UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Stephen Mainzer, associate professor of landscape architecture, and B. Stephen Carpenter II, Michael J. and Aimee Rusinko Kakos Dean in the Penn State College of Arts and Architecture, will discuss a book that Mainzer co-edited titled “Communicating Resiliency and Efficacy in a Digital Age: Mediated Communities,” on Oct. 14 at 4 p.m. inside the Woskob Family Gallery, located at 146 S. Allen Street in downtown State College.
Published in 2025, with additional co-editors Juliet Pinto, associate professor in Penn State’s Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications and Lola Xie, assistant professor of communication studies at Hong Kong Baptist University, the book takes an interdisciplinary look at the roles and processes associated with mediated communication in helping to foment community resiliency.
The chapters describe the nexus of communication, media, health and the environment, idnetifying leverage points to engage scholars across disciplines in the social sciences and humanities.
According to the book, human and ecological systems face substantial risks, and the ways individuals and communities adapt, change or otherwise transform are being increasingly highlighted as routes to address long-standing system-level problems. Central to this are the ways in which mediated communication may foster and support community resilience and collective efficacy.
Through a culture-centric lens, this edited collection looks at how the concepts of community resilience and collective efficacy have been applied to work across academic disciplines, and how new understandings and applications may result.
Mainzer, who earned his doctorate form Penn State in 2017, is a social scientist and designer who seeks to recenter place in U.S. democracy by exploring how coupled environmental and political sentiments shape, and are shaped, by people’s sense of place. His research focuses on how where people live affects identity, thoughts and actions toward the environment. In support of Penn State’s land grant mission, much of his work is centered in Pennsylvania and the Chesapeake Bay watershed.
Classes, student organizations and university offices are encouraged to visit the Woskob Family Gallery, a unit of the College of Arts and Architecture. Inquiries can be directed to woskob@psu.edu. For more information on this and other exhibitions, visit the Gallery’s website. Keep up to date with the Woskob Family Gallery by signing up for its Listserv or following on Instagram @woskobfamilygallery.