THE PARTICIPATORY COMMUNICATION AUDIT AS A CAPACITY BUILDING TOOL
By
Jessica Elaine Tess

A THESIS
Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of
Critical Studies in Literacy and Pedagogy- Master of Arts
2014

ABSTRACT
THE PARTICIPATORY COMMUNICATION AUDIT AS A CAPACITY BUILDING TOOL
By
Jessica Elaine Tess
As with other empirical methodologies, communication audits have been criticized for
ignoring the needs of some stakeholders. Some have called for audits of a more participatory
nature, in order to empower and respect community organization practitioners and build their
capacity as managers of their own complex systems of communication. With its own history of
participatory activist research, Writing and Rhetoric is well placed to address this call; therefore,
I am seeking to answer: what would a communication audit look like following a participatory
research strategy? I do this by reimagining the communication audit while working with the
Oakland County Permaculture Meetup (OCPM), ), a grassroots community organization focused
on providing a support network of knowledge and resources local food system topics in their
local area of Oakland County, Michigan. I partnered with them to evaluate their communication
systems since its formation over a 1.5 year period in a collaborative and participatory approach.
The Meetup group did not express any specific “problem” that they sought for us to address in
our evaluation, but to holistically determine what worked well within the group and what did not.
In doing so, I contribute to the developing management of OCPM communication systems, as
well as provide one viable model of a participatory communication audit to others.
Key Works: Communication audit, participatory, methodology, community partners,
capacity building, activism.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF TABLES………………………………………………………………………………..iv
THESIS…………………………………………………………………………………………....1
Research Site: OCPM……………………………………………………………………..2
Models of Communication Audits………………………………………………………..5
Participatory Research in Rhetoric and Composition……………………………………..8
Methods……………………………………………………………………………………….10
Results ………………………………………………………………………………………...13
How Communication Channels are Used………………………………………………..13
How Members Want to Use Communication Channels…………………………………15
Strengths of OCPM………………………………………………………………………16
Improvement Areas of OCPM…………………………………………………………...17
Discussion……………………………………………………………………………………..19
Recommendations……………………………………………………………………….19
Future Work: Participatory Communication Audits…………………………………….21
APPENDIX……………………………………………………………………………………..24
REFERENCES………………………………………………………………………………….28

iii

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: How Members Found Communication Channels………………………………………13
Table 2: How Communication Channels are Used………………………………………………14
Table 3: How Often Members Frequent Social Media-Survey………………………………….15
Table 4: How Often Members Attend Events……………………………………………………15

iv

THESIS
The communication audit is an evaluative activity with a principle focus on the quality
and value of elements involved in the exchange of information. Communication audits have
been consistently applied within organizations with the intention of improving the exchange of
meaningful information through various channels to specific audiences. Some common examples
of this dealing with external audiences might be a school district seeking outside
recommendations about their public relation practices, a newly formed nonprofit doing self
reflection on their image, or a hospital ensuring access to public healthcare information. Besides
external audiences, a communication audit might also be used to address the internal quality of
communication as information exchange, such as between departments in a corporation or
members of a team. Although specific reasons for employing a communication audit vary,
foundationally, most organization leaders realize the importance of communication for
successful management by revealing and minimizing instances of damaging miscommunication,
where an exchange of information did not yield intended results, as well as identifying and
reinforcing positive communicative processes and outcomes (Hargie and Tourish, 2000; Tourish
and Hargie, 2004; Hogard, & Ellis, 2006). Communication audits have been applied outside of
organizations to more nuanced community environments as well with similar intentions, though
less commonly, which I will mention in more detail later on.
Despite a general approval of the communication audit as a valid, reliable, and feasible
method for improving on communication systems (Hargie and Tourish, 2000; Tourish and
Hargie, 2004; Hogard, & Ellis, 2006), the communication audit has also undergone recent
criticism for lacking a holistic and interpretive methodology behind these methods. To be
specific, the communication audit has carried a reputation of coming in the form of a narrow,

1

even single-minded, package of fixing a problem with, “the auditor as an outside expert, a
diagnostician of communication problems, and an enforcer of best practice standards” (Jones,
2002). In contrast, Jones (2002) calls for auditors with who will play a role as skilled listeners
and collaborators with these community organizations instead of outside experts bent on
diagnosing problems and enforcing interventions. These “participatory” auditors would be
positioned to empower and respect community organization practitioners and build their capacity
as managers of their own complex systems of communication, rather than simply sweeping in to
save the day and leave again with their secrets of communication success.
As an opportunity to address this call, I partnered with the Oakland County Permaculture
Meetup, a grassroots community organization, in early 2014 in order to facilitate a self-reflective
assessment of primarily internal communication channels amongst group members and with
group leadership. I will ultimately provide one viable model of a participatory communication
audit to others through my work with them. Before explaining the methods of this project, I will
first provide a basic description of the Oakland County Permaculture Meetup and their desire to
work in a participatory manner, review common models of communication audits relevant to the
purpose and context of my community partners (as well as specific and commonly used methods
of communication audits) and provide the basis for what I consider participatory research from
scholars in the field of Writing and Rhetoric.
Research Site: OCPM
The Oakland County Permaculture Meetup was founded on July 23rd of 2012 where it
was and continues to be based out of the city of Clarkston in Oakland County, Michigan. As of
February 2014, it has hosted 32 community events, which are open to the public but announced
primarily through Meetup.com, an online social networking portal that facilitates offline group

