Finds communication apprehension to be significantly negatively related to both middle-school students' attitudes toward school and final grades. Indicates that communication apprehension influences the choice of desired others made by students and their teachers in a classroom communication network. (JMF)

Emphasizes that problems in assessing functional communication have their origin in conceptional ambiguity. Contrasts communicative competence with functional communicative effectiveness and proposes the latter as a more appropriate construct for older children and adults. (JMF)

Evaluates the reliability, concurrent validity, and comparative predictive validity of political sophistication in comparison to those of exposure, attention, and civics knowledge. Suggests that political sophisticates do not simply consume more news but process it differently than their less-sophisticated counterparts. (SR)

Examines the relationship between mothers' and adolescents' (N=42) perceptions of one another's behavior and their actual communication behavior during a problem-solving task. Results indicate that adolescents' negative beliefs about their mothers predicted adolescents' negative communication. Suggests that treatment of parent-adolescent conflict…

Studies a classroom issue, discipline, by viewing it from the framework of "Negotiated Order Theory." Reveals how and why discipline is negotiated by a first-year teacher and his ninth-grade students. Explicates the communicative strategies used by the teacher and his students to negotiate classroom order. Indicates that misbehavior…

Describes the current status and characteristics of the basic organizational communication course taught in colleges and universities in North America. Compares results of the survey with the 1988 survey. Discusses faculty and course information, course objectives and content, text, instructional methods, assignments, and common instructional…

Examines the Indian state's role in promoting the software industry, and the different forms of power used to this end. Juxtaposes the new conventional understanding of policy liberalization with the concepts of the network state and transformational power to understand the shifts that have taken place in India's software policy over the past 10…

Discusses the Communist state and the media, and remodeling the media system. Describes stages of media transformation in Central and Eastern Europe, and evaluates their media differentiation. Discusses the Polish model of public service broadcasting, and discusses the many obstacles to media differentiation. (SR)

Suggests that a combination of face-to-face and computer-mediated discussion (CMD) provides a learning environment superior to that of the traditional classroom. Finds that students actively involved in CMD groups not only reported learning more than they otherwise would have but also tended to earn higher grades than students taking part in…

Uses content analysis of television characters in all occupations across 30 seasons to test the argument that television entertainment depicts business negatively. Reaffirms that television stigmatizes the occupation of business, independently of economic factors. Notes that these results pose a challenge to mass communications theory that…

Examines the influence of happy outcome information and coping style on fourth and fifth graders' emotional responses to a frightening film sequence. Finds that prior knowledge of the happy outcome reduced self-reported fear and worry for "blunters" but not for "monitors." Discusses interpretations of findings and implications for understanding…

Synthesizes research supporting the assertion that people are not very accurate perceivers of the opinions of others. Assesses the impact of these findings on E. Noelle-Neumann's "spiral of silence" theory. Suggests an alternative research strategy drawn from social psychology to test this aspect of the spiral of silence process. (SG)

Investigates the relationship between employee performance with new technology and perceptual and communication factors. Finds strong correlational evidence that three aspects of employees' perceptions of a new technology's attributes and two types of messages affect their productivity levels with that technology. (MG)

Argues that accounts (explanations of conduct) provided in selection interviews are not powerless speech forms. Examines relative frequencies of accounts, and describes a subset of selection interviews as "hazardous" communication events. Suggests that accounts, if not excessive, assist applications by explaining away questionable…

Examines metacommunicational statements within stepfamily reorganization. Finds two relational tasks employed by couples: (1) to create marital solidarity by direct communication between mates and clear statements to the children regarding the priority of the marriage; and (2) to establish the stepparent's credibility as an authority in…