Architects of Communication Scholarship

Ellen Wartella 0:02
ICA presents Hello, I'm Ellen martela. Welcome to this episode of the Architects of Communication Scholarship podcast series, a production of the ICA Podcast Network. Today our architect is Mike Rohloff. Mike graduated with a major in speech communication and a minor in sociology from Indiana State University in 1972. Just three years later, he earned both his MA and PhD in communication from Michigan State University. After a few years on the faculty at the University of Kentucky, Mike began his long and remarkable career at Northwestern University. Mike Roloff is the author of Interpersonal Communication: The Social Exchange Approach, and he has co-edited four research volumes. A former editor of Communication Yearbook, Roloff, was the co-editor of Communication Research. He was co-recipient of the Woolbert Award for Outstanding Contribution to Communication Research from the Speech Communication Association, and he also received a publication award from the Social Cognition and Communication Division of the National Communication Association. He has been the chair of the Interpersonal Communication Division of the National Communication Association, and in 2009, Mike Roloff was named a fellow of the International Communication and a distinguished scholar of the National Communication Association. Today, Mike Roloff, will be interviewed by Denise Solomon, distinguished Liberal Arts professor of Communication Arts and Sciences at Pennsylvania State University. And here's Denise.

Denise Solomon 1:34
My name is Denise Solomon and it was my pleasure to complete my MA and PhD degrees with guidance and support from Mike Roloff. of talking with Mike today, I am well aware that I am one of the many, many, many people he has influenced and encouraged through his teaching his scholarship, his editorships and his example. By studying with him in graduate school, I became part of a huge family of students that Mike has continued to mentor in all of the years since. And as a member of the communication discipline, I am part of a community that has been indelibly shaped by Mike's groundbreaking contributions and his intellectual generosity. I am delighted to be with you today as we discuss your academic journey. I'll start with my first question. Can you elaborate on what or who influenced you during those years?

Mike Roloff 2:31
Well, actually, your question is a timely one. Denise, as you know, I retired on September 1st, and part of the ritual at Northwestern when you retire is you must clean out your office. So I spent a good portion of the summer cleaning out my office. And in doing that, I was amazed at how much material I had saved. It was overwhelming. And I must admit, there were times when I said to myself, "Why did you save that?" And I looked at a lot of the material and concluded number one, I am indeed a pack rat. Number two, even though I changed offices several times, I always took the path of least resistance which was to load everything into boxes and move it to wherever it was supposed to go before without making any decisions about whether it needs to be there. Well, this time, my wife told me that under no circumstances should I bring any of this stuff home. And so my strategy of just moving the mess somewhere else in the university wasn't going to work. So as I started going through this, the multitude of things I found were from various, almost like archeological digs of my past. So I could go back through and find things from high school and college and graduate school and throughout my career. This sort of refresh my memory of what I had done and who had influenced me along the way. So this is Mike Roloff's story, based upon the accumulated paper, the volume of accumulated paper, that existed in my office as I was getting ready to retire. My interest in communication started before I even thought about being a professor. I grew up in Terre Haute, Indiana. I went to high school at a place where my father was a football coach and a social studies teacher. And like many I admired my father and thought perhaps I should play football for him and very quickly became evident that I didn't have any skills. And so I had to find something else to do because clearly seeking my father's approval in this area was not going to work. And it turns out I like to talk and so after I got there, I discovered that they did indeed have forensic activities. So I became very, very involved in debate. And so they had a teacher there, Ron Snell, who travelled around the state of Indiana with a whole bunch of debaters and other types of forensic people. And he had a big impact. It turns out that Ron later left the high school and got a PhD in communication and became a professor of communication. We lost complete track of each other for decades, until we kind of looked up and said, "Hey, I know who you are." But he sort of set off all of this stuff. And one of the things that that occurred is because in Terre Haute, Indiana, Indiana State is also there, they had a very active debate team, and they were looking for debaters. And so I got recruited to come to Indiana State as a debater, and I got a scholarship for doing that. And I worked with three individuals while I was there who had a big impact on me. One of them was Don Shields, who brought me in later was Ted Walwick, who replaced Don. And the third one was Karen Olson, who later became Karen Roloff. Much later, we got married, and all of them had a huge impact on me collectively, because through debate, I learned that you have to do research. I spent a lot of time in the library reading lots of different things. You had to figure out how to synthesize all of that into a set of arguments that you had to make for your particular case. You had to organize it in a way that someone could figure out what it is that you were arguing. And you had to be prepared to defend it, because other individuals are likely to disagree with what it is that you're concluding. And all those became important skills that I didn't realize I was going to use at some later time when I became a professor, so that you did those kinds of things before you did a study. And you certainly did it after you got reviews. I hate to see the publication process described as a debate, but I think most of us know that's what it really is. You're trying to anticipate what they're going to say bad about your article, and how you can possibly convince them it isn't that bad. Many people influenced me because I had wonderful colleagues in a lot of different areas. That probably, too, had big impacts on me right from the beginning. One was Chuck Berger. Chuck worked, obviously, in interpersonal communication. That was my area, our interest resonated. Even after he left, we remained close friends, we collaborated on a lot of different projects, and so forth. And he had a big influence. He was always big into theory construction. And I learned to appreciate that he was very rigorous and passionate about what a study. Initially he had a big impact because he was interested in social cognition, and I develop that interest as well. So when it comes to content areas, Chuck had a big impact. And the second one was David Zarefsky. David Zarefsky was chair of the department. I knew him from debate days, going way back to when I was a debater, I knew David Zaretsky. And David was the consummate administrator. I think he was extremely well organized. He knew about deadlines, he understood procedures, he was fair. He listened to all sides, he had a sense of where he wanted to go in terms of quality, and so forth. But the thing he probably had his biggest impact with me that really came back and influenced my career later is when we would sit down, and like many communication departments, the department didn't always get along with each other. And we would get into little fights and quibbles and stuff like that. One time, David said to me that one of the problems faculty members have is they get very myopic, they only see what's in front of them, and what other people are doing in other universities in their particular area. And he says what they lose sight of is they're working in a larger university with its own politics, and its culture, and control resources. And if you aren't aware of what's going on around you at the university, you may be incredibly successful in your field and suddenly look up someday, and you don't have anything, because the university culture, the administration, etc, has decided that something else is more important. And so he stressed upon me the importance of getting involved in service and other things in the university, if only to be aware of what the winds of change might look like, and being able to adapt to those things. And so even though I wouldn't say service ever came to me naturally, I learned to do the stuff that I thought I could do reasonably well, so that I could stay aware of what those various things were. I did learn, just as I think he was kind of intimating, there are some things that happen in your university that are unanticipated and completely beyond your control, in which case, you can't really direct what's going to happen. You can merely cope with it. But I think, one of the things hopefully you've gotten as I've talked about this, there have been a lot of people who've had an impact me, some of them probably didn't even know it. And some of them forgot me. And we had to renew after a period of time. But it always has been a collaborative process. I can't say that there's something that I would argue that I uniquely produced without the ample assistance of a whole lot of other people.

