Ethical communication scholars frequently find national popular rhetoric unethical. Some proposed ethical guidelines for the public presentation of ideas call for such elements as habits of search, justice, preference for public versus private motives, respect for dissent, airing of all relevant arguments, and persuasion without coercion or…

Use of communication theory in an analysis of the court proceedings of the Jean Harris murder trial suggests that Harris contributed to her conviction with her inconsistent use of language and her refusal to remain in low-profile. Harris' defense attorney attempted to portray her as an upstanding, well-bred member of the community, and as a…

A study explored rhetorical strategies and dynamics within a single speech delivered by Frederick Douglass on July 5, l852 in Rochester, New York, which was considered by speaker and audience to be an Independence Day speech. An examination of the text suggests that Douglass embarked on a strategy of attention-shifting--turning the attention of…

In order to discover and evaluate the nature of large-scale, standardized assessment programs in colleges and universities in 1986, a survey followed up the Committee on Assessment and Testing (CAT)-sponsored study of 1982. A questionnaire was mailed to speech departments of more than 2,000 institutions, asking first whether the institution has…

Approximately 200 employees of small and medium sized businesses participated in a study to determine if their task characteristics affected the communication network roles they enact. Specifically, the study investigated the effects of variety, autonomy, task identity, feedback, dealing with others, and friendship opportunities on the network…

Drawing from data generated in more than 100 hours of interaction within 15 leaderless groups, a study investigated the interaction characteristics of emergent leadership--leadership that is earned through face-to-face encounters in a group. Each group was instructed to reach consensus decisions on two tasks, both of which provided the possibility…

A study was conducted to explore how males and females differ in their use of interpersonal conflict management styles. Subjects were 71 male and 76 female students from an introductory interpersonal communication course at a large midwestern state university. They were instructed to think of an important relationship with either an opposite-sex…

Defining communication reticence as anxiousness due to a lack of basic communication skills, a study was conducted to determine (1) whether significant differences exist in the distribution of sex roles between reticent and nonreticent populations, (2) whether reticents and nonreticents differ in masculinity and femininity, and (3) which qualities…

Social support in the workplace may take many forms, and the form it takes may be related to the extent to which it buffers the relationship between occupational stressors and individual strains. A study was conducted to examine social support given to subordinates from their supervisors. Nurses (N=225) from seven hospitals completed measures of…

To increase knowledge about the nature of news (particularly its valuation and presentation conventions), to enrich understanding of communication conventions in our society through the study of news communication, and to fashion a tool that can be used to charge and change such conventions, a study examined the content of all news articles…

A study was conducted to determine the effects of mildly self-disparaging humor on audiences' perceptions when it is used by speakers perceived to be of differing credibility (ethos) levels. Responses by 27 students who were potential subjects of the experiment were used to construct a credibility scale. The most credible speaker, a university…

Aided by her advisor, a communication apprehensive college senior majoring in speech communication at a small rural college developed a project designed to help herself and other apprehensives through cognitive modification. Six students enrolled in a speech communication course who were classified as communication apprehensive by the Personal…

A review of literature and two surveys, one of college students and one of a random sample of adults, were used to examine four aspects of media embedded interactions (social behavior in front of a TV or radio): their functions, their environment, their effects, and the reactions of the interactants to them. Television is seen as performing a…

Conventional wisdom holds that the right-wing John Birch Society disintegrated during the late 1960s. An examination of the society's periodical readership indicates that it has, instead, expanded. Moreover, this expansion occurred during a period of ideological dissonance for the organization, a fact that undermines confidence in the explanation…

The citation study technique, known as bibliometrics, was undertaken in this study to evaluate scholarly exchange among the core journals in the field of communication. The journals studied were "Central States Speech Journal,""Communication Research,""Journal of Broadcasting,""Journal of…