A study was conducted to ascertain which characteristics of instructional films affect learning. Fourteen versions of a film designed to teach the assembly of part of an anti-aircraft gun were prepared and shown to different groups of trainees. The study examined the following factors: 1) number of words of narration used to describe the action,…

Describes a comparison of the function of audience in students' writing processes with that of experienced technical writers. Examines students' rough and final drafts for content and style as audience considerations influenced revisions. (HTH)

Outlines a revision checklist for student use in analyzing purpose, audience, form, and expression; summarizes classroom procedures for individuals, small groups, or whole classes to use in revision and proofreading exercises. (AEA)

Presents a sequence of writing assignments in the form of a dialogue between a teacher and members of a rhetoric class that calls attention to the crucial relation between the writer and the audience. (JL)

Focuses on the practice of having students "perform scholarship" in the classroom. Offers a model for student in-class performances of scholarly texts and their responses to those texts. Proposes that a student's performance serves less as a singular response to an assignment and more as evidence of the student's active process of sense making.…

Discusses three perspectives on audience awareness as used in the classroom; rhetorical, informational, and social. Finds that the social perspective, with its emphasis on the transactional nature of writing, is the most productive way of dealing with audience in the composition classroom. (RS)

Asserts that media systems and pedagogy affect each other, that electronic media increasingly dominate the society, and that pedagogy must respond. Outlines a heuristic model for talking and thinking pedagogically about the process of speech in the electronic media environment. (MG)

The author describes an educational radio series developed for the British Broadcasting Corporation that aimed to provide informed discussions of community issues with interaction between experts and a live audience and to reach a wider audience via radio. The author concludes that the series was generally successful. (CH)

Presents a theoretical description of public relations for scholars, practitioners, and students. Suggests it is useful to view public relations as an area of study. Describes how the public relations process has applications in research and theory development, pedagogy, and practice. (MS)

Discusses a role-playing scenario designed to introduce the concepts of audience and purpose to business and technical communication students. Notes that, although the scenario has reduced the frequency of the question "Did I miss anything important?" from absentee students, the scenario has not helped the instructor to understand why…

Presents an exercise that will show acting students how to tell the audience a good story. Discusses how students must assume responsibility for creating the best possible story based on a central object as insignificant as a penny might appear to be. Describes experiences of taking the students through four "rounds" of this exercise. (SC)

While we often assume media are highly effective tools for learning, research shows an unpredictable relationship between text and audience response, with variable interpretation being the norm. This can be especially problematic in anthropology, whose central goal is to understand different cultures; some studies suggest that films may reinforce…

Media literacy is a topic that is being addressed globally as greater numbers of people become aware of the need to teach audience members how they are influenced by the media. Here, two of its broad categories - captive and voluntary - are identified. Examples of media literacy programs in Canada and Australia are also presented to illustrate the…

In this article, the author shares how she used a video on animals to teach her graduate classes about subjectivity in assessment. For this video assessment, she made her students evaluate the video based on five categories: content, structure, sensitivity to audience, audio, and visual. As a teacher, she knows how impossible it is to be totally…