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)

Describes the Experience Sampling Method, a quasi-naturalistic method that involves signaling research subjects at random times throughout the day, and asking them to report on the nature and quality of their experience. Discusses the method's applications and value in research topics in organizational settings; with mass and mediated…

Introduces six articles comprising a symposium on dynamic social impact theory--a theory discussing the creation, maintenance, structuring, and alteration of attitude, beliefs, and belief systems; the dynamics of social influence; and the role of human ecology in the formation of belief and belief systems. Discusses theoretical premises and…

Reviews the conceptual position of agenda-setting research, identifies methodological problems associated with it, and proposes a newly defined criterion variable--the "problematic situation"--as a cognitive approach to the metaphor that mass media tells people "what to think about." (SR)

Argues that scholars in communication studies, rather than engaging questions about "the field" or "the divide," should instead ask questions about who they are, and who they become, when they engage in certain kinds of communication inquiry--ontological questions about epistemological consequences. (SR)

Discusses not only the procedures, assumptions, and applications of advanced categorical statistics, but also covers some common misapplications, from which a great deal can be learned. Addresses the use and limitations of cross-tabulation and chi-square analysis, as well as issues such as observation independence and artificial inflation of a…

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…

Presents a theory of how individuals located in social space influence each other to create higher order patterns of cultural structure. Presents the theory as five propositions and six derivations, arguing that Dynamic Social Impact Theory accounts for four key features of culture: regional clustering, correlations among cultural elements,…

Summarizes the literature examining the association between acceptance of rape myths and exposure to pornography. States that nonexperimental methodology shows that exposure to pornography does not increase rape myth acceptance, while experimental studies show that exposure to pornography increases rape myth acceptance. Concludes that experimental…

Uses a typology to characterize the situation in communication research in 1993 as compared to the situation in 1983. Compares previous predictions to the present situation and makes new predictions. Argues that a cause for the fragmentation in communication studies is the lack of a basic precondition for cumulative growth--formal models. (SR)

Describes major issues and alternatives in the conduct of process research in organizational communication. Argues that only when researchers begin to collect and analyze longitudinal data will the communication discipline accumulate the kind of knowledge envisioned by its founders. (PD)

Responds to Robert Entman's call for the establishment of a paradigm of news framing research. Describes a research program which includes three paradigmatic outlooks, called cognitive, constructivist, and critical. Argues that the research program has benefited the communication discipline by encouraging researchers to use specific theories to…

Argues that, to make itself more central to studies in its own field, American communication should embrace its traditional, albeit now greatly expanded, subject matter (communication), while at the same time abandoning all institutional vestiges of its narrow and long outmoded approaches to the field. (SR)

Attributes the lack of disciplinary status accorded communication to the lack of ontological status granted the very idea of communication in modernity. Argues that the field should deny modernity's bifurcation by asserting that communication is foundational and attempt to forward a unique communication ontology. (SR)

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)