Gestures of six young adults were transcribed from videotaped narrations. Iconic, or imitative, gestures were found to have a tendency to depict whole scenes, and to correlate positively with motions implied in accompanying verbs. Gestures were found to be marked for such contrasting grammatical features as agent and patient, and transitive and…

Following a 1978 commando raid by the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), Israeli troops crossed the Israeli-Lebanese border to establish a "security belt" to prevent further PLO action in Israel. A study was conducted to determine whether the coverage of the Israeli invasion by the three commercial television networks in the United…

A study explored the relationships between public relations practitioners' organizational roles and the type of evaluation methods they used on the job. Based on factor analysis of role data obtained from an earlier study, four organizational roles were defined and ranked: communication manager, media relations specialist, communication liaison,…

Research was conducted to study the speech in a sales transaction in a retail store under natural conditions. Fourteen sales transactions in a lighting fixture store were tape recorded, with the customer's knowledge, over a period of four days. Each talk was divided into three segments--speech preparatory, speech central, and speech final--and…

An examination of the level and nature of guidance that parents exercised with their children regarding television viewing was undertaken by means of a survey of 200 mass media scholars. In addition to providing information concerning their beliefs about the effects of television, characteristics of their scholarship, and basic demographic…

The purposes of this study were to examine (1) the extent to which three-year-old children converged noncontent speech to that of adults and (2) whether a talkativeness-reticence factor influenced the degree of convergence. Four three-year-old girls individually interacted with six to eight unfamiliar adults in free-play settings. From…

To determine the extent to which males and females bring similar or dissimilar attitudes of trust to encounters with members of the same or the opposite sex, a study was conducted that examined attitudes of interpersonal trust according to the subject's perception of the expertness (validity of judgment), reliability, and dynamism of the attitude…

Some of the major assumptions, empirical inferences, and theoretical linkages that underlie the generalization that interpersonal influence is more efficacious than mass communication in bringing about social change are examined in this paper. The central premise of the paper is that the presumed competition between mass and interpersonal channels…

The effects of crowding and sex on reactions to a side-to-side invasion of personal space were examined. Male or female experimenters violated the personal space of 40 male and 40 female subjects who were sitting at library tables that were either crowded (several persons present) or uncrowded (subjects sat alone). The subjects' body movements,…

A study was conducted to examine the background factors related to two racial attitudes of blacks--black identity and alienation from white society in the United States--and to investigate the relationship between these two conceptually different notions of black racial attitudes. An area probability design was employed and 324 black adults living…

Segments of primetime and Saturday morning television programing were viewed by 225 people who then reported what criteria they used to assess violence on commercial and public television. The subjects also provided data on their visual media experience, their viewing habits, their viewing attitudes, and demographic characteristics. The subjects…

A study was conducted to replicate and extend an earlier investigation of the persuasive effects of extended, intense concluding sex and death metaphors by using a more controlled design and by mixing metaphors. Fifty-eight high school students completed pretests assessing their attitudes toward a speech topic (legalization of marijuana). Two…

A study was conducted to assess the relationship between printed t-shirts and communication apprehension. In the first phase of the study, self-reports were used to categorize 206 college students as either high or low in communication apprehension. The second phase of the study consisted of others' evaluations of t-shirts worn by selected…

This study defines the notion of communication methodology, situates the context in which it operates, and concentrates on the problem of the acquisition of knowledge in general, and of language acquisition, in particular. From the notion of methodology, the study moves to the method of global communication, that is, a method comprising four…

A study was conducted to determine whether there was a linguistic correlation between a financially good year and a bad year as expressed in the annual reports of company presidents to their shareholders. Specifically the study tested the "Pollyanna Principle," which states (1) that regardless of whether the year was financially good or bad, the…