion on the subject (Tellidis & Kappler, 2016). Instead, most of the litera-
ture in this area focuses on how technology in general and social media in
particular exacerbate conflict. This may be due to the striking ways in which
social media and mobile phones have been used to exacerbate tensions and
foment violence.
ICTs and Conflict Resolution

Despite the potentials of ICTs in peacebuilding and conflict resolution, a
considerable volume of literature draws on the negative side of these tech-
nologies (Bailard, 2015; Bimber, Flanagin, & Stohl, 2005; Pierskalla &
Hollenbach, 2013; Weidmann, 2015a). Bailard (2015) uses a mixed effects
logistic model of time series cross-sectional data (2007–2009) to examine
the effects of mobile phone availability on the probability of violent ethnic
conflict among 599 distinct ethnic groups living across 121 countries. He
tests whether mobile phones decreased communication costs and enhanced
mobilization, thereby making ethnic conflict more likely. Bailard finds that
mobile phones did indeed lift some communication barriers and increased
the opportunity for violence. Weidmann’s (2015b) study on communica-
tion networks and the spread of ethnic conflicts echoes Bailard’s findings.
According to Weidmann, “Ongoing ethnic conflict in a state’s communi-
cation partners increases the risk of ethnic conflict at home. These informa-
tional linkages seem to be operating in parallel with geographic linkages”
(2015, p. 285).
There is more than one way to see technology, however (Bailard, 2015;
Lanzara, 2009; Pierskalla & Hollenbach, 2013; Warren, 2015; Weidmann,
2015a). ICT platforms can be used to diminish tensions and prevent esca-
lation to the point of violent conflict. They can help build trust. They can
promote the use of collective intelligence to articulate alternative solutions
that can be used to address acute tensions. For instance, Tracking the Front
Lines in Syria—a Syrian digital mapping project of the Carter Center—pro-
vides actionable information to policymakers. It tracks the evolution of the
Syrian Civil War and the actions of specific participants in the conflict. The
Parents Circle-Families Forum, an online platform of Israeli and Palestinian
families who lost family members in the ongoing conflict between Israel
and Palestine, uses digital space to encourage conversation and engage-
ment. It seeks to foster reconciliation as an alternative to a vicious cycle of
hatred and revenge.
Some studies have examined the impact of digital technology on peace-
building and social change. Shirky (2008) contends that social commu-
nication technology facilitates a horizontal network among individuals,
which can shrink political and social divisions. Mitra (2015) argues that
“the shared interpretative repertoires of the contributions [enabled by
ICT platforms] … build a broader case for commonalities” (p. 303) by
linking different views and clustering them. According to Hellström and
Karefelt (2012), disseminating messages via SMS during the Ugandan gen-
eral election in 2011 provided “a useful channel” when citizens felt there
was “nowhere else to turn, and when citizens need[ed] help” (n.p.).
Tellidis and Kappler (2016) conducted a comprehensive study to explore
how ICTs empower marginalized actors to transcend conflict resolution
barriers. They argue that “socio-technical approaches to peace should con-
ceptualize ICTs as a tool that can serve inclusionary frameworks of post-
conflict co-existence, as much as it can be used to propagate conflict and
cement divisions…” (p. 77). Vinck (2013) discusses the role of ICTs in
improving emergency responses, which often could be a part of a peace-
building process. The report Communication for Peacebuilding recognizes
the importance of ICTs in opening up new avenues for local people and civil
society organizations to engage in conflict prevention and peacebuilding
activities (Search for Common Ground, n.d.).
Meanwhile, Mancini’s (2013), Mancini and O’Reilly’s (2013), and
Stauffacher, Drake, Currion, and Steinberger’s (2005) studies focus on
the potential of ICTs’ conflict monitoring and conflict prevention. Bock
(2012) discusses how social media and ICTs can foster social change and
embolden local efforts to prevent the outbreak of violence.
Some case studies reflect on how ICTs can be a facilitator of conflict res-
olution. Examples include civil society empowerment in Cyprus (UNDP,
2008); a preventive violence network in Kenya (Jorgic, 2013); adoption of
low tech for community communication in Sudan (Puig Larrauri, 2013);
and UNICEF’s use of tech-based innovation for peacebuilding in Uganda
(Llamazares & Mulloy, 2014). Armakolas and Maksimovic (2013) suggest
that ICTs help create a common bond among people across an entire coun-
try. Martin-Shields and Stones (2014) reflect on the power of smartphones
in fostering social bonds among Kenyan ethnic groups. Larrauri and Kahl
(2013) argue that key features of new technology make local peacebuild-
ing more effective by “offering tools that foster collaboration, transform
attitudes, and give a stronger voice to communities” (p. 2).
The role of technology in social and political change should be neither
ignored nor exaggerated. Earl and Kimport (2011) astutely observe that
social change is not an outcome of technology. Instead, social changes are
facilitated through how people use these technologies. In existing research
on ICTs, we have noticed that there is an interesting marriage between
the two views that ICTs can be used to exacerbate conflict and, conversely,
to decrease it and serve as a medium for conflict resolution. Despite the
opposing directions of research, an observable consensus among them is
that ICTs (a) decrease costs of communication, (b) offer new tools to allow
individuals to engage in collective action, (c) bring new opportunity in col-
laboration and networking, and (d) have visible audience effects, realized
through the potentials of bringing grassroots involvement into policymak-
ing.
Feminist studies have made visible progress to reflect on the potentials of
ICTs in advancing justice and equality among vulnerable groups. Ander-
sson, Grönlund, and Wicander (2012) highlight the conflict resolution
potential of online social spaces (Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube). Cus-
tomizable applications of smartphones, powered by social media and online
mapping tools, make crowdsourcing a uniquely transformative platform to
coordinate critical sociopolitical engagements. Alhayek (2016) argues that
scholars need to assess the role of ICTs in social change by contextualizing
it in the history of women’s agency in specific cultural contexts.
Some feminist studies (Abbott, 2011; Connell, 2010; Gajjala, Zhang
& Dako-Gyeke, 2010; Kellner & Kim, 2010; Rybas & Gajjala, 2007;
Simon, 2011) now link digital technology’s potential to achieving wom-
en’s empowerment and emancipation. As Kienle (2012) and Hussain and
Howard (2013) argue, ICTs provide an alternative means to organize
or seek political responses to a local gender-related problem. Applying
“adaptive preference” and “patriarchal bargain” as the two key concepts of
agency, Masika and Bailur (2015) look at women’s strategic uses of ICTs
in India and Uganda. They argue that, in a generalized structure of patri-
archy, women tend to use ICTs as a strategy to negotiate and bargain with
the prevailing power structure.
The Beginning of a Social Movement

Sexual harassment has been a pervasive phenomenon in Egypt, as it has
been in many societies. Experiences of sexual harassment have occurred
among—although not exclusively among—women, irrespective of their
ages, social backgrounds or choices of attire, for example, whether they
wear hijab (Young, 2014). However, conversation about these social prob-
lems has been an almost taboo topic, and an entrenched social stigma and
victim-blaming culture developed an unusual resiliency in Egyptian soci-
ety. Seeking remedies through legal means was a distant dream because
of inadequate laws and dysfunctional response systems. As a result, most
of the incidents of sexual harassment remained unreported. Victims have
continued to face social stigma, trauma, and shame. The mobile applica-
tion HarassMap was born as a response to the persistent problem of sexual
harassment on the streets of Egypt, to which society had become increas-
ingly tolerant (Fahmy, Abdelmonem, Hamdy, Badr, & Hassan, 2014).
In 2010, Pennsylvania-born Rebecca Chiao, along with co-founders
Engy Ghozlan, Amel Fahmy, and Sawsan Gad, started an advocacy cam-
paign to address social inertia regarding sexual harassment and to gen-
erate a public dialogue about it. HarassMap was originally launched as a
volunteer-based social change campaign, which, to use the words of soci-
ologist Judson Lundis (1974), is designed to change “the structure and
functioning of the social relationships of a society” (p. 229). According to
HarassMap’s founders, “We felt that we could not continue to stand by
and quietly tolerate the damaging effect sexual harassment was having on
our daily lives, choices, and feelings of safety…” (Fahmy et al., 2014).
The scholarship of Maclver and Page (1949), Gerth and Mills (1953),
Lauer (1977), and Vago (1992) is part of a considerable volume of litera-
ture on “social change” which suggests that every movement starts with a
motto to change the structure, interaction patterns, and social behaviors,
embodied in rules of conduct and norms. Faced with new situations and
unique challenges, individuals educate and adapt to new situations by intro-
ducing new tools, techniques, and ideas (Mutekwe, 2012). The launching
of HarassMap, with the support of reporting and mapping technology, can
be regarded as an “adaptive preference” of women to challenge an existing
narrative and to foster alternative practices, behaviors, and attitudes within
society.
In addition to being a broad-based social movement, HarassMap has
evolved into an interactive online reporting, mapping, and crowdsourcing
platform (Young, 2014). HarassMap engages and mobilizes the commu-
nity to resist gender-based harassment and violence. It engages various
stakeholders, including Community Based Organizations (CBOs), Non-
Governmental Organizations (NGOs), human rights activists, universities,
schools, and corporations to create safe zones for women in public places
(Fahmy et al., 2014). In addition, it maintains an active outreach program
and a vibrant, youth-based mobile community to make people aware of
what is appropriate and what is inappropriate behavior. It also highlights
the extent and geographic concentrations of harassment and violence.
In addition, HarassMap crafts various campaigns targeting social myths
and misperceptions about sexual violence. It has initiated campaigns with
labels such as “Debunking Myths,” “Fix It in Your Mind,” and “Do Not
Be Silent.” The campaigns are designed to challenge stereotypes about

