Familial Risk Cues in Direct-to-Consumer Prescription Drug Advertisements: Impacts on Intentions to Adopt Healthy Lifestyles and Pharmaceutical Choices

This study assessed the effects of cues of family history as a risk factor in direct-to-consumer advertisements. An experiment with a sample of 395 adults found significant impacts of familial risk cues on self-efficacy and behavioral intentions. Specifically, familial risk cues strengthened both intention to engage in healthy lifestyles and intention to seek advertised medications, partly through enhanced efficacy. Effects on perceived genetic risk for health conditions or belief in genetic determinism were not found. The findings suggest that familial risk cues incorporated in pharmaceutical appeals can enhance behavioral intentions in response to risk, without increasing a sense of fatalism. Theoretical and practical implications of the study are discussed.     

A Difference We Can Call Our Own

The article contends that communication scholars' most influential work is often not identifiably “communication” research. This phenomenon is a result of: (a) theory, which emphasizes message effects rather than message content, and (b) method, which has failed to provide valid, detailed, and shared methods for the quantitative examination of message content. It is suggested that a stronger focus on message content is required if communication is to maintain a disciplinary identity and a unique disciplinary contribution.     

Implications of Stealing Thunder for the Impact of Expressing Emotions in Organizational Crisis Communication

This study examines if and when spokespersons of an organization in crisis can express their genuine emotions as opposed to appearing rational. The impact of emotional (sadness) versus rational message framing on perceptions of an organization in crisis is studied by means of a 2 (crisis timing strategy: ex-antecrisis timing strategy vs. ex-postcrisis timing strategy)×2 (message framing: rational vs. emotional) between-subjects factorial experimental design with 168 participants. The findings first show that organizations can restore their reputation in times of crisis better by means of an ex-antecrisis timing strategy than by means of an ex-postcrisis timing strategy. In addition, the study illustrates that an ex-antecrisis timing strategy leads to more effective use of organizational message framing. In the case of an organizational self-disclosure, expressing sadness as a discrete negative emotion results in a better postcrisis reputation than rational message framing, whereas no impact of message framing is found for an ex-postcrisis timing strategy. Finally, the results indicate that organizations can benefit from allowing their spokespersons to express sadness because consumers will consider them more sincere.     

Chaos theory,informational needs,and natural disasters

This study applies chaos theory to a system-wide analysis of crisis communication in a natural disaster. Specifically, we analyze crisis communication during the 1997 Red River Valley flood in Minnesota and North Dakota. This flood, among the worst in modern American history, consumed entire metropolitan areas, displacing thousands of people. The conditions and decisions leading to the disaster, and the subsequent reactions are retraced. Communication related to river crest predictions (fractals), the shock at the magnitude of the crisis (cosmology episode), novel forms of reorganizing (self-organization), and agencies that aided in establishing a renewed order (strange attractors) are evaluated. Ultimately, we argue that preexisting sensemaking structures favoring rationalized, traditional views of a complex system led officials to make inappropriately unequivocal predictions and ultimately diminished the effectiveness of the region's crisis communication and planning.     

Precursors to probation and parole agent intent to send informational,emotional, and esteem social support messages to female clients

Supervising agents serve as sources of social support for over one million women in the US on probation and parole who strive to avoid recidivism. Little is known about the supportive messages agents intend to provide their female clients or their precursors. The optimal matching model of social support is used in an investigation of the precursors to agents’ intent to send different types of social support messages to the women they supervise. Results indicated that supervising agents intended to provide informational support in the form of suggestions or advice, esteem support in the form of compliments, and emotional support in the form of encouragement to the women. Both agent communication pattern and offender level variables were precursors to the intent to send informational support messages, but only agent communication pattern variables predicted the intent to send emotional support messages.     

Negotiating Dis/Ability in Families: Constructions and Contradictions

This project uses a narrative view of identity to interrogate how individuals construct notions of ability and disability within their families. Participants include children with disabilities from diverse ethnic backgrounds, their parents, siblings, and extended family members. Interactions within four families are explored as well as interactions family members have with people outside their families. Interview and observational data demonstrate ways that participants construct identities that highlight intersections of ability/disability and individuality/relationships. Results indicate that families primarily construct identities of “normal” through their interactions and routines as they negotiate contradictions inherent in their everyday lives. Theoretic implications of narrative dimensions of constructions and contradictions are offered. Finally, practical applications for professionals and families of children with disabilities are suggested with future directions for research and practice.     

The Rate and Delay in Overload: An Investigation of Communication Overload and Channel Synchronicity on Identification and Job Satisfaction

This study investigates the relationship between communication overload and uses of diverse communication channels in terms of their level of synchronicity. Emphasis on the synchronicity of any given channel reveals how temporal elements (i.e., rate and processing time) play an important role in perceptions of communication load. Additionally, this study examines the association between communication overload, organizational identification and job satisfaction. Findings reveal: (a) both high and low synchronous channels are associated with increased reports of communication overload; (b) a mediating effect of organizational identification on the relationship between communication overload and job satisfaction; and (c) a moderating effect of communication overload on the relationship between low synchronous channels and organizational identification.     

The Anonymity Effect: The Influence of Anonymity on Perceptions of Sources and Information on Health Websites

The study reported here examined the influence of anonymous sources on health websites on the perceptions and attitudes of information seekers. It was hypothesized that, despite the warnings and guidelines established by health organizations, anonymous sources would be perceived to be as credible and influential as sources that were identified. The anonymity effect, drawn from the similarity principle in attribution theory, was forwarded as a theoretical mechanism to explain responses to anonymous sources. The results indicated that anonymous sources were generally perceived by participants to be as credible and influential as identified sources, although the anonymity effect explanation was not supported. The implications of these findings for information seekers and health practitioners are considered.     

The Thai Vernacular Press and the Woman Politician: Stereotypical Reporting and Innovative Response

Thai women who want to participate in politics find that one of the obstacles they face is the representation created by mass media, especially vernacular newspapers. The objective of this study is to demonstrate the conflict in the representation of a woman politician in Thailand. The study focuses on news reports relating to Khunying Sudarat Keyuraphan, currently the Minister of Agriculture and Agriculture Cooperatives of Thailand. The news reports from the two largest-circulated local newspapers in Thailand were analyzed to highlight the representation created for Sudarat, and her response strategy. The analysis showed the representational dilemma Sudarat faced to which she creatively responded yet found herself on the losing side.     

Communication: On Being an Angel. Incarnation and Angelic Communication in Medieval Christian Theology: Modern Reflections,Starting with Thomas Aquinas's Summa Theologica

Communication involves incarnation in a twofold sense: it assumes a body, and it brings thoughts and values into being. The question of angelic communication, as a theoretical model for language and thought in medieval Christian theology, combines the two senses: for Thomas Aquinas, angels communicate among themselves without bodies, given that as immaterial beings they transmit their thoughts by will alone; but they need bodies in order to “appear” to humans and communicate with them. This indicates, if only by default, the place of incarnation in communication—for those of us who are not angels.