The effects of three play contexts on young children's turn taking, topic maintenance, and topic change skills were investigated. Participants were 40 normally-developing, English-speaking Caucasian children of middle-income parents; they ranged in age from approximately 4 years to 6 and one half years. Subjects were subdivided into younger and…

A study tested a model of organizational variables that earlier research had identified as important in influencing what model(s) of public relations an organization selects. Models of public relations (as outlined by J. Grunig and Hunt in 1984) are defined as either press agentry, public information, two-way asymmetrical, or two-way symmetrical.…

To investigate whether researchers are developing empirically-based public relations research efforts, and whether such efforts could be considered useful to public relations practitioners, a study conducted a content analysis of all articles published in "Public Relations Review" from 1977 through 1987. Articles (196 were coded in all)…

Two studies examined (1) which partner in a romantic relationship typically said the initial "I love you"; (2) reasons for making that first declaration; and (3) the partner's communication responses to such statements. In the first study, 100 undergraduate students at a large eastern university were interviewed, while the second study…

A survey was conducted to examine the role of peace education within existing speech communication programs and to describe that role both in terms of curricular and research priorities. Respondents, 113 department Chairs out of a total of 578 on the Speech Communication Association's list of institutions offering degrees in communication,…

In order to investigate speech accommodation--the way in which communicators influence each other's speaking patterns and rhythms--a study examined its occurrence, as well as the extent of a conversational partner's influence, and the influence of interpersonal uncertainty and differences in arousal level upon that accommodation process.…

A study surveyed communication apprehension (CA) among the college student population. Persons in higher education are concerned about determining whether or not sufficient assistance is available to students for whom communication apprehension appears to be problematic. Subjects, 2,377 students in speech classes on 11 campuses of The Pennsylvania…

Defining "willingness to communicate" as the degree to which an individual will talk to others in various situations, a study was conducted to test the hypothesis that a linear composite of the dimensions of communication apprehension and willingness to communicate is significantly related to a linear composite of the dimensions of…

To investigate the relationship of cultural similarity/dissimilarity, communication effectiveness, and communication variables associated with uncertainty reduction theory, a study examined two groups of students--a multinational group living on an "international floor" in a dormitory at a state university and an unrelated group of U.S.…

A study assessed the accuracy of public perceptions of public reactions to a politically problematic situation, the return of the British Crown Colony of Hong Kong to the People's Republic of China in 1997. The analysis sought to relate differential patterns of communication behavior related to pluralistic ignorance (shared incorrect beliefs about…

Focusing on the sex roles portrayed over commercial radio targeting adolescents, a study conducted a content analysis of two radio stations in the Washington, D.C. market (the two stations held an average share of 30 to 35 percent of the adolescent audience in that area). The content analyzed included the advertisements, disc jockey (DJ) chatter,…

Arguing that many new ideas, techniques, and products fail to be adopted because they are not properly linked to the needs of knowledge users, this chapter presents an approach to the problem of linking the knowledge user with the knowledge producer that is designed to provide linkage agents with a frame of reference and tools for disciplined…

Al Hester's communication model sees news flow as being primarily dependent upon national rank in the hierarchy of nations, dominance and weakness of nations, and economic and cultural factors. A sample of 37 newspapers was content analyzed in a study extending this international news flow concept to the intra-national level to determine whether…

Given that overt linguistic behavior is not an adequate or primary datum for linguistic theory and that linguistic theory cannot directly account for overt linguistic behavior, human language can be seen as an abstract system that relates (graphic or phonetic) surface representations of sentences and underlying grammatical forms and semantic…

To better understand the complexity of organizational life as a cultural system whose members share particular values, attitudes, and ways of knowing, and to understand the role of women in this culture, a study was conducted using female managers at 12 high technology companies in California's "Silicon Valley." Informants were selected…