Explores how the framing of environmental communication influences attitudes and environmentally responsible behaviors. Finds that communication that discussed losses (rather than gains) to the current (rather than future) generation gave rise to the most positive responses and the highest levels of intent to participate in…

Tests the knowledge gap hypothesis by examining the influence of Magic Johnson's announcement that he was HIV positive on people's knowledge of HIV/AIDS. Finds that all individuals moved from fairly low knowledge levels equally to higher levels, but the knowledge gap narrowed as a proportion of the difference between high and low education groups.…

Finds a significant relationship between those individuals who demonstrate strong community ties and those who use certain types of media. Finds also that media user types were most likely to differ in terms of their ties to community processes. (SR)

Analyzes patterns of laughter in bookshop service encounters in England and Italy. Finds that in the English corpus, laughter is recurrently turn-initial, anticipating an account by the assistant in the same turn, whereas in the Italian corpus it is recurrently turn-final, leaving to the customer the possibility of eliciting an account and/or an…

Presents results of a survey examining women's reported styles of interpersonal communication, including use of tentative language, interruption, and collaboration. Reveals that, in the technical/scientific field, women's and men's perceptions of their own communication seem to be moving toward and androgenous language pattern. (SR)

Analyzes concession speeches by defeated presidential candidates from 1952 to 1992 to show consistent patterns of strategy, style, and content. Explains that the candidate's dilemma is resolved in the concession speech by an elaborate periphrasis that converts the combative energy of defeat into metaphors of sport, chivalry, and epic quest. (TB)

Analyzes the history of the Freedom of Information Act business exemption, the reasoning in the federal appellate case "Critical Mass III," and the aftermath of the case in federal courts. Explores its implications for public relations practitioners who may be seeking information about other businesses or trying to maintain…

Finds that teacher immediacy scores were higher for African American college teachers than for Euro-American college teachers, but that the impact of perceived immediacy operated differently for the two groups. (SR)

Examines distinctions between the gay and lesbian liberation movements and the more recent "queer" movements. Discusses collective identity construction in social movements in general, and in Queer Nation, in particular, which reconceptualize the notion of identity, transcending the essentializing and totalizing nature of identity…

Analyzes postassassination newspaper editorials eulogizing John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert F. Kennedy. Argues that they fulfill four rhetorical functions: providing a public space for symbolic catharsis, celebrating individual virtues and mythic constructions of those virtues, attempting to reknit communal bonds, and calling…

Finds that voters who ascribed an ethical interpretation to issues were more likely to use a noncompensatory decision-making strategy, which focuses on one or two key issues in the decision-making process, than voters who ascribed a societal interpretation to issues. (SR)

Critiques prior scholarship that argues Margaret Sanger's magazine "The Woman Rebel" was a failure. Argues that it was a strategic and rhetorical success, offering a coherent description of what is now socialist feminism, and addressing its primary audience of working-class women primarily through simplistic moral reasoning and…

Presents a case study of the changing organizational climate of an administrative unit of a large nonfederal government following election of a new chief elective official. Finds new categories of climate: theme emergence, spread, and sedimentation. Finds a complex organizational climate with several processes interacting simultaneously to…

Discusses some of the significant sources that have influenced the research by participants in a Research Think Tank (on business communication). Discusses sources that inspired research, how the source list was generated, why it is relevant, and what it tells researchers. Appends the 75-item list. (SR)

This study examined the effect on comprehension of the number of propositions in a piece of spoken discourse, words per minute (WPM) rate, and presentation of pictures with the discourse. Results indicated better comprehension at lower WPM and when pictures were presented. No significant interactions were found. (14 references) (MES)