A study investigated the impact of teachers' use of immediacy behaviors on students' reported motivation to study over the course of a semester. The state and trait motivation of 178 undergraduate students (enrolled in communication courses at a mid-sized eastern university) to study for a class was measured at three points during the semester.…

An exploratory study focused on identifying editing values of a new mass medium, computer discussion groups known as Usenet newsgroups. A Usenet newsgroup is defined as a collection of articles grouped loosely by subject and accessible by nearly anyone with a computer and a modem. At present, most newsgroup users are affiliated with universities,…

By adopting some of the methods used by ethnographic researchers, performance artists/researchers can "step out of" their own culture, providing the necessary distance for the reporting of the event under investigation. Dwight Conquergood uses ethnographic research to be able to "step into" the culture under investigation and…

The 1988 vice presidential campaign became a quagmire for Dan Quayle and the National Republican Party. To regain their footing and rehabilitate Quayle, the Republicans adopted two classic strategies for coping (often studied in the academy): rhetorical apologia and minimal exposure. During the campaign, an accusation was made that Quayle used his…

In the opinion of decision-making scholars, conflict is a natural component of group decision-making. A new direction for conflict and group decision-making theory and research will help dispel the confusion as to the promotive or disruptive nature of disagreement in group decision-making. Conflict literature is replete with descriptions of the…

A study was conducted to identify variables associated with question-asking in the college classroom. Specifically, the study examined the influence of instructional interventions on intentions to ask questions. Subjects, 220 university undergraduates enrolled in a basic communication theory course at a midsize, midwestern, urban university,…

Issue management oriented public relations provides an excellent pedagogical device for anyone interested in the application of argumentation. This can be illustrated by a case study in which a commercial metals company was wrongly accused of improperly disposing of toxic waste at a particular site. To counter the bad publicity that followed the…

This paper considers discourse models of knowledge and use and social problem solving that revive the tradition of dialectical reasoning (the broader term) or rhetoric, i.e., the art of using language, in speaking or writing, to convince others that something is true, right, or better. Discourse models of knowledge use allow taking the…

Three studies investigated the effects of concrete versus abstract wording and negative versus positive premises on the difficulty subjects had in solving several kinds of reasoning tasks. Subjects for all three studies were college undergraduates who received booklets containing either hypothetical, disjunctive, or linear syllogisms. Each booklet…

The purpose of the two studies reported was to investigate why young children, especially kindergarteners, so often treat vague, ambiguous, or otherwise unclear instructions as though they were perfectly informative, instead of asking what they mean. It was hypothesized that when faced with vague instructions children might employ two ordered…

An updated version of a bibliography which appeared in a 1982 edition of "Rhetoric Society Quarterly," this 132-item bibliography is divided into books and articles and book chapters. The selections date from 1933 through 1989. (NKA)

A study was conducted to test the relationship between communication apprehension (CA) and learning. Subjects were 194 college students at a midwestern university enrolled in an introductory speech course who were divided by scores on the Personal Report of Communication Apprehension (PRCA). The groups heard a class presentation and were then…

After an extensive review of the literature on the theoretical underpinnings of humor in human interaction, a six-category typology of humor was developed and exemplified by examples from mass media comedy. Humor can first be divided into two major types: individual level humor or social level humor. These levels are then further divided into the…

This paper brings together ideas from feminist epistemology and critical theory to initiate a conversation on repressed or distorted communication. It argues that current feminist epistemological studies of women's ways of knowing, making sense, and solving problems can and should inform attempts to empower democratic dialogues and restructure the…

Based on J. E. Grunig's four models of public relations practice (press agent/publicity, public information, and two-way asymmetric and two-way symmetric practice), this paper examines the potential applicability of these models to internal communication systems in organizations. Following an introduction, in which Grunig's models are briefly…