women, to counteract a victim-blaming culture, and to speak out against
gender-based harassment and violence (Fahmy et al., 2014). In addition,
HarassMap has a collection of different feature films, disseminated through
their website and social media, that document the problem of harassment
and sexual violence as well as providing information on how to reach out
for help. Through “community partnerships” and “safe corporates” pro-
grams, HarassMap offers tools, training programs, and expert services for
businesses to design sexual harassment policies and create customized edu-
cational materials related to sexual harassment attitudes and behaviors. In
essence, HarassMap propagates a counter-narrative within gendered space.
This new alternative discursive representation of gendered space facilitates
both knowledge production and develops a domain for intervention by cre-
ating a new form of “public consciousness” that is grounded, networked,
and global (Grove, 2015).
Since its formation in 2010, HarassMap has forged extensive partner-
ships with NGOs, universities, and businesses. It has attracted a steady
group of volunteers and tech enthusiasts. In 2012, HarassMap received a
two-year grant from Canada’s International Development Research Centre
(IDRC), which supported its paid staff. It has also received international
attention among NGOs and civil society groups.
The Technology
HarassMap crowdsources the experiences of sexual harassment and violence
from a large and disperse population in Egypt in order to foster awareness
about its destructive and disrespectful nature, with a goal, ultimately, to
prevent those occurrences. It uses the previously described open-source
mapping software Ushahidi (meaning “witness” in Swahili). The offline
reporting and community support is mainly conducted thorough Frontline
SMS, a messaging platform used to collect and distribute messages through
texting (Frontline, n.d.). HarassMap also takes advantage of social media
(both Facebook and Twitter) in organizing issue-based social campaigns
and in gathering community support. This project has built an active vol-
unteer network (Fahmy et al., 2014; Young, 2014). Figure 2.1 represents
an interactive crowdmap of harassment in public places in Egypt.
Victims can anonymously report incidents of sexual harassment and vio-
lence offline (using mobile SMS) and online via text message or by filing a
Fig. 2.1 One example of HarassMap in action (https://harassmap.org/en/)
web report (on social media or the HarassMap website). A group of volun-
teers then curates those data (by categorizing them and verifying them) and
plots the incidents on an online map by using their geographic knowledge,
Global Information System (GIS) data, Google Maps, or a combination
of these. Ushahidi is used to process and plot the data. Accumulations of
events of harassment or violence are depicted as “red dots” on the map-
ping platform. These are “hot spots” highlighting the frequency of sexual
harassment and violence so that viewers can avoid those locations.
Ushahidi’s cloud-based system, Crowdmap, helps HarassMap staff and
volunteers maintain interactive communication with harassment and vio-
lence victims. Victims can submit their stories or experiences of sexual
assaults and seek social and psychological support among peers. After sub-
mitting a report, victims receive critical supportive information about rele-
vant psychological and legal services that are available to them. This infor-
mation is also readily available by clicking on the “Take Action” button on
the HarassMap website.
Theoretical Framework
Digital technology can be used to disseminate actionable information, for
counteracting vicious rumors, and for cultivating attitudes toward peace
and justice (Ramsbotham, Miall, & Woodhouse, 2011). But conflict reso-
lution scholars’ focus on the behavioral aspects of communication dwarfs
inquiry into how digital tools can facilitate positive contacts to broker peace.
Thus, there is a risk that conflict resolution scholarship will fall behind in
offering a methodological framework for understanding the potential uses
of digital technology.
While we are aware of the potential risks of collective violence orga-
nized through social media, our approach to digital technology draws
on Kranzberg’s (1986) “first law of technology,” which holds that
“[t]echnology is neither good nor bad; nor is it neutral” (p. 545). It also
draws on Ledarach’s concept of a moral imagination—the capacity to rec-
ognize turning points and possibilities in conflict settings. Specifically, in
The Moral Imagination: The Art and Soul of Peacebuilding (2005), Led-
erach contends that moral imagination flourishes when it “provides space
for the creative act,” when it allows groups and local peacebuilders to tran-
scend traditional parameters of conflict and “discover untold new angles,
opportunities, and unexpected potentialities” (cited in Maiese, n.d.).
We consequently hold a broadened view of conflict resolution as a
heterogeneous process that involves behavioral, structural, and cultural
aspects. Galtung’s (1969) conflict triangle is useful to capture this dynamic
conflict structure. As Galtung argues, the three critical components of
the conflict triangle are contradiction, attitude, and behavior. Contradic-
tion arises out of a conflict situation where parties have clearly incompat-
ible goals (Galtung, 1969; Ramsbotham et al., 2011). Attitude refers to
both perception and misperception, both of which have emotional (feel-
ing) and cognitive (belief) components. Behavior can involve constructive
and destructive gestures, characterized by violence or conciliation. With
the evolution of conflict structure, the three components reinforce one
another. Galtung (1969) thus conceptualizes and categorizes three types
of violence: Direct violence (killing, harming), structural violence (societal
injustice, inequality), and cultural violence (an embedded social construct
used to legitimize violence of either type).
We draw on Galtung’s conflict model and conception of violence to
articulate a framework for understanding the use of digital technology
in conflict resolution. Here, our focus specifically on cultural and struc-
tural violence indicates a sociological understanding of conflict: That con-
flict is a form of socialization where parties oppose, disagree, and dispute
established social norms and unjust social structures and seek to acquire
social power to overthrow the imposed values or to maintain the status
quo (Coser, 1956; Pruitt, Rubin, & Kim, 1998).
In social conflict settings, the distribution of power relationships, stereo-

types of “the other,” powerful images and narratives, dogma, conflict-
ing ideologies, interests, and values constitute the greatest impediments
to communication. Conflicting parties often draw on a pre-existing con-
struct of self and others (such as Hutu/Tutsi, American/immigrant, Sin-
halese/Tamil, Male/Female), which is formed through structural relations
and cultural distinctions. These structural and cultural parameters consti-
tute parties’ identities and often perpetuate vicious cycles of political, eth-
nic, and social conflict. The parameters manifest and function differently
in symmetric and asymmetric conflicts.
Digital conflict resolution activism can be viewed as the use of innovative
ICT platforms to engage in conversation, including collective listening as a
means to cultivate empathy toward “the other”—unlike traditional conflict
resolution approaches. Reflecting on the limitation of classic conflict reso-
lution and peacebuilding approaches, which focus mainly on how to reach
out to parties and help them resolve their disagreements, we borrow from
Ramsbotham and colleagues’ (2011) conceptualization of conflict resolu-
tion: “Conflict resolution implies that deep-rooted sources of conflict are
addressed…. behavior is no longer violent, attitudes are no longer hostile,
and the structure of the conflict is changed” (p. 31).
Our view consequently is that digital technology fundamentally changes
conflict dynamics (Fig. 2.2) because of (a) its low transaction costs, and high
networking potential; (b) its ability to involve marginalized actors in conflict
resolution processes; (c) the speed and velocity of communication, which
fosters collaboration and collective problem solving of large-scale social
problems; (d) the flexibility of informal channels that enable parties to the
conflict to participate in online dialogue; (e) audio-visual representation
and the availability of near real-time information, which enable people to
censor imposed views and raise alternative voices in the public domain;
and (f) digital trust networks, which help create an additional side in the
conflict, enabling local peace activists to communicate with leaders and
decision-makers to counteract calls for violence and sustain peace processes.
Figure 2.2 represents our proposed framework of digital peacebuilding.
Analysis of Anti-Harassment Digital Activism

Organizing a social movement is often cumbersome as a result of socio-
cultural constraints, a lack of resources, demands on time, and the diffi-
culty of cultivating collective effort. ICT platforms combined with mobile
Fig. 2.2 An analytical framework of digital peacebuilding
phones, however, offer new opportunities that can be both liberating and
private. An outgrowth of these ICT platforms is a communication ecol-
ogy that facilitates a crowd-based agentic network, which Bandura (1999)
conceives as “human agency operating through shared beliefs of efficacy,
pooled understandings, group aspirations, and incentive systems, and col-
lective action” (p. 21). Banking on the network, members of marginalized
crowds, whose opportunity for civic engagement is restricted in the tra-
ditional public sphere due to patriarchal control, can challenge cultural
norms using a collective voice. And the privacy afforded by ICT platforms
can help insulate individuals from negative responses by people who see
themselves as guardians of cultural norms.
HarassMap connects victims with an informal support-base in address-

ing abusive situations while also fighting harmful sociocultural gender nar-
ratives. Using texts, pictures, and videos with geographic specificity, the
project uses Crowdmap to aggregate events of harassment and violence.
Agent-to-agent interaction and real-time data collection make HarassMap
an effective vehicle for pursuing a community-driven social change process
that generates awareness about gender-based harassment and violence in
public places, facilitates reporting of incidents of harassment and sexual
violence, and serves as a platform of documented evidence for advocacy
(Certoma, Corsini, & Rizzi, 2015). The ability to engage in collective
action afforded by this technology can be instrumental in changing poli-
cies, practices, and beliefs that are detrimental to the participants, and thus
the platform can be characterized as an example of Diamond’s (2010)
“liberation technology.” We do not argue that people can be “empow-
ered” through using Harassmap. Instead, we view people as having intrinsic
power to transform their societies, and technology as having the potential
to support the liberation of individual and collective power.
HarassMap has added a digital layer to the traditional social space. Unlike
in traditional public spaces, in this online space there is neither a moderator
in the debate nor hierarchical relationships between organizers and partici-
pants. Power is held by the crowd, and so participation has the potential to
be broad, diverse, and inclusive. In the case of this application, the collec-
tive effort of participants increases the visibility of gender-based harassment
and violence.
HarassMap stands on the digital crossroads of a social movement. Micro
solvers (individual agents) foster a “digital opposition network” to drive a
social change process to overcome their marginality, map their own devel-
opment trajectory, and seek a sociopolitical overhaul of society. HarassMap
mediates a liberation process through grassroots participation of a less pow-
erful dispersed crowd, collectively seeking greater control of the decision
making that affects their lives.
Collaboration and Collective Problem Solving

According to Sen (1999), autonomy, freedom, and agency are the three
critical components of a capabilities approach to human development. The
extent of the autonomy offered by the HarassMap movement lies in the
degree of freedom it provides to participate in the crowdsourcing process.
Such participation can result in an increased sense of agency, of being able
to make a difference, both as an individual and as a group (Kabeer, 1999).

