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This chapter summarizes many conceptual, theoretical, and methodological topics related to studying group communication using qualitative research methods. First, it explains five of the most common theoretical frameworks used by group communication scholars (i.e., symbolic convergence theory, bona fide group perspective, unobtrusive control theory, dialectical theory, and structuration theory). Next, it discusses best practices and issues related to different data collection methods including observations, historical case studies, ethnographies, focus groups, and interview studies. Then, the chapter describes two primary data analytic tools, various iterations of constant comparison method, and qualitative content analysis. Finally, the chapter describes several innovative qualitative methods that may lead to new understandings of group communication processes including discourse analysis and discourse tracing, as well as new approaches to collecting qualitative network data and mediated data. The chapter concludes with a discussion of future research suggestions.

Digital technologies, and the affordances they provide, can shape institutional processes in significant ways. In the last decade, social media and other digital platforms have redefined civic engagement by enabling new ways of connecting, collaborating, and mobilizing. In this article, we examine how technological affordances can both enable and hinder institutional processes through visibilization – which we define as the enactment of technological features to foreground and give voice to particular perspectives and discourses while silencing others. We study such dynamics by examining #SchauHin, an activist campaign initiated in Germany to shine a spotlight on experiences of daily racism. Our findings show how actors and counter-actors differentially leveraged the technological features of two digital platforms to shape the campaign. Our study has implications for understanding the role of digital technologies in institutional processes as well as the interplay between affordances and visibility in efforts to deinstitutionalize discriminatory practices and institutions.

Juries are a decision making peer group composed of citizens who did not volunteer for the task, who do not know one another, and who are not connected to the people and events in the trial on which they will render a verdict. This chapter illuminates the communication events during deliberations, from selecting a foreperson, deciding when and how to vote, participation and turn-taking, the emergence of conflict, and rule-breaking. Deadlock juries, storytelling jurors, and juror misconduct are described during the group's task. Sources for scholars to gain access to jury data, partner with organizations in the judicial system, and available recent recordings of jury deliberations are shared. Knowledge gaps are pointed out in understanding how group verdicts emerge from the unregulated talk of jurors, as well as new challenges for the judicial system as the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic suddenly rendered jury service an unhealthy task for citizens.

Many analyses point to Trump's behavior on the world stage – bullying and racketeering more reminiscent of a mafioso than a statesman – as a personal character flaw. We argue that, while this behavior was shocking in how unvarnished it was, Trump marks the culmination of a decades-long trend that shifted US foreign policy from a regime of “legitimate protection” in the mid-twentieth century to a “protection racket” by the turn of the twenty-first. While the temperaments of successive presidents have mattered, the problems facing the United States and its role in the world are not attributable to personalities but are fundamentally structural, in large part stemming from the contradictions of US attempts to cling to preeminence in the face of a changing global distribution of power. The inability of successive US administrations – Trump and Biden included – to break out of the mindset of US primacy has resulted in a situation of “domination without hegemony” in which the United States plays an increasingly dysfunctional role in the world. This dynamic has plunged the world into a period of systemic chaos analogous to the first half of the twentieth century.

Following Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in August 1990, the international community took vigorous, unprecedented steps to curb Saddam Hussein's military ambitions. The central component of these actions was a set of comprehensive arms, aviation, maritime, and economic sanctions, each imposed by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). When the multinational coalition forces ousted Iraq from Kuwait the following year, the UNSC made these sanctions and embargoes a component of the armistice agreement. Over time, these sanctions were subsequently used as leverage to press for Iraqi compliance with relevant UNSC resolutions calling for Iraqi disarmament.¹

The terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001 were a very traumatic event for the entire nation. This was especially true for law enforcement. Many law enforcement officers and other first responders lost their lives in the initial response to the attack while attempting to save the lives of the citizens they were sworn to protect. As a result of the 9/11 attacks, many changes have occurred in the missions, operations and tactics of local law enforcement agencies in the United States.

This chapter attempts to examine the changes that were forced upon law enforcement by the events of 9/11 and to look at what the future might hold for law enforcement in an enhanced homeland security environment.

Terrorism presents additional duties for law enforcement. Traditional police missions have not been lessened, but new threats to the public have arisen.