This paper investigates the relationship between blank and non-blank email subject lines on levels of response to a solicitation to participate in an interview, and on participation in a web survey. Email use has grown substantially in recent years, presenting significant opportunity to the empiricist seeking research respondents. However,…

The identification and examination of cultural information strategies and censorship patterns used to propagate the controversial issue of the caricatures in two separate cultural contexts was the aim of this dissertation. It explored discourse used for the coverage of this topic by one newspaper in a restrictive information context and two…

Because of an absence of theory, rules and conventions for thesaurus construction and maintenance, an investigation of how thesauri are actually updated was conducted. Two concepts crucial to any theoretical foundation of thesauri and two techniques for systematic updating of a thesaurus are presented for consideration. (46 references) (Author/KE)

A hypothetical methodology is presented for measuring retrieval effectiveness by using the personal utility, based on a user's subjective evaluation, of a retrieval system's output. Because the methodology is impractical, compromise methods are outlined and their underlying assumptions, which can serve as criteria for formulating appropriate…

In view of the apparent complexity and dynamism of the learner, only a systems approach to learning processes can provide a viable and practical frame of reference within which to conduct educational research. There are fundamental weaknesses in the current cybernetic model of learning, and therefore, it is useful to consider the learner as an…

The author suggests ways to overcome the conceptual and methodological limitations of studies involving campaign speaking and voting behavior. (Author/MF)

The history of the International Communication Association's Communication Audit is briefly reviewed, and possible benefits and pitfalls of the approach are discussed. Certain assumptions and methods underlying the Communicaton Audit are critiqued. (AA)

The purpose of this work is to help build and bridge between total overviews of the fields of information science and empirical research. This is done by building a model for linking multidisciplinary approaches into a relevant and effective whole, and for deriving testable propositions from this new framework. (63 references) (Author/KE)

A taxonomy for modeling information systems is presented. Epistemology is used as a prescriptive modeling basis and it is shown how the different models can be made scientifically operational by using a special kind of systems analysis. Results of a preliminary experiment based on one of the models are presented. (60 references) (Author/KE)

Many scholars engaged in the study of human communication have indicated the need for a "process orientation" in theory and research. But relatively little work exists which has actually made use of the concept of process. This paper attempts to act as a guidebook to sources of information of potential use to the scholar interested in learning to…

After discussion of the equivalency of the information laws of Bradford, Leimkuhler, Lotka, and Mandelbrot, aberrations from Leimkuhler's law (including "Groos droop" as encountered in practice) are studied. Other aberrations of Leimkuhler's law are explained, starting from generalization of verbal formulation of Bradford's Law. (18…

A new information-theoretically justified approach to missing data estimation for multivariate categorical data was studied. The approach is a model-based imputation procedure relative to a model class (i.e., a functional form for the probability distribution of the complete data matrix), which in this case is the set of multinomial models with…

A two-process theory of human information processing is proposed and applied to detection, search, and attention phenomena. (Editor)