Week 2 Resources

SOURCE #1 -- Article

The Role of Spirituality in Breast Cancer Information Processing between African American and Caucasian Women.
Authors:I-Huei Cheng1
Hyun Joo Song2
Yoonhyueng Choi2
Frisby, Cynthia3
Leshner, Glenn4 leshnerg@missouri.edu
Source:Conference Papers -- International Communication Association; 2005 Annual Meeting, New York, NY, p1-22, 22p, 4 charts


http://ezp.waldenulibrary.org/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ufh&AN=18655913&site=ehost-live&scope=site

I found this article when conducting a Google keyword search for "information processing theory." The title grabbed my attention and I had to discover more on the results of this study. I decided to search for the article in Walden's Library when the intial referral page turned out to be a dead end link; meaning, that I could not retrieve the article in a printable format.

This conference paper details a study that was conducted with black and white females regarding their different perceptions of breast cancer prevention messages.

The panel discovered that breast cancer awareness messages were not being effectively or objectively processed by black women, because their beliefs in God hindered the way they interpreted the information. Black women who felt breast cancer was a punishment from God for not following his will were less likely to adopt prevention measures due to a sense of hopelessness in trying to reverse God's intentions for them to endure the disease.

Spirituality was not a consideration for caucasian women when processing the efficacy of breast cancer prevention messages.

The researchers used the Extended Parallel Process and the Risk Perception
Attitude framework to formulate their claims.

I think this article is a fledgling attempt to ascertain whether or not race and cultural background influence the way information is processed. This is a valuable resource because at the time of its presentation, no one had conducted a study with these specific parameters. Although I question the sample and the method of the research, this resource is a valuable contribution to the conversation on race and information processing theories.

SOURCE #2 -- Website

The International Communication Association
http://www.icahdq.org/index.asp

ICA is an academic organization dedicated to the empiricial study of human communication. Their goal is to advance the scholarly study of human communication by developing conferences, workshops and other opportunities for its 3,500 members in 65 countries to share information within this field.

ICA also publishes five peer reviewed journals: Journal of Communication, Human Communication Research , Communication Theory, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, Communication, Culture, & Critique.

Because the organization has been in existence for many years and the information distributed is often written my some of the foremost authorities in the discipline, I feel that this organization's website is a valuable resource in understanding the connection between brain functioning and how humans use the brain to process the information it receives.