2

meetings based on mutual interests. According to their Meetup page, “The Oakland County
Permaculture Meetup (OCPM) is an open network dedicated to connecting like-minded
individuals interested in permaculture design and the practices of sustainability. Through
fostering collaboration and cooperation the OCPM serves as a resource hub for sharing ideas,
information, experiences, tools, and more.” All of this happens primarily via consistent monthly
meetings and other randomly organized events throughout the year based on the desire of its
members around sustainability and permaculture topics.
According to the OCPM, permaculture is, “a whole-systems design protocol modeled on
the observation and study of natural systems. Permaculturists use the principles of
interconnection, diversity, resiliency, and conservation to design homes, landscapes, gardens,
organizations, farms, and more.” Put more simply, permaculture is an alternative model for
building human communities to work in harmony with the natural environment. Some of their
interests include:


edible landscaping



organic gardening and orcharding



local food



farming and homesteading



livestock



natural building



craft/DIY/fiber arts



foraging and wildcrafting



herbalism



cooking and food preservation
3



renewable and alternative energy



composting and waste systems



water and rainwater harvesting



nature awareness



primitive skills



holistic health and living



ecology



community



conservation

In summary, by developing and spreading the practices of permaculture, permaculturists
hope to one day make their philosophy mainstream, adapted to local environments.
The OCPM can be said to be part of a larger national trend known as the local food
movement, a grassroots response to the growing perception of hegemony in US farming and
agriculture. As the movement has gained momentum over the last decade, experts debate if it is
simply a sign of new policy and market shifts, or something more akin to a social movement
where food choices have become recognizably political (Starr, 2010;Anderson, 2009, Jun 28;
Hinrichs, 2003; Davis, M. C). “The ‘cosmology’ of the local food movement is food as
community (instead of commodity). The movement aims to build ‘local food systems,’ based on
ecological analyses such as watersheds, sustainable farming, seasonality, heritage of biodiversity,
and cultural preferences” (Starr, 2010). The movement lacks centralization due to their value on
local initiatives and doesn’t always agree but also has a strong collaborative network. The
OCPM is one example of a small local piece of this national movement. Though it is fairly
recent, it participated in the first Michigan Permaculture Convergence in 2013.
4

In all circumstances, the OCPM leaders and members work in an activist and
participatory manner amongst themselves and with others, due to their desire to work as a
community to improve the community. All of their presentations, workshops, and events are
hosted by the community for the purpose of helping the community in some manner. For
example, in the fall of 2013, one member of the group asked for assistance replacing some of her
lawn with a new perennial garden bed. Other members interested in learning various bed
preparation techniques, including tilling/sod removal, establishing pathways, and sheet mulching
with compost and leaves, volunteered to help in the labor. To support the nature of their work,
we sought that our partnership would exhibit these attributes as well. This required a reimagining
of typical communication audits, which I will now describe in more depth.
Models of Communication Audits
I have briefly mentioned the goals of communication audits in my introduction. To meet
these goals, according to Hogard and Ellis (2006) the practice of a communication audit often
includes, “The description of the major topics, sources, and channels of communication;
consideration of the quality and utility of information; and the identification of the positive and
negative experiences of users with a view to effecting improvement” (p. 178) see also Tourish
and Hargie (2004). For this purposes of this project, which has been collaborated within the
partnership between the OCPM and I, it is worth noting some distinctions of communication
audits intended for organizational environments, which encompasses a majority of how
communication audits have been and are utilized, as compared to those intended for unofficial
community contexts. Neither of these types of audits are inherently participatory.
In communication audits of formal organizations, the sought after outcomes are
recommendations to increase the overall effectiveness of communication practices and the three

5

most common communication audit tools or methods, especially for formal organizations but not
limited to them, include a survey questionnaire, confidential interviews, and participant
observation (Hogard & Ellis, 2006). This triad has been utilized in the past due to the well
rounded outcomes when they are arranged complementarily, compared to being limited by the
benefits and deficits of each of these individual methods when standing on their own. Thus,
while a “communication [survey] questionnaire can be modified to suit the needs of particular
organizations being evaluated” (Hogard & Ellis, 2006) and are generally cost effective , the
researchers cannot immediately follow up on answers to a question, predict how a question will
be interpreted, or discern the level of honesty and comfort by participants. This is of course the
case anytime survey instruments are used. Consequently, while a survey might be best in
creating a broad understanding of a given communication system, keeping the aforementioned
limitations in mind, interviews and instances of participant observation have strong potential to
bring depth to the auditors’ understanding of particular stakeholder perspectives. Conversely,
while interviews and participants observation offer avenues to pursue more detailed evidence
about what in a communication system are useful or obstructive and to whom, the auditors are
also limited to the number of interviews and situations of participant observation they can
logistically partake (Hogard & Ellis, 2006). While other relevant data, such as archived
documents or reports, might be gathered using methods outside of the three I have just described,
they are typically in addition to these primary three.
Given this, how might a community communication audit differ from that of a formal
organization? We might first consider that members of a community generally do not conform to
the hierarchies or orders of most organizations. Within formal organizations an individual is
typically identified clearly or given the primary role as a manger or supervisor, Human

