Data from personal interviews with 268 black adults living in predominantly black neighborhoods of San Francisco, California, were used to examine the relationships among political participation, media exposure, and various individual characteristics. Results showed that reading general news magazines had the strongest interaction with the three…

National planned birth policy decisions in the People's Republic of China from 1949 to 1976 and the organizational infrastructure that supports such decisions are reviewed in this monograph. The transferability and limitations of the Chinese experience are also discussed. Specific topics covered are: the development of the planned birth campaigns;…

To determine whether individuals with different sexual identities exhibit different amounts of touching behavior, 199 undergraduates completed the Bem Sex-Role Inventory (BSRI) and a modification of the Touch Avoidance Measure (TAM). The BSRI produced scores indicating an individual's degree of association with both masculine and feminine traits.…

This paper examines the overall effect of the 1976 presidential debates on the public's learning about issues and candidates, identifying several factors that are linked to campaign learning and that explain individual differences in the amount of learning that occurred from watching the debates. Findings presented in this paper are based on an…

Undertaken as a situational, cross-cultural study to determine the importance of various mass media in individual problem-solving and decision-making, 2,500 adults in Seattle, Belgrade, and Ljubljana were interviewed and asked to indicate those problems he/she perceived as personally important in the city he/she was living in a and in the world.…

Tests a scaling instrument that measures an individual's power in four communication situations. Shows that positive and negative personal power and reward power are three stable factors accounting for seven-tenths of the total variance. Supports the hypothesis that perceived interpersonal power varies across communication contexts. (RL)

Personal constructs of internally and externally oriented students were expected to engender different perceptions of teachers' use of behavior alteration techniques (BATs) in the classroom. Indicates that externally oriented students perceived more frequent BAT use by teachers than did internally oriented students, and that perceptions by…

Discusses three important international issues that have been altered since computers have been integrated into modern global communication systems: (1) the New World Information and Communication Order, (2) the World Administrative Radio Conference, and (3) Transborder Data Flow. Identifies their interrelationships and proposes a more active,…

Examines the varieties, tensions, and functions of friendship as described by 32 high school juniors in open-ended interviews. Findings revealed considerable tension between popularity as public comportment and friendship as private communication. Illustrates and examines two modes of violating trust, revealing a secret and backstabbing, and…

Suggests that an interpretive view of communication, with philosophical assumptions about the nature of persons and communication, provides a perspective from which scholars study argumentation. Presents arguments supporting the value of the interpretive perspective, and answers criticisms by showing how those criticisms are grounded in…

Urges a "re-inventing" of corporate communications in today's organizations, and provides information about how corporations can change in new and positive ways during the current "information age." Discusses specific public relations and organizational communication concepts essential for a comprehensive understanding of…

Relies on grief literature to develop a heuristic model of patterned stages of national mourning. Applies the model to lend insight into print mediated accounts of the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger. (NKA)

Examined the speech patterns of three- to eight-year-old children. Results showed that the children most often used "ah" phenomena and unfilled pauses as do adults. "Ah" phenomena showed a significant increase with age, especially between five and six among the females. (SRT)

Indicates that membership in pausing and skimming clusters appears to relate to text comprehension, grade level, and rated academic ability, but that these relationships are not all simple or direct. Finds that the cluster-analytic approach provides a useful empirical adjunct to current theoretical perspectives on text analysis and reading…

Observed the decision-reaching and leadership behavior of children in same- amd mixed-age triads by coding their verbalizations in arriving at a consensus for their preference ranking of eight pictures. (HOD)