Noting that in Europe there is a growing criticism of the largely American communication research tradition that focuses on individuals, this paper examines European-style "critical analysis," which looks at social systems. The paper first examines the criticism of American-style "administrative" research, and then discusses…

The communication practices and training in communication activities of classroom teachers in Hawaii were examined by surveying 370 elementary, intermediate, and secondary school teachers in Hawaii. The results supported the claims that the classroom constitutes an ongoing communication event composed of varied speech activities and that the…

Speech communicators need to return to applied research, developing theoretical statements about how groups might work better and testing the validity of those statements. Among the tasks that group communication researchers might take up are determining the range of applicability of generalizations concerning different kinds of groups, studying…

Although listening skills are the most utilized of the language arts skills, they are the least analyzed by research. Causes for this neglect include the fact that listening research has not adequately confronted the basic question of the nature of listening and has utilized correlational studies with ready-made definitions and formats, the…

Major conceptual differences exist between critical communication scholars and marketing researchers in their approaches to the study of international advertising. In marketing research, the conceptual framework is characteristically built around the multinational corporation, while critical communication scholarship stresses the nation-state. The…

The seven articles in this journal issue survey and assess the art of rhetorical criticism based on evidence derived from critical practice. The first five articles analyze the literature subsumed with certain approaches to rhetorical criticism and are arranged in the chronological order of the emergence of the approach: neo-classical criticism,…

Gestalt theory deals with the act of thinking and the construction of concepts in a situated manner, and, therefore, could be used to study how meaning is extracted from a visual display. Using the Gestalt framework of form cues and their usage patterns in the perception of, and learning from, visual media, researchers could study frame, line…

Terrorism has become not merely a political act, but a carefully designed and rhetorically sophisticated attempt at communication. What role should the communication scholar play in the investigation of terrorism? Specifically, there are six areas within which the communication scholar may actively contribute to an understanding of terrorism as…

The intent of this paper is to provide groundwork that will lead in the direction of conceptual and methodological clarity, coherence, and organization for empirical research in intercultural communication in the 1980s. Following a discussion of the nature of intercultural communication, the paper examines its diverse conceptualizations by…

A study focusing on argument as a receiver-contained phenomenon assessed the differential importance of (new) arguments stimulated by a message, as opposed to (old) arguments previously integrated. Data were collected from 207 college students in a pretest, posttest, and delayed posttest design. The subjects provided information on their attitudes…

In a study of the relationship between kinesics and bias, video tapes of two anchormen of local news shows in New York City were examined. The purposes of the investigation were to determine whether each anchorman would exhibit specific kinesic behaviors associated with audience perceptions of positive bias, negative bias, or neutrality; and to…

A study compared the relative effects and functions of a live versus a televised presentation of a political message. Specifically, the study examined whether (1) the audience for a live political speech differed from the audience for a similar televised speech, (2) a live political speech produced more positive attitude change regarding the…

Frame analysis of 85 cartoons from "The New Yorker" magazine was used to discover the significant keys, or metacommunicative characterizers, of cartoon humor. It was hypothesized that these keys/characterizers function to cue the readers so that they frame the message of the cartoon in a way that permits a humorous interpretation of the cartoon's…

To understand how children respond to and make use of portrayals of the sexes on television, 192 third and eighth grade students participated in a study to determine what they notice and how important these distinctions are to them. The study obtained children's same/different paired comparisons of eight concepts--me, my mother, an average woman,…

The major dimensions of ethnicity are examined in this paper. The first section reviews research literature in three content areas--ethnicity, stratification, and communication and in each of these areas generates hypotheses based on the available evidence in sociological, anthropological, and psychological literature. The second section of the…