Showing papers in "Journal of Communication in 1993"

Framing: Toward Clarification of a Fractured Paradigm

Abstract: deficient core knowledge, I propose that we turn an osten- sible weakness into a strength. We should identify our mission as bring- ing together insights and theories that would otherwise remain scattered in other disciplines. Because of the lack of interchange among the disci- plines, hypotheses thoroughly discredited in one field may receive wide acceptance in another. Potential research paradigms remain fractured, with pieces here and there but no comprehensive statement to guide re- search. By bringing ideas together in one location, communication can aspire to become a master discipline that synthesizes related theories and concepts and exposes them to the most rigorous, comprehensive state- ment and exploration. Reaching this goal would require a more self-con- scious determination by communication scholars to plumb other fields and feed back their studies to outside researchers. At the same time, such an enterprise would enhance the theoretical rigor of communication scholarship proper. The idea

The Evolution of Agenda-Setting Research: Twenty-Five Years in the Marketplace of Ideas

Abstract: Communication scholars frequently invoke the concept of a marketplace of ideas during discussions about speechmaking, the diversity of media content and voices, and related First Amendment issues. They invoke it less often during intramural discussions of how specific concepts and perspectives, or our research agendas as a whole, have evolved over the years. Yet communication research does operate in a marketplace of ideas that is the quintessential laissez-faire market. The role of our journals is to create a market for the ideas advanced by members of the field. Individual scholars pick and choose topics at will-idiosyncratically and whimsically, some critics say-and publish at irregular intervals. Research teams, to the extent that they exist in communication research, usually arise spontaneously and have short life spans. Institutionalized focused research programs are rare. The communication research marketplace is a volatile arena, a situation fostered by the rapidly changing nature of communication itself during the past 50 years. Under these circumstances the continuing and growing vitality of agenda-setting research is remarkable. As a theoretical perspective, it has had a rich 25-year history since McCombs and Shaw’s (1972) opening gambit during the 1968 presidential elect ion. Philosopher of science James Conant (1951) noted that the hallmark o f a successful theory is its fruitfulness in continually generating new questions and identifying new avenues of scholarly inquiry. The fruitfulness of the agenda-setting metaphor is documented by three features: (a) the steady historical growth of its literature, (b> its ability to integrate a number of communication research subfields under a single theoretical um-

Attitude-Behavior Relations: A Meta-Analysis of Attitudinal Relevance and Topic

Abstract: The difficulty of finding a relationship between attitudes and behavior is one of the greatest controversies in recent social science research. The purpose of this study was to determine whether attitudinal relevance substantially affects the magnitude of the correlation between attitudes and behavior and whether the effects are content-free. Using meta- analysis the authors integrated findings from 138 attitude-behavior correlations with a total sample size of 90908. The behaviors they studied ranged over 19 different categories and a variety of miscellaneous topics. The results showed a strong overall attitude- behavior relationship (r = .79) when methodological artifacts were eliminated. As predicted the higher the attitudinal relevance the stronger the relationship between attitudes and behavior. This effect held true across diverse content domains. Implications for communication theory and practice are discussed. (authors)

Diffusion of Innovations and Policy Decision‐Making

Abstract: This article presents a general mathematical model of the diffusion of innovations, which incorporates mass media and interpersonal influence. The model is applied to three classic diffusion data sets: (a) use of hybrid corn, (b) knowledge of Eisenhower's stroke, and (c) doctors’prescription of a new drug. Nonlinear regression is used to estimate the mathematical model. The results show that diffusion of hybrid corn occurred via interpersonal influence, whereas the diffusion of knowledge of Eisenhower's stroke occurred via the mass media. For the diffusion of the new drug, the model shows that doctors who subscribed to few medical journals learned about the drug primarily through interpersonal influence, while doctors who subscribed to many medical journals learned about the drug through both mass media and interpersonal channels. Policy decision-makers can use diffusion models to (a) evaluate the effectiveness of media versus interpersonal campaigns, (b) make comparisons between subgroups, and (c) evaluate the effect of a policy.

The Rise and Fall of Audience Research: An Old Story With a New Ending

Abstract: Discusses theoretical and methodological opposition that dominate mass communications research. Critical versus administrative research; Study of texts versus the study of audiences; Use of qualitative versus quantitative methods; Focus on the mass communication audience; Theories of literary reception from high culture; Study of the notion of context-dependent meaning.

Artificial Neurol Networks in Policy Research: A Current Assessment

Abstract: Recent advances in neuroscience, computer science, psychology, and other fields have led to the development of computer programs that are modeled, in principle, on idealizations of organic neural structures. These artificial neural networks (ANNs) exhibit important properties that promise great usefulness for policy researchers. Most important among these are ANNs’ability to learn to identify complex patterns of information and to associate them with other patterns. Furthermore, like their biological predecessors, ANNs can recognize and recall these patterns and associations in spite of noisy, incomplete, or otherwise defective information inputs. ANNs can also generalize information learned about one or more patterns to other related patterns. As a result, ANNs have already found extensive use in areas once reserved for multivariate statistical programs such as regression and multiple classification analysis, and are developing an extensive community of advocates for processing text and other qualitative information.

