Effects of Instructor Speech Rate on Student Affective Learning,Recall, and Perceptions of Nonverbal Immediacy,Credibility, and Clarity

Although research indicates that speech rate affects perceptions of speaker credibility as well as persuasiveness and information recall, research has failed to address how instructor speech rate affects student perceptions and learning. This study randomly assigned basic communication course students to one of three speech rate conditions (slow, moderate, fast), using a videotaped lesson by an instructor. Findings revealed significant differences for credibility, affective leaning, and nonverbal immediacy, but did not reveal significant differences for recall or clarity. Implications for instructional practice and suggestions for future research are discussed.     

Cross‐media response to digital manipulation of still and moving images

This investigation provides survey data for a cross‐media comparison between newspaper photo editors and television news directors to assess the ethical response to digital image processing and enhancement technology. The results indicate that television news directors tend toward less strict ethical standards in application of the technology. However, the television people showed more sensitivity to aspects of the technology that relate to long‐standing themes of TV critics.     

Responding to Change on TV: How Viewer-Controlled Changes in Content Differ From Programmed Changes in Content

Two experiments explored differences in television viewers' responses to viewer-controlled and producer-controlled content changes. Viewers in both studies could change channels among 4 different newscasts. Orienting, sympathetic activation, cognitive effort, and recognition were compared in the moments following both channel changes (viewer control) and cuts (producer control). Neither channel changes nor cuts elicited orienting. Sympathetic activation was higher following channel changes, while cognitive effort was higher following cuts. In 1 experiment, recognition accuracy was higher after a cut than it was after a channel change. These results inform how the exertion of control over media content alters psychological processing.     

“The Press Motivated Me”: Life Histories with the Media in Brazil

Brazil, with commercial broadcasting and a political press, moved from dictatorship to democracy during the transition after Franco in Spain, with its noncommercial system. This coincidence creates a natural experiment in how political and media systems relate to citizens' subjective experiences. Comparing limited life histories from Brazil to previous American and Spanish narratives suggests two relationships: between market-oriented broadcasting and a postmodern consumer stance, and between a politically committed press and an engaged citizen stance.     

Books of the Month: The BBC's 50th Anniversary

Edward Pawley's BBC Engineering: 1922-1972 (London: BBC, 1972—L 7.00, or about $18.00)

Peter Black's The Biggest Aspidistra in the World (London: BBC, 1972—L2.00, or about $5.00)

BBC Handbook 1973 (London: BBC, 1972—75p, or about $1.75, paper)

British Broadcasting: 1922-1972—A Select Bibliography (London: BBC, 1972—75p. or about $1.75, paper)

Broadcasting Technology—Past, Present and Future (London: Institution of Electrical Engineers, P. O. Box 8, Southgate House, Stevenage, Herts. SG1 1HQ, England, 197 2—L5.O0 or about or about $12.50, paper)

Andrew Boyle's Only the Wind Will Listen: Reith of the BBC (London:Hutchinson, 1972—L4.50, or about $11.25)

John Snagge and Michael Barsley's Those Vintage Years of Radio (London: Pitman, 1972—L3.00, or about $7.50)

Violence on Television: Programme Content and Viewer Perception (1972, 220 pp., L2.00, or about $5.00)

Charles Curran, "The BBC in the Eighties" (1972, 22 pp., gratis)

Taste and Standards in BBC Progammes: A Study by the BBC for its General Advisory Council January 1973, 11 pp., gratis

BBC Record (bi-monthly, gratis on request)

Annual Report and Accounts of the British Broadcasting Corporation (annual, cost varies but now approximates $4.00 per year)

George Hills, Broadcasting Beyond One's Frontiers (1971, 59 pp., gratis from BBC, P.O. Box 76 Bush House Strand, London WC2B 4PH)

Brian Groombridge's Television and the People: A Program for Democratic Participation (Baltimore: Penguin Educational Specials, 1972—$1.95)     

Commonwealth Communications

George Boyce, James Curran, and Pauline Wingate, eds. Newspaper History from the 17th Century to the Present Day (London: Constable Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage, 1978—$20.00/10.95)

Frank W. Peers' The Public Eye: Television and the Politics of Canadian Broadcasting, 1952-1968 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1979—price not given)

K. Watson, et al. "A Financial Analysis of the Private Radio Broadcasting Sector in Canada and the United States" (Ottawa: Department of Communications, Social Policy and Programs Branch, 1978—no price given, paper)

Outcomes from the Telecom 2000 Report (Australian Government Publishing Service, P.O. Box 94, Canberra, A.C.T. 2600 Australia—price not given, paper)

Australian Broadcasting Commission: 46th Annual Report (1977-78) (ABC, 145-153 Elizabeth St., Sydney NSW 2001, Australia—apparently free on request, paper)

Media Centre Papers series (Centre for the Study of Educational Communication and Media, School of Education, La Trobe University, Bundoora, Victoria 3083, Australia—about A$2.50 each plus postage, paper)     

At the Interface: The Loaded Rhetorical Gestures of Nuclear Legitimacy and Illegitimacy

This essay examines an important icon of American nuclear modernity, the operator at the interface control panel, to show how the logic of nuclear legitimation in the Cold War has perdured into the contemporary world, and that nuclear terrorists and bomb-wielding “rogue states” can function as inventions that rationalize America's claim to nuclear hegemony. Through a critical account of the “competent” gestures of the state-sanctioned nuclear operator at the interface, and the “incompetent” gestures of the state-repudiated nuclear terrorist, we argue that that the rationalization of nuclear weapons, in a psychoanalytic sense, has depended on rationalization in the Weberian sense.     

Learning to Balance Assistance With Assessment: A Scholarship of Field Instruction

In this self-study, the author focuses on ways of embracing and managing a central dilemma of student teaching supervision: balancing assistance with assessment. Drawing on his practice as a field supervisor, the author chronicles conversations with student teachers over a 2-year period in the context of two distinct teacher education programs. Through qualitative methods of data analysis, the author finds that supervisors have access to specific discursive tools and strategies that allow them to balance support with assessment of their student teachers. In this article, he describes and explains five key strategies and concludes with implications for the preparation and support of supervisors that can help them engage in critical dialogue with their student teachers to push their practice forward.