Education has a responsibility to respond to the threat of deteriorating democracies. The post-truth era is marked by an erosion of trust in public institutions and extreme polarisation. This paper begins with an examination of the ways by which current literacy and media literacy education is not simply outmoded, but also limited by a grounding…

This study examined whether instructional humor (IH) was not just another type of seductive detail when covariates such as humor pre-disposition, prior-knowledge, and working memory capacity were controlled. Participants were students (N = 228) from universities who were randomly assigned two stimuli conditions in the classic experimental design.…

At the end of 2016, the Oxford English Dictionary announced 'post-truth' as word of the year, and since then, the concept has been invoked around the world to describe the growing anxieties surrounding the current crisis in truth, wherein emotion appears to have replaced fact in the shaping of public opinion. Society is witnessing what seems to be…

Communication teachers have long been concerned with the development of students' oral communication competencies. Regrettably, public speaking remains one of the most feared communicative contexts. Though there has been extensive interest in cognitive/behavioral strategies for alleviating communication apprehension, there has been surprisingly…

Environmental issues such as climate change are becoming ever more important in today's societies and politics. Information is spread by the media, for example, via the Internet or information brochures, employing different representational styles (e.g. sensational vs. neutral styles, emphasis of human vs. natural causes). We investigated the…

Provides insight into attitudinal change of teachers and administrators toward disabled individuals. Suggests several curriculum activities to sensitize adults and children to their fears about disability. (CM)

Investigates the fear underlying most adult illiteracy and suggests the need for teaching based on careful and imaginative responses to adult basic readers. (MM)