Contributors within the crowd do not have to be highly educated to partici-
pate in the online activism; minimal mobile literacy is enough. Participation
enters contributors into a collective support base, potentially enhancing
their self-esteem and sense of a collective common resistance to social exclu-
sion, marginality, and abuse. Rebecca Chiao, one of HarassMap’s founders,
argues that “[t]he technology lets people reach us, beyond all these social
barriers that used to exist. If you can file a report on your phone, even
anonymously, you psychologically feel much better” (Simons, 2013).
In digitally mapping sexual harassment and violence, HarassMap height-
ens the visibility of a social problem that individual agents face in their
everyday lives. Digital activists thus use HarassMap as an interactive dig-
ital platform to build a political response to a local injustice. In this way,
HarassMap facilitates women’s liberation by empowering them to articu-
late their collective voice in their own terms with a view to achieving their
goals. Women use these tools to raise their voice against gender-based vio-
lence since these digital tools tend to have wider audience effects through
rapid transmission of victims’ voices. As Radsch and Khamis (2013) con-
tend, “Arab women’s activism, via communication technologies … [helps]
young women achieve both leadership and visibility besides challenging the
mainstream media coverage” (cited in Alhayek, 2016, p. 336).
Results
Tools for assessing the efficacy of ICT-based conflict resolution initiatives
are still very much in their infancy. Most assessments have been in the form
of case studies. Such studies are flexible in their theoretical shapes and are
heavily grounded in contextual nuances. Studies on ICTs and peacebuild-
ing focus more on potentials than actual benefits; and there is a dearth
of robust theory for identifying measurable variables of ICT-based peace-
building. It is obvious, however, that ICT-related innovations have the
potential to advance conflict resolution.
HarassMap has created some noise across the horizon; as a micro-
initiative to counter gender-based violence, it draws considerable media
attention. At this time, we do not have data on the impact of HarassMap
in preventing harassment and violence. What we do have is considerable
evidence that the approach is being replicated and spread across multiple
sectors of society around the globe. We take the following instances of the
application’s use as potential indicators of its efficacy:
• Replication of the idea and use of the technology. Safe City in India;
Harasstracker in Lebanon; Safe Streets in Yemen; Name and Shame
in Pakistan; and Bijoy in Bangladesh are examples.
• Expansion into other sectors. HarassMap has partnered with corpora-
tions, providing training programs to employees and advocacy ser-
vices for harassment prevention policy in workplaces (HarassMap).
Uber built a partnership with HarassMap Egypt to ensure safety dur-
ing transportation for girls and women using the company’s service
(UBER, 2015; Uber, HarassMap Reinforce Partnership to Prevent
Sexual Harassment, 2017). Drawing inspiration from HarassMap,
Cairo University has created an Anti-Harassment and Violence
Against Women Unit (Cairo University, 2017) to raise awareness
among employees, staff, and students.
• Codification of the cultural change. The National Council for Women
and members of the Egyptian parliament have drafted new laws, and
NGOs have formed a national Task Force on Sexual Harassment
(Uber, HarassMap Reinforce Partnership to Prevent Sexual Harass-
ment, 2017). HarassMap plays a significant role in building awareness
among the people by showcasing the degree and frequency of sexual
harassments (through Crowdmap) across the streets and public places
in Egypt, which consequently shaped civil society and lawmakers to
push for new laws and provisions in countering these incidents.
Young’s (2014) assessment of HarassMap’s impact highlights benefits at

individual, community, and national levels: the opportunity for anonymous
reporting allows individuals to transcend cultural and institutional barri-
ers. Documentation and mapping of sexual harassment and violence raise
public awareness about the prevalence of this social problem among com-
munity members; and the crowdsourced information curated and posted
on HarassMap’s site can inform and facilitate public policymaking. The
site also provides a mechanism with which to monitor the vulnerability of
marginalized people.
Conclusion
ICT platforms can play a pivotal role in redefining traditional gender rela-
tionships. According to Newsom and Lengel (2012), “Online activism
provides the potential for empowerment to marginalized voices, provides
the opportunity for cross-boundary dialogue, and provides an impetus for
social change” (p. 33). In patriarchal societies, women can use digital plat-
forms to mobilize “the crowd” and, through digital activism, can challenge
traditional gender relations and hierarchical social structures (Hoan, Chib,
& Mahalingham, 2016, p. 2).
HarassMap is an innovative initiative that serves as a vehicle for expres-
sion of a counter-narrative about gender in Egypt. It challenges the prevail-
ing discourse on sexual harassment and violence. It provides a new mediated
space of informal representation to disperse this message to both domestic
and global audiences. We do not know, however, the extent of change in
knowledge, attitudes, and practices that HarassMap has had or will have.
It is clearly a promising initiative. It has the potential to impact the power
dynamics between men and women in Egypt and beyond, delegitimizing
deep-seated notions of entitlement, and of what is acceptable behavior and
what is not.
It seems clear that ICT platforms can enhance communication and orga-
nization. But the heart of what HarassMap is doing is fostering an anti-
harassment and violence prevention social movement. It is our view that
the role of technology is complementary, not pivotal. The use of tech-
nology by HarassMap, it seems to us, does not reflect the adage that “if
you build it, they will come.” Instead, the technology’s role is more aptly
understood as “if you launch and pursue a social movement, it can help.”
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CHAPTER 3
Is Mediation Too “Feminine” for Him? Men

and Masculinity During Mediation
Communication
Brett H. Butler and Aza Howard Butler
Abstract Few studies focusing on conflict resolution and communication

explore how mediation affects male participants. Applying research on mas-
culine and male studies, this article identifies how the mediation process
itself may alienate, intimidate, or offend participants by virtue of their gen-
der identity, regardless of the gender of the mediator(s). The article con-
cludes by providing insights and tactics for mediators who wish to encour-
age male participants to communicate more actively, fully, and honestly in
order to conclude the mediation process with a greater sense of fairness
for all.
B. H. Butler (B)
English Department, Morgan State University, Baltimore, MD, USA
e-mail: brett.butler@morgan.edu
A. H. Butler
Aza Butler Mediation and Conflict Resolution Service, Towson, MD, USA
e-mail: aza@azabutlermediation.com

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-32746-0_3
42 B. H. BUTLER AND A. H. BUTLER
Keywords Alternative dispute resolution · Gender · Sexuality ·

Mediation · Divorce
A note about the text: The authors use first person singular pronouns during
descriptions of anecdotal evidence, to avoid confusion with the editorial “we.”
An experienced mediator listens actively to clients and notes both obvious

and subtle changes in physical reaction and mood. While assisting couples,
especially those whose situation is highly conflictual, such a mediator is
advantaged by being able to steer clear of topics that lead to unnecessary
discomfort and to defuse mounting tension through a change of topic,
humor, or taking a break, among other blunt-edged strategies. Mirroring,
paraphrasing, reframing, restating, and refocusing also happen seamlessly in
the hands of a seasoned moderator. Together, these communication strate-
gies help clients remain focused on their own interactions, with minimal
irascibility.
But do these strategies get through to all parties?
Two common notions that a father may hold, and that may affect his will-
ingness to approach divorce mediation in good faith, are that courts heavily
favor mothers in custody cases (a notion supported by research) and that he
will lose his shirt, so to speak, in the divorce process (a notion not supported
by research). Male participants with a business background may also enter
divorce mediation prepared to “fight” to solve what they operationalize
as a “problem” as quickly as possible and to their overwhelming advan-
tage—that is, efficiently. Yet men in divorce mediation can be expected to
communicate in a way that may feel strangely disempowering to them, to
act in a way that may contradict their psychological impulses, their social
conditioning, their discourse habits, or even, possibly, their nature. Tak-
ing into account, where relevant, research in masculinity studies and male
studies, this article will discuss theories of masculinity and apply them to
the mediation process, explore how this process might affect participants,
and suggest strategies to achieve a more effective mediation.
Beyond the study of men’s discourses, which is a long-standing topic
within sociolinguistics, masculinity and maleness are being studied in an
increasingly holistic fashion. Like the fields of women and gender studies,
masculinity studies and male studies are fields spanning many disciplines,
3 IS MEDIATION TOO “FEMININE” FOR HIM? … 43
including psychology, sociology, and anthropology. Certain key themes in

contemporary scholarship can be traced to Tiger’s (1971) groundbreaking
text Men in Groups, which coined the term male bonding and presented
theories of male behavior that were rooted in comparisons of the earliest
humans with other primate species. Connell (2005) studied masculinity
on a much broader scale in Masculinities, identifying how society shapes
ideals of masculinity and participates in dictating masculine performance,
while Kimmel (2008) analyzed masculinity in adolescent boys in Guyland.
Scholars such as Kimmel and Connell have attempted to define masculinity
dynamically, as fluid and not given. The texts cited, like many texts in this
vein, aim not to identify men, masculinity, and/or maleness as construct-
ing patriarchy, but rather to explore how a patriarchal society identifies,
influences, and reproduces masculine behavior in various social roles.
The effects of gender differences are not a new theme in the study
of mediation and conflict resolution: One need to look no further than
Birkhoff’s “Gender, Conflict, and Conflict Resolution” (2001); Thomas
and Thomas’s “Conflict Styles of Men and Women at 6 Organizational
Levels” (2008); Kolb, Williams, and Frohlinger’s (2010) Her Place at the
Table; and Chowdury’s (2012) Gender, Power, and Mediation: Evaluative
Mediation to Challenge the Power of Social Discourses. As in the last example,
gender and mediation is a topic of growing interest for scholars in post-
colonial contexts. Representative of the myriad examples of research on
gender differences in conflict resolution and negotiation, such texts often
concentrate on women’s experiences.
The past ten years, however, have produced exciting literature expanding
the study of men and masculinity. Considering the claims and revelations in
this research, it may not be surprising if divorce mediation has the potential
to incite a man’s normative masculine impulses to the extent that the situa-
tion makes him fear he is about to be “unmanned” publicly. Most scholars
concede that masculinity is largely a socially constructed concept (Connell,
2005, p. 71): that is, individuals determine what “masculine” is based on
their society’s expectations and portrayals of masculinity and manliness. In
U.S. North American society (the context of this article), a man who is not
in charge, strong, brave, intelligent, logical, unemotional, and free can be
perceived as insufficiently masculine—or even as a failed man.
A boy quickly learns that his masculinity is always being evaluated.
Often it is “drilled into his head” that demonstrating normative manli-
ness/masculinity is of the utmost importance if he wants friends, respect,
financial success, and romantic partners. The boy’s growing awareness of
hegemonic masculinity and his uncertain connection to it—an awareness

that at any moment, with a single error, he could lose face—does not cease
with childhood, and it does not evaporate at the door of the mediation
room. In such situations, many men do not feel in control, are facing emo-
tions that could be deemed weak, feel they are implicated as not having
taken care of their families, and are poised to lose much in terms of family
security.
We should recall that the social construction of “masculinity” is some-
what—or very—dated in comparison to that of womanhood. Men’s social
construction, we suggest, is today not that far from what it was in the
1940s. Even today men are likely to receive the impression that they are
meant to be the king of their castle, to be the ultimate provider for their
family, and thus to have the final word in determining what is in their
family’s best interest. Meanwhile, feminists have been engaged over many
decades in empowering women to determine their own destinies regardless
of traditional social constraints, for instance those against working outside
the home.
Writing at the end of the last century, anthropologist Tiger (1999)
asserted that conceptions of masculinity were changing slowly while con-
ceptions of womanhood were changing rapidly, and he suggested that this
difference was leading to a powerful and unavoidable tension. Tiger sug-
gested, in fact, and quite controversially, that there was a direct correlation
between “growth in confidence and power of women and the erosion in
the confidence of men” (p. 2). Among Tiger’s specific claims was that the
rise in the use of contraception in the prior fifty years had left many men
feeling that their choice to have children, and how many to have, had been
removed. According to Tiger, even a man who carried all the markers of
social success could feel weakened and insignificant in his own home as a
result of such sociocultural changes.
Are Men Hardwired for War?

