Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, 2013, Communication Studies (Communication)

Disaster can sometimes be a time of opportunity: for reflection, reevaluation, and readjustment--for questioning the status quo. Through a case study of Wilmington, Ohio, a small Ohio town in the midst of a self-described economic disaster, I consider how organizational networks and communities constitute each other in efforts to redefine a sense of place and local identity amid large-scale unplanned change. As I explore the ways in which "community" is named and placed in micro, meso, and macro-level discourses, I am guided by the following broad questions: How do component organizations in a transorganizational network demonstrate and defend their legitimacy? How do they communicatively construct and maintain a shared vision for the future towards which to mobilize a collectivity of individuals? What opportunities for and obstacles to collaboration do community organizers encounter in their efforts to redefine the communal spaces of a town? By analyzing transorganizational narratives of crisis, disaster, and opportunity, this study strives to engage communication studies more deeply in understanding the inextricable relationship between individual, organizational, and community identity.

Committee: Laura Black Ph.D. (Advisor) Subjects: Communication