Contends that communication episodes tend to focus interactants' attention on one or the other of two relational judgments: dominance or affiliation. Notes that undergraduate students rated the degree of dominance, explicitness, liking, and involvement in a set of videotaped influence messages. Supports the claim that one relational judgment may…

Discusses the characteristics of rhetorical status, compares it to ethos and source credibility, and discusses social status and rhetorical status. Shows how rhetorical status enters into everyday communication by examining a protracted set of interactions between two sisters and a small-town mayor over disputed water bills. (SR)

Investigates factors that members of organizational work teams (school administrators and personnel who volunteered to work with students with ongoing drug and alcohol problems) believe facilitate and inhibit group performance effectiveness. Finds that compatible work schedules, motivated group members, adequate informational resources, competent…

Tests whether a set of nonverbal comforting strategies and their relationships with affective orientation and gender in previous research are generalizable to a broader sample. Concludes gender differences in affective orientation, diversity and number of strategies, and use of specific strategies were supported. Finds that females were more…

Examines the relationship between interpersonal communication competence dispositions and situated outcomes in the job selection interview. Finds that interpersonal competence was not related to evaluations of applicant performance. Suggests a rethinking of the role of cross-situational approaches to communication competence in light of…

Attempts to (1) establish a conceptual framework for climate research, (2) develop a research scheme based on this conceptual ground, and (3) examine the relationship between communication and the convergence of views regarding organizational climate. Finds, using the Galileo model, a correlation between a person's attitude and the perception of…

Presents a brief summary of the findings of a study. Describes three simple procedures to improve the accessibility and readability of journal abstracts: (1) enlarge type size to match that of the text; (2) use paragraph indentation to denote structure; and (3) rewrite abstracts in plainer English. (SR)

Describes project results on the nature of oral presentations given and produced by technical/managerial professionals working in business and industry. Notes that the survey responses focused on issues including frequency, target audience(s), objectives, data/information base, use of visuals, equipment, obstacles, and training. States that the…

Studies televised political advertising during the October 1993 Canadian federal election campaign to identify referential argumentation and provide a basis for ethical analysis. Identifies a number of "ad" arguments (ad hominem, ad verecumdiam, ad misericordiam, etc.) according to four types of reference. Discusses two criteria in the…

Uses a think-aloud protocol to investigate how a professional actor analyzes a script to discern the plans his assigned character is following. Shows that the actor attends not only to the meaning but also to such elements of the text as structure, punctuation, and linguistic devices to determine the character's internal states and specific…

Finds that both men and women participated in political discussion quite actively; men talked about the campaign with significantly more people than women; women named their husbands as their main political discussants, while men mentioned friends and coworkers; and there was close agreement between people's perceptions of their discussants'…

Offers a "guard dog" metaphor for the functioning of the mass media, suggesting that media perform as a sentry for groups having sufficient power and influence to create and control their own security systems. Delineates this perspective from others, and suggests several hypotheses that may be derived for testing the utility of the guard dog…

Explores the territory of whiteness in order to map the discursive space it occupies, as the first step in the process of exposing whiteness as a rhetorical construction. Discusses some of the rhetorical strategies through which whiteness resecures its discursive space and concludes with three aspects of reflexivity that offer directions for…

Responds to a 1993 article in this journal. Places that article's general conclusion (that profitable corporations have more readable narrative texts than unprofitable ones) within the broader context of the readability research and corporate reporting literature. (SR)

Explores the relationship among compliance-gaining strategy choice, communicator image, and sales person effectiveness. Finds no statistically significant relationship between the use of compliance-gaining strategies and sales success, but indicates a link between communicator image and sales success. (SR)