In The Male Brain (2010), psychiatrist Louann Brizendine offers an anec-
dote about her three-and-a-half-year-old son. In addition to buying him
a standard “action figure” normally purchased for boys, she buys him a
Barbie doll, which she hopes will encourage him to play in “nonaggressive,
cooperative scenarios.” The child quickly removes his Barbie from the pack-
age, wields it like a sword, and begins attacking invisible enemies. She and
her husband had looked forward, she states, to the gratitude they would
receive from future daughters-in-law “for the emotionally sensitive men

we raised. Until we had our own sons, this sounded perfectly plausible”
(p. 17). As a feminist married to a man who intended to raise compassionate
and cooperative sons, who gave her son a mix of toys designed for girls and
for boys, and who encouraged noncombative and noncompetitive behav-
ior, she tells this story in the context of a broader, admittedly controversial
argument, but one that many others have made: The urge to conquer and
dominate may be hardwired in the male brain.
Even if we do not accept that men’s brains are “naturally” hard-wired for
warfare, men, like all humans, categorize and compare situations to symbols
and concepts with which they are already familiar. Lakoff and Johnson
(1980) explain,
[M]etaphors allow us to understand one domain of experience in terms

of another. This suggests that understanding takes place in terms of entire
domains of experience and not in terms of isolated concepts. The fact that
we have been led to hypothesize metaphors like LOVE IS A JOURNEY,
TIME IS MONEY, and ARGUMENT IS WAR suggests to us that the focus
of definition is at the level of basic domains of experience like love, time, and
argument. (p. 117)
For the man who is convinced that his masculinity depends on a willingness
to fight and on an ability to be victorious, arguments with a spouse, and, a
fortiori, mediation with a spouse (in which such arguments may be said to
have culminated) may invoke, for him, a battle, no matter how emphatically
he has been instructed to prepare to compromise.
In mediation, we expect participants to behave in a civilized and collabo-
rative manner and otherwise to respect the conventions of the process. We
may begin by reminding the parties that mediation is about compromise
and resolution: it is not a win-lose situation but a negotiation in which both
sides will be expected to compromise and in which both sides will come
away with at least some of their needs met. Yet, as we speak, a participant
who has compared the unfamiliar mediation situation to very familiar ago-
nistic situations may be looking across the conference table at, for example,
his soon-to-be-former wife and ruminating that she is his enemy. And if
he is predisposed to a non-collaborative approach to conflict, he may be
calculating the likelihood of “winning” the mediation. To make sense of
the mediation scenario, he may invoke schema attached to familiar activ-

ities such as fierce competition in business, sports, or, depending on his
background, war.
Let us begin with an illustrative example of a business mediation between
two men, Steven and Jim (client names have been changed throughout this
article). Steven begins not only by attempting to establish dominance over
his partner but by challenging the mediator. His attorney has told him the
courts will side with him, and Steven makes it obvious that he doubts the
usefulness of the process that is about to begin because he perceives this as
a “win-lose” conflict—and himself as poised to win.
Although Steven and Jim had been business partners for more than
twenty years, their partnership had become strained, and they decided to
dissolve it. Jim was open to alternative dispute resolution and contacted
me for an appointment, whereas Steven was reluctant to participate in such
a process. Steven came into the first mediation session announcing that his
lawyer had already told him he was going to “win” in court. Because the
business was initially his idea, Steven said he had a greater stake in it than
Jim did. Steven’s discourse reflected his desire for Jim (and me) to know,
before the session had begun, that he was in a position to “take all.” It
demonstrated that he saw the session as superfluous or futile, and probably
a waste of his time.
But once all-important factors in dispute were on the table and several
minor inequities resolved, it was evident that the parties were not as far
apart as Steven had first thought. A review of the numbers demonstrated
the partners had brought in about the same amount of business and had
shared profits equally after expenses and payroll were paid. Although Steven
had invested more money initially, Jim had brought in more business in
recent years. Despite the numbers, however, Steven still believed he would
get substantially more than his partner, that is, would “win,” by going to
court, which he reiterated another two times during the session.
I felt it was necessary to help Steven unpack the reasons for his negative
attitude toward ADR. To that end, I used logic and experience (logos and
ethos) to cast doubt on Steven’s conviction that trial would lead to a better
outcome for him than mediation.
When Steven informed me that his attorney had told him he would
win in court, I responded, “It sounds as though your counsel is quite
confident. I worked for the court system for over thirty years and there
were many times that the verdict surprised me.” Faced with the possibility
of losing rather than winning as his attorney had implied was inevitable,
Steven became more open to mediation. A change in his demeanor became

obvious: he made more suggestions and fewer demands. And rather than
focusing on winning every point, he began collaborating with Jim in order
to solve real-world problems, an activity that was in both men’s comfort
zones, as it is for many men.
As the tension dissipated, Steven and Jim started collaborating as they
had for more than twenty years. When the two were speaking civilly, I asked
what made their business so successful over the years. Steven answered,
“I had the know-how and he [Jim] has the gift of gab [referring to salesman-
ship].” Even though Steven attempted to establish dominance by asserting
he had the “know-how,” a socially attributed masculine attribute, and that
Jim was only a “gabber,” a socially attributed female attribute, he also
admitted that he felt Jim was “a better talker,” which was a more positive
statement. Other than a few slights of this nature and wisecracks, negotia-
tions proceeded seamlessly. The partners concluded that they shared pride
in the business they had made a success. As they stood and shook hands at
the end of the last session, Steven approached Jim, and they briefly hugged.
In this incident, my intention was not, nor do we believe it should have
been, to try to persuade Steven of the benefits of conflict resolution and
mediation as a process (that is, the focus should not have been on pre-
serving the face of the mediator). Rather, I reframed the process as an
option that might allow Steven to gain an acceptable resolution of the
conflict instead of risking a potentially devastating public defeat. Subse-
quently, Steven became more open to compromise and negotiation within
the context of mediation, interpreting these acts as empowering and not
as compromising his masculinity.
If we reflect on this incident, Steven’s need to save face seems obvious,
especially in front of another man whom he saw as challenging him for his
rights to a business he had been instrumental in creating and maintaining.
Steven and Jim’s situation demonstrates how helping each party—especially
men who tend to perform a very dominant style of masculinity—to save
face may make them more willing to cooperate. Men who feel that their
face is being taken into account may collaborate more willingly because
they are less anxious about the shifting hegemony in the room.
Masculinity and Saving Face

In Talking 9 to 5 (1994), Deborah Tannen asserts that women are far
more likely than men to help others save face. Women might do this by
making a comment that mitigates a circumstance, as occurs in the following
illustration. Here, Dave and Sue are partners at a firm, and Janet is an
administrative assistant.
Dave [speaking to Janet]: Did you put that file on my desk?

