Category Archives: COMM 613
January-February 2014
The Relationship between Girl Scouts and Planned Parenthood – Digital Presentation
My Week 6 digital project, analyzing the current PR issue of Girl Scouts of the USA and their alleged relationship with Planned Parenthood through Benoit’s crisis communication theory.
Week 4 Oral Presentation – Berger’s Social Constructionist Theory
A bit of my personal life, analyzed through Berger’s social constructionist theory.
Book Review – Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert J. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
In his previous work Bowling Alone author Robert Putnam posited that American society had become so individualistic that our cultural sense of community had been lost, and as a result our thriving social structures had begun to crumble. He received some criticism for painting a somewhat bleak image of modern-day American culture with little advice on how it can be turned around. In his follow-up to Bowling Alone, entitled Better Together: Restoring the American Community, Putnam and Feldstein (2004) has anthologized what he considers to be twelve strong examples of how common citizens have come together to begin rebuilding their fractured neighborhoods, and whose stories demonstrate the positive effects of active civic engagement for individuals, their communities, and ultimately for American society.
Putnam and Feldstein (2004) chose stories for this book that represent a wide variety of subcultural and socioeconomic groups found across the United States, whose efforts they believe demonstrate successful, long-term collaborative projects that continue to benefit their respective communities by the creation of what they term “social capital”, or “social networks, norms of reciprocity, mutual assistance, and trustworthiness” (Putnam and Feldstein, 2004, p. 2). That is, they argue that change at a societal level must begin at a macro level by establishing mutually trusting and beneficial relationships between individuals.
Better Together exposes the intimate struggles of the communities such as Chicago’s affluent Gold Coast and low-income Cabrini Green neighborhoods, which prior to the 1990s couldn’t have been any more isolated from each other. The Chicago Public Library’s Near North Branch, which is situated between the two neighborhoods, pioneered a new vision of the role a library should play in the community. Instead of the quiet, traditional book warehouse, it became a bustling meeting place for any group that chooses to meet there. Volunteers from the Gold Coast tutor students from Cabrini Green; twenty-somethings show seniors who lack computer skills how to use the internet. The library strives to be a “community anchor” (Putnam and Feldstein, 2004, p. 38) and was deliberately built, designed, and staffed in such a way that it would create “bridging” social capital – the kind that brings two otherwise disconnected groups together. Create spaces and opportunities for conversations to happen, the authors argue, and relationships will surely follow. After almost twenty years of efforts, the Near North Branch seems to have established itself as the go-to meeting place for members of both neighborhoods.
Another example takes us to the Dudley Street neighborhood of Boston, which by the 1980s had disintegrated into a collection of abandoned homes, discarded vehicles and vacant lots. It was rife with drug-related crime and gang violence. Banks saw the property as worthless and refused to give business or property loans to residents. In 1985 several local leaders came together to form the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative in an effort to figure out how to best distribute grant money to the community. They were met with hostility from Dudley residents, who feared that their voices weren’t being heard and asked to be a part of the decision-making process. The leaders agreed and reworked DSNI’s structure accordingly. Dudley residents agreed that the garbage piling up on the streets was the first issue that needed to be addressed and formed the “Don’t Dump On Us” campaign, asking the city to stop illegal dumping and asking fellow residents to assist with the cleanup process. They did, and their community improvement efforts continued; today there are community gardens instead of vacant lots, parks and a thriving business scene. Crime rates are down and high school graduation levels are up. And as Putnam and Feldstein (2004) mention, all of this began from DSNI members knocking on doors and introducing themselves to their neighbors.
Other examples included in the collection run the gamut from an arts initiative to help the civilian and military communities understand each other in Portsmouth, New Hampshire; a businessman taking financial risk in order to both save and unite his community in Tupelo, Mississippi; and middle-school students learning how to be leaders and improve their community’s safety in Waupun, Wisconsin.