6

Resources or IT, treasurer or president, contributing to certain shared ends. However, members
of a community, while assumed to have something in common with one another, often carry
many roles around with them depending on who they with, where they are, and for what purpose.
Put simply, a community assumes a more nuanced set of relationships and connections,
background, roles, and goals. Thus, in the context of a communication audit according to Jeffres
(2008), “a community communication audit would involve a broader set of channels, including
mass and specialized media, interpersonal face-to-face interaction across various roles and
contexts, and technologically mediated point-to-point channels.” Some additional methods an
auditor might choose to reach these channels include meetings with community informants,
analyses of public media messages, and inventories of mass media and physical locations.
It is worth emphasizing that the question of whether a group of people are an
organization or a community is somewhat circumstantial. While the OCPM is set up as an
independent organization in the sense that there is a hierarchical difference between members
and leadership, it is largely casual as leaders are those who were simply inspired by the idea
originally and have voluntarily devoted their time and energy into coordinating events and
initiatives. Further, these individuals were motivated by the concept of creating a supportive
community network through their efforts, which group members have continued to sustain and
expand upon. Therefore, since the OCPM would not distinctly place themselves solely in either
category of “organization” verses “community” or see these in a binary way, I avoided doing so
as well. I sought a model of the communication audit which encompasses attributes suited to
both a community and an organization.
Later on, I will describe in detail which tools and methods my community partners and I
chose to utilize for the purposes of our communication audit. However, this decision process

7

depended on our desire to imagine a communication audit that was participatory rather than
diagnostic. I would like to now discuss these motivations and concepts in greater length.
Participatory Research in Rhetoric and Composition
Previously, I mentioned critiques of the communication audit as a method lacking
sufficient collaborative reciprocity between auditors and those organization and/or community
members seeking the audit (Jones, 2002). Part of this critique focuses on the problematic role of
the auditor as the “expert.” Initially, it might seem counterproductive to find fault with this, since
we would assume auditors were called in because of their evaluative expertise in the first place.
To state this more accurately then, the auditor’s role as expert is problematic if they are seen as
the only expert in these circumstances. While the auditor might be an expert on evaluative
communication systems, members of a group are experts on that group’s history, its day to day
workings, needs, motivations, faults, and so on. In the worst case scenario, the auditor comes in
with an entirely preconceived idea of that best way the audit should be conducted, regardless of
any specifics of the given auditing environment, and gives a very impersonal and not at all
auditee-centered performance. In the best case scenario, the auditor does their best based on the
auditor’s own previous experience for this unique group and the presented goal, and misses out
on important information they could have received if they had viewed group members as fellow
experts in the first place. In both situations, the group receives end results but gains little from
the process as passive participants.
Many scholars of community work have made convincing arguments for more
participatory research relationships generally (Achieving the promise, 2010; Ellison, J., &
Eatman, T. E., 2008; Glass, C. R., & Fitzgerald, H. E., 2010); in this specific context, consider
the following example of how a conventionally non-participatory approach carries limitations

8

compared to one that is participatory, in which the expertise of organization/community
members are immediately recognized. In order to assess the public relations image of a school
district, an auditor decides to first arrange interviews with the academic staff about the
significant points of contact they have with the public while representing their school throughout
the semester. After a week and a half of interviews, one of these faculty happens to mention that
some parents have complained consistently about certain inconvenient miscommunications
concerning changes in school policy through the years. When the auditor relays this to the school
principal, he or she confirms having been aware of this problem from the beginning and hoped it
would be addressed at some point during the audit. Over a week has gone by before this problem
was even discovered! If the auditor and leaders of the school district had established a
reciprocally respectful relationship as fellow experts attempting to perform the audit jointly, the
auditor could have been aware of this agenda item in a more direct rather than roundabout way.
Further, the principal might have forged a new or more open relationship with his or her
superintendents in the process of working together with the auditor. Thus, I would emphasize
from this example how while the body of individuals seeking the communication audit most
likely will bring forward to the auditor a very specific motivation/s, the way in which the audit is
carried out will more likely bring benefits in and beyond the results when a participatory
approach is mutually realized.
In order to reimagine a communication audit that is both activist and participatory while
working with the OCPM, I turned to previous work done in the discipline of writing and rhetoric,
that has accomplished similar community-oriented activities. Blythe (2012) recognized various
recent writing and rhetoric scholars who have engaged in participatory activist research (e.g.,
Cushman, 1996; FalsBorda, 1991; Flower & Heath, 2000; Grabill, 2000; Powell & Takayoshi,