Denise Solomon 10:19
Well, a couple of those people, David and Chuck are on my list as well. So it's delightful to hear you talk about their role in your career. So my next question might be difficult, because you've really done so much in your career. But can you describe some of your most substantial accomplishments? As an Architect of Communication Scholarship, how would you summarize what you have built?

Mike Roloff 10:45
I don't know that I'm so much of an architect as a remodeler or something like that. But, if I had to go back and kind of pinpoint something, I probably would have trouble with that. I tend to think of this not so much in a particular product I produce as programs or tendencies of things that I tend to do over time, that I can cluster together. So it's not like I can point to a particular project and say that's the accomplishment I had. I sort of as I've thought through this process, there are three areas I guess I personally feel like I tried to do something good. The first obviously, is in the area of research. And I tried to have a variety of research areas going. I've never been a person who's just settled on one topic, I've been willing to move, some would argue scattered. I would say a eclectic in what it is that I'm interested in and hope that they all kind of blend together. But sometimes it takes, after the fact, time to make those all sound like they're coherent and blend together that well. I was interested in interpersonal influences. I indicated, when I got to Michigan State and discovered that the study of attitude change was at least on hold, when I happened to be there. I did get interested in interpersonal influence. And a lot of that stuff initially was reflecting at the time understanding how people put together influence messages. So I was part of that. The Miller, Boster, Roloff, and Seibold group, for better or worse, the old "MBRS" study that was focused on compliance-gaining, I got criticized a lot for doing that. I rationalized it much later, because I heard another social scientists say, "There are two ways to have an impact on your area. One is to be the first, and the second is to be the best." And it's a whole lot easier to be the first. And I think with "MBRS" we were the first, and we may not have done it exactly the way we should have. And there was evidence is saying we didn't do that great a job. But we did have an impact and doing that. And later, I think that as I've moved along working with Jerry Jordan, Danette Ifert, in looking at the obstacle hypothesis, the fact that people construct these messages to overcome the largest source of resistance, with something that I think is something that I enjoy doing, and I think that hopefully made some sort of a contribution. Probably the bigger area, though, is my interest in interpersonal conflict where you participated in that. Very much interested in why people withhold complaints and our research on the chilling effect, and you extended far beyond that. But a lot of that research was was fun to do. And I would like to believe that had any impact. And then of course, I moved into conflict area serial arguing. Probably what happens when people choose not to avoid a conflict and decide to just engage in the argumentative process ad nauseam. And so I was with Rachel Reznick and others, we put together a lot of research in that particular area. And the last one in terms of research area that personal people probably don't recognize, but hopefully the organizational people do, I became very interested in bargaining and negotiation, and I co-edited a book with Linda Putnam, on that topic, and with Frank Tutzauer. We published some articles on bargaining and negotiation. So those are probably the research areas. I did a whole lot of others that don't quite fit into those particular areas. And maybe I'll get to mention those a little bit later. But they were also important, but those are the ones that I think, if somebody were to say I kind of generated the idea and worked with a lot of other people as we moved along, those are the research areas.

