USU Communications Professor Presents Inaugural Lecture

In light of the recent Flint, Michigan, water crisis, toxins and the many ways they may impact one’s life are issues brought to the forefront of the American public. Understanding how these toxins are constructed through words and images is something Utah State University communications studies professor Jennifer Peeples has studied throughout her academic career.

“In Flint, you cannot see the lead in the water causing health problems for children, but the image of cloudy, brown water being compared to clear water from surrounding communities is an important part of getting the people to clean up the water contamination,” Peeples said. “Had the water in Flint been clear, though still poisoned with lead, the community would have lost a key symbol in its fight to get clean drinking water.”

Peeples, a recently promoted full professor in the Languages, Philosophy and Communication Studies Department in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, said the way a topic is presented can alter how people understand and react to the topic.

“Toxins are often invisible,” Peeples said. “How we come to know something is toxic, that it can harm our health or environment, is through the words and images we use to represent it. For example, we cannot see radiation, but people believe radiation can hurt them because they are told that it does. And as radiation is explained, small changes in language, such as choosing the word ‘harmful,’ as opposed to ‘dangerous’ or ‘deadly,’ can alter how people understand and react to the toxins.”
 

Understanding the details of language and the many ways to communicate important topics was something that sparked Peeples’ interest as a college student at Oregon State University during the time of the “timber wars” in the Pacific Northwest. Should trees be saved to protect the spotted owl, or logged for commercial enterprise?

“I was taking a number of communication classes, including classical rhetoric where I was reading Aristotle and Cicero, and I saw how the ancient principles of rhetoric play out before me in the environmental drama that was capturing the Pacific Northwest at the time.”

It was during this time that Peeples came to recognize how every day discourse provided insight into deeply held ideologies and how powerful an influence it could have on others.

“I witnessed how polarizing language escalated antagonism and violence and the poor decision making that resulted from an inability to listen to the opposing side,” Peeples said. “That basic understanding of communication’s persuasive and constitutive function and its capacity for destructive effects, especially around environmental issues, captured my academic imagination.”

Finding her passion, Peeples followed an educational and career path that would lead her to USU in 2000. Since that time, the communications program has grown from three professors to a faculty of eight and from zero majors to well over 100.

“My colleagues are dedicated researchers, excellent teachers, and, most importantly, wonderful human beings,” Peeples said. “I feel fortunate that I get to work with these great people every day, particularly my colleague, John Seiter, whose tenacity, vast and varied abilities and amazing sense of humor has crafted our program into the inviting, supportive and warm culture it is today.”

And with the growth of the program has come a competitive edge, according to Peeples. The communications classes offered by the department have one of the longest waitlists and are frequently one of the first classes to fill up during registration while the number of students applying to the major exceeds the available number of slots.

“We have a strong program with engaged, hardworking and dedicated students eager to learn how communication functions,” Peeples said. “Our undergraduates go on to some of the most competitive graduate programs in the country.”

Along with her teaching load, Peeples is currently working on three books, the first one, Under Pressure: Coal Industry Rhetoric and Neoliberalism, comes out in April 2016 and focuses on five rhetorical strategies used by the United States coal industry to advance its interests in the face of growing economic and environmental pressures.

Peeples has been at USU for 15 years and is an award-winning researcher and teacher who received the Christine R. Oravec Award in Environmental Communication for her work on discourses of toxicity. She gave her Inaugural Lecture in November 2015, as part of the Inaugural Lecture series hosted by USU President Stan L. Albrecht to highlight the accomplishments of faculty who have been promoted to full professor.

Peeples enjoys her free time with her husband, Charles Waugh, son Owen and dog, Django. You can often find them hiking, camping, skiing and on travels.

Related links:

Department of Languages, Philosophy and Communication Studies

College of Humanities and Social Sciences

Contact: Kim Doyle, Office of the Executive Vice President and Provost, 435-797-1167, kim.doyle@usu.edu