9

2003; Simmons, 2007; Sullivan & Porter, 1997). Since ‘activist’ and ‘participatory’ are huge
terms with all sorts of manifestations, I also turn to Blythe (2012) and these other scholars to
guide my understanding of them for this project. Work done by each of these previously
mentioned scholars were activist in the sense that they strived to improve the community to
which their research partners and participants belonged. Building on this, according to Blythe,
activist research also becomes participatory when, “activist researchers attempt to meet other
outcomes defined by participants—outcomes not necessarily recognized within the rewards
system of higher education” (p. 271). Thus, while I sought to improve the community of the
OCPM by improving their communication systems however possible, I did so in a way defined
by their goals and motivations.
Now that I have given a brief description of the OCPM, an overview of typical
communication audits, and my basis for reimaging an activist participatory communication audit
through my partnership with them, I will now continue on to describing my methods.
Methods
At the November 2013 OCPM monthly meeting, group organizers decided to deviate
from hosting the usual skillshare presentation, where one member volunteers to give an
introduction to a permaculture-related topic they have experience with to the rest of the group.
Instead, the group organizers decided to engage in some group reflection about what they had
accomplished thus far and contributed toward the community, and what they wanted to do in the
future. Thus, one of the organizers put together a slideshow of pictures from previous OCPM
events and narrated the presentation, which transitioned into a larger discussion about the
OCPM.
According to the Meetup page, 40 members attended this meeting and there were at least
five self-announced newcomers who had never attended the OCPM before. During this
10

discussion, many members responded about things they really liked about the group thus far, but
also quite a lot of people mentioned ways they wanted the group to improve, especially in regard
to certain OCPM communication channels, such as the Meetup and Facebook pages. After the
discussion transitioned into an unstructured social hour, I approached the OCPM
communications specialist and one other organizer and made this observation. I offered it might
be a good idea to build off this meeting with a more formal assessment of the OCPM. The
organizers liked the idea and wanted to know if I would volunteer to do this assessment. I agreed
and the communications specialist and I followed up afterward to plan out what this assessment
would include. She expressed that the organizers would like to answer the following questions:


Where do organizers post information? Where do members get most of their information? Is
the OCPM posting our information in the places where members are looking?



What communication practices are working well, meaning members are successfully
receiving wanted information, which the group needs to keep doing?



How do members want to use the group’s social media channels? Do they use each channel
differently, or are the channels used in much the same way?



Do members feel they have access to communicating with the organizers? Why or why not?



What do members want more information about in regard to permaculture and the OCPM?
To begin the audit, after doing an inventory of the different OCPM communication

channels, the communication specialist felt it would be useful to create and disseminate a short
survey via Meetup.com to OCPM members. Based on the questions we had brainstormed above,
I put together a survey draft that would attempt to get at this desired information. After a few
iterations of getting her feedback and making revisions, the communication specialist sent out to
survey on the OCPM Meetup listserve (see Appendix A). For the survey, there were 27

11

respondents over the course of two and a half weeks in January and February 2014. Of these
respondents, 12 reported being members of the OCPM since its inception, eight had been
members one year of less, and four had been members six months or less.
To compliment the results of the survey, I suggested incorporating participant
observation at some OCPM events and analyses of the OCPM social media pages, as well as
some informal interviews with organizers and/or members as needed. Outside of my past
participation in the group as a semi regular member, after the November 2013 meeting I was able
to engage in participant observation at another meeting in December. Analysis of the OCPM
Meetup page included posted information about the OCPM, events, reported attendance of
events, and forum discussion. Analysis of the OCPM Facebook page included the content and
frequency of all posts and interactions with posts such as comments, likes, and shares.
After we collected results from the survey, I realized I wanted to write about this
experience and approached the OCPM organizers with my request to do so. With their approval,
I then received IRB approval from my university that would include results of the completed
survey and the other data I mentioned above we would collect. Since I conducted informal
interviews with the OCPM organizers, they were provided with approved consent forms. As we
proceeded, I also took notes about the manner in which my partners and I were collaborating to
complete the audit. After synthesizing the survey responses with all other data collected, I
reported the results to OCPM organizers in order to discuss next steps. I will elaborate more on
this in the next sections. Thus, I will now present results of the audit and provide a discussion of
what these results mean for the OCPM, as well as the outcome of this project for scholars
interested in executing participatory communication audits.

12

Results
The OCPM organizers and I were interested in learning the following from the results of
the communication audit (in addition to the questions mentioned before): a description of how
participants use various communication channels within the group, what communication
practices seem to be working well and what could be improved, and what participants would like
to learn from the group in the future.
How Communication Channels are Used
I reminded my partners that, as of now, there are two main in-person events at which
members frequent and exchange information: monthly skillshare meetings and permablitz
events. There are also two main social media networks which are online extensions of the
OCPM: the Meetup and Facebook page. The monthly skillshare meetings and Meetup.com page
are reported to be utilized the most often and by the most participants. However, all
communication channels represented on the survey (Meetp, Facebook, email, word-of-mouth,
and events) were reported to be used for various purposes, even if it was a minority, which is
illustrated in Table 1 below.