Denise Solomon 14:47
I'm gonna jump to my last question, just looking at the clock here. So looking into the future, what are the big intellectual questions for communication scholars to address? And what are the social challenges and opportunities where our field can make a difference?

Mike Roloff 15:05
Wow, that is hard. I've never been good at the crystal ball kind of thing. Maybe it's because I'm inherently an empiricist, I need data to sort of figure out where we're going next. It's probably one of those failings, that if I was truly in the stock market, I'd probably end up investing in stocks that are no longer valuable. But somebody says they're now valuable, they always say the key aspect of making money in the stock market is to get there before everybody else does. I'm not very good at that. If I had to kind of guess what I think's happening, and it's kind of depressing notion is that seems like the first two decades of this this century has demonstrated to us it's a time of crisis, I fully expect there's going to be a continued sort of pressure, as well as attraction to studying the various crises that happened to be occurring at that at that time. And it is an opportunity in that we know what the federal government often does is when there's a crisis, they put money in it. So there's funding opportunities that oftentimes show up universities, like their professors to do cutting edge things because it brings publicity to the university. So all of a sudden, there's pressure internally, to do all this. And many of us want to do the right thing, we really do want to help, and we want to be socially responsible human beings. And we can adapt our research to do that. Now, there are certain things though, that when it comes to whether we do that or not, how we're going to handle it, I think we always have to remember, it's a two way street, that we want to make contributions to solving these problems and understanding these problems, and hoping that in doing that informs us to communication. And I think that's what I fear the most, is it because studying these things is inherently interdisciplinary, many of these things, the crises we confront, are going to have ties to particular disciplines other than communication, we're going to be working with individuals from a variety of different areas, but we have to bring a communication focus to it. If all we're doing is imitating what economics tells us about why the recession hit, or what medical science tells us about why the pandemic occurs, and how its spread, we're not going to be making much of a contribution, and we're not bringing anything back to the field. The other thing I guess I worry about a lot when it comes to these things is that sometimes I think there's a tendency to become an instant expert. And you have to read and you have to spend time with this stuff to understand what's really going on. And again, there's sometimes a pressure to say you know something about this, don't you? And when you're being interviewed you sort of overplay what it is that you know, and I'm not certain that's necessarily a good things for us, as we're moving into this. So I guess my feeling is, we don't want to lose sight of the fact that when these crises occur, we're bringing something unique to the table, and it should be communication. And we should be bringing back something from studying this that informs as to communication. I don't want to see us become any more fragmented than we really are. So that we now have divisions and journals that are dedicated to a particular crisis area, or some aspect of it, I don't think that's helpful. I would much rather see us get to the point where we might be able to agree roughly on these key communication processes that could be operating and inform as to the problems were confronting, and what the solutions might look like.

Denise Solomon 18:57
I think you really captured in a nutshell, your impact on the field is that you have kept it grounded, and you've kept it relevant. And you have always found a way to communicate its relevance and its value. So I just want to thank you, Mike, for taking the time for the conversation today. I hope that you realize when an important force you've been in the communication discipline. You have framed issues in ways that invited others to study them. Every other dissertation I direct is on serial arguments these days. You have been an example of fundamentally good science and programmatic through radical advances. And you have been a source of inspiration and encouragement to many of us. I will be eternally grateful, both personally and as a member of our profession. So thank you so much for all the things

Mike Roloff 19:52
Well, thank you as well. It was an honor.

Ellen Wartella 19:57
This episode of Architects of Communication Scholarship podcast series is presented by the International Communication Association Podcasts Network and is sponsored by the School of Communication at Hong Kong Baptist University. Our producer is Jabari Clemons, and our executive producer is DeVante Brown. The same music is by Humans Win. For more information about our participants on this episode, as well as our sponsor, be sure to check the episode description. Thanks for listening.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai