Presents four forms of syntactic and semantic meanings. Discusses certain types of message distortion--both syntactic and semantic--that can actually enhance communication effectiveness. (JK)

Identifies five features of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial that may account for its deep universal appeal. Suggests the memorial's effectiveness may recommend it as a model for contemporary anti-war rhetoric. (MS)

This keynote address to the 1984 Central States Speech Association Convention uses the convention theme--the interesting question--to define communication research, review recent scholarly developments, and exhort scholars to integrate their fields of study. (PD)

Discusses problems with the term "mass communication." Contends that mass communication research must include the study of public communication in the sense of finding out what people do with media and what are the problems of diffusing information or public knowledge. (PD)

Notes that if there is to be a new wave of exciting research on communications, it is likely to be on questions raised by the new electronic media. (PD)

Recently, communication researchers have suggested that dialectics may offer a different way of looking at mediation, organizational conflict, and the fundamental oppositions of interpersonal bonding. Leslie Baxter and Barbara Montgomery, through their relational dialectics perspective, have claimed a dialogical conceptualization of…

Academic debate has often been criticized as being "artificial" and "elitist" due to its highly structured format and the specialized skills it often requires. While countless argumentation scholars have advanced reasons why academic debate is pertinent to a comprehensive education, a different source of justification for…

Sees rhetoric or "languaging strategies" as central to the perception that a social movement exists. (PD)

Disagrees that "dialectical enjoinment" and "collective behavior" are necessary characteristics of a rhetorical study of social movements. Prefers a focus on individual perceptions or consciousness of movement. (PD)

Examines types of interpersonal rituals in marriages and adult friendships. Assesses ritual enactment among friendship types. Develops a typology of seven marriage ritual types and a typology of six friendship ritual types. (RS)

Explores the tension between critical rhetoric's "doxa" and a modernistic "episteme." Develops a revised conception of doxa positioned within a critical rhetoric, which is contrasted to episteme. Advances a conception of prudence (practical wisdom) that uses doxa as its underpinnings. Argues that the actions of the agent may be…

Tests predictions from a cognitive heuristics approach and a nonverbal expectancy violations approach concerning deception attribution directed toward a message source. Shows that the reward value of a message source can function as a heuristic cue and influence attributions of deceptions; however, this effect is apparently limited to low-reward…

States M.L. Mares presents evidence that source confusions play a role in the cultivation effect. Clarifies some of Mares' findings that have implications for the heuristic model of cultivation effects and shows that Mares' findings are compatible with and can be integrated into the heuristic processing model. Discusses implications of Mares'…

States that argumentative explicitness is acknowledged as a normative ideal in the practice of argument. Addresses one facet of the question of whether argumentative explicitness inevitably sacrifices instrumental success, by offering a meta-analytic review of the persuasive effects associated with degree of articulation given to the advocate's…

Analyzes how Hollywood's journalism movie genre has portrayed the news media over the years. Suggests that the movies' relationship to the press reflects a fundamentally ambivalent relationship between the press and the broader culture and that Hollywood explicitly portrays institutional and cultural tensions within journalism which the news media…