Janet: No, I forgot, but I’ll get right to it.
Sue: It’s understandable with all of the work I’ve thrown on your [Janet’s]
desk today. I’m amazed you got so much done already.
In this example, Sue makes a comment that suggests Janet’s ability to per-
form is not in question and that allows Janet to save face in front of Dave.
Meanwhile, Kimmel (2008) claims in Guyland that “In the United
States, proving masculinity appears to be a lifelong project, endless and
unrelenting” (p. 100). Indeed, society teaches boys and men to guard their
emotions closely and to employ anger as a proxy when faced with sadness,
confusion, fear, or any other emotion society has reserved for women, who
in turn are expected to employ sanctioned emotional proxies when they
experience anger. Having learned “what it means to be a man” from fam-
ily, friends, and media, a man may feel compelled to save face by performing
a normative version of masculinity—for instance, to express anger—when
he feels his authority or dominance, that is, his manliness, is being called
into question.
Having interacted with peers in countless varied social situations, men
may have learned that male discourse is often aimed at devaluing and chal-
lenging other males. They may understand that men are likely to compete
with them, make a joke about them, or put them down to build themselves
up. They may feel they have no one to advocate for them (unlike Janet in
the example above), and having seen how men who lose face are treated,
they may feel compelled to fight back with their own jokes and put downs
(Kimmel, 2008; Tannen, 1990). Crucially, Kimmell asserts that “[M]en
subscribe to these ideals [of masculinity] not because they want to impress
women, let alone an inner drive or desire to test themselves against some
abstract standards. They do it because they want to be positively evaluated
by other men” (p. 47).
In a sense, then, when a man enters mediation, with him come his father,
his grandfathers, his uncles, his coaches, his male friends or foes, his imagi-
nary heroes, and everyone who has ever helped him construct his gendered
self. If his masculinity is normative, then the invisible presence of these
individuals is likely to encourage him to gain control of the situation and
otherwise to maintain “masculine” power.
Such a man in divorce mediation may question whether his wife will leave
and tell one of their mutual friends that he cried or that he gave too much
away too quickly, or anything else that could cause him to lose face outside
that room. Bearing in mind the concepts of socially constructed masculinity
and of saving face, a mediator can work toward facilitating dialogue while
helping the man save face in front of all those present in his head who are
constantly evaluating his masculinity. By doing so, the mediator can help
ensure a more collegial, effective, and just process for both participants.
Generally speaking, however, collegiality in divorce mediation may be
difficult to achieve insofar as agonism is a more comfortable and accept-
able style of communication for men than for women (Coates, 1996,
p. 94). Additionally, it is not unusual for men to become extremely loud
and animated and to use taboo language in a range of contexts (Spender,
1980). Bearing these possibilities in mind, a mediator may orient his or her
approach strategically. In the incident described below, Greg, a successful
engineer who is used to “calling all the shots,” is placed in a situation he
fears is beyond his control, so he adopts an agonistic stance in order to
assert his masculinity. In such a situation, a male mediator may be advan-
taged. But women mediators are also quite capable of achieving a positive
outcome through attention to the following highlighted concepts.
Upon being invited into the room where the mediation was to be con-
ducted, Greg immediately poured himself some water and told his wife,
Mary, that she could sit wherever she wanted. This behavior showed that
he intended to command the room for the duration of the process, and
I could see immediately that there would be control issues. During the
initial session, Greg made two more obvious attempts to take control of
the conversation by pounding on the table next to him and making not-
so-veiled threats. Speaking directly to the mediator, he stated, “There is
no way Mary can handle teenagers by herself, and they have no respect for
her. They’ll have to live with me if they are going to go to college, and
she knows it.” Upon achieving his desired reaction (Mary crying) he drove
the knife in further with the statement “You can visit them [the children]
sometimes.”
From telling his wife where she could sit, to talking directly to the medi-
ator as though to challenge the perceived authority in the room, and to
implying that his wife’s visitation rights would be at his discretion, Greg
repeatedly asserted a normative masculine ethos, using his body language
and discourse to attempt to control the dynamics of the room, his wife,
the process, and their children. He clearly meant to reassure everyone that
he possessed many manly attributes, for example, authority (telling his wife
where she could sit), dominance (making abrupt gesticulations and threat-
ening), and control (implying his wife would need his permission to see
her children).
I recognized that Greg felt comfortable locking horns and asserting
himself to project an image of control. Realizing that Greg was attempting
to assert his masculinity in order to gain control of the mediation process,
to change Greg’s behavior, I met him in his comfort zone, demonstrating
that I, too, would lock horns rather than ignoring this manifestation of
personality or utilizing other indirect techniques.
When Greg told Mary to sit wherever she wanted, I replied politely,
“Thanks, pal, you took the words right out of my mouth. Now you sit
wherever you are comfortable.” In doing so, I used discourse that might be
considered “masculine” in order to maintain control of the session (Maltz
& Borker, 1982).
Similarly, when Greg pounded the table with his fist and uttered threats,
I stopped, interrupted him, and asked if what he said was meant to be a
threat. When Greg said it was not, I apologized to the couple and returned
to topic. The threats ended. My response had two purposes. First, it let
Greg know he was being heard and that his message was received. Second,
it let Greg know his threats had not had their intended effect. By con-
fronting Greg directly and challenging him, I was communicating in a way
that Greg’s combative personality understood even if it meant he did not
like me.
In this session, I refocused Greg’s need to control and to win by present-
ing a challenge, which Greg willingly accepted. After Mary made what I
considered a bland statement about Greg’s love of gambling, Greg lunged
out of his chair saying, “That’s a lie!” The mediation strategy used in
response was to share a story of a father who had spent much time gambling
at the racetrack. I then asked what type of gambling interested Greg, who
admitted that he loved poker. I stated that this mediation session was a little
like poker, in that each person must play a hand; the difference is that no
one person would walk away with all the chips. Mediation would be more
difficult and time-consuming than a game of cards, but the results could
be satisfying and to the children’s advantage. Because the children could
benefit in the long run, an effective mediation session would, in effect, be
their win.
Greg had demonstrated that control and winning was crucial to him.
Because of this driven attitude, I was confident Greg would consider the
more difficult path to be a challenge he would face if for no other reason

than to brag later that he had “toughed it out like a man.”
After the final session, Greg told his counsel that he disliked me during
the initial session but “respected the way the mediator took control and
didn’t feed into [Mary’s] efforts to control the meeting.” In my view,
however, one primary reason Greg respected me was that I allowed him to
save face.
Coates (2003) adds another perspective on performed masculinity and
saving face by proposing that men wear masks to hide things about them-
selves that they perceive as not masculine. She states, “The absence of talk
about feelings is perhaps the most notable consequence of ‘the constrain-
ing hand of hegemonic masculinity’ in the conversations I’ve collected.
The imperative to avoid vulnerability means that men have to put a lot
of effort into keeping up a front (or wearing masks)” (pp. 197–198). On
one hand, we can look at this idea of wearing masks—or even masking
behavior (Ekman, 2001, p. 35)—as being complementary to the idea of
saving face. That is, masking anything that may portray a man as vulnerable
is one way he may attempt to save face. On the other hand, we could see
masking behaviors as aspects of performing masculinity. Although the two
seem very closely related, the former is active; the second passive. This is
the difference between a man raising his voice and letting loose a string of
expletives demeaning his wife because he feels as though he has lost con-
trol or has been “unmanned” versus grinding his teeth and falling silent
because he does not want to show that he is frustrated enough to cry. If
we accept Coates’s and others’ claims that men are less likely to talk about
their feelings than women are, then we might ask how a mediator can check
a client’s feelings if s/he is masking them, possibly because s/he does not
know how to process them?
In another incident, Sam reflects the emotional distance he has main-
tained between his wife and him in the mediation by remaining quiet for
much of the session. Whereas such behavior could be read as a passive-
aggressive tactic, I inferred from Sam’s lack of eye contact and slumped
shoulders that something more is going on.
Even though Doris loved Sam, she had not been faithful to him because
she did not feel he reciprocated her affections. Although he would buy
her presents and take care of her superficially, she felt as though he was
emotionally and sexually disconnected. When she told him she loved him,
he would respond, “You, too,” and it was always she who initiated their
physical relations. When she brought these topics up in mediation, Sam sat
quietly and looked down at his hands. When she asked why he had stopped
desiring her sexually, he said nothing. When she asked what had made him
stop loving her, he just shook his head.
Doris was used to Sam’s reluctance to engage her emotionally, physi-
cally, and verbally, so she had not only stopped listening to him but had
begun to ignore him. His distance had alienated her to the point that she
was indifferent to him. I attempted to read Sam’s body language and trans-
late it for Doris while encouraging Sam to become more engaged in the
mediation.
I said that I sensed there was something on Sam’s mind that he might
want Doris to know. Sam’s head snapped up, but the room remained quiet
for a full minute. Then Sam said he had never stopped loving Doris. He
confessed that three years before he had cheated on her and felt horribly
guilty, especially upon learning he had contracted an STD. As it turned
out, in order to save face, he had risked losing the wife whom he loved
rather than admit to her that he had made a dreadful mistake for which he
needed her forgiveness.
The silence that Doris had witnessed for years is an example of the type
of mask Coates describes, one that covered feelings Sam did not know how
to process or how to convey, perhaps because social conditioning had told
him that confusion, guilt, and sadness were not manly emotions. Once he
gave up this mask, he was able to speak much more freely, and the mediation
process progressed more smoothly.
Men, Cognitive Empathy, and Problem Solving

Approximately one week after the remaining issues were resolved and full
settlement was reached in the business mediation described at the begin-
ning of this article, Steven called to thank me and added, “I told you
I’d win.” This comment suggested not only that Steven had experienced
the benefits of mediation’s win-win approach, but also that he felt he had
resolved a problem handily.
An orientation toward complex problem solving evolves in part through
extensive use of the temporal-parietal junction system (TPJ), which is
thought to give rise to a degree of emotional distance between an indi-
vidual and others. This distance is necessary to the extent that it facilitates
understanding of the “big picture” and, subsequently, generation of effec-
tive solutions. All human beings have a TPJ and a mirror-neuron system
(MNS), and these work simultaneously and, perhaps, in tandem (Shamay-

Tsoory & Aharon-Peretz, 2009). Rajmohan and Mohandas (2007) explain
that “[m]irror neurons are able to recognize the actions of others and the
intention associated with them” (n.p.) and that therefore the MNS is impli-
cated in empathy and other neurocognitive functions. The TPJ processes
a vast amount of information from within and outside the body and allows
the individual to mentally construct the perspectives of others and to pro-
cess things sequentially, among other things. The MNS is often thought to
be associated with emotional empathy, and the TPJ with cognitive empa-
thy. As Thomas (2013) explains, emotional empathy “is the subjective state
resulting from emotional contagion. It is our automatic drive to respond
appropriately to another’s emotions. This kind of empathy happens auto-
matically, and often unconsciously. It has also been referred to as the vicari-
ous sharing of emotions.” Cognitive empathy, also according to Thomas, “is
the largely conscious drive to recognize accurately and understand anoth-
er’s emotional state. Sometimes we call this kind of empathy ‘perspective
taking’” (n.p.). An ability to grasp the multiple perspectives relevant to a
problem assists an individual in generating solutions.
While certainties regarding the functioning of the MNS and the TPJ are
far from established, not least of all concerning innate differences between
men and women, according to Schulte-Ruther, Markowitsch, Shah, Fink,
and Piefke (2008), men may be more likely than women to have utilized
the TPJ and cognitive empathy extensively since puberty.
What this might mean for a mediator working with a male client is that
he could be more capable of solving a problem that concerns himself and
the other than of empathizing with him or her. In the following incident,
Richard and Sarah recognize that their divorce is causing them to live more
modestly and are concerned that they may need to move to a less affluent
neighborhood. Such a move would uproot their children from highly rated
schools and from their friends. Richard enters the third mediation session
believing he has already solved the problem.
Five minutes into this session, Richard announced that everything could
be resolved if Sarah agreed to a quick sale of their family home, affording
each of them the opportunity to purchase a more modest residence. He
added, “Any idiot can see it’s the only solution that makes sense.” Sarah said
that there were no smaller, more affordable houses in their children’s school
district, as the area was known for beautiful estates. Richard responded that
the entire family would have to make sacrifices as a result of her choices.
Sarah said it would be detrimental for the children to be forced to attend
a new school as their son was entering his senior year of high school in the
fall, and their daughter her last year in middle school. Richard said Sarah
should have thought of that complication before she started sleeping with
her business partner.
In this case, Richard is problem solving, but his efforts are obviously
influenced by his feelings of hurt and embarrassment and by his fear of
further losing face. Recognizing not only his feelings but also his comfort
with problem solving, I first refocused him on the children, who were the
source of positive emotions for both parents, and encouraged discussion
of their interactions with teachers and of their school-related and extra-
curricular activities. Richard proudly noted that he had always been one
of his son’s lacrosse coaches and in charge of the school’s extra-curricular
activities sign-up rosters. He said he had never missed any of his daughter’s
ballet recitals or school music fests. He added that she had the best voice
in the school’s glee club. Both children did well scholastically. I affirmed
that Sarah and he had every right to be proud of their children and had
obviously done many things well as parents.
Soon, each parent verbalized a desire to have their children’s lives dis-
rupted as little as possible during the separation and divorce. At this point,
I helped Richard focus on problem solving, shifting the discussion toward
his children’s future and away from his wife’s past actions. Richard saw no
way that the children could remain in the family home, even for one more
year, if he had to pay for the mortgage, house expenses, and a separate resi-
dence for himself. Sarah had family in the area and her business necessitated
a great deal of travel; in contrast, Richard’s family was distant and his job
made no such demands. After discussing numerous possibilities regarding
immediate sale of the family home, one parent buying the other parent out,
maintaining two modest residences, either or both of the parents moving
in with friends or family, and the ramifications of moving the children to a
different school district, Richard and Sarah reached an agreement.
Both accepted the solution that Sarah would move into her brother’s
guest house, which was less than two miles from the family home, and
Richard would remain in the family home with the children, with Sarah
having open access to the children at all reasonable and agreed upon times
up through the end of the school year. At the end of that period, the home
and property would be sold and the proceeds equally divided between the
parties. Their son would then be headed for college, and if any issues arose
regarding living arrangements for their daughter, the parents would return
to mediation for assistance.
In mediation, we are often encouraged to seek a “transformational

