Examines the relative influence of six communication modalities on voters' perceptions of lesser-known candidates during contested presidential primary campaigns. Indicates that interpersonal communication dominates all modalities in influencing voters' perceptions in the "distant phase" and persists into the "localized phase."…

Finds that in almost two-thirds of the cases studied, in which organizations responded to public charges of sexual harassment, legal strategy--rather than public relations strategy--was used by official spokespersons. Argues that organizations need to reconcile the often contradictory counsel of public relations and legal professionals. (SR)

Investigates changes in the internal structure of semantic categories as a result of cultural transition. Examines typicality shifts in semantic categories of Jewish Argentine immigrants in Israel. Presents a model mapping typicality shift patterns onto acculturation patterns. (HB)

Explores the varying degrees of success that technical communicators had in different geographic and organizational settings of three development efforts within one company. Finds that a high degree of integration between technical communicators and developers can result in improved information products but that the organizational framework, work…

Finds that young adults and fathers are similar in their interpersonal motives and self-disclosures in communicating with each other; interpersonal motives for communicating are related to self-disclosure behavior; and peoples' motives and self-disclosures in the young adult-father relationship explain their satisfaction with that relationship.…

Examines Mario Cuomo's 1984 speech at Notre Dame University in which Cuomo explains the contradiction between his abortion policy and the teachings of the Catholic Church through an appeal to the separation between church and state. Evaluates his construction of the role of religious rhetoric in public policy. (SR)

Examines the rhetoric of Margaret Thatcher, indicating how Thatcherism intensified existing ideological tensions within the British context; how Thatcherism constructed the public issue of "terrorism" in Northern Ireland as an "epic tragedy"; and how such a construction materially shifted and ensnared commitments to…

Defines a relational approach to moral reasoning. Notes that the Supreme Court, in "Planned Parenthood v. Casey," rejected simplistic approaches to moral reasoning and acknowledged the complex web of relationships involved in abortion decision making. Suggests that rhetoricians "revision" the art of persuasion to place more…

Explores the relationship among forensic, deliberative, and epideictic modes of rhetoric in the cold fusion controversy. Shows the interactions between three modes of rhetoric. Examines the ways in which the modes have shaped the emerging scientific consensus. Supports Robert Sanders' contention that rhetorical practices interact with scientific…

Reports on an exploratory, interpretive study of campaign rhetoric, specifically the discourse surrounding opinion polls. Analyzes how candidates, their managers, and journalists reacted to polling results during the 1992 presidential race. Finds that political actors reify public opinion by speaking of survey data as though it were independent of…

Examined how persuasion relates to structural characteristics of attitudes, including the number and supportiveness of initial beliefs. Found that the tendency for strong arguments to persuade more than weak arguments was more pronounced for message recipients who retrieved more beliefs as compared to those who retrieved fewer beliefs. (RJM)

Identifies and discusses divergent synecdochal representations of the handgun as vital to both the construction and maintenance of competing social realities (handgun as threatened liberty and handgun as threatened life) in the debate over the Brady Bill. Demonstrates how such representations serve as divergent rhetorical constructs for competing…

Reports on a cross-sectional survey of newly naturalized United States citizens before the 1988 United States presidential election. Finds that newspaper, television news, and television ads each made a separate, significant contribution to issue learning. (SR)

Examines Margaret Fuller's "Woman in the Nineteenth Century." Notes Fuller's use of transcendentalist philosophy as she demonstrated how women lacked a sense of "self," and constructed women as individuals capable of articulating their own needs and interests through a complex four-part argument. (SR)

Uses Kenneth Burke's comic frame to analyze how the Association of Southern Women for the Prevention of Lynching (a coalition of white Southern women), 1930-1942, used four rhetorical strategies available to the comic rhetor to halt and eventually bring an end to lynching in the South. (SR)