Finds the rank-ordering of request strategies along five interactive constraint dimensions to be similar between Koreans and Americans except for effectiveness of strategies. Shows the U.S. participants considered the direct statement strategy as the most effective way of making a request, whereas Korean participants rated it as the least…

Claims that Adlai Stevenson adapted the tenets of contemporary civic republicanism as a pragmatic to the response to the obstacles that confronted him in his 1952 presidential campaign. Analyzes his campaign rhetoric to reveal the strengths and limitations of republicanism as a political argument. Explores the complex relationship between…

Analyzes the corporate apologetic discourses of three paradigmatic cases (at Chrysler, Toshiba, and Volvo) and examines the use of persuasive descriptions and strategic dissociations preferred by these corporate apologists. Shows how organizations label their wrongdoing in a way that displays sorrow but limits culpability and use dissociations to…

Shows that role appropriation to the transition to parenthood is a three-part, overlapping process: expectations regarding roles, enactment of those roles, and negotiations about the roles. Shows that central dilemmas involve the accuracy/inaccuracy of role expectations, other's facilitation/inhibition of self's role enactment, and…

Presents discussion of various studies of the effect of television on aggressive behavior. Argues for a positive and significant correlation between television violence and aggressive behavior. Performs additional tests to solidify conclusions. Provides substantive interpretation. (HB)

Shows that the content and network communication among health-care professionals involved in an educational program using computer conferences were significantly related to occupational role, with physicians and hospital administrators afforded higher status in computer conferences than nurses. Finds that the effects of occupational status…

Uses examples of conversation drawn from a mediation session to show how intentions, as discursive formations, are central not only to both narrative structure and interaction sequences but to the politics of subject position in discourse as well. Discusses the management of subject position in terms of critical coherence points. (SR)

Argues that, in the case of Poland, media history is best seen as a series of expansions and retractions of press freedom. Advocates a new press culture, both on the part of journalists and their audiences, in addition to the establishment of freer press laws and financially sound institutions. (SR)

Reveals two constraints on public relations: the communication technician role, constraining information disclosure about the organization; and the manager role, constraining participation in the decision-making process. Discusses implications for what can be communicated outside and what can be done inside the organization. Addresses implications…

Tests a rational model of the elaboration of themes found in rejection messages, using Japanese and American participants. Finds partial support for the initial rational model but notes two key revisions: identifies two new themes in rejection messages and suggests substantial differences in the way Americans and Japanese elaborate themes to serve…

Examines how the collaborative scheme is used to balance the demands of accuracy and efficiency during routine and nonroutine pilot-controller communication. Suggests that several communication problems can be traced to nonstandard collaborative practices that tax controller and pilot attention and memory. (SR)

Examines the relationship of student questions to teacher comments in college classrooms across the university. Finds 6 categories of student questions (with an average of 3.6 student questions asked per hour of instruction), 8 categories of antecedent teacher comments, and 7 categories of consequent teacher comment. Considers explanations and…

Illuminates Kenneth Burke's characteristics of a mystical rhetoric as they issue from "purpose" as a dominant dramatistic element. Offers a case study in mystical rhetoric by identifying the essential qualities of a mystical narrative and demonstrating how these qualities operate in Chiara Lubich's 1977 Templeton Prize Acceptance Speech.…

Outlines a model of the speech act of apologizing that ranges apologies along a continuum from the most situational to the most personal. Analyzes 252 occurrences of apologies in 62 telephone interviews. Shows how most apologies are functions of discourse task management tactics. (HB)

Identifies six questions that have been insufficiently explored by instructional communication researchers. Reveals that the limited approach to inquiry has had the effect of privileging existing social and political arrangements. (MG)