Contends that the trouble with communication research is fragmentation and too much low-quality and very little high-quality work. (PD)

Daniel Linz and Edward Donnerstein criticize the research methods and conclusions of pornography researchers Dolf Zillmann and Jennings Bryant (who allege that consumption of pornography results in antisocial effects). Zillman and Bryant respond. (ARH)

Responds to six articles in the same issue on images in retrospect. Deals collectively rather than individually with ideas that underlie the work of the respective authors and attempts to provide a critical interpretation guided by the maxim "always historicize!" (SR)

Introduces a symposium in this journal issue: "Technology through a Retrospective Eye: Imaging Practices between the World Wars and Beyond." Notes that each article of the symposium keys into a central moment of expansion of imaging practice and focuses on the debates that accompanied that expansion. (SR)

Argues that scholars from other communication disciplines could learn much from public relations research. Discusses public relations research at the micro level (individual public relations programs), the meso level (managerial), and the macro level (what makes excellent public relations possible). Offers an integrative theory explaining the…

Argues that the discipline of communication has not progressed for two reasons: because scholars talk more to each other than to those outside the field, and because they have not clearly defined what they are about to themselves, their colleagues, their students, and the general public. (SR)

Relates the history of the focus group as a research tool, explores its recent revival, and reappraises the method and its appropriateness for media and communications research. Argues that the focus group discussion should be regarded as a socially situated communication. Discusses the various relations this may bear toward different approaches…

Argues that communication research needs to move toward better integration of observations on the microlevel with systemic generalizations about macrolevel phenomena, and reorient research away from the media behavior and responses of individuals and toward the cumulative consequences of media behavior over time. (SR)

Claims that the field of communication is moving beyond theorizing that treats communication as a process, to what might be called "multiple-process theory." Examines views of message-processing modes and effects, enlarges the scope of inquiry by considering a multiplicity of levels of analysis, and discusses a philosophical orientation compatible…

Discuses three developmental stages of the information society: the electrification of communication, beginning in the middle of the nineteenth century; converging technologies and awareness of information, beginning in the late middle twentieth century; and, beginning in the 1990s, the harmonization of information systems with each other.…

Advocates that communication scholars explore more deeply the work of Emile Durkheim. Explores Durkheim and communication studies, and Durkheimian contributions to communication theory, viewing every corner of social life as communicatively founded. (SR)

Argues for a more interdisciplinary approach to journalism scholarship to provide a fuller account of media power. Considers briefly the notions of performance, narrative, ritual, and interpretive community as alternative frames through which to consider journalism. (SR)

Argues that the major studies supporting the Principle of Relative Constancy in consumption of mass communication products were statistically defective. Presents updated tests of data suggesting that the principle is actually of doubtful predictive value. (MS)

Offers a clarification of the original uses of the word "stereotype" and argues that the current failure to account for evaluative and historical aspects of stereotypes has diluted the usefulness of the concept for critics and teachers. (MS)

Concludes that although the new rhetoric may serve as a reminder that communication studies are more than simple effects research, the ferment produced by a highly politicized debate--if it successfully masquerades as scholarly controversy--can become intellectually self-limiting and sterile. (PD)