Cultural and gender influences on age identification

Age identification plays a significant role in young adults’ mass, interpersonal, intergenerational, and intercultural communication. This research examines cultural and gender influences on young people's age identity by measuring the social age identity of male and female young adult members of five cultures varying in individualism/collectivism (Laos, Thailand, Spain, Australia, and the U.S.A.). We found cultural influences on age identity to be both unexpected in nature and modest in effect. American and Laotian respondents had similar and nominally higher levels of age identity than Australian, Thai, and Spanish respondents, with all having a markedly different age identities than those of Japanese respondents as reported by other researchers. No direct effect for gender on age identity emerged, though American females were more age identified than all other respondents. Across cultures, the social identity scale was found to be a reasonably adequate measure of age identity.     

General Mass Communications

Alan Gowans' The Unchanging Arts: New Forms for the Traditional Functions of Art in Society (J. B. Lippincott, $12.95)

Manley R. Irwin's The Telecommunications Industry: Integration vs. Competition (Praeger Special Studies in U.S. Economic and Social Development, $11.00).

Robert Shelton and Burt Goldblatt's The Country Music Story (Arlington House, 81 Centre Ave., New Rochelle, N.Y. 10801, $7.95).

Howard Stephenson (ed.) Handbook of Public Relations (McGraw-Hill, $24.50– second edition)

Scott M. Cutlip and Allen H. Center's Effective Public Relations (Prentice-Hall, $11.95).     

Books in review

DYNAMICS OF IDEALISM: WHITE ACTIVISTS IN A BLACK MOVEMENT. By N.J. Demerath, III, Gerald Marwell, and Michael T. Aiken. San Francisco: Jossey‐Bass Inc., Publishers, 1971. $9.75.

TOMS, COONS, MULATTOES, MAMMIES, AND BUCKS: AN INTERPRETIVE HISTORY OF BLACKS IN AMERICAN FILMS. By Donald Bogle. New York: The Viking Press, 1973. $12.50.

RADICALS AND MILITANTS: AN ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY OF EMPIRICAL RESEARCH ON CAMPUS UNREST. By Kenneth Keniston in collaboration with Mary‐Kay Duffield and Sharon Marti nek. Lexington, Mass: D.C. Heath and Company, 1973. $15.00     

Patronizing young and elderly adults: Response strategies in a community setting

Within the context of an elaborated model of the communication predicament of aging, the effects of particular response strategies to patronizing, intergenerational talk were investigated with written vignettes depicting a community situation. Young adults (N = 222) evaluated a patronizing speaker more negatively than a non‐patronizing speaker, and they also judged both conversational partners to be more satisfied when patronizing speech was absent. As compared to cooperative responses, assertive responses from the patronizee led to evaluations that she was higher status, more controlling, less nurturing, and less satisfied. Patronizing individuals receiving an assertive response were evaluated as less in control and satisfied than when they received a cooperative response.     

Using Performance to Learn How to Balance Reporting with Compassion

In this study we examine performance as an approach to train journalists in order to alleviate negative public perceptions of media victimization and to identify behaviors more conducive to effective, but compassionate reporting. After an overview of literature related to public perceptions of media victimization and the potential of applied performance, we describe a collaborative partnership between an advanced journalism seminar exploring media victimization and an introductory performance studies course. We conclude by sharing implications and suggestions for using performance to train journalists covering tragic events.     

Accommodating Translational Research

This is an article in a series illustrating the way scholars in communication have pursued translating their research into practice. The translational nature of communication accommodation theory and examples of its application are the focus of this contribution.     

Technology and science education: Starting points,research programs,and trends

Over the past 25 years, information and communication technologies have had a convoluted but ultimately advantageous impact on science teaching and learning. To highlight the past, present, and future of technology in science education, this paper explores the trajectories in five areas: science texts and lectures; science discussions and collaboration; data collection and representation; science visualization; and science simulation and modeling. These trajectories reflect two overall trends in technological advance. First, designers have tailored general tools to specific disciplines, offering users features specific to the topic or task. For example, developers target visualization tools to molecules, crystals, earth structures, or chemical reactions. Second, new technologies generally support user customization, enabling individuals to personalize their modeling tool, Internet portal, or discussion board. In science education, designers have tailored instructional resources based on advances in understanding of the learner. More recently, designers have created ways for teachers and students to customize learning tools to specific courses, geological formations, interests, or learning preferences.     

Affect and acceptability: exploring teachers’ technology-related risk perceptions

Project-based learning in Web courses present challenges and opportunities that groups in conventional settings may not encounter. This study is based on five project-based learning activities that 17 graduate students in a Web-based educational telecommunications course developed and conducted over a semester. A qualitative investigation was conducted of two issues related to project-based learning activities in a Web-based course: characteristics of activities that enable students to meet learning objectives and strategies that student facilitators and student participants use to prepare and conduct the activities. Characteristics of project-based learning activities were identified as environments that students perceived as authentic or meaningful, collaborative work and communication via telecommunications, and activities that provided students with opportunities for both knowledge enhancement and skill building. Strategies of the students-as-facilitators were related to planning and conducting the activity for the participants. Strategies of the students-as-participants were related to carrying out the activities specified by the facilitators. La collaboration obtenue grâce à la simulation et au jeu de rôle à distance. Cet article identifie les caractéristiques de la simulation des jeux de rôle qui favorisent la collaboration dans l'enseignement à distance utilisant la méthodologie des études de cas nous avons étudié comment les étudiants ont collaboré dans un jeu de rôle simulé dans une classe de diplômés (graduates) en ayant recours à la vidéoconférence et au Web. Nous avons trouvé que la nature de l'activité elle-même, le rôle des acteurs de la simulation du jeu de rôle et l'infrastructure technologique ont aidé à créer un environnement favorable à un enseignement en collaboration. Cette étude contribue à la compréhension des éléments clé pour l'élaboration de cours donnés à distance, le contenue, les activités d'enseignement, les supports d'enseignement et le développement d'un sens de la communauté. Rollenspiele, Podiumsdiskussionen und Simulationen: Projektbasiertes Lernen in einem web-basierten

Kurs. Projektbasiertes Lernen in Webkursen beinhaltet Herausforderungen und Möglichkeiten, die konventionelle Lerngruppen eher nicht haben. Diese Studie beruht auf fünf projekt-basierten Lernaktivitäten, die 17 Graduierte in einem web-basierten Bildungstelekommunikationskurs während eines Semesters entwickelten und durchführten. Wir führten eine qualitative Untersuchung von zwei Vorhaben, die mit projekt-basierten Lernaktivitäten in einem web-basierten Kurs verbunden waren, durch, um herauszufinden, welche Merkmale Aktivitäten besitzen, die Studenten ermöglichen, Lernziele zu erreichen und welche Strategien die Studenten verwenden, um diese Aktivitäten vorzubereiten und durchzuführen. Merkmale von projektbasierten Lernaktivitäten wurden als Milieu festgestellt, das Studenten als authentisch oder bedeutungsvoll empfanden, als kooperative Arbeit und Auseinandersetzung via Telekommunikation, Tätigkeiten, die Studenten Möglichkeiten zu sowohl Wissensverbesserung als auch zu Fertigkeitszuwächsen lieferten. Strategien der “Studenten als facilitators" bezogen sich darauf, die Aktivitäten für die Teilnehmer zu planen und zu leiten. Die Strategien der “Studenten als Teilnehmer" waren darauf gerichtet, die ihnen vorgegebenen Tätigkeiten auszuführen.