The works of over 75 communication scholars have consistently traced the markers of communication in African American life. There exists a complex and varied corpus that is necessarily interdisciplinary and multifarious in perspectives and context. The space(s) is theirs to define and, perhaps, to claim. Such studies may reward scholars most when…

Recurring claims of the poor relationship of computer adoption and organizational productivity may be of interest to communication scientists who study computer mediated communication (CMC). Cognitive science researchers advocate the same solution to this problem as many communication scientists, i.e., formative research. Iterating design and user…

A study used semiotics to examine the graphic elements within corporate trademarks. The trademarks from 247 "Fortune" 500 corporations were placed into 86 different categories of graphic elements intended to connote 14 different qualities. Subjects, 40 college students and 61 business professionals, evaluated 9 sets of 12 trademarks in…

Traditional scholarship on social movements has emphasized external rhetoric and the role of the leader, rather than the internal dynamics of social movement organizations. This paper is an argument for the integration of experiences and meanings related to membership. Belle Edson's feminist critique of social movement studies provides a framework…

Noting that scholars often agree that varying investigations of relationship maintenance are only different mappings of the same territory, this paper organizes and criticizes the literature on relationship change from a position that defines maintenance as behavior that functions to sustain interpersonal bonds towards future interaction. The…

A study examined forensic competitor preference in choosing quotations for analysis in the event of impromptu speaking. Subjects were 62 competitors in one year and 59 competitors in the next year at an invitational tournament at a large midwestern university. The quotations for the tournament were divided into two groups. The first year, subjects…

A study compared Ph.D. programs in communication in the Central States Region. Fourteen colleges and universities responded to a 17-item questionnaire. Results indicated: (1) there were half as many Ph.D. as Masters degree students; (2) half of the Ph.D. students were residents of the state in which they attended school; (3) the average ratio of…

A study examined the relationship between communication apprehension and the six learning styles of the Grasha-Riechmann Student Learning Styles Scale (GRSLSS). Data were gathered from 325 undergraduates enrolled in an introductory course in interpersonal communication who completed J. McCroskey's Personal Report of Communication Apprehension…

Subjective comments from veteran news reporters, media critics, and the public give the impression that bad or negative news is becoming a major problem in this country. This impression raises major questions concerning how much is really known about bad news, including whether the media present an accurate or distorted picture of reality in…

A study examined the strategies used in 11 "get-out-the-vote" (GOTV) 1982 direct mail campaign letters, which were mailed on behalf of Republican candidates in two gubernatorial, one congressional, and one U.S. Senate race. All letters were mailed from four states with different political climates: Illinois, Minnesota, California, and…

Provides tentative support for Carter's postulates that a person stops all other activities to engage in the cognitive behaviors generally labeled as "thinking," that is, those behaviors requiring interpersonal or intrapersonal communication. (RB)

This study was conducted to determine the status of Ph.D. communication education in research ethics. The study sought to discover the extent to which research ethics courses are being taught, identify the research ethics issues that are discussed in these courses or in research methods coursework, specify the reading material that are assigned in…

While not dismissing the "uses and gratifications" approach to research, this paper attempts to increase the theoretical and practical utility of gratifications measures by approaching them through a more phenomenological and longitudinal tack. The paper suggests that any "gratification unit" is given a unique meaning by the…

A study investigated whether positive response to humor in a speech would enhance audience evaluation of the speech/speaker. A short informative speech on "listening" which included nine relevant jokes was audio tape-recorded in two versions, one in which each joke was punctuated by laughter, and one in which a stony silence greeted each…