An Exploratory Ethnography of the Gendered Communicative Behaviors of Bouncers

This research study focuses on combining my interests in interpersonal communication and organizational communication, and work experience as club security. Specifically, the research explores the communicative behaviors of club security (i.e., bouncers) in two different situational contexts, specifically those based on population and demographic composition. The communicative behaviors of bouncers were explored in two specific contexts in the Midwest: (1) a college town with mid-size city population, and (2) an urban center of one of the largest cities in the U.S. Utilizing an ethnographic methodological approach – as a participant-observer– as the primary data source, a commitment of 32 hours of observations were recorded. Through field notes, the data collected focuses on a variety of security communicative behaviors and how those behaviors are similar and different depending on different situational contexts. In the end, the analysis of the data focuses on interpersonal factors, gendered communicative behaviors, and the relational and business orientations of bouncers