Method of Finding OCPM

OCPM Communication Channels

Communication Channels: Meetup Facebook Monthly Skillshare Permablitz
Meetup.com

9

Facebook.com

2

E-mail
Word of Mouth

17

8

Other Events
Hadn’t Heard

4

17

17

4

5

9

12

8

6

5

7

2

1

Table 1: How Members Found Communication Channels

13

I shared with organizers that there is a distinct difference in how members communicate on
the social media pages mentioned, illustrated in Table 2. For information about the OCPM group
and group events, Meetup is the clear favorite, with participants reporting using Meetup 24 out
of 27 times. Meetup.com was also the most popular way members initially found out about the
OCPM as a group, with word of mouth as a close runner up. On the other hand, for other
purposes such as sharing resources, networking, and contacting organizers, the OCPM Facebook
page had a more even spread of usage with Meetup.com. However, four participants reported
being unaware of the Facebook page until taking the survey. At least three members also
expressed being previously unaware of the Facebook page at the December 2013 monthly
meeting. I will address this further on.

Purpose:

OCPM Communication Channels
Meetup.com

Facebook Page Monthly Skillshare

Permablitz

For information about the
group and group events

24

12

9

7

6

4

11

10

To network with other
Permies

19

10

19

10

22

14

To contact group organizers

The share and find resources

To learn more about
Skillshare/Permablitz topic

Table 2: How Communication Channels are Used

Something else the results of the audit revealed is a clear in-person community and online
community within the OCPM, with some members clearly belonging to one or the other and
14

some active in both (not represented in the tables). For example, members who had never heard
of the Facebook page reported attending in person events always or most of the time, as well as
that they receive their information about the group and network in person more than other
communication channels. Expectedly, those who reported having never or rarely attended events
were more likely to frequent OCPM social media. Tables 3 and 4 show overall reported online
and in-person attendance.
OCPM Social
Media:

Frequency of Visits:
Daily

Weekly

Monthly

Once or

N/A

Twice
Meetup.com

0

9

12

5

0

Facebook Page

1

3

6

3

12

Table 3: How Often Members Frequent Social Media-Survey

OCPM InPerson Events:
Monthly

Frequency of Attendance:
All

Most

Sometimes

Rarely

Never

5

7

9

2

2

1

1

9

5

6

Skillshare
Permablitz

Table 4: How Often Members Attend Events

How Members Want to Use Communication Channels
In addition to how these social media pages are being used, participants were asked how
they would like to see these pages be used in the future. I informed my partners of unique
insights given by participants. For example, one survey respondent, who is also part of other
permaculture related groups, stated, “[Post] Anything relevant to permaculture. Outside events,
news, projects people have questions on. I'm also a member of AMPY (Ypsi permaculture) and
people post a lot more stuff on their facebook. OCPM is dead by comparison.” This may be in
15

part because not all OCPM are aware of the Facebook page, which also only boasts just over half
the members (176) as the Meetup (300) as of March 2014.
Another responder stated, “I would use the meet-up page for meeting/event dates and the
Facebook page for sharing resources, networking, meeting notes and videos, share documents.”
This last quote partially reiterates how the OCPM organizers had assumed the pages would be
used when the group had initially formed, the Meetup for meeting information and the Facebook
as more social (T. Newman, personal communication, December 10, 2013). However, as this
audit revealed, while this is a popular way for members to differentiate their usage of the pages,
my partners were made aware that some participants do not the communication channels in this
manner.
At the December 2013 monthly meeting, a few members have expressed a desire to start
special topics groups within the OCPM. Organizers had prompted this idea at the group’s
inception but the idea seemed premature at the time (D. Discoll, personal communication,
January 8, 2014). However, roughly a year and a half later, the idea has resurfaced. My partners
and I found that one survey respondent followed up on the meeting discussion about starting to
facilitate specialization within the group, “I think it may be a useful exercise for us to have a
sign-in sheet which provides a space for people to list some of their skill sets that could be used
for the benefit of the individual and group.” At the meeting, members debated facilitating special
interest groups on Meetup verses other mediums.
Strengths of OCPM
My partners and I were pleased to find there is consistent high satisfaction with the OCPM,
concerning content of the in-person events and group communication as a whole, especially for
members local enough to frequently attend events. The OCPM has hosted a total of 33 events

