French and Raven (1959) proposed five bases of social power: referent, expert, legitimate, reward, and coercive power. Other power bases, such as information control and ecological control, have also been proposed. Another factor which might be considered a power base is the credibility of a source. A 2 x 3 factorial design was used to manipulate…

The relevance of ethnographic research to evaluation of educational programs is discussed. The author focuses on evaluation questions that deal with finding out what is happening in a program and if what is happening is desirable. Ethnography suits the purposes of evaluators who answer such questions because they want to know how something works…

In many college and high school forensics tournaments, the topic agenda is derived from "Newsweek,""Time," and "U.S. News and World Report." This use of three profit-oriented, widely circulated magazines as the agenda setting basis of extemporaneous speaking competition is philosophically and substantively damaging.…

A study explored whether religion--both that of the reporter and that of the audience--has an impact on news judgment. The news service used was the Lutheran World Information (LWI). Religion writers and editors for the 42 daily newspapers that receive the Lutheran World Information weekly news packets were surveyed by telephone. Completed…

A study was conducted to determine attitudes of police toward components of the law enforcement process and whether differences in rank, level of police enforcement, years of service to a police force, or familiarity with reporters made a difference in police attitudes toward newspaper reporters. Thirty-one officers completed a two-part…

Research shows that people comply more frequently to threats when the credibility of the source is high rather than low and that compliance is directly related to punishment magnitude. To examine the impact of an advisor on a target of threats, male college students (N=74) participated in an experiment that included high or low threatner…

A study examined the effect of humor on the perceived credibility, character, and authority of an advertisement and on the recall of that advertisement. Two groups of subjects each heard two radio spot announcements, one humorous and one serious. Two different products were advertised, so that the first group of subjects, 117 college advertising…

Feedback, i.e., information provided by others regarding behavioral assets (positive feedback) and deficiencies (negative feedback), is commonly utilized in personal growth and training groups to bring about constructive personal change. Research on feedback sequence and valence has led to conflicting conclusions as to which sequence, a…

A survey of 65 newspaper editors and 64 television news directors was conducted to examine policies concerning unnamed sources and unattributed information in news stories, and to measure the effects of the incident in which a "Washington Post" reporter fabricated a major story and claimed that she had granted her sources…

Virtue in journalism implies a clearsighted expansion of outlook and requires determined attempts to cross boundaries separating the journalist from society, journalist from subject, journalist from journalist, journalist from ideas, journalist from sentiments and feelings, and journalist from "inner abundance." Some of the requirements for the…

While it is customary to consider "information" synonymous with true information, given its societal significance in the modern world, a wider perspective on the veracity and ephemerality of information is imperative. A typology of message veracity contains four types: informational, misinformational, disinformational, and…

The assumption, which has influenced broadcast news reporting hiring practices, that women broadcasters are not as believable, acceptable, or effective as men broadcasters is explored in this research report. Four network newscasters, two males and two females chosen on the basis of similar professional competency and stature audio tape in…

In this paper the writer attempts to derive and apply a theory of validity for inductive or probable argumentation. The following definition of rhetorical validity is proposed: an argument is valid when, in an adversarial situation, the degree of certainty claimed by (or for) a conclusion is less than or equal to that established by its related…

This study reports on two investigations designed to determine the generalizability of source credibility scales for immediate superiors across organizational contexts. Semantic differential-type scales that have been found to load on factors of course credibility in previous studies were combined to provide an item pool for this investigation. In…

A study was designed to measure the effects of regional dialects on the attitude of the receiver toward the source. Four hundred ninety-two subjects who were randomly selected from a basic communication course listened to a speech given by a native of one of five dialect regions (Southern, Northeastern, General American, New York, and…