Paul Witt challenges every reader to make a decision in response to the question: "Will the profession follow these recommendations presented in this forum?" Will "quick and dirty" survey methods be exchanged for more complex research designs?" He cautions readers to think first before replying, warning that this is a…

Discusses the establishment of collective memory studies. Addresses six premises for collective remembering that are basic to contemporary scholarship: that collective memory is processual, unpredictable, partial, useable, both particular and universal, and material. Discusses the future of collective memory studies. (SR)

Argues that scholars in communication studies, rather than engaging questions about "the field" or "the divide," should instead ask questions about who they are, and who they become, when they engage in certain kinds of communication inquiry--ontological questions about epistemological consequences. (SR)

Uses a typology to characterize the situation in communication research in 1993 as compared to the situation in 1983. Compares previous predictions to the present situation and makes new predictions. Argues that a cause for the fragmentation in communication studies is the lack of a basic precondition for cumulative growth--formal models. (SR)

Noting that debates between theoreticians and practitioners of advertising are as old as the discipline itself, this paper discusses the logics of research for each group in order to identify strategies of research for both practitioners and researchers that will result in a satisfactory explanation of how advertising works. The various sections…

Argues that, to make itself more central to studies in its own field, American communication should embrace its traditional, albeit now greatly expanded, subject matter (communication), while at the same time abandoning all institutional vestiges of its narrow and long outmoded approaches to the field. (SR)

Attributes the lack of disciplinary status accorded communication to the lack of ontological status granted the very idea of communication in modernity. Argues that the field should deny modernity's bifurcation by asserting that communication is foundational and attempt to forward a unique communication ontology. (SR)

Argues that communication research needs to move toward better integration of observations on the microlevel with systemic generalizations about macrolevel phenomena, and reorient research away from the media behavior and responses of individuals and toward the cumulative consequences of media behavior over time. (SR)

Claims that the field of communication is moving beyond theorizing that treats communication as a process, to what might be called "multiple-process theory." Examines views of message-processing modes and effects, enlarges the scope of inquiry by considering a multiplicity of levels of analysis, and discusses a philosophical orientation compatible…

Discusses particular tensions within the area of interpersonal communication theory and research surrounding the study of social and personal relationships. Argues that important issues have been ignored as scholars pursue a spurious conflict between communication science and communication hermeneutics. (SR)

Uses three quotations from Gregory Bateson to inform the author's comments on the discipline of communication. Argues that communication teachers and scholars must aim for a curriculum and a mode of study, research, and teaching that leads to means of recognizing, addressing, and responding to truly significant questions, rather than disciplinary,…

Addresses a recurring inconsistency in the epistemic interpretation of the Family Communication Patterns scales. Reviews the traditional linkage to coorientation and proposes a more direct interpretation. Results confirm that subjects associate the scales with underlying dimensions of conformity or control and openness or supportiveness. Provides…

Argues for the importance of the classical tradition (broad, speculative, and historically informed writing and research) in public opinion research. Argues that asking large, normative questions about public opinion processes, trying to build grand theory, and taking history seriously will enrich the field and command the attention of scholars in…

Considers, in a special issue on the topic, criteria for the admissibility of evidence and how methodology affects what is considered to be evidence. Argues that accessibility and accountability are more important than admissibility and that researchers should implicate their subjectivities in their research practices as well as explicate the…

Discusses how the validity and reliability of business communication research can be improved by using both quantitative and qualitative methods and studying both real life and simulations. Suggests that studies should build on both American research on strategy and innovation and European research on psycholinguistics and perception. (SC)