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Saferstein, Ph.D.

Barry Saferstein, Ph.D. (1995)

Professor of Communication

Email: bsaferst@csusm.edu
Phone: (760) 750-4203
Office:  SBSB 2216

Barry Saferstein is one of the founding faculty of the CSUSM Communication Department. He was the initial organizer of the Communication lab facilities, and a developer of the Department’s Media Studies B.A. degree (formerly Mass Media). Prof. Saferstein’s courses focus on qualitative research methods, and the relationship of communication and culture in regard to the production of global media, particularly the internet. His current research examines clinical consultations in the U.S. and Sweden, explaining the effects of communication patterns, information resources, and professional culture on patients’ understandings of medical conditions and treatment options.

Prof. Saferstein is a cognitive sociologist, who applies discourse analysis to study social aspects of cognition in organizational settings. His research emphasizes analysis of recorded data, which presents the sociolinguistic, embodied, and environmental components of cognition and communication. Topics of Prof. Saferstein’s research have included: explanations and understandings in clinical and educational settings, patient-clinician interaction, genetics education, public understanding of genetics, and the application of digital technologies to qualitative research methods. He also has published studies of television production settings in the United Kingdom and the United States, examining collaboration, agenda setting activities, and the interactional construction of ideology.

Prof. Saferstein’s recent publications include: Understanding and Interaction in Clinical and Educational Settings (Saferstein, 2016; Equinox Publishers); “Benefits to patients and clinicians of discussing explanatory images during uterine fibroid consultations,” (Saferstein et al., Journal of Radiology Nursing 36.2: 104-111, 2017); Persistence: An interactional ecology of professional authority,” (Saferstein, Journal of Applied Linguistics and Professional Practice, 10.2: [2017]).