User:Xianknelson

Hi, my name is Christian Nelson. I have a Ph.D. in communication from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (USA), where I undertook course work in communication theory and philosophy, interpersonal communication, discourse analysis (particulary from the perspectives of ethnomethodology and conversation analysis), research methods, and rhetoric/social influence/persuasion. Research interests stemming from my graduate school training include: ethnomethodology, conversation analysis and discourse analysis more generally, ordinary language philosophy, the rhetoric of science (including Wittgensteinian analysis of the scientific literature), parasocial relationships and parasocial interactions. Beginning in 2000 I also developed an interest in mass communication and internet communication, and particularly discourse in various mass or new media as well as the use of these media to conduct (pseudo-) interpersonal interaction. I was an assistant professor in the communication departments of Purdue University (1991-1997) and the University of Massachusetts-Amherst (1997-2004). I also taught in Emerson College's Department of Marketing and Health Communication as a Scholar-in-Residence (ie., visiting assitant professor) in the 2004-2005 school year, and was an adjunct instructor at the University of Hartford for Fall, 2005. In 2002 and 2003 I helped to develop a course management tool produced by UMass' Center for Computer-Based Instructional Design as the co-Principal Investigator of a grant won from the National Science Foundation. Currently, I am completing an associates degree in multimedia technology (mostly multimedia design, together with some computer and programming), which should be complete by May, 2006.