“This is who I am and this is what I’m carrying”: examining self-disclosure in forensics

Abstract

The forensic activity provides an opportunity for students to tackle a variety of topics and subjects. Many topics, specifically in individual events, can provide an outlet for competitors to self-disclose information to audience members. For this qualitative study, we interviewed 13 participants to understand how forensic competitors use self-disclosure within forensics. Our findings suggest that competitors use forensic competitions to implicitly and explicitly self-disclose private information. Additionally, competitors noted using negative experiences with disclosure and general forensic norms to develop privacy boundary rules when determining whether to self-disclose. Most importantly, the study results provide descriptions of and explanations for the types of communication strategies competitors incorporated when considering self-disclosures in forensics. We discuss implications for communication privacy management theory and for competitors, forensic practitioners, and communication scholars.

Keywords:

• Self-disclosure
• forensics
• communication privacy management theory
• qualitative study

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank Professor Mary Cantrell for her assistance with the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kristopher Copeland

Kristopher Copeland, Ph.D., is the Metro Campus Provost at Tulsa Community College. Kristopher’s research interests include political communication, disability-disclosure, and forensics. His recent publications have been published in Disability and Society, Speaker and Gavel, and Intercultural Communication Studies. Kristopher is co-editor of the book Competition, Community, and Educational Growth: Contemporary Perspectives on Competitive Speech and Debate. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Arkansas.

Ant Woodall

Ant Woodall, MA, is a graduate student in the Communication Department at the University of Oklahoma. Ant’s research interests include political trust, socialization, and partisan news. Ant holds an MA from Northeastern State University.