James Olufowote

• COMM 3263 - Organizational Communication
• COMM 3313 - Communication & Public Health 

Dr. Olufowote is an associate professor in the Department of Communication at The University of Oklahoma (OU) and an adjunct of the Department of International and Area Studies at OU. He conducts research largely at the intersections of health communication and organizational communication. At these intersections, he earlier focused on physician preparation and practice of healthcare ethics. He now focuses on topics that revolve around the public health of marginalized communities: community-based organizing, the culture(s) of marginalized communities, and health activism. He primarily pursues these topics through two research projects on sub-Saharan Africa: polio vaccine resistance in northern Nigeria and HIV/AIDS prevention in Tanzania.

He is currently serving on the editorial boards of the following academic journals: Communication Studies, Frontiers in Health Communication, Health Communication, and Management Communication Quarterly.

His research is published in academic journals such as Communication Quarterly, Health Communication, Howard Journal of Communications, Qualitative Health Research, Management Communication Quarterly, Western Journal of Communication, and Journal of Language and Social Psychology.

Dr. Olufowote teaches undergraduate and graduate courses such as Health Communication, Communication and Public Health, and Communication in Health Organizations.

Olufowote, J. O., & Livingston, D. J. (in press). The excluded voices from Africa’s Sahel: Alternative meanings of health in narratives of resistance to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative in northern Nigeria. Health Communication.

Olufowote, J. O. (2020). Taking culture and context seriously: Advancing health communication research on HIV/AIDS prevention in Tanzania with the PEN-3 cultural model. Howard Journal of Communications. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/10646175.2020.1819917

Olufowote, J. O. & Aranda, J. (2018). The PEN-3 cultural model: A critical review of health communication for Africans and African immigrants. In R. Ahmed & Y. Mao (Eds.), Culture, migration, and health communication in a global context (pp. 176-190). New York: Routledge.

Olufowote, J. O., Aranda, J., Wang, G. E., & Liao, D. (2017). Advancing the New Communications Framework for HIV/AIDS: The communicative constitution of HIV/AIDS networks in Tanzania’s HIV/AIDS NGO sector. Studies in Media and Communication, 5, 79-92. https://doi.org/10.11114/smc.v5i1.2390
 
Olufowote, J. O. (2017). An institutional field of people living with HIV/AIDS organizations in Tanzania: Agency, culture, dialogue, and structure. Frontiers in Communication [Health Communication specialty section], 2, doi: 10.3389/fcomm.2017.00001
 
Olufowote, J. O. (2017). Symbolic convergence theory. In C. Scott & L. Lewis (Eds.), The international encyclopedia of organizational communication (Vol. 4, pp. 2346-2353). New York: Wiley.
             
Olufowote, J. O. (2017). Limitations of research. In M. Allen (Ed.), The SAGE encyclopedia of communication research methods (pp. 863-864). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Olufowote, J. O., & Wang, G. E. (2016). Physician assimilation in medical schools: Dualisms of biomedical and biopsychosocial ideologies in the discourse of physician educators. Health Communication. Advance online publication. doi: 10.1080/10410236.2016.1167993 

Olufowote, J. O. & Matusitz, J. (2016). “How dark a world it is…where mental health is poorly treated”: Mental illness frames in sermons given after the Sandy Hook shootings. Health Communication. Advance online publication. doi:10.1080/10410236.2015.1089458

Olufowote, J. O. (2016). Identity constructions and inter-organizational collaboration: Islamic faith-based organizations and the polio vaccination stoppage in Northern Nigeria. Communication Quarterly. Advance online publication. doi:10.1080/01463373.2015.1129354

Matusitz, J., & Olufowote, J. O. (2016). Visual motifs in Islamist terrorism: Applying conceptual metaphor theory. Journal of Applied Security Research, 11, 18-32. doi: 10.1080/19361610.2016.1104276

Olufowote, J. O. (2015). Preparing future physicians in medical ethics: A tension-centered study of institutional and situational dualities. Communication Quarterly, 63, 254-271. doi: 10.1080/01463373.2015.1039713

Olufowote, J. O. (2014). Virtue training in medical schools: The perspective of behavioral science course directors. Health Communication. Advance online publication. doi: 10.1080/10410236.2013.861307

Olufowote, J. O. (2014). Organizations and health. In T. L. Thompson (Ed.), Encyclopedia of health communication (Volume 2, pp. 1007-1010). Thousand Oaks: Sage.

Olufowote, J. O., & Airhihenbuwa, C. O. (2014). Nigeria. In T. L. Thompson (Ed.), Encyclopedia of health communication (Volume 2, pp. 944-945). Thousand Oaks: Sage.

Koschmann, M., Bisel, R., Botero, I., Lin, C., Olufowote, J., Perriton, L.,…Wieland, S. (2012). An eye for an I—Thoughts about Management Communication Quarterly from the next generation. Management Communication Quarterly, 26, 656-681. doi: 10.1177/0893318912458761

Olufowote, J. O. (2011). Local resistance to the global eradication of polio: Newspaper coverage of the 2003-2004 vaccination stoppage in northern Nigeria. Health Communication, 26, 743-753. doi:10.1080/10410236.2011.566830

Olufowote, J. O. (2011). A dialectical perspective on informed consent to treatment: An examination of radiologists’ dilemmas and negotiations. Qualitative Health Research, 21, 839-852. doi: 10.1177/1049732311402097