Four studies were conducted to investigate the relationship between communication and predictive accuracy. Subjects, students enrolled in various college speech and communication classes, completed the Allport-Vernon-Lindzey Study of Values, first in terms of their own values and then in terms of how they believed a specified target would respond.…

Defining organizational culture as the amalgam of beliefs, mythology, values, and rituals that, even more than its products, differentiates it from other organizations, this paper demonstrates its utility as a synthesizing focus on current ideas about communication in organizations. Modes of thought, dominant paradigms, perspectives on…

Noting that networks of relationships between individuals and groups form organization-wide patterns that provide both the structure and the means of sustaining an organization, this paper argues that a complete understanding of organizations requires a basic understanding of these networks. Following a brief discussion of the nature of…

Testing Kenneth Burke's theory on dramatistic frames, the attitudes and motivations reflected in the rhetoric of Watergate participants were analyzed in terms of literary forms: epic, tragic, comic, elegiac, satiric, burlesque, grotesque, and didactic. Nixon tried to transcend the Watergate conflict by stressing the greatness of his achievements…

The Galileo System, a variant of metric multidimensional scaling, is used in this paper to analyze over-time changes in social networks. The paper first discusses the theoretical necessity for the use of this procedure and the methodological problems associated with its use. It then examines the air traffic network among 31 major cities in the…

A review of communication models and research reveals four areas of communications skill: listening, empathy, non-verbal communication, and expressive abilities. Models of listening behavior suggest that, rather than being a passive activity, listening involves sorting stimuli and encoding messages, analyzing listener needs, and assessing speaker…

The empirical and critical traditions in mass communication inquiry are examined in this paper to determine if mass communication inquiry can provide a useful perspective on human communication. The paper first describes the development of interest in mass communication in the nineteenth century, then explains the empirical research tradition in…

Building on a prior investigation of users' formulations and needs in fiction, this study was conducted to determine dominant patterns in public library user-librarian search interactions. Based on analysis of 134 actual user-librarian conversations about fiction recorded under everyday library conditions in Danish public libraries in 1976, it was…

Qualitative methodology, the traditional mainstay of social science and historical research, is currently gaining increased respectability as both an alternative and a companion to quantitative methods in intercultural communication research. Because data collection and compilation techniques are often highly personal, situation-specific,…

There is little doubt that the field of public relations needs to be concerned with both the ethical standards and behaviors of practitioners and the perceptions of these standards and actions held by clients, other communications professionals, and the public. What constitutes ethical standards and practices, however, continues to be debated…

A study examined verbal and nonverbal behaviors that can detect an individual's deceptive communication, including variables such as familiarity with the individual, amount of interaction, skill at detecting deception with individuals and in general, and an individual's verbal and nonverbal immediacy behaviors. Subjects, 242 undergraduates…

To analyze listening in relationship to other communication modes and to investigate the relative utility of four models for communication theory building research (national, psychological, organizational culture, and situational), a study examined the attitudes of middle level managers of six corporations regarding communication competencies…

A study was conducted to determine whether there is a relationship between the psychological types of copywriting students and performance in a copywriting class. The goal was to develop a program of instruction which would systematically alter psychological makeup in a constructive manner to enable students to become better copywriters. Subjects,…

A study investigated the issues that Blacks perceive as salient to their satisfaction and dissatisfaction with communication with Whites, and whether these issues were independent of age, biological sex, and income. Two groups of subjects, selected from economically determined working class students in a large introductory speech communication…

Recognizing that public relations is a field in search of the status and benefits of professionalism but which too often is conducted by unqualified, unprofessional people, a study sought to research and analyze the importance of a broad range of tentatively defined knowledge and skill areas considered essential to contemporary public relations…