16

with an average of 22 members attending each event, the lowest being five and the highest being
46. Participants had positive feelings about all permaculture topics discussed previously, with
plenty of requests for future meetings. Fourteen members praised the group generally in their
survey responses with similar comments to the following, “OCPM is a most valuable resource
for Oakland County residents. I applaud Mark, Trevor and Dana for starting this unique
important educational, fun, and forward-thinking project.” A majority of participants felt they
could easily contact the group organizers and one another. There is also consistent satisfaction
with the Meetup page as its most popular communication channel, be it for group information,
networking, or sharing resources.
Improvement Areas of OCPM
While there was high satisfaction with the OCPM from participants, my partners and I also
discussed areas of improvement made apparent through the audit. There are some gaps outside of
Meetup.com due to inconsistent posting from organizers. For example, permablitz events are
always posted on Meetup but not always in other places. Members who frequent Facebook were
sometimes unaware of Permablitz events. Whereas monthly meetings are always posted on both
Meetup and Facebook. These events are usually sent via e-mail, unless members have turned off
email notifications by the social media pages. One exception to the satisfaction with Meetup.com
was that two survey respondents felt they could not easily find organizer contact information.
With Facebook, my partners and I realized gaps in how members seek to use this page
and how organizers perceive the page is used should be addressed. Currently, there is an average
of 10 original posts per month, which are seen by an average of 75 other members with regular
likes, comments, and shares. However, the survey and participant observation in monthly

17

meetings show there is a wish by OCPM online community members to have more content
shared from in person meetings, which they cannot attend, on Facebook and Meetup.
Finally, I reported to my partners there were many permaculture topics that survey
participants in particular expressed wanting to learn more about through skillshares at monthly
meetings and/or permablitz events. These topics included:


Regulatory requirements for producing and selling food



Beverages, and personal care products from small scale farms/homesteads



Rotation principles for crops and vegetable gardens



Companion planting



Homemade control methods for garden pests



Compost heating and rocket mass heaters



Hydroponics



Permaculture design



Edible forest gardens



Fermentation other than beer and wine (kombucha, kefir, vegetables)



Growing fungi



Beekeeping



Preserving food



Natural medicinals,



Issues affecting state and national food rights.

In the past, all skill related presentations have been scheduled seasonally and on a volunteer
basis. If any of these topics is not part of any specific OCPM member expertise, then organizers
will decide on new ways to address them.
18

Discussion
In this section, I will share the recommendations I made to the OCPM organizers, steps
that have been made in the OCPM around those recommendations, and a broader discussion of
participatory communication audits for other scholars.
Recommendations
In light of these findings from the communication audit, I had two short term and two
long term recommendations for the OCPM organizers that I will describe below. After, I will
share what progress has been made by organizers to take action on them.
Short Term


Posting messages consistently throughout all the OCPM communication channels



Document practices of skillshares, permablitzes and other in-person events online

Long Term


Consider level of commitment to an online OCPM community



Plan a long-term strategy for supporting special interest groups

This audit has shown that OCPM members use different communication channels for a
variety of reasons and that there exists distinct in person and online communities. Thus, in the
short term, I recommended that with more consistent posting and messaging across all OCPM
communication channels, there will be less chance that OCPM members will miss information
they want to know about events or other things related to the group. Better documentation
practices, such as video recording, note taking, etc., will better serve OCPM members who are
either regular members on the online community only, as well as regular in person community
members who must miss certain meetings. This will also contribute to the sustainability of the

19

group by allowing future members to have access to previously presented permaculture skills
and topics and future presenters to build upon previous work.
In the long term, I encouraged OCPM organizers to consider how much they want to
commit to supporting and sustaining an online OCPM community. Short term documentation
practices will be meant to support current local members primarily. Some online members have
expressed interest in more resources to create their own permaculture community groups in there
are. Further online involvement and commitment, such as partnering with other online groups or
contributing to online forums and project, would be necessary to provide online resources for
these online members. Also, as the number of permaculture groups grows in Michigan and the
Midwest more broadly so does the online permaculture network. OCPM should consider how
and if they wish to contribute to this network.
Finally, I recommended if the OCPM wishes to support special interest groups, they
should consider the logistics of them in the long term. Who should lead these special interest
groups? How will they handle a change in leadership? Where and when should these groups
meet with one another? How should special interest groups be announced and posted? What part
will they play in the OCPM as a whole? How much should OCPM organizers facilitate verses
letting group members facilitate on their own? Addressing these things now will increase the
potential sustainability and positive outcomes of these special interest groups.
Although I shared these above recommendations with all four of the OCPM organizers, I
was able to have an in-depth discussion about them with their communications specialist. The
outcome of this meeting was very productive for their team looking forward since we are able to
discuss specific plans of action to address recommendations from the communication audit. The
communications specialist agreed with the reasoning behind more consistent posting across all

