Area of Specialization: Culture

My own culturally hybrid experience, scholarly exploration and training leadership in intercultural immersion, and experience living abroad in the Middle East, Asia, and Europe help fuel the questions I am concerned with, which include:
•      How are cultural perceptions reproduced and resisted through communication?
•      How is cultural difference constructed and transgressed through communication?
•      How do cultural technologies work to construct and discipline self and society?
•      How is the self transformed through culture and communication?

Recent Work:

Recent work looks at intercultural immersion abroad as it relates to perceived self transformation. Other work investigates culture and communication particularly in the Middle East, ethnographically examining Israeli officials' discursive construction of "normalcy" during heightened conflict and textually analyzing competing collective identities and transformative meanings in Israeli and Palestinian press. Additional research investigates how new media technologies serve both as a tool for organizing public commons and for surveilling private lives.

Future Research:

I'm currently exploring a possible study of ecotourism in Baja, Mexico, investigating the global and local cultural, economic, scientific, social, and ecological flows among Mexican locals, who have shifted their economy from a dying fishing industry to one of ecotourism, and the tourism, scientific, commercial, governmental, and non-governmental forces that increasingly surround a rare gray whale nursery located in the local communities' lagoon.

Selected Publications:

•     Milstein, Tema, and Manusov, Valerie. (in press for 2009). Oppositional discourse in Israeli media: Reflections of multiple cultural identities in coverage of the Rabin-Arafat handshake. Howard Journal of Communications. 20 (4).
•      Milstein, Tema (2005). Transformation Abroad: Sojourning and the Perceived Enhancement of Self-Efficacy International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 29 (2), 217-238.
•      Manusov, Valerie, and Milstein, Tema. (2005). Interpreting Nonverbal Behavior: Representation and Transformation Frames in Israeli and Palestinian Media Coverage of the 1993 Rabin-Arafat Handshake Western Journal of Communication, 69 (3), 183-201.
•       Howard, Phillip; Carr, John; and Milstein, Tema. (2005).  Digital Technology and the Market for Political Surveillance. Surveillance & Society, 3(1), 59-73.
•      Howard, Phillilp, and Milstein, Tema. (2004). Spiders, Spam, and Spyware: New Media and the Market for Political Information.  In Mia Consalvo (Ed.) Internet Research Annual: Selected Papers from the Association of Internet Researchers Conference.  2000-2002, vol. 1. Peter Lang.

Selected Presentations:

•      Milstein, Tema. "Attracting Global Tourism to Israel: The Roles of Tourism Officials, the Press, and Reality in the Discursive Construction of Normalcy." Language and Global Communication Conference, July 2005. Cardiff University, Wales, United Kingdom.
•      Manusov, Valerie, and Milstein, Tema. "Opposition in Israeli Media: Reflections of Diverse Cultural Identities in Coverage of the Rabin-Arafat Handshake." Intercultural Communication Interest Group. Western Speech Communication Association, February 2005. San Francisco, CA.
•      Milstein, Tema. (with Giorgia Aiello and Irina Gendelman). "Public Space, Cyberspace, and Culture: A Critical Conversation about Experiences of Space and Technology." Human Communication and Technology Division. National Communication Association, November 2004. Chicago, IL.
•      Manusov, Valerie, and Milstein, Tema. "Giving Meaning To: Interpretations of a Handshake." Interpersonal Communication Division. Western Speech Communication Association, February 2004. Albuquerque, NM.
•      Milstein, Tema. "Is It Safe?: The Discourse of Safety in Tourism and the Discursive Construction of Normalcy during the Recent Conflict in Israel." Peace Studies Division. National Communication Association, November 2003. Miami, FL.
•      Milstein, Tema. "Transformation in a Foreign Land: Self-Efficacy via Sojourning." Intercultural Communication Division. International Communication Association, May 2003. San Diego, CA.
•      Milstein. Tema. "Culture, Theory, and the Dialectic Perspective." Comparative Literature Graduate Student Colloquium, 2003. "Structuring Thought through the Ages." March 7-8, 2003. University of Washington. Seattle, WA.
•      Milstein, Tema, and Peterson, Jeff. "Development and Validation of the Sojourner Self-Efficacy in Communication Scale." Intercultural Communication Division. International Communication Association, May 2002. Seoul, Korea.