A study investigated whether the interaction patterns of high consensus groups differed significantly from the patterns of low consensus groups in the final stage of a decision-making task. Eighty-four college students placed into 19 groups were told to select a social problem, investigate it, and develop a solution. At the end of the three-week…

A study sought to determine the extent to which social workers were called upon to engage in applied communication tasks and to determine various perceptions that social workers held of their responsibilities in the area of applied communication. The 500 respondents selected from a list of Michigan-licensed certified social workers filled out…

This paper argues that communication researchers could benefit from incorporating a rules approach as a supplement to more traditional methods of organizational analysis. Two major flaws in the methodology of traditional organizational analysis are noted: failing to account for actor or participant meanings--how the actor interprets relationships,…

Defining communication fidelity as the communication of ideas by one person in a way that results in the construction of congruent ideas by the recipient of that communication, this paper describes a model of basic communication based on this construct that will provide specific information about communication problems. The paper also discusses…

A two-phase study was conducted to compare individuals' perceptions of American life with their perceptions of Robert Frank's "The Americans," a book of photographs. In the first phase, a projective technique was used to elicit verbal responses about a sample of Frank's photographs. In the second phase, a representative sample of opinion…

A study examined the effects of conversational themes and attention-focusing strategies on conversational comprehension. The variables in the study were (1) the presentation of ambiguous versus unambiguous themes of conversations, (2) using personal versus content-oriented themes in conversations, and (3) presenting listeners with personal versus…

A study replicated Robert Sommer's classic work of library table seat choices, showing that people given defensive instructions chose end seats while people given offensive instructions chose middle seats. In a followup study, defensiveness was measured in college students who were asked where they typically sat at library tables. This study found…

Compiled in response to the need for more information on the differences between the press systems of the United States and the Soviet Union, this bibliography contains 240 entries. Consisting of newspaper articles, journal articles, books, and pamphlets, the bibliography provides an overview of the different journalistic philosophies of the two…

A study investigated the mode of communication and the type of information that best serves an organization's purposes during the orientation interviews of new employees. Preliminary interviews with ten new employees and ten experienced employees indicated task-related performances for oral or written organizational communications--structured…

A study of the nature and sources of films imported into Egypt is examined in this report. The first section of the report explores the social effects of imported films. The second section provides an overview of the effect and distribution of foreign films in Egypt. The third section analyzes the specific foreign films projected in cinemas or…

Current conceptualizations of the construct of "communication competence" are examined in this paper and are found to be problematic. The paper argues that "communication competence" must be distinguished from "communication performance" and sees neither as a reliable predictor of the other. The paper suggests that both research and pedagogy must…

The phenomenon of crowd behavior at sports events is examined in this paper. Previous treatments of why spectators enjoy watching sports events are examined, showing that these studies have largely ignored the potential role of intraaudience influence processes. A brief literature review notes the role of feedback between the communication event…

A study tested the effect of three levels of context (positive, neutral, and negative) on subjects' accuracy in identifying facial expressions of emotion (fear, disgust, anger, sadness, happiness, and surprise). The subjects were 277 female and 69 male teachers enrolled in graduate communication courses. After reading a positive, neutral, or…

The extent to which human facial expressions are universal and cross-culturally recognizable has been the subject of considerable debate. Two approaches have been used in studies of facial expressions: the judgment approach entails showing examples of facial expressions to various cultures or groups of people and determining whether they interpret…

A case study of one formal women's network was designed as an initial stage in examining the effectiveness and usefulness of overt, free-standing networks being established by career-oriented women. In all, 158 women contributed data concerning their current careers, interests and objectives in participating in the formal network, their networking…