The phenomena of overlapping talk is examined. In numerous types of conversational exchanges, people briefly acknowledge the utterance that overlapped their own and then recycle an overlapped utterance and/or introduce a new topic. Three types of objects are illustrated and discussed: an acknowledgment token, an assessment, and a commentary. (four…

Provides some direction for critical communication research into the next decade or two. Concentrates, as a critic of popular culture, on the interpretation of cultural texts. (SR)

Argues not only that critical and traditional social scientific theory have different moral stances but also that they take different approaches to generating knowledge claims. (SR)

Draws on dialogical theory and a critical theory of medical discourse to analyze providers' and patients' interpretations of communication in their relationship with one another, identifying their critical attention or inattention to understanding and social context. (SR)

Argues that, to make itself more central to studies in its own field, American communication should embrace its traditional, albeit now greatly expanded, subject matter (communication), while at the same time abandoning all institutional vestiges of its narrow and long outmoded approaches to the field. (SR)

Attributes the lack of disciplinary status accorded communication to the lack of ontological status granted the very idea of communication in modernity. Argues that the field should deny modernity's bifurcation by asserting that communication is foundational and attempt to forward a unique communication ontology. (SR)

Argues that communication research needs to move toward better integration of observations on the microlevel with systemic generalizations about macrolevel phenomena, and reorient research away from the media behavior and responses of individuals and toward the cumulative consequences of media behavior over time. (SR)

Claims that the field of communication is moving beyond theorizing that treats communication as a process, to what might be called "multiple-process theory." Examines views of message-processing modes and effects, enlarges the scope of inquiry by considering a multiplicity of levels of analysis, and discusses a philosophical orientation compatible…

Discusses particular tensions within the area of interpersonal communication theory and research surrounding the study of social and personal relationships. Argues that important issues have been ignored as scholars pursue a spurious conflict between communication science and communication hermeneutics. (SR)

Uses three quotations from Gregory Bateson to inform the author's comments on the discipline of communication. Argues that communication teachers and scholars must aim for a curriculum and a mode of study, research, and teaching that leads to means of recognizing, addressing, and responding to truly significant questions, rather than disciplinary,…

Discuses three developmental stages of the information society: the electrification of communication, beginning in the middle of the nineteenth century; converging technologies and awareness of information, beginning in the late middle twentieth century; and, beginning in the 1990s, the harmonization of information systems with each other.…

Advocates that communication scholars explore more deeply the work of Emile Durkheim. Explores Durkheim and communication studies, and Durkheimian contributions to communication theory, viewing every corner of social life as communicatively founded. (SR)

Provides examples of ways to integrate legal and practical public relations concerns into the mass communication law course. (SR)

Examines affective facial expression in conversation. Demonstrates that the accuracy of affect-identification for conversational facial expressions generally is no better than chance. Demonstrates that most conversational facial expressions, regardless of true source emotion or the affect signaled in isolation, tend to be interpreted according to…

Discusses the growing trend in which adult college students prepare portfolios of their self-acquired competencies and have them assessed for academic credit. Describes the portfolio used by Indiana University in terms of suggestions and implications for assessment in speech communication. (SR)