Measures heart rates of both anxious and nonanxious speakers under both high- and low-intensity conditions. Finds that heart rates of anxious speakers were significantly higher than those of nonanxious speakers when both performed under low-intensity conditions but that heart rates were not different for anxious and nonanxious speakers when…

Summarizes postmodernism as an alternative to the perspective grounding four "traditional postulates" in communication: that communication is characterized by symbolic behavior, is an interactive process, has a fidelity characteristic, and has encoding as one of its components. Describes some specific questions postmodern works raise…

Follows up on some recent calls for study of music as a mass medium. Finds that music serves as a powerful communication medium, speaking directly to the emotions (excitement, happiness, love) of high school students. Finds that women were somewhat more likely to associate emotions with music and to use music for mood management. (PRA)

Examines the presentation of economic arguments in 351 articles (from 1965 to 1988) that focused on some economic aspect of communication in three core journals in communications. Uses citation analysis to identify core referents for these articles. Finds that communications scholars cite other communication journals more than economic journals.…

Investigates whether preschool children behave differently when making requests to talking and silent adults and what they know about conversation intrusions. Finds that young children take longer to make their requests of silent adults and older children take longer to address talking adults. (SR)

Examines the relationship of interpersonal solidarity to various aspects of idiomatic communication in the relational cultures of college student friends. Finds that idiomatic communication is prevalent and parallels the development of intimacy in friendship. Describes functions, types, and gender differences in idioms and their correlations with…

Investigates intimate play in college students' same-sex friendships and opposite-sex romantic relationships. Derives a typology of eight play forms, and finds playfulness a strong correlate of relationship closeness. Finds differences among the eight play forms on the functions of indexing intimacy, lessening interpersonal risk, distancing self…

Documents the fruitfulness of the agenda-setting metaphor in communication research via three features: the steady historical growth of its literature; the integration of communication research areas; and the ability to generate new research problems across a variety of communication settings. (SR)

Seeks to add insight to the complex intellectual history of agenda-setting research by identifying over-time patterns of publications and of bibliographic citations. Addresses issues about the past, present, and future of agenda-setting research. (SR)

Reviews the conceptual position of agenda-setting research, identifies methodological problems associated with it, and proposes a newly defined criterion variable--the "problematic situation"--as a cognitive approach to the metaphor that mass media tells people "what to think about." (SR)

Combines the ideas of Erasmus, the Renaissance humanist, and Bakhtin, the twentieth-century Russian philosopher, into a unified theory of business correspondence. Presents both a set of guidelines and a model for the practice of dialogical correspondence. (SR)

Argues that pedagogical research must be retrieved from the margins of the communication discipline. Sketches guidelines for a more theoretically sophisticated and engaging form of discipline-specific pedagogy. (SR)

Finds that, for students with high test anxiety, support from people outside of class is positively related to exam grades, and support from peers in class is negatively related to exam grades; however, for students with low test anxiety the reverse is true. (SR)

Compares the rank ordering of cognitive differentiation scores by observers and actors; and methods of construct sampling based on instructional set. Shows that observer and actor codings are inconsistent but that two different methods of sampling are consistent. Suggests the particular score assigned by observers using established procedures may…

Analyzes empirical findings and conceptual problems to clarify how sex differences are related to communication. Finds that conceptual reasons for the muddled picture of sex differences in communication research include reliance on stereotypes, polarization of the sexes, lack of valid reasons, and dearth of theory. (SR)