moment” for our clients, but this may be difficult for individuals who are
especially attuned to cognitive empathy, which tends to involve a series of
judgment calls and to eschew the radical openness of emotional empathy.
In a mediation that is mired in recrimination or other negative behaviors
and emotions, helping participants refocus on something of which both
sides are proud, such as children in domestic mediation, or a business the
participants have built (as in the first incident described in this piece), can
be a step toward conflict resolution. By focusing on his children, Richard
began to think about the problem of how to keep them happy during the
divorce and its aftermath. Rather than continuing to focus on Sarah as the
cause of all his family’s woes, he began to think of her as part of a solution
to them; that is, he began to troubleshoot a plan for their children’s sake.
Concluding Thoughts
Experienced mediators know how difficult it can be to persuade parties
with a long history of animosity to collaborate and to compromise. In
such cases, a mediator’s work often involves demonstrating painstaking
patience and dousing continuous fires. Accomplished mediators are adept
at affirming, reflecting, recasting, and utilizing myriad other active listening
skills; and they try their best to connect with parties equally by focusing
on body language, emotion, and discourse. The process of mediation may,
nonetheless, alienate some men because it tends to incorporate, encourage,
and even demand practices that run counter to their psychological predis-
position, their social conditioning, their discourse tendencies, and perhaps
their natures. Awareness of and sensitivity to the possibilities discussed in
this article may assist a mediator in promoting collaboration between par-
ties, establish a more productive procedural framework, and generate more
satisfying results for all participants, as well as for those whose lives will be
touched by their efforts.
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CHAPTER 4
The Conflict of Genre: Disciplinary

Terminology and Conceptual Overlap
in the Context of the Annual Report
Marcy Leasum Orwig and Anish Dave
Abstract This article explores the annual report genre in light of what
scholars in the field of conflict management might refer to as “intraper-
sonal conflict” and, alternatively, what scholars in the field of communica-
tion might refer to as “cognitive dissonance.” Based on reports published
by Ford and Toyota, we use lenses within the fields of rhetorical and com-
munication studies to explore automobile companies’ use of discourse in
the annual report, a genre with multiple and diverse stakeholders. Striv-
ing to adapt this genre to reflect an awareness of readers’ inner tensions
regarding the company, or even to temporarily heighten readers’ doubts
M. L. Orwig (B)
College of Business, University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, Eau Claire, WI, USA
e-mail: ORWIGML@uwec.edu
A. Dave
English Department, Georgia Southwestern State University,
Americus, GA, USA
e-mail: Anish.Dave@gsw.edu

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-32746-0_4
58 M. L. ORWIG AND A. DAVE
concerning, in this case, whether to remain a customer, may, we argue,

improve transparency, enhance trust, and in the end strengthen the bond
between organization and stakeholder.
Keywords Conflict transformation · Professional communication ·

Technical writing · Genre · Rhetoric · Annual report
Introduction
We begin with quotes that can be considered representative of two recent
public relations crises within the automobile industry—safety recalls and
U.S. government bailout programs. In 2011, a national television com-
mercial aired in which Chris, “a real Ford owner,” suggested that because
the company had not taken federal bailout money, Ford was more “Amer-
ican” than national industry competitors General Motors and Chrysler,
which did accept government assistance:
I wasn’t going to buy another car that was bailed out by our government.
I was going to buy from a manufacturer that’s standing on their own: win,
lose, or draw. That’s what America is about[:] taking the chance to succeed
and understanding when you fail that you gotta pick yourself up and go back
to work. Ford is that company for me. (quoted in Kiely, 2011)
Meanwhile, in 2014, Toyota North America CEO Jim Lentz suggested that
Toyota listened carefully to customers who were concerned about safety,
commenting, “You have to be able to listen to your customers, not just
hear them” (quoted in Rechtin, 2014, n.p.).
The U.S. public felt strongly about the financial issues affecting Ford
and other auto manufacturers, as indicated by a Gallup poll from December
2008, which showed that 51% of respondents opposed the bailout program
(Newport, 2008). Not surprisingly, the Ford Motor Company took full
advantage of its claim to be the only large U.S. automaker that did not
receive a U.S. government bailout during the recent “Great Recession.”
“Chris,” the “real Ford owner,” explained why he would buy only Ford
vehicles. Rather than discuss how he preferred Ford engineering or other
features, Chris suggested he was a customer because Ford had not been
“bailed out” by the government.
4 THE CONFLICT OF GENRE: DISCIPLINARY TERMINOLOGY … 59
Such a claim, however, was more complicated than it might have seemed.
Although Ford did not receive direct assistance, it did benefit from a loan
program that helped it invest in more fuel-efficient car manufacturing, as
well as from the federal “Cash for Clunkers” program. In a 2012 Bloomberg
Business article, Steven Rattner, who headed President Obama’s auto task
force, stated that Ford would have failed along with General Motors Corpo-
ration and Chrysler LLC if the administration had not rescued the industry
(cited in Keane). Factcheck.org confirmed that Ford did in fact receive a
$5 billion loan from the Department of Energy to “support a $14 billion
plan to reorient its lineup toward more fuel-efficient vehicles” (Kiely, 2011,
n.p.). In a business plan submitted to the Department of Energy in Decem-
ber 2008, Ford highlighted its $14 billion investment in fuel-efficient cars
as part of its turnaround strategy. Ford also asked the government to pro-
vide incentives for “consumers to trade in older vehicles and move to more
fuel-efficient vehicles” (n.p.). As a result, in June 2009, President Obama
signed the Consumer Assistance to Recycle and Save Act (the “Cash for
Clunkers” program). A report from the Department of Transportation esti-
mated that as of December 2009 more than 90,000 Ford vehicles had been
traded in through this program (n.p.).
Between 2009 and 2011, Toyota recalled nearly 1.4 million vehicles
worldwide as a result of problems with automatic acceleration, which trag-
ically resulted in the deaths of 21 drivers between 2000 and 2010 (Healey,
2010). A March 2010 Reuters poll showed that 55% of survey respon-
dents felt the company was lagging in its response to safety issues (Morgan,
2010). After a probe by the U.S. government, Toyota agreed in 2014 to
pay $1.2 billion to the government in compensation for its safety-related
problems and for misleading customers (Levinson, Bennett, & Barrett,
2014).
Within the context of the industry’s financial crisis, how did a company
like Ford communicate with doubting stakeholders that their “American
Dream” legacy was still alive and well? Within the context of an infamous
safety failure and breach of trust, how did a company like Toyota communi-
cate with its worried stakeholders that its engineering was still world-class?
Annual reports offer us an opportunity to explore a topic that is germane
to the fields of both conflict management and communication. The con-
flict we explore in this study is internal to stakeholders—such as customers,
stockholders, potential investors, personnel in media and government—
who read Ford’s and Toyota’s annual reports. As Poole (2016) notes, this
is “a promotional genre designed to build and present the corporation’s
image” (p. 3). Yet many readers of such reports experience what communi-
cations scholars describe as “cognitive dissonance,” a concept that echoes
what scholars in the field of conflict management refer to as “intrapersonal
conflict.” In short, questioning whether an auto-maker is “really” American
or whether its products truly are safe can lead a stakeholder to experience
“conflict with oneself” (Parker, 2015, p. 330).
Aronson (1968) describes cognitive dissonance as the result of conflict
between people’s self-concept and their actions; people try to preserve
a positive sense of themselves described as “predictable, competent, and
moral[,] and dissonance is created if they act in a way that contradicts …
how they perceive themselves” (p. 379). That is, dissonance is not related
to inconsistency between cognitions, but “is the result of a consequence
that is unwanted” (Cooper & Fazio, 1984, p. 229). Readers of Ford’s and
Toyota’s annual reports may feel discomfort at being associated with the
companies to the extent that they are left wondering if they are in fact
all-American or committed to the finest in automotive engineering. Self-
doubt rather than positive self-image is the unwanted consequence of, for
instance, buying a car under such circumstances.
Lederach (2003) urges us to seek transformation to address the deep
issues underlying a conflict so as to achieve a meaningful and lasting reso-
lution (p. 11). It is helpful in this process to recognize the patterns shaping
relevant relationships, as well as the framework(s) allowing us to develop
connections. We suggest that in the common public relations genre of the
annual report, acknowledging or even encouraging cognitive dissonance,
actions potentially associated with trust building, can facilitate transforma-
tion of stakeholders’ intrapersonal conflict.
Exploring the Discourses of Ford and Toyota

We chose to study the annual reports of Ford and Toyota as a result of
the prominent crises they had undergone and their well-known reluctance
to acknowledge these crises. Purposeful sampling (Marshall & Rossman,
2011) was done of annual reports published between 2005 and 2015. The
sections studied included both the letter written by the Chief Executive
Officer (CEO), which usually appears before the detailed financial data
from the previous year, and content containing more technical information.
These are important elements of the annual report because they explain
past performance and offer a vision of future success. Ideally, the generic
elements of the annual report have significant rhetorical impact in building

credibility and imparting confidence to investors (Hyland, 1998).
The two questions at the heart of our research are
1. How did the textual sections of the annual reports by Ford and Toyota
change during the period 2005–2015 as the companies went through
financial and safety crises, respectively?
2. Were there circumstances under which an annual report acknowl-
edged stakeholders’ likely cognitive dissonance regarding financial
and other ties to the company and its recent difficulties?
We employed genre-based and discourse analyses in this research.

