This second edition of the award-winning The SAGE Handbook of Conflict Communication emphasizes constructive conflict management from a communication perspective, identifying the message as the focus of conflict research and practice. Editors John G. Oetzel and Stella Ting-Toomey, along with expert researchers in the discipline, have assembled in one resource the knowledge base of the field of conflict communication; identified the best theories, ideas, and practices of conflict communication; and provided the opportunity for scholars and practitioners to link theoretical frameworks and application tools. Fully updated with the latest research throughout, the second edition offers new chapters on qualitative and quantitative research methods for conflict, intimate partner violence, family dynamics, mental health, negotiation, workplace bullying, healthcare conflict, identity and intercultural conflict, the middle way approach, conflict in the global workplace, the culture-based situational conflict model, community ethics and engagement, spirituality and conflict, and trust in academic-community partnerships.

The SAGE Handbook of Conflict Communication: Integrating Theory, Research, and Practice is the first resource to synthesize key theories, research, and practices of conflict communication in a variety of contexts. Editors John Oetzel and Stella Ting-Toomey, as well as expert researchers in the field, emphasize constructive conflict management from a communication perspective which places primacy in the message as the focus of conflict research and practice.

This volume was first published by Inter-Disciplinary Press in 2014. Using contexts ranging from personal interactions to topical international events, this eBook provides a snapshot of the myriad of challenges that conflict and communication present us with.

Littlejohn and Domenici invite readers to engage in a thoughtful dialogue about human difference, conflict, and communication. Drawing on numerous examples from their work in mediation, the authors discuss a variety of practical tools, models, and theories to help analyze conflictwhy it occurs and how communication skills help avoid downward spirals into harmful relationships. Communication competence can move discussions away from harmful interactions and empower parties to expand their options. Effectively managing differences allows conflict, in whatever context, to become a positive resource rather than a barrier. The appendix provides a wealth of information in a succinct format. It discusses basic communication skills; introduces a number of alternative dispute resolution methods, including negotiation, mediation, facilitation, collaboration, and public engagement; and concludes with practical information about dialogue as an important approach to differences.

A transformational approach to conflict argues that conflicts must be viewed as embedded within broader relational patterns and social and discursive structures. Central to this book is the idea that the origins of transformation can be momentary, situational, and small-scale or large-scale and systemic. The momentary involves shifts and meaningful changes in communication and related patterns that are created in communication between people. Momentary transformative changes can radiate out into more systemic levels, and systemic transformative changes can radiate inward to more personal levels. This book engages this transformative framework by bringing together current scholarship that epitomizes and highlights the contribution of communication scholarship and communication-centered approaches to conflict transformation in personal, family, and working relationships and organizational contexts. The resulting volume presents an engaging mix of scholarly chapters, think pieces, and personal experiences from the field of practice and everyday life. The book embraces a wide variety of theoretical and methodological approaches, including narrative, critical, intersectional, rhetorical, and quantitative. It makes a valuable additive contribution to the ongoing dialogue across and between disciplines on how to transform conflicts creatively, sustainably, and ethically.

This student-oriented book introduces and explains the dynamics of conflict and resolution—particularly in ethnic, ethnopolitical, and intercultural or intergroup conflicts. Providing a basic overview of the elements of group conflict, ethnicity, identity, and diasporas, the book also explores the role of the mass media and key ways of using communication principles to understand and resolve conflict. It focuses on how to resolve problems by changing relationships and building new patterns of communication, not just managing or settling problems through acceptable political agreements. Transforming Conflict is a valuable text or supplement for courses in conflict resolution as well as international, group, or intercultural communication.

This book explores relations between communication and conflict. How one thinks about communication is demonstrated as shaping how one approaches conflict, and vice versa. Individuals engaged in conflict transformation apply the tools and strategies of their field while communicating to widely divergent audiences. Professional communicators not only create an infinite range of documents to help ensure that work is accomplished effectively, efficiently, and safely, but also address conflicts in the workplace and in the public sphere. Thoughtfully exploring connections between communication studies and conflict studies, this collection engages with research and practice on topics including the potential of social media during revolution, the role of gender during mediation, and the importance of critical genre usage during industrial crisis.

Communication decisively impacts upon all our lives. This inherent need to connect may either be soothing or painful, a source of intimate understanding or violent discord. Consequently, how it is brokered is challenging and often crucial in situations where those involved have quite different ways of being in and seeing the world. Good communication is equated with skills that intentionally facilitate change, the realisation of desirable outcomes and the improvement of human situations. Withdrawal of communication, or its intentional manipulation, provokes misunderstanding, mistrust, and precipitates the decline into disorder. This international collection of work specifically interrogates conflict as an essential outworking of communication, and suggests that understanding of communication’s potency in contexts of conflict can directly influence reciprocally positive outcomes.

This handbook provides a comprehensive review of research in conflict and peace communication and offers readers a range of insights into foundational, ongoing, and emerging discussions in this field. The volume brings together peace studies, conflict studies, and communication studies to acknowledge the power of communication—both cooperative, solidarizing, and integrative as well as destructive and divisive—in constituting social relations. It features a multiplicity of authors, including academics and practitioners from all corners of the globe and from across the communicative spectrum. The handbook is divided into four parts: (1) Meta-theoretical, theoretical, and methodological approaches in conflict and peace communication research; (2) Conflict communication; (3) Peace communication; and (4) Cross-cutting and emergent themes. This handbook is essential reading for scholars, research-driven practitioners, graduate-level students, and upper-level undergraduate students in conflict and peace communication within disciplines such as communication studies, political science, international relations, security studies, and human rights.

Communication in the broadest sense gains increasing importance in UN peace missions. However, a gap between demand and reality can be observed that points to a multitude of problematic issues. These are taken up by the thesis and it is finally argued: Successful communication strategies need to be aligned to the goals and tasks of the UN mission on all levels in order to be credible; they need to be conflict and context responsive, inclusive and participatory, consider cultural peculiarities and cross vertical as well as horizontal conflict lines. In the tradition of conflict transformative approaches a framework for analysis and evaluation of communication strategies is built and applied to the UN peace missions in Timor-Leste and Nepal. Derived is a dynamic model for the design of communication strategies that covers all relevant fields of action and performances.