Organizational identity, power, and peacekeeping: An analysis of informal communication in Canada's military

Date
2015-02-02
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Abstract
I assume a critical-interpretivist stance to analyze the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) as an organization, which enables me to go behind the scenes of its allegedly hierarchical and rigid power structures. While conducting a qualitative thematic analysis of one discussion on the Army.ca website, I uncover how soldiers resist organizational control in their informal communication. I argue that soldiers who post on the forum exert power by challenging and redefining the notions of peacekeeping and military identity in their comments. In their interactions, soldiers resist the publicly accepted image of the CAF as a peacekeeping force and reclaim their identity as warfighters. Grounding this research in organizational communication theory, I apply a communication lens to the CAF and show how the concepts of organizational culture, identity, image, power, and resistance are produced, contested, and reproduced through the process of communication, constantly interconnecting and mutually influencing each other.
Description
Keywords
Mass Communications, Military Studies, Sociology--Organizational
Citation
Shapovalova, O. M. (2015). Organizational identity, power, and peacekeeping: An analysis of informal communication in Canada's military (Master's thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca. doi:10.11575/PRISM/27227