Graduation Year

2026

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree

Ph.D.

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)

Degree Granting Department

Communication

Major Professor

Marleah Dean Kruzel, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Steven Wilson, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Joshua Scacco, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Aubrey Huber, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Janelle Applequist Louden, Ph.D.

Keywords

Autobiography, Narrative, Masculinity, Humor

Abstract

The purpose of this dissertation study was to explore how an autoethnographic performance of my experience of prostate cancer could serve as a method of applied health communication, designed to encourage men to be screened for prostate cancer. One in eight men in the United States will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in his lifetime. However, while the incidence rate of prostate cancer is increasing—particularly of advanced-stage disease—the number of men choosing to be screened is declining (American Cancer Society, 2025).This study explores the barriers to men being screened, both in the literature and in my personal experience. Among those barriers identified are 1) recommendations against screening from government and healthcare organizations, 2) the attitudes and beliefs of individual clinicians about screening, 3) men’s avoidance of healthcare in general, 4) men’s lack of knowledge and understanding about prostate cancer screening and of the nature of the disease itself, and 5) the perceived threat to masculine identity posed by a disease of the male reproductive system.

Using uncertainty management theory (UMT) and the communication theory of resilience (CTR) as frameworks, I first explore how I encountered, manifested, and sought to overcome these barriers in my own experience. I examine how I managed my uncertainty and enacted resilience processes throughout the course of my disease—in screening, diagnosis, treatment, and survivorship—in communication with clinicians, family, social networks, social media, online and, on occasion, a higher court. I then explore how I created an embodied autobiographical performance of my experience. Results of an audience survey demonstrate the potential of this performance to educate and encourage men to consider prostate cancer screening.

This dissertation contributes to the literature by adding to our understanding of patient uncertainty management and enactment of resilience over the entire trajectory of a disease, following a diagnosis of prostate cancer. It also extends UMT and CTR into the method of performance communication, and as theoretical frameworks for applied communication research about prostate cancer. It further contributes to scholarship on autobiographical performance as a method of applied health communication.

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