Communication and Identity Lab

Welcome to the Communication and Identity Lab

UNL Main Campus

Based in the Department of Communication Studies, the Communication and Identity Lab is supervised by Dr. Jordan Soliz. 

Research in the lab focuses broadly on issues of identity and difference in personal relationships, families, and  in our communities. By "identity and difference," we are referring to both larger social and cultural identities (e.g., race-ethnicity, religion, political identity, culture, regional identities), relational identities (e.g., families), and experiential identities (e.g., refugee experiences, disability, chronic illness). Research in the lab centers on the following general questions:

  • How does communication facilitate relational and community solidarity in light of salient difference in personal and social contexts?
  • What is the role of communication in both shaping (i.e., socializing) our identity-based worldviews and changing (i.e., improving) our attitudes toward others?  
  • How do  interactions in our relationships and the larger cultural and societal messages shape individual well-being especially for individuals with contested or marginalized identities or experiences (e.g., multiethnic-racial identity, interfaith families)? 
  • How do our personal relationships and experiences shape our prosocial orientations and behaviors towards those that are "different" from us? 

Primarily guided by concepts and theories from the intergroup communication tradition (e.g., social identity theory, communication accommodation theory, intergroup contact and intergroup dialogue, communication theory of identity), we approach our research from a multimethodological perspective employing both statistical and interpretive analysis of quantitative and qualitative data through various research designs (e.g., surveys, interviews, experiments).