Examines the relationships between Irna Phillips, the most powerful woman in soap opera production from the 1930s through the 1960s, and the sponsors of her radio soap operas. Explores how Phillips represented women both in her scripts and in her public relations efforts. (MM)

Describes a prewriting activity in which students form questions about their classmates' research topics. Notes that this activity provides students with multiple questions concerning their topics, and conveys the message that they will be writing for a real audience of peers. (MM)

Applies general semantics to a public speaking communication apprehension (CA) lab and divides the lab into four main frames or semester sections. Suggests that CA has been treated elementalistically up to now, and that programs need to view the person holistically. States that general semantics applied to CA teaches awareness of the natural order…

Suggests that technical writing is the most challenging profession in the world and sometimes the most boring. List 35 things that the field knows about technical communication (on such topics as audience, editing, writing style, graphics, and training). Suggests that there may be nothing left to invent in the field of technical communication. (RS)

Describes how, in a unit on Russia's history, culture, and future, eight high school students with writing difficulties presented their work to small student groups, a teacher alone, one student, and finally themselves via videotape. Notes that students' reactions to these audience options show how student writers can develop a sensitivity to…

Proposes that writing pedagogies focused on models of audience analysis stultify invention and in doing so compromise the epistemic dimension of the writing they influence. Claims that classical audience analysis assumes a determinism that the separation of reader and writer denies. (HB)

Argues that current forensics contest constraints deemphasize the role of the audience. Examines Barbara Bush's 1990 commencement address at Wellesley College as an example of rhetorical sensitivity and acute awareness of her audience. (SR)

Asserts that the means by which student achievement in reading are reported should be a focus rather than an afterthought. Discusses key questions related to developing report cards that serve a variety of audiences. Provides guidance and models of report cards that are more closely aligned with the literacy curriculum than traditional report…

Compares several technical reports written by students showing the influences of a writer's identification with a community on features of the resulting document. Finds that features most affected were personal and community references within the document, writer's stance toward the reader, and definition of the rhetorical problem. (RS)

Confronts the question of who the audience is for "children's" books and how the audience is determined. Considers publishers' attempts at identifying audience and empowerment of child readers as audience. Concludes that the voices of children need to be included in consideration of what such audiences will read in the effort to establish lifelong…

Considers how technical communication is included in accommodating the values and ethics of its many audiences. Presents an introduction and annotated bibliography of articles from technical writing and communication journals published over the past quarter century arranged in categories of professional, academic, and systematic approaches. (NH)

Applies M. Foucault's account of power-discourse and its relationship to its owners to aspects of late 19th/early 20th centuries, when new technologies have multiplied the capacity of power-discourse to intervene in lives. Identifies industrial urban crowd as a target for discourse; considers this conjunction in light of Foucault's theories.…

States that technical writers in the global pharmaceutical industry write for two audiences: regulatory agencies and healthcare practitioners. Contends that information products that address these audiences must balance the competing forces of business interests, market penetration, and the cultural variables of products so tied to people's…

Presents a comparative analysis of two pieces of computer-based interactive multimedia whose words are similar but visual structures different. Argues that the visual aspects of these texts are "idea" and "assertion," doing the work of "content" and "information." Suggests that educators need to expand or…

Reproduces a conversation among playwrights, directors, and dramaturges participating in the Bonderman/IUPUI (Indiana University Purdue University at Indianapolis) experience. Features their answers to six questions regarding new play development, its focus, and influence on the world of theater for young audiences. (PA)