A study tested the hypotheses that the relative amount of bad news and good news in a newspaper would have corresponding effects on perceptions of the newspaper's community of origin and of the newspaper itself. Five different versions of a realistic four-page newspaper were created, in which treatment of the news stories ranged from an…

To explore the dimensions of credibility and physical attractiveness in a public relations setting, the impact of public relations (PR) spokesperson physical attractiveness--as operationalized as photographs of the spokesperson attached to a press release--on perceptions of both the writer's and the organization's credibility was examined.…

The professional instructional designer frequently develops instruction for someone else--an outside client, another department of his or her organization, or colleagues who have content knowledge but lack specific instructional skills. The role of consultant poses unique hazards and opportunities, as it requires the use of relationship and…

An investigation of subordinate satisfaction as a function of participation in decision-making and perceived supervisor credibility. (CH)

The involvement of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) with both United States and foreign news media has been recorded in numerous publications. This report reviews the important aspects of the CIA-press relationships as they have appeared in print and discusses the implications of these relationsihps for the credibility of the press. Media…

Deals with the relationship of student attitudes toward instructor and course to learning and interaction. (MH)

More than 300 adults responded to a telephone survey designed to examine whether the gender of the source and the similarity of gender between the source and the receiver affected the receiver's perception of source credibility. The results indicated that (1) men had more overall credibility than did women, (2) women recognized that they would…

A study examined employment screening interviews to determine the relationships between an interviewee's perceptions of interview communication satisfaction, interviewer credibility and trust, previous interviewing experiences, and a number of interview outcomes, including expectation of a second interview. Data were collected from 69 students…

Evaluation is viewed as essential to decision making and social policy development. Since conventional methods have been disappointing or inadequate, naturalistic inquiry (N/I) differs from conventional science in minimizing constraints on antecedent conditions (controls) and on output (dependent variables). N/I is phenomenological rather than…

Communication research long has noted how pretreatment strategies ("inoculations") induce resistance to persuasion, but a new model proposes that resistance is an integral part of the persuasion process. Using the inoculation framework, researchers showed the importance of threats to an individual's attitudes in developing resistance to…

The licensing of public relations practitioners by government has long been controversial. A survey was conducted of members of the public relations division of the Association for Education in Journalism under the auspices of the division's committee on professional freedom and responsibility. One-hundred and sixty-one questionnaires were mailed…

A study was designed to investigate the consequences of various coding strategies on the semantic differential as a function of responses to an ideal source in the prediction of overall credibility and homophily. The study was also intended to provide additional evidence for the disconfirmation of the underlying extremity assumption of the…

Top corporate management requires communications departments that maintain credibility with the public by developing the following qualities: integrity established through consistent and honest messages; accuracy based on solid research; authority derived from an understanding of the subject and from drawing on appropriate expertise; a…

Among the causes of the recent breakdown of the business/press relationship is the increasing public and press questioning of business, coupled with the failure of business leaders to explain the benefits of the free enterprise system. This failure, caused largely by the direction of business leaders' energies inward toward their companies rather…

Based on the definition of closeness as the degree to which an individual perceives another as understanding him, this study examines some of the dimensions that appear to affect the perception of closeness in dyads. The modes of interpersonal communication which were examined are self-disclosure, touch, and metarelationship communication.…