A study assessed the specific courses and educational needs professionals considered important in the proper undergraduate preparation of future public relations practitioners. A survey questionnaire was sent to a random sample of 1,000 human resource managers and public relations practitioners from the national membership of two professional…

A two-part pilot study investigated and categorized the roles verbal and nonverbal communication play in the initiation of sexual intercourse. The study also explored the manner in which partners accept or reject sexual overtures, the contexts and antecedents of sexual initiation, and the changes in sexual behavior which occur as a consequence of…

A study examined the effects of parental divorce on college students, comparing college students in five areas of social development according to parental marital status: evaluation of parent/child relationships; relationship commitment and satisfaction; dating frequency and satisfaction; attitudes toward marriage; and sexual activity and…

A study investigated the impact of a one-time persuasive message presented to subjects across two media--audio and audiovisual. A second variable, distraction, was also examined for its induced impact on conferring resistance to the message. Subjects were 170 college undergraduates, 46 of whom were assigned to a control group that did not see or…

Using Kenneth Burke's conceptualization of the "representative anecdote," this paper explicates Burke's own theoretical frame. By examining Burke's system through the two anecdotes of "drama" and "nuclear war," the paper demonstrates that Burke weaves together two distinct theoretical threads, one a theory of Being,…

A study investigated the relationship between shared communication links and the process of organizational innovation in a privately owned medical clinic providing comprehensive medical care to children and adults. Participants were the physicians and physician assistants employed at the clinic. Data were collected through questionnaires before…

This paper proposes the use of a rule-based computer programming language as a standard for the expression of rules, arguing that the adoption of a standard would enable researchers to communicate about rules in a consistent and significant way. Focusing on the formal equivalence of artificial intelligence (AI) programming to different types of…

A study focused on the effect of assigned social decision rule on the process and product of mock jury deliberations. Subjects, 360 college students, were randomly assigned to six-member juries under three decision rule conditions: unanimity, five-sixths majority, and two-thirds majority. After viewing a videotape of a criminal trial, each subject…

Using H. Dennis' (1974) five-factor communication climate construct framework as a predictor variable, a study investigated the relationship between perceptions of communication climate and job satisfaction of supervisory employees in the banking industry. A systematic random sample was drawn from 68 commercial banks in Orange County, California,…

By focusing on concepts of power, culture, and ideology in light of new socio-cultural and anthropological interpretations with regard to their use in international, intercultural, and cross-cultural communication research, an outline for the framework of a more hermeneutic-interpretive approach to the study of communication and socio-cultural…

Although originally developed in terms of interpersonal systems, the coorientational strategy model can be modified and used for research on the communication of collectivities. The proposed changes to the coorientational framework would permit examination of constructs of greater verisimilitude to theoretical reasoning of the behavior and…

To assess the communication practices of not-for-profit (NFP) agencies, a study conducted a local survey of 105 NFP organizations in Cleveland, Ohio, in the spring of 1987, specifically examining their public relations activities and campaigns which manage and diffuse information about NFPs to the larger community. First, a focus group sample of…

Communication scholars should be skilled in the use of focus groups in communication research and in interpreting the data this approach generates. The focus group is a discussion group that concentrates on a particular topic or topics and typically consists of eight to 12 participants. The group is facilitated by a moderator who follows a…

Excerpts from a transcript of computer "conversations" provide the basis for a study of how people manage ongoing interaction, given the constraints of computer-mediated discourse, and whether any unusual conventions are used in doing so. The discourse was analyzed using address, topical references, and adjacency pairs to link the…

Over recent years critics of debate have expressed disenchantment with the rate of delivery used by intercollegiate debaters. To determine how fast Cross Examination Debate Association (CEDA) debaters speak compared to normal public speaking rates, and whether CEDA has met its goal of providing a forum that is consistent with the rate of public…