Suggests that it might take from two to six months for a national topic of average interest to register among those of importance to the public, and that agenda-setting researchers look a few months prior to fieldwork for the best match between the media agenda and the public's agenda. (FL)

Argues that schoolwork with the plays of Shakespeare should be rooted in the twin concepts of performance and audience, for which the teacher needs to understand the scripts in terms of Elizabethan theatrical presentation and response. (FL)

Discusses problems arising from the treatment of oral interpretation as communication. Two aspects of particular interest are the notion that the communicative situation demands a particular style of performance, most often described as suggestion; and the view that the audience is the most important single element in the interpretative situation.…

The first phase of the Active Audience project in Great Britain has been designed to examine the nature of the television audience in terms of why people watch television and how they respond to what they are being offered, and presents life-style as the basis for defining audience groups. (Author/CMV)

Uses discriminant analysis to investigate the relationship between television non-viewing and a set of variables reflecting "life style." This study agrees with previous ones in finding that the nonviewer is not easy to categorize. (MER)

Investigates the effects of the rhetorical use of deliberate vagueness on the audience's recall and agreement. Results indicate that recall was significantly worse when disagreeable issues were vaguely stated instead of clearly stated, and that vague messages produced more agreement than clearly stated messages. (PD)

Discusses the availability of research on the makeup of audiences for public television as well as the need for and uses of such data. The public television audience is characterized as generally the well-educated, affluent minority. (JMF)

Four problems affecting the growth of public radio are discussed: the inability to pay the salaries to attract the talent required to produce quality programing; programing directed to limited audiences; the use of block programing; and poor promotional campaigns. (JMF)

Compares presidential inaugural addresses before and after 1932 in terms of rhetorical style and substance. Presents the stylistic response of the latter group to a new rhetorical situation characterized by audience heterogeneity and the need for ritualistic unity. (JMF)

Examines the relative relationship of heavy and light television viewing and anxiety. Studies the effect of action adventure programs in which justice triumphs and those with a preponderance of injustice on anxiety and on viewers' voluntary selective exposure to further action adventure fare. (JMF)

Presents weaknesses of past audience research in public radio, and describes a survey methodology for future effective analysis of public radio audiences. (CMV)

Describes the decline of direct newspaper competition in terms of the loss of effective newspaper market segmentation. Examines the following influences on market segmentation: shift in advertising demand, advertiser preferences for differentiated audiences, shift in subscriber demand, growth of alternative media, increasing production costs, and…

States that teachers can help students overcome problems with clarity by showing them how to become more sensitive to the reader's ignorance of the writer's intentions; presents sample sentences from students' writing to illustrate writing problems that force the reader to examine the sentences a second time. (DD)