Wayne A. Beach &
Alane S. Lockwood
Making the case for airline compassion fares: The serial organization of problem narratives during a family crisis
Our paper on compassion fares began years ago, during seminar discussions on contrasts between family and institutional telephone interactions: How did a son’s discussion with his parents shape subsequent discussions with airline representatives? How did the son make the case for traveling home repeatedly, and serially, when calling different airlines for discounted fares? These and related questions emerged only as a result of examining calls #4-#9 in a telephone corpus of 60 calls. Aside from our own personal experiences with seeking affordable travel from unknown agents, both for ordinary travel (e.g., vacations and conferences) and during times of family crisis, we certainly had no a priori interest in compassion fares – nor, for that matter, other social activities analyzed in a series of published and ongoing papers drawn from the Malignancy calls (e.g., news delivery sequences, interactional uncertainty, hope and optimism).
ROLSI researchers constantly end up working with unexpected materials and for no particular reason – other than something caught our attention, and we simply aren’t able to let go of it until at least some progress is made describing and explaining otherwise unnoticed activities.
Wayne A. Beach (Ph.D., University of Utah) is Professor in the School of Communication at San Diego State University, and an Associate Member of the Cancer Center in the School of Medicine at the University of California, San Diego. His research focuses on conversational and institutional interactions, and their convergence, including doctor-patient communication, medical interviewing in preventive and oncological care, and how families talk through cancer diagnosis, treatment, and prognosis. Dr. Beach is currently working on two books: The first natural history of families talking through cancer, and an edited volume on communication dilemmas between doctors, patients, and family members (originally published as a special issue of Text focusing on Lay Diagnosis).
Alane (Lanie) Lockwood (M.A., San Diego State University) is a lecturer and advising coordinator for the School of Communication at SDSU. She teaches communication and journalism classes. Her research interests include doctor-patient communication, organizational communication, and communication about mental health. A former television news anchor/reporter, her professional interests also include the television news industry and developing journalism curriculum.
