Communication Studies

Guerrero, Laura K.; Dionisopoulos, George N.

doi: 10.1080/10510979009368312pmid: N/A

This essay examines newspaper coverage of the Arnold Lockshin family's 1986 defection to the Soviet Union. As a case study, it illustrates how the print media can enthymematically repair ideologically problematic narratives in such a way that engaged publics can maintain cognitive consistency. It is argued that the media used four premises—credibility, perversion, gullibility, and isolation—to reconstruct enthymematically the narrative in a nonthreatening, ideologically consistent manner.

Samter, Wendy; Burleson, Brant R.

doi: 10.1080/10510979009368313pmid: N/A

This paper develops the hypothesis that holding age‐ and gender‐typical conceptions of friendship, conceptions expressed in evaluations of several communication skills, is an important determinant of interpersonal acceptance by peers. It was hypothesized that college students who highly value the affectively oriented communication skills of friends would experience higher levels of peer acceptance than those who value nonaffectively oriented skills. However, it was anticipated that gender would mediate the relationship between valuing affectively oriented skills and interpersonal acceptance. Participants (residents of two fraternities and two sororities) responded to a questionnaire on the perceived importance of eight communication skills in friends, provided self‐reports about experienced loneliness, and completed interviews on sociometric assessments of peer acceptance. Correlational analyses detected weak but significant associations between valuing affectively oriented communication skills and indices of interpersonal acceptance; several of these relationships varied in the expected manner as a function of gender.

Rowland, Robert C.; Rademacher, Thea

doi: 10.1080/10510979009368314pmid: N/A

While there is a large literature that explains the rhetorical strategies Ronald Reagan used to generate support, there has not been significant analysis of the strategies he used to avoid losing that support in the various crises that threatened his administration. This case study of Reagan's handling of the Superfund controversy reveals that Reagan relied on what Murray Edelman characterizes as the “passive style.” In the passive style, politicians reaffirm personal values, displace blame on subordinates, and use symbolic action to avoid all responsibility. Reagan's successful reliance on the passive style in the Superfund controversy suggests implications for understanding his failure to deal with the Iran‐Contra affair adequately.

Babrow, Austin S.

doi: 10.1080/10510979009368315pmid: N/A

Drawing on published research and three new studies, this essay relates analyses of viewing motives and context with analyses of soap opera content and form. As a result, three general claims are made about the nature of student soap opera watching. First, student soap opera watching provides an especially cogent illustration of the social emergence of mass communication entertainment. Second, soap operas provide a particularly important sort of social entertainment: the opportunity to experience the role of communication in facing irresolvable conflict. Third, the pleasure of this social experience is itself an important motive for student exposure to soap operas.