20

communication channels and expressed this had always been their intention from the beginning.
The audit helped make them aware of the gaps. Secondly, the communication specialist decided
to suggest to her fellow organizers that they bring on a volunteer from the group into the
leadership, in order to be solely in charge of better documentation practices. She came to this
conclusion since each of the organizers already had a lot of responsibility spread between them
and really couldn’t take on more. They have since started searching for members who might be
interested in taking on this responsibility. I am one of the members they have extended this
invitation to.
The organizers have not come to any precise plans of action to address the long term
recommendations at this time. For now, after the organizers engaged in some initial debate
concerning future growth of an online community, thinking it is a good question to consider. All
of the organizers seemed in agreement that they wanted to ensure they were serving their local
members with their efforts. Any ambitions towards something that would serve a larger audience
than this were not realistic for their group at this point. Thus, one result of the audit has been to
strengthen their resolve for their local cause. Similarly, organizers plan to return to the topic of
special interest groups in the near future.
Future Work: Participatory Communication Audits
With this communication audit, I set out to engage in one example of a participatory
communication audit as an answer to the call made by scholars such as Jones (2002). The
circumstances of this audit were somewhat unique in that I, a semi-regular member in the group,
volunteered to help with the task of the audit when I heard organizers expressing a need to assess
their group communication. The speed of our progression was assisted by my semi regular
membership in the OCPM, which allowed me to build on a foundation of my relationship to the

21

organizers and my understanding of the group. Thus, both parties were more quickly able to
openly express intentions and goals and gain from the process as well as the results.
Upon reflection, I feel the biggest strength of this participatory communication audit has
been how my community partners and I were able to each engage in a capacity building process.
For example, on my part I gained valuable experience with one way a participatory
communication audit can function within an informal community organization. For my
community partners, they were able to begin building a process of regular group assessment by
which to evaluate the OCPM as it continues to grow and evolve. Since they participated in the
audit from beginning to end, it is something they can more confidently replicate in the future. I
do not think these benefits would have been as tangible if I had been brought in as an outsider
with the intention of diagnosing problems on the authority of my expertise alone.
For other scholars and/or professionals who also seek to engage in a participatory
communication audit, along with Jones (2002) I strongly suggest a shift in thinking about one’s
role as the communication auditor away from being the “expert.” This then begs the question if
not an expert, then what? In this participatory communication audit with the OCPM, I found
myself inhabiting a comfortable role as a “subject matter consultant.” Put simply, the nature of a
consultant is less concerned with authority and more concerned with contribution. The shift from
expert to consultant, I think does several things but most importantly makes room for the
auditor(s) to continue recognizing the expertise of their partners. It also serves as a reminder
about who has true ownership among stakeholders in the success of the audit. In large part, this
was based on my previous experience as a writing consultant in university writing centers.
Although there are many attributes one could list of what makes superior consultants, I would
like to point out three.

22



Do more listening more than talking with partners to avoid assumptions



Make decisions about the methods and workflow of the communication audit together



Use models of communication audits only as a guide for what is possible
Of course, it is entirely possible and even likely that in some circumstances a group or

community will want someone to come in as an outside expert and that they will want that
person to make all the decisions and perform all the work as an “expert.” Powell and Takayoshi
(2003) on the topic of authentic reciprocity have addressed this circumstance quite thoroughly.
They assert that we should always make sure we are serving our partner’s agenda more than our
own. In this case, serving our partner’s agenda might mean engaging in what looks like a more
traditional communication audit if one’s partners aren’t interested in being involved with
decision-making in a fully collaborative manner.
From this experience with the OCPM, my other advice for communication auditors
wishing to invite a more participatory methodology would be to make participant observation a
priority, if possible. Participant observation has the advantage of being able to listen to many
stakeholders at once in a natural setting and experience their circumstances first hand.
Ultimately, even more than how to make a communication audit participatory, communication
auditors should be asking how they can make such a moment sustainable for their partners. How
can their partners maintain the outcomes once the auditor leaves? No doubt, involving
community partners in the auditing process will give them a greater chance of increasing their
own capacity but that might not be one of their end goals. While every situation will be different,
a communication auditor should be ready to put their own agenda aside and aim not for
perfection, but progress.

23

APPENDIX

24

OCPM Group Reflection and Feedback Survey
1. How did you initially find the Oakland County Permaculture Meetup (OCPM)?
Meetup.com
The Facebook Page
Word of Mouth
Other:
2. How long have you been a member of the OCPM?
3. How often do you use the Meetup Page?
Daily
Weekly
Monthly
I’ve only visited it once or twice without habit
n/a
4. Please check all the reasons/ways you use the Meetup webpage
For information about the group and group events
To network with other permies
To contact the group organizers
To share and find resources
n/a
Other:
5. How often do you use the FB Page?
Daily
Weekly
Monthly
I’ve only visited it once or twice without habit
n/a
6. How did you find the OCPM Facebook Page?
7. Please check all the reasons/ways you use the Facebook Page
For information about the group and group events
To network with other permies
To contact the group organizers
To share and find resources
n/a
Other:
8. How have you found out about the Permablitz events in the past?
Meetup.com
Facebook
E-mail
Word of Mouth
All other OCPM Events
25

