Theories of Communication and Uncertainty as a Foundation for Future Research on Nursing Practice

As we enter the age of “precision medicine,” we will need “a greater tolerance of uncertainty and greater facility for calculating and interpreting probabilities than” (Hunter, 2016, p. 711) ever before. Nursing scholarship has produced the most widely known theory of uncertainty in illness (Mishel, 1988, 1990), but it emphasizes the psychological state of and deemphasizes communication. Communication scholars have attempted to overcome this deficit, but two of the most prominent of these perspectives, uncertainty management theory (Brashers, 2001) and the theory of motivated information management (Afifi & Morse, 2004), emphasize processes related to information seeking or avoidance in the service of uncertainty reduction, creation, or maintenance; in so doing, they tend to neglect important variations in the meanings of uncertainty. The article reviews these theories and also problematic integration theory, which centers the task of differentiating forms of uncertainty and other problematic meanings and the importance of form-specific adaptation of communication. The paper concludes with an agenda for collaborations between nursing and communication researchers aimed at advancing theory and practice

Social Construction of Health Risk: Rhetorical Elements in Colombian and U.S. News Coverage of Coca Eradication

This paper examines rhetorical elements related to the social construction of health risk. More specifically, we analyze how prominent Colombian and U.S. newspapers construct the health risks associated with the use of glyphosate in the “war on drugs” in Colombia. Glyphosate, an herbicide that works as a plant growth regulator, is used heavily via aerial spraying to eradicate Colombian coca cultivation: use mandated by Plan Colombia. These practices have generated wide ranging cultural and sociopolitical disputes among environmental, health, communal, and political organizations. While our focus is on the controversy related to health issues, our analyses necessarily touch on various environmental, community, and political issues

Social Construction of Health Risk: Rhetorical Elements in Colombian and U.S. News Coverage of Coca Eradication

This paper examines rhetorical elements related to the social construction of health risk. More specifically, we analyze how prominent Colombian and U.S. newspapers construct the health risks associated with the use of glyphosate in the “war on drugs” in Colombia. Glyphosate, an herbicide that works as a plant growth regulator, is used heavily via aerial spraying to eradicate Colombian coca cultivation: use mandated by Plan Colombia. These practices have generated wide ranging cultural and sociopolitical disputes among environmental, health, communal, and political organizations. While our focus is on the controversy related to health issues, our analyses necessarily touch on various environmental, community, and political issues