The authors are quick to point out that these examples have little in common other than their relative success and the fact that they begin at the local level; as Putnam and Feldstein (2004) explain, social capital is inherently a local phenomenon, built on a fabric of interwoven relationships between citizens. They refrain from implying that there is only one model to building active communities since the wants and needs of communities naturally vary. The book is filled with qualifying statements that stress that these civic efforts are not without strife and conflict, and are often two steps forward, one step back in drawing people together. Putnam and Feldstein (2004) go so far as to offer a disclaimer in the Introduction that the book is not for those who are looking for a how-to manual to strengthen their communities. This statement saves the reader from assuming otherwise but it still doesn’t alleviate frustration at the lack of concrete suggestions. Civic engagement seems like such a big undertaking – where is a good place to begin? Just exactly how does one individual go about rebuilding an entire community?
But that’s exactly the point that Putnam and Feldstein are trying to make. Community change is not something that happens overnight. It takes years of communication, of relationship building, of small efforts toward an ultimate unifying goal. All of the projects were marked with struggle, resistance, and collaboration that pushed many participants outside of their comfort zones. One project may spin off into others as community members network with each other and form other collectives. The definition of “success” is also subject to interpretation – perhaps a playground was built where there wasn’t one, or simply that a new community leader found the courage to speak up about an issue that affects her family. To modern Americans who prefer quick fixes the absence of an ultimate solution can be disconcerting. But throughout the book the authors stress the value that is most important to them and to the community restoration cause, and that is building relationships within communities. Only when we start connecting to each other and to the places we live can we organize and seek to improve them.
Perhaps more importantly, Putnam and Feldstein (2004) also articulate that the growth that takes place in these communities is no accident. Creating leaders at the community level requires constant follow-up and encouragement. As in the Near North Branch library example every single detail was chosen based on whether it could help the library meet its goal of bridging the two neighborhoods together. The exact street address was picked to be not too geographically deep into Cabrini Green, and so that the El train didn’t act as a barrier that might indirectly deter people from either neighborhood, for example; every piece of artwork was chosen to represent the subcultures found in both neighborhoods. Likewise in the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative, the grant trustees who had so carefully devised a plan to assist the neighborhood had to scrap the plan entirely and begin fresh, restructuring the entire group around the desires of those in the neighborhood. In order to have long-lasting effects and create sustainable change it was important to be deliberate and mindful of every detail, and to foster the desire for community members to self-govern and act from the bottom-up.
There are professional implications here for those who work in public relations. As someone who is working to create bridging social capital, it is important to choose your words carefully and to involve your audience in a discourse through which you continually fine-tune your message. In order to successfully reach your audience your message must be truly heard by them. The examples also stress how much attention to detail must be paid to the client’s every choice and action, for there must be trust between client and audience, and trust is a fragile thing that takes time to establish.
There are some difficulties in reading this book. The stories vary greatly in their subject matter. Just as the reader finds themselves in the thick of one story they are soon pulled out of it and plunged into another drastically different struggle in a different part of America. It’s an attempt to encourage as many readers as possible to stand up and work for change, but it requires some readjustment on the part of the reader to repeatedly enter different scenarios. The stories also tend to lack clear starting and stopping points. This is in part due to the nature of the subject matter: they are meant to be summaries, snapshots into multi-faceted and ever-changing community life. Additionally the anthology format doesn’t allow for much exposition. The authors do a good job presenting the stories in a succinct fashion and each story contains enough information for the authors to build their case; nonetheless, having to start and stop twelve separate scenarios is often frustrating and makes for a fragmented reading experience.
Despite these setbacks there is an overwhelming theme of hope and encouragement throughout the book. Putnam and Feldstein (2004) have accomplished what they set out to do which is to provide a broad set of examples of ways in which communities are dusting themselves off and rebuilding. Regardless of the reader’s socioeconomic status or cultural background, there is inspiration to be found in any and all of these stories. They demonstrate that no one person is less powerful than another and that by working together that power is multiplied exponentially, but caution the reader that in order for these initiatives to be successful those involved must make strategic choices at every level with the end goal in mind.
The authors encourage us to connect with the places we live and the people we share them with. The book is valuable to both the lay reader and to those who work in strategic communications. Better Together successfully weaves a tapestry of ideas for community building as diverse as American culture itself.
Putnam, Robert D. and Feldstein, Lewis. (2004). Better Together: Restoring the American community. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.
arwenmccaffrey 