I have not heard about Shillshare events before
Other:
9. How often do you attend Permablitz events?
I attend all
I attend most
I sometimes attend
I rarely attend
I never attend
10. Please list all the reasons you attend Permablitz events
To learn more about a Skillshare topic
To network and/or spend time with other permies
To find and share resources
11. What kinds of things do you want us to be posting in the Facebook page or Meetup page?
12. How have you found out about the Permablitz events in the past? Check all that apply
Meetup.com
Facebook
E-mail
Word of Mouth
All other OCPM events
I have not heard about the Permablitz events before
Other:
13. How often do you attend Permablitz events?
I attend all
I attend most
I sometimes attend
I rarely attend
I never attend
14. Please check all the reasons you have attended Permablitz events
To learn more about a Permablitz topic
To network/spend time with other Permies
To find and share resources
Other:
15. How do you primarily communicate with other OCPM Members? The method you use
most?
Meetup
Facebook
E-mail
Monthly Skillshares events
Permablitz events
Other:
26

16. What are secondary ways you communicate with OCPM members? Check all that apply
Meetup
Facebook
E-mail
Monthly Skillshares events
Permablitz events
Other:
17. Do you feel you can easily contact other members and group organizers? Why or why
not?
18. What would you like more information about from the OCPM?
19. Since becoming a member of the OCPM, describe some of the things you have you
learned.
20. Are there topics you would like to learn about from the OCPM that you haven’t yet?
Please describe.
21. Is there a topic you would like to contribute on within the OCPM, whether through a
Skillshare, Permablitz, or other venue? Please describe.
22. Do you have any other comments about the OCPM or things you’d like us to know?

27

REFERENCES

28

REFERENCES

Achieving the promise of authentic community-higher education partnerships: A community
partner summit executive summary. (2007). WA: Community- Campus Partnerships for
Health.
Anderson, S. (2009, Jun 28). The fresh revolution: Farmers and retailers joining growing local
food movement. McClatchy - Tribune Business News.
Blythe, S. (2012). Composing activist research. In Powell & Takayoshi (Eds.), Practicing
research in writing studies: Reflexive and ethically responsible research (271-287). New
York: Hampton Press Inc.
Cushman, E. (1996). The rhetorician as an agent of social change. College Composition and
Communication, 47(1), 7-28.Fals Borda, O. (1991). Some basic ingredients. In O. Fals
Borda (Ed.), Action and knowledge: Breaking the monopoly with participatory action
research (pp. 3-12). New York: Apex.
Davis, M. C. Farmers' engagement with the local food movement: A case study of waterloo,
ontario. Order No. AAIMR67458, Masters Abstracts International, 0923.
Ellison, J., & Eatman, T. E. (2008). Scholarship in public: Knowledge creation and tenure
policy in the engaged university. A Resource on promotion and tenure in the arts,
humanities, and design. Syracuse, NY: Imagining America
Flower, L., & Heath, S. B. (2000). Drawing on the local: Collaboration and community
expertise. Language and Learning across the Disciplines, 4, 43-55.
Glass, C. R., & Fitzgerald, H. E. (2010). Engaged scholarship: Historical roots, contemporary
challenges. In H. E. Fitzgerald, C. Burack & S. Seifer (eds). Handbook of engaged
scholarship: Contemporary landscapes, future directions. Vol. 1: Institutional change.
(pp. 9-24). East Lansing, MI: MSU Press
Grabill, J. T. (2000). Shaping local HIV/AIDS services policy through activist research: The
problem of client involvement. Technical Communication Quarterly, 12(3), 29-50.
Hargie, O. & Tourish, D., (2000). Handbook of communication audits for organizations. New
York: Routledge.
Hinrichs, C. C. (2003). The practice and politics of food system localization. Journal of Rural
Studies, 19(1), 33-45.
Hogard, E., & Ellis, R. (2006). Evaluation and communication: Using a communication audit to
evaluate organizational communication. Evaluation Review, 30(2), 171-187.
29

Jeffres, L. W. (2008). An urban communication audit: Measuring aspects of a 'communicative
city'. The International Communication Gazette, 70(3), 257.
Jones, D. (2002). The interpretive auditor: Reframing the communication audit. Management
Communication Quarterly,15(3), 466-471.
Oakland County Permaculture Meetup. (2014, March 27). Webpage. Retrieved at
http://www.meetup.com/Oakland-County-Permaculture/
Powell, K., & Takayoshi, P. (2003). Accepting the roles created for us: The ethics of reciprocity.
College Composition and Communication, 54(3), 394-422.
Starr, A. (2010). Local food: A social movement? Cultural Studies – Critical
Methodologies, 10(6), 479-490.
Simmons, W. M. (2007). Participation and power: Civic discourse in environmental policy
decisions.Albany: State University of New York Press.
Sullivan, P., & Porter, J. (1997). Opening spaces: Writing technologies and critical research
practices. Greenwich, CT: Ablex.
Tourish, D. & Hargie, O., (2004). Communication audits: Building world class communication
systems. In S. Oliver, (ed.) Handbook of corporate communication and public relations:
pure and applied (131-144). London: Routledge.

30