A genre-based analysis “is rooted in the assumption that certain types of
situations provoke similar needs and expectations in audiences and thus
call for particular kinds of rhetoric” (Foss, 2009, p. 137). Meanwhile, a
number of features have the potential to discursively transform the context
of communication (Berkenkotter & Huckin, 1995). We explore pertinent
features below.
Discourse-based analysis involves an “interest in the relationship
between discourse and power” and the unpacking of the “micro- and
macrostructures of language use” (Jasinski, 2001, p. 172). As explained
by Griffin (2013), discourse analysis “involves the close textual analysis
of the linguistic and semantic features of a text, in order to establish the
meanings the text seeks to impose on the world and, by implication, on
the reader” (p. 99). Further, discourse analysis helps uncover ideological
assumptions in texts and possibilities of deriving alternative meanings in
them. Providing an example of business communication, Griffin states that
discourse analysis is well suited to the study of company texts seeking “to
(re)present ‘problems’ as ‘opportunities’ to provide a positive and suppos-
edly energizing ‘spin’ on a difficult situation” (p. 100). We also analyze the
reports through this lens as we study the meanings of the linguistic and
semantic features of the annual reports and the values they embody.
Ford
We view Ford’s annual reports according to the features of dynamism, form
and content, duality of structure, and community ownership (Berkenkotter
& Huckin, 1995). Analysis of these features suggests that the annual report
genre of the company underwent minimal change during the ten years
studied. Further, acknowledgment of reader’s doubts or reservations about
affiliation with the company, that is, cognitive dissonance, was avoided.
For instance, dynamism, or how genres alter in reaction to readers’
sociocognitive requirements (p. 4), was not apparent in Ford’s annual
reports. Whereas some readers well might have required, for their own
peace of mind, a transparent discussion of Ford’s financial situation, such
information did not appear in the reports.
While subtly acknowledging that its business model needed to be
revised, Ford’s introductory letter from the CEO in its 2005 annual report
offered no explanation of why revisions needed to be made (p. 4). The
CEO stated, “We have a proud history of innovation at Ford. It is what
built our company and made it great. Innovation helped us create the first
affordable car and put the world on wheels. We are going to reclaim this
legacy to build a distinct competitive advantage.” And although the letter
explained how Ford was changing direction, it again avoided mention of
past and present financial difficulties:
[We] launched the most fundamental restructuring in our history, which we

call the “Way Forward” plan. Developed by senior executives Mark Fields
and Anne Stevens and their team, Way Forward is a comprehensive plan for
restructuring and reinvigorating our automotive business in North America.
It touches every piece of our North American business to make it more
customer-focused, product-driven and efficient. (p. 4)
Silence regarding the need for the company’s re-orientation was a missed
opportunity to acknowledge discomfort on the part of stakeholders and to
assist in transformation of intrapersonal conflict that they might experience
as a result of affiliation with the company.
The static annual report is characterized by opaqueness if not booster-
ism, and ten years later, Ford’s annual report still was essentially promo-
tional, as illustrated by this CEO comment: “I have always believed that
the purpose of every company should be to make people’s lives better. Ford
Motor Company accomplished that in 2015 by doing well for all of its stake-
holders” (“Annual Reports…,” n.p.). Here, the company presents itself as
a financially solid organization whose stakeholders are all prospering. Brigg
(2008) suggests that such statements can be consequential to the extent
that they “reinforce problematic politico-cultural relations by proceeding
on the terms of those who denied recognition [of differing perspectives]
in the first place” (p. 160). Although Ford’s annual reports might tap into
the discourses of self-reflection at times, they overwhelmingly reinforce the
image of its dominance within the market, despite well-known financial
worries. And despite the fact that the economic bottom line is important
to some stakeholders (that is, “real Ford owners” like Chris), this topic is
not, by the annual report’s own admission, the main concern.
Community Ownership
Community ownership, or the development of specific discursive norms for
a particular community (Berkenkotter & Huckin, 1995), is not in strong
evidence in the reports. Readers of Ford’s annual reports belong to Ford’s
discourse community, and their unique situations and concerns should be
addressed with seriousness in Ford’s stakeholder communications. But typ-
ically, in Ford’s 2012 annual report, the introductory letter from the CEO
discusses the company’s social and environmental activities to the exclusion
of its financial difficulties. This editorial decision means that the topic likely
to preoccupy most readers—the Great Recession—was ignored.
Indeed, in the ten years of Ford annual reports that we studied, there
was no direct acknowledgment of the complicated choices Ford had to
make during an economically difficult period of its history. At best, there
were references to unspecified “challenges” or “obstacles.” This strategy,
in our view, pointed to missed opportunities.
Toyota
Hartmann’s (2011) work, an examination of conflict resolution in war
and other situations, uses an approach to synthesizing conflict resolution
and communication disciplinary concepts that is relevant to ours. Echo-
ing Lederach’s (2003) definition of conflict transformation as necessarily
involving both recognition of agency and deep understanding of the con-
text surrounding a crisis, Hartmann argues that the “value of transparent
… communication lies not in the immediate answering of questions of what
we ought to do, but in the revelation of the conditions under which we as
social agents could answer these questions for ourselves” (2011, n.p.).
Likewise profoundly concerned with agency and critique, discourse anal-
ysis, which we will use in this section to explore Toyota’s annual reports,
is the “assumption that language is not a neutral means for conveying a
message” (Griffin, 2013, p. 97). When we view context through the lens
of discourse analysis, “language [becomes] not only a medium of exchang-

ing information or creating understanding between interlocutors, but also
serves as a mode of domination in that it constructs a version of the factual
world and consequently directs action in one way or another” (Hartmann,
2011, n.p.).
One aspect of Toyota documents’ discursively shaped context is sug-
gested by work from Nordin et al. (2014). The authors used the Orga-
nizational Communication Conflict Instrument (OCCI), which “focuses
on communication and the underlying assumption that conflicts are highly
situational” (p. 1049), to study the connections among organizational cli-
mate, employee willingness to contribute to operational discussions, and
conflict management. Their results suggested intriguing parallels between
careful handling of conflict by management personnel and a supportive
workplace climate that motivated employee input. Such a work environ-
ment, Nordin and others stated,
has a tendency in using problem-orientation rather than control. Instead of

deciding what to do, [personnel] seek input from others and share the respon-
sibility in decision-making. They usually ask the other members to clarify what
has been said for better understanding. They directly face disagreements and
try to understand the underlying differences in making decisions. (p. 1051)
In contrast to this relational communicative approach, the managers

favored compromise strategies in resolving problems. Likewise, in their
annual reports including those published during the 2009–2010 recall cri-
sis, Toyota’s leaders wrote in a manner suggesting a controlled organiza-
tional culture rather than a problem solving one. Yet Nordin and others
point out that executives who were “confrontational” and “control[ling]”
in their conflict management styles eroded organizational communication
health and tended to stifle the ability to address problems (p. 1055) inso-
far as they possessed, altogether, a smaller toolkit of conflict management
response methods than their employees did (p. 1056).
Glossing over Safety Concerns

Safety is mentioned in Toyota’s 1992 Guiding Principles and was featured
in all the annual reports; yet these reports were vague, if not silent, about
the 2009–2010 safety and recall crises.
Hartmann states, “[L]inguistic patterns dominate the construction of

the social world in a way that serves the interests of the hegemonic group
and, by extension, naturalizes or reifies the existing state of affairs” (2011,
n.p.). In light of the 2009–2010 safety crisis, Toyota’s approach to the
topic of safety was consequential. It attempted to normalize a focus on
safety in a manner that edged away from the crisis and did not address
readers’ undoubted awareness and concerns about death-dealing automo-
biles, given the ubiquitous media coverage of the accidents and recalls.
In his 2011 message, the CEO wrote, “We are continuing to enhance
our thorough quality assurance and quality control systems on a global
level” (“Annual Reports…,” n.p.). The President used the crisis to express
his gratitude to stakeholders by writing, “When I reflect on the past year,
I am touched by the support offered by so many of our customers and
stakeholders as we dealt with the ongoing effects of the global financial
crisis, as well as product quality and safety issues” (p. 8). He relegated the
compound noun “safety issues” to the end of the clause and cited both
product quality and safety issues after the conjunction “as.” This syntax
positions the financial crisis as a more important event than the safety and
recall crisis. (The letter briefly mentions quality issues in an earlier paragraph
in order to pivot to the topic of the company’s “aiming to realize an even
higher level of safety”.)
In the 2011 report, safety appears in the form of a visual showing a large
helmet-shaped hatch—the “world’s largest indoor test facilities Driving
Simulator”—monogrammed with “Toyota” in bold red letters and with
the headline, “Moving People in the Safest and Most Responsible Ways”
(p. 5). A box on the page contains the following text:
Toyota takes an integrated approach combining safe vehicle development,

traffic-safety awareness and the creation of a safe traffic environment based on
our guiding principle of always providing safe products (emphasis ours). […]
By offering safety and quality that exceed expectations, we are contributing
to achieving the goal of next-generation mobility: zero traffic fatalities. (p. 5)
The same report included a special feature titled “Toyota’s Safety Technol-
ogy” (p. 13), but this simply describes the indoor driving simulator and a
“virtual human model” to test accidental impact (p. 15).
Otherwise, references to the safety and recall crises are occasionally cast
as a way to mention an action Toyota took, such as brief descriptions in the
2012 and 2013 reports regarding Toyota’s safety actions since 2009. But
there is little discussion of the crisis in terms of the problems the company
faced or the specific lessons the company learned as a result of encoun-
tering related problems. For instance, the president commented in 2013
that “Since 2009, Toyota has faced a series of prolonged crises. Looking
back, these crises allowed us to gain invaluable experience and taught us
many truths that would have remained hidden if conditions had been more
settled” (p. 4).
Toyota’s 2015 annual report included the statement, “The basis of our
vehicle development remains an absolute commitment to safe cars that
can be driven with confidence” (p. 03-02). Such a sentence, which uses
superlatives, stands out in a context whereby the 2009–2010 recall crisis
is not discussed, and instead is relegated to description of the crisis’ main
events in some pages that mostly falls under the headings of Costs, Risk Fac-
tors, or Notes. The 2015 report also stated that Toyota celebrated February
24—the date of the Toyota President’s testimony to the U.S. Congress—as
“Toyota Restart Day” (p. 05-03). However, apart from observing that the
day is marked by “a series of company-wide events including reflections on
the recall issues,” the report gives no specifics regarding such reflections,
lessons learned, or actual technological problems encountered during the
crisis.
Shifting Meanings for the Term “Safety”

