Analyzes Chicano murals in Chicago to illustrate how visual images engage communal development and community identity by tapping into shared senses of history, experience, and culture. States these murals present an argument for cultural pride and political activism by inserting into the public space of a community symbolic representations of…

Examines the critical perspective as alternative to current descriptive, explanatory research focus. Notes that critical perspective aims at empowerment and emancipation, reinterpreting relationship between researcher and participants as collaborative. Includes feminist, radical educational, and participatory action research in critical research.…

Examines over 14,000 clip art images for gender bias. Finds that only 4% of images depicted women and that those images present women in stereotypical roles, such as secretaries, nurses, teachers. Notes the irony that communication instructors expend much effort persuading students that gender-free prose is the new model--while visually still…

Describes the Research Think Tank of the Association for Business Communication: its history, 1996 focus and participants, and its process. Notes that key ideas emerging from this process focused on international communication, communication technology, connecting international communication, and implications for researchers. (SR)

Belongs to a series of papers examining how scholars understand and explain the Internet. Argues that the Internet should be understood as the first instance of a global communication system, displacing a national system (railroad, telegraph, television) of the 19th and 20th centuries. Maintains that such transformations involve complex alteration…

Summarizes research on structure of gesture produced in absence of speech. Finds that gestures of both hearing individuals who have been asked not to speak and deaf individuals who depend solely on gesture to communicate (including homesigners) exhibit characteristics typically associated with speech; gestures are segmented and linear rather than…

Examines the relationship between state anxiety and three parameters defining individuals' learning curves. Finds highly anxious individuals were slower at the outset of the message trials, had lower rates of skill acquisition, and greater variability in performance quality. (SR)

Replicates and extends previous diary research on everyday interaction. Attempts to determine how conversational evaluation, nonverbal behavior evaluation, and gender relate to the speech event construct. Confirms (partially) previous findings by Baxter and Goldsmith (1995). Finds few gender effects. Finds nonverbal behavior evaluation to be…

Investigates gender differences and similarities in the perceived social costs and importance of seeking emotional support regarding work-related problems. Finds women perceived such support to be more important than did men. Finds no gender differences regarding perceived social costs associated with seeking support from coworkers. Finds women…

Finds that specific communication apprehension showed moderate to large negative effects on health communication (talking with physician, seeking health information) and almost no effects on health behaviors (tobacco use, exercise, health fairs) except diet; and that general-trait communication apprehension showed similar, though smaller, effects…

Examines the strategies used by actor Hugh Grant (in his appearances on talk shows) to help restore his reputation after he was arrested for lewd behavior with a prostitute. Uses this case as a springboard to contrast entertainment image repair with political and corporate image repair, arguing that important situational differences can be…

Finds no significant differences between women and men in their use of interruptions, hedges, and tag questions, which supports "gender similarities" approach to understanding sex differences and not the dominant "dual cultures" approach for investigating sex differences (i.e., men use more powerful language while women use…

Reviews the history and structure of the popular music industry; examines applications of the cultural imperialism theory to popular music and the subsequent debate; and surveys newer theories that developed as a result of the debate. Organizes theories along a continuum (meant as a heuristic for researchers) indicating the numerous forms musical…

Notes that the messages that the author took away from speeches at the 2000 meeting of the Association for Business Communication was one of inclusion and tolerance, a message that is both inspiring and encouraging to scholars and teachers in the business communication profession who desire to take pedagogical and methodological risks and to…

Summarizes the scholarly discussion about negative messages and reports the results of two pretests and two experiments using negative letters. Shows that buffers did not significantly affect college students' responses to simulated letters refusing credit and denying admission to graduate school and that strong "resale" was…