This study longitudinally explored antecedents to college students’ affirmative sexual consent behaviors. Using the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), hypotheses predicted that time one (T1) attitudes, norms, and perceived behavioral control (PBC) would predict students’ T1 intentions to communicate affirmative consent to their partner. Also, this study predicted that at time two, intentions to communicate consent from T1 would predict college students’ communication of affirmative consent to their partner during their most recent sexual encounter. Results support hypotheses for all affirmative consent behaviors, and demonstrate that subjective norms and PBC are strong determinants of students’ affirmative sexual consent.

Distinctive among memorials for its rurality and its integration of the natural landscape, the Flight 93 National Memorial in Shanksville, Pennsylvania narrates the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001 through an embodied experience of trauma and relief. In this article, we analyze the rhetorical interaction between the memorial’s pastoral setting and the Visitor Center’s traumatic and temporal reenactment of the doomed flight. Contributing to scholarly understanding of how pastoral landscape functions in memorialization, we argue that the memorial’s materiality interpellates visitors into the subject position of a safety-seeking citizen, which facilitates the unquestioned militarization of the nation-state.

Despite the number of American students achieving bachelor’s degrees soaring, the gap between the most and least successful ethnic groups is becoming more pronounced. Among the lowest achieving groups are Tongan-Americans. This study uses Kramer’s (2011) multilevel model of volunteer assimilation as a theoretical framework to investigate how multiple and overlapping group memberships influence Tongan-American students as they progress from organizational entry to metamorphosis, or premature exit. The findings of this constant comparative analysis suggest that Tongan-American students’ multiple memberships are both complementary, increasing the likelihood of degree achievement, and contradictory, decreasing the likelihood of degree achievement. These complementary and competing memberships affect students’ achievement of full membership in institutions of higher education. Implications for universities seeking to assist Tongan-American students, parents of Tongan-American students, and for Tongan-American students are discussed.

Sending help when needed is a central role for emergency service call takers, but providing help during the call is also an important part of the job. The “care work” call takers do may assist callers with physical and emotional safety and enhance their resilience as they deal with ongoing emergencies prior to the arrival of the police. This conversational analytic study of a collection of 24 emergency telephone calls reveals the interactional techniques the call takers use to accomplish care work and shows how they integrate care work into their communication within the call.

According to relational turbulence theory, interdependent partners exert influence in their romantic relationships through the interference and facilitation of daily routines. Programmatic scholarship consistently reveals that interference is associated positively, whereas facilitation is associated negatively, with relational turbulence in romantic relationships. However, as behavioral manifestations of interdependence that may co-occur, there is a possibility that enough facilitation from a partner might offset the effect of interference on relational turbulence. This study of romantic partners (N = 475) revealed moderated interdependence insofar as the effect of partner interference on relational turbulence was buffered by partner facilitation. This moderated effect further informed a theoretical model predicting the perceived likelihood of marriage. Thus, in relationships where daily routines are disrupted often, balancing facilitation with interference may mitigate chaotic relational states.

The Mormon Church, like other religions, discursively produces hostile, anti-LGBTQIA + spaces. This study uses queer theory to explore how sacred and religious spaces are created and navigated by queer members of the Church. Analyzing data from an online survey and in-depth interviews, the findings reveal patterns of divine communication and organizational perceptions that blend together as a powerful discursive production of thirdspaces deemed religious-sacred spaces. By offering structural and discursive solutions to structural White cisheteronormativity in the Church, the final section introduces some possibilities of reorganization for queering Mormon spaces.

The icon occupies an important place in theological and philosophical discourse, especially within Christian traditions. This paper argues that the theological notion of iconicity offers unique insight into rhetorical constructions of the ineffable. Central to such a task is the imbrication of icons in mythology, indeed their absolute dependence on them. By locating the “secular” mythological icon in a non-religious speech given by David Foster Wallace, this analysis posits both the indissolubility of myths and icons as well as their rhetorical utility in understanding forms of representation.

Stickiness refers to a message’s persuasive properties: simple, unexpected, concrete, credible, emotional, and stories (SUCCES). A sticky message is expected to be more memorable, and hence persuasive, for a longer duration than a non-sticky message. The present research tested this hypothesis first in a longitudinal experiment addressing the issue of applying sunscreen. Results showed a time × message induction non-additive effect such that the non-sticky message effect decayed more than the sticky message, but its explanation remains elusive. Thus, a second experiment was conducted, and prior results were replicated, with a potential explanation for the effect provided.

The essays in the previous special section illustrate diverse starting points communication scholarship can take when exploring mindfulness. This essay is a complement to the special section and explores how these scholars employ and refine mindfulness conceptualizations. The outlook for communication scholars interested in mindfulness research provides not a single perspective, but, rather, diverse views for theory development and application. Ideas for conceptualizing and theorizing mindfulness are delineated by examining the variety of axiological, ontological, and epistemological starting points seen in this collection of essays.