Although some may argue that the word safety is commonplace and eas-
ily understandable by a car manufacturer’s discourse community, it also
can be argued that the term loses usefulness when applied interchangeably
with an umbrella term such as quality. In fact, an increasingly unfixed con-
cept of safety appears throughout Toyota’s reports. In 2010, the company
appeared to embrace the same perception of safety as did (worried) cus-
tomers—one, notably, that was distinct from its organizational definition:
“In order to ensure that Toyota’s growth does not come at the expense
of safety, we will reemphasize an alignment of our customers’ expectations
with our quality control processes” (p. 3). A later sentence further supports
that the company is suggesting a customer-centric view of safety: “Position-
ing quality from the customer’s point of view, we aim to ensure a system
that will raise awareness and facilitate rapid response to market informa-
tion.” What is more, in the 2010 report, the terms quality and safety are
kept apart:
We are confident that by providing safe, high-quality vehicles at affordable

prices, the starting point for growth, we can overcome the issues we now face
by adhering steadfastly to customer-first, Genchi Genbutsu (on-site, hands-on
experience) principles and striving for continuous improvement. (p. 1)
However, subsequent annual reports appear to use the terms safety and
quality both interchangeably and as distinct from one another. The 2012
annual report refers to the 2011 Toyota Global Vision, which states, “Toy-
ota will lead the way to the future of mobility, enriching lives around the
world with the safest and most responsible ways of moving people” (p. 2),
but immediately employs the phrase “quality problems” to refer to safety
issues (p. 2). That the phrase concerns safety issues is evident from a sen-
tence referring to the 2009–2010 safety and recall crises; but the Chair-
man’s message terms the safety and recall-related issues of the previous year
“quality issues” (p. 7). The President’s message in the report offers another
confounding phrase: “product quality and safety issues” (p. 8).
The confusion readers might have experienced as a result of reading such
annual reports during a time of infamous crises in production quality and
vehicle safety seems not to have been a concern of those who authored
Toyota’s communications. Whereas popular sales textbooks such as Lill’s
(2012) may advise communicators to do their utmost to prevent cognitive
dissonance in readers (p. 91), such an approach has the potential to backfire
and even to impact stakeholder support of a company, as is evident from a
great body of literature in the field of crisis communication.
Conclusion
This study has explored how rhetorical barriers to communicating trans-
parently can come in the form of well-established communicative genres
such as the annual report. When considering the relations between Ford’s
and Toyota’s reports and readers’ awareness of the auto industry’s financial,
safety, and recall crises, we recognize opportunities missed.
The features of annual reports published by Ford did not adapt or change
substantively when the company was known to be experiencing financial
concerns. Alternatively, Ford might have adapted the promotional genre
of the annual report to communicate that the company was experiencing
financial problems requiring a type of government assistance, was actively
addressing these problems, and was committed to communicating the out-
comes of its actions to stakeholders. Although Ford clearly strove to appear
financially solid, a goal by no means unusual in annual report communi-

cation, by not frankly addressing the impact of the auto industry crisis on
managerial decisions, Ford left concerned stakeholders unenlightened on
a key topic of concern.
When considering Toyota’s annual reports published during its safety
and recall crises, we find that the genre was not utilized to generate trans-
parent discourse. Specifically, the company could have maintained a stable
definition of safety over time and communicated its safety concerns more
openly.
While our exploratory qualitative study is based on two cases, our analysis
provides a starting point to discuss how genre and discourse can calibrate
the relationship with readers conflicted by cognitive dissonance during a
crisis situation. Professional communication genres and discourses can be
made so inflexible over time that they do not adapt well to any situation
other than the ideal, for example, in an annual report, a focus on strong
profits and increased efficiency. Our work, then, argues that organizational
attentiveness to genre and discourse, especially a willingness to make both
more responsive, might not only result in more effective communication
but actually lead to resolutions of internal conflicts experienced by receivers
of those communications.
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Index
A D
alternative dispute resolution (ADR), digital technology, 21, 22, 24, 27–29
12, 14, 15, 46 divorce, 12, 42, 43, 49, 53–55
annual report, 13, 14, 59–64, 66–68
automotive crisis, 13
G
gender, 11–13, 21, 31, 33, 34, 42, 43
gender-based violence, 9, 32
C genre, 10, 14, 59–62, 67, 68
cognitive dissonance, 14, 60–62, 67,
68
communication, 2, 4–6, 9–15, 20–24, I
27, 29, 30, 32, 34, 42, 49, 59–61, interdisciplinarity, 9
63, 64, 67, 68 intersectionality, 11
Communication Studies (ComS), 2,
11–13, 15
conflict communication, 2–4, 9–15, M
20–23, 29, 59, 60, 64, 68 mediation, 11, 12, 42–55
conflict resolution, 4, 9, 11, 20–24,
27–29, 32, 43, 47, 55, 63
Conflict Studies (CS), 2, 11, 13, 15 P
conflict transformation, 10, 14, 20, 63 professional communication, 68
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), 71

under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-32746-0
72 INDEX
R social media, 2–4, 10, 11, 15, 20, 21,

rhetoric, 7–9, 12, 15, 61, 67 23, 24, 26–28
S T
sexual harassment, 24–27, 32–34 technical writing, 17
sexuality, 24–27, 31–34, 51 technology, 4, 20–29, 31, 32, 34, 65

Adrienne P. Lamberti, Anne R. Richards - Communication and Conflict Studies - Disciplinary Connections, Research Directions-Palgrave Pivot (2019)

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Communication and

ISBN 978-3-030-32745-3 ISBN 978-3-030-32746-0 (eBook)

Cover illustration: © Melisa Hasan

1 Dynamic Connections: Interdisciplinary Approaches

2 Are There Ways That Digital Technologies Break Down

3 Is Mediation Too “Feminine” for Him? Men and

4 The Conflict of Genre: Disciplinary Terminology

Joseph G. Bock, Ph.D. is the Director of the School of Conflict

Adrienne P. Lamberti, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of Languages

Fig. 2.1 One example of HarassMap in action

Dynamic Connections: Interdisciplinary

Anne R. Richards and Adrienne P. Lamberti

© The Author(s) 2019 1

Keywords Communication Studies · Conflict Studies ·

Communication and Conflict Studies: Disciplinary Connections, Research

importance of birth control took place at first in private. A 1934 meeting

NoDAPL movement. Because irony requires the simultaneous assertion

[m]ulti-level communication processes that are essential for conflict trans-

To achieve such ends, multi-voiced, peer-to-peer, and “bottom-up” com-

organizing. These functions are identified by Dimitrakopoulou and Lenis

perpetuate the myth that … we’ve somehow evolved beyond stereotypes

We note that whereas many researchers have focused on negative attitudes

style arises “naturally” from gender, be approached critically. We encour-

more cooperation should be present on the one hand; when black-and-

ComS scholars to make a clearer distinction between conflicts and crises, so

• Rhetorical strategies for communicating with marginalized or geo-

3. LeMaster strongly encourages cisgender people interested in facilitating

Kugler, K. G., & Brodbeck, F. C. (2014). Corporate communication and worker

Are There Ways That Digital Technologies

Ziaul Haque and Joseph G. Bock

Abstract Effective communication is fundamental in conflict resolution

© The Author(s) 2019 19

and conflict communication. But the focus by conflict resolution schol-

Keywords Social media · Digital technology · Gender-based violence ·

resolution workers to bring new voices and a grassroots perspective into

ICTs and Conflict Resolution

The Beginning of a Social Movement

Be Silent.” The campaigns are designed to challenge stereotypes about

Fig. 2.1 One example of HarassMap in action (https://harassmap.org/en/)

In social conflict settings, the distribution of power relationships, stereo-

Analysis of Anti-Harassment Digital Activism

Fig. 2.2 An analytical framework of digital peacebuilding

HarassMap connects victims with an informal support-base in address-

Collaboration and Collective Problem Solving

to make a difference, both as an individual and as a group (Kabeer, 1999).

Young’s (2014) assessment of HarassMap’s impact highlights benefits at

Bandura, A. (1999). Social cognitive theory: An agentic perspective. Asian Journal

Fifth International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies

Weidmann, N. B. (2015b). Communication networks and the transnational spread

Is Mediation Too “Feminine” for Him? Men

Brett H. Butler and Aza Howard Butler

Abstract Few studies focusing on conflict resolution and communication

© The Author(s) 2019 41

Keywords Alternative dispute resolution · Gender · Sexuality ·

An experienced mediator listens actively to clients and notes both obvious

including psychology, sociology, and anthropology. Certain key themes in

hegemonic masculinity and his uncertain connection to it—an awareness

Are Men Hardwired for War?

receive from future daughters-in-law “for the emotionally sensitive men

[M]etaphors allow us to understand one domain of experience in terms

the mediation scenario, he may invoke schema attached to familiar activ-

Steven became more open to mediation. A change in his demeanor became

Masculinity and Saving Face