Building a Discipline of Communication

Abstract: L'A. apporte des precisions quant a l'affirmation selon laquelle la communication n'a pas de statut disciplinaire veritable parce qu'elle n'a pas de corps, de noyau de connaissance. L'A. considere que les disciplines ne se definissent pas par des noyaux de connaissance (epistemologie) mais par les vues qu'elles offrent sur les choses et les etres (ontologie). Pour l'A., comprendre le manque de statut disciplinaire de la communication requiert de comprendre le manque de statut ontologique accorde a l'idee de communication dans la modernite

Verbing Communication: Mandate for Disciplinary Invention

Abstract: L'A. s'interesse a la theorisation de la communication dans les sciences sociales. Il constate que les chercheurs se concentrent sur des types de theorisation qui ne relevent pas de la communication en elle-meme mais sur des types de theorisation sociologique, psychologique, anthropologique etc. L'A. souhaite voir se developper une « theorie de la communication communicante ». Les science sociales doivent pour cela abandonner les strategies theoriques qui empechent de regarder la communication de maniere communicative pour pouvoir developper une theorie de la communication pure

From Field to Frog Ponds

Abstract: L'A. utilise la typolologie des ecoles de pensee en sociologie, presentee initialement par les Anglo-americains Burrell et Morgan, pour caracteriser la situation actuelle de la recherche en matiere de communication par rapport a celle de la fin des annees 1970 d'une part et par rapport a ce qui etait prevu d'autre part pour etablir ensuite de nouvelles previsions. L'A. analyse la typologie de Burrell et de Morgan, basee sur deux dimensions (nature des sciences sociales et nature de la societe) et constituee de quatre paradigmes (humanisme radical, structuralisme radical, sociologie interpretative, sociologie fonctionnaliste)

Why Are There So Many Communication Theories

Abstract: L'A. s'interroge sur la situation actuelle et l'evolution des theories de la communication. Il montre que le champ de la communication est investi par un certain nombre de theories issues de la recherche interdisciplinaire et de la transformation des sciences humaines qui a permis la proliferation des theories de la communication. L'A. se penche sur l'avenir de la discipline elle-meme dans le champ des sciences humaines

Images of Media: Hidden Ferment — and Harmony — in the Field

Abstract: As of now, media scholars have a rather limited shared vocabulary to describe exactly what it is they are studying about media or about a particular medium. This situation is not necessarily a serious problem for the scores of fields and research traditions whose concepts and vocabularies are brought to bear on media research questions, but it is a glaring problem for media studies because, even apart from other differences, we have no common understanding of what the subject matter of the field is.

Public Issue Priority Formation: Media Agenda-Setting and Social Interaction

Abstract: A mathematical model was developed to explain the public's issue priority by integrating two processes: media agenda-setting and social interaction. The media agenda-setting component of the model, based in part on cognition theory, states that memories for media coverage decline over time for each individual. Both components are discussed in terms of their ability to sustain the priority among people who previously agreed with the importance of the issue, and to recruit others to that issue position. The model was tested using two independently collected time series data sets covering six issues. The results support the hypothesis that the public's issue priority was influenced by both media and social interaction.

Communication—Embrace the Subject, not the Field

Abstract: L'A. analyse le champ de la communication et l'approche qui est faite de cette discipline aux Etats-Unis. Partant des origines intellectuelles du champ de la communication americaine, l'A. montre que ce champ s'est developpe dans le cadre d'une collaboration interdisciplinaire pour aboutir au champ actuel caracterise par quatre elements cle, le domaine cognitif, la culture, le controle et la communication, qui constituent le fondement de la communication et de sa discipline aux Etats-Unis

Creating Imagined Communities: Development Communication and the Challenge of Feminism

Abstract: The failures of the first three development decades have been well documented. In efforts to reduce failures communication scholars and practitioners have proposed strategies to increase recipient participation in projects. Their proposals have not been adequately implemented and many groups are still bypassed or even harmed by development efforts. Women are usually the most neglected in these groups. This essay draws on three areas of critical scholarship each initiated a little over 20 years ago to outline an expanded vision for development communication. Each in different ways addresses the failures of development programs under modernization. The first has been called women in development and emerged in part from the work of Danish economist Ester Boserup…The second area includes grass-roots critiques of development of which Paolo Freires 1970 book Pedagogy of the Oppressed is especially well- known…The third area political economy of communication initiated global discussions about uses of power in communication industries and systems. (excerpt modified)

The Past of Communication's Hoped-For Future.

Abstract: L'A. analyse le processus de la communication et la place de la recherche et de la theorie dans ce processus. Il montre que la communication est un ensemble de messages (textes, evenements) mobiles et reproductibles qui existent dans la realite objective. Ces messages affectent ceux a qui ils sont destines et les mettent en relation les uns avec les autres. Ce schema constitue la base sur laquelle se developpent les theories de la communication et les ecoles de pensee

Reconnecting Communications Studies with Communications Policy.

Abstract: L'A. analyse les relations entre la recherche en communication et l'environnement exterieur des medias aux Etats-Unis. Il considere que l'avenir de la discipline se situe dans une plus grande connexion de ces deux spheres entre elles. Les etudes en communication n'ont joue jusqu'a present qu'un role mineur dans les changements considerables dans le traitement public des systemes de communication aux Etats-Unis