Editor's introduction to the forum on defining applied communication scholarship

Although public meetings are a frequent method of public participation and risk communication, little research investigates what citizens think about their use in environmental management. To examine satisfaction with public meetings, residents of two neighboring communities received questionnaires following a public meeting about a local landfill. Respondents included residents who did and did not attend the meeting. Irrespective of whether respondents had ever attended a public meeting, meeting expectations and perceptions of relational/informational communication at meetings, including whether respondents thought meeting organizers were genuinely interested in participants' comments or meetings were informative, predicted satisfaction. Perceived risk associated with the recent meeting's topic and credibility of government agencies that frequently conduct meetings also predicted satisfaction.     

Managing Health Care in Oregon: The Search for a Civic Bioethics

Managed health care deliberations in Oregon point to a "civic bioethics" model to resolve allocation issues through publicly articulated community values and priorities that influence legislative action. Communication practices in the Oregon experiment provide data to develop an evaluative framework to assess public moral deliberation in value-laden contexts such as health care distribution. The Oregon experience also points to dialogical virtues to heighten citizens' ethical sensibilities and political will, discursive tools to inform ethical communication practices in a civic bioethics model.     

Emergent Agents: The Forgotten Publics in Crisis Communication and Issues Management Research

Crisis communication research rarely highlights the voices of marginalized publics or their advocates whose interests are affected by crisis situations. We take a different approach by using a response to a natural disaster to expand our theorizing about crisis situations beyond those that hurt the bottom line. Using official statements from Senators Landrieu and Obama about events surrounding Hurricane Katrina as texts for analysis, we demonstrate how they used transcendence, rhetorically, and appropriated the Bush administration's key term—security—to garner more support for their positions, Katrina sufferers, and relief efforts. Implications of this strategy serve to broaden crisis communication theorizing, and to provide insights into ways to strengthen the quality of crisis emergency response planning and response protocols.     

Wikipedia as Public Scholarship: Communicating Our Impact Online

Although computer-mediated support groups have been argued to be beneficial for individuals coping with health-related stigma, few studies have explored how communication processes may moderate perceptions of stigma and health outcomes. Increasing our understanding of the relationships among these variables may help to inform social support interventions for individuals facing stigmatized health issues. Drawing from the optimal matching model, the reported study examined the relationships among strong-tie/weak-tie support network preference and health-related stigma for stress and depression among members of health-related computer-mediated support groups. The results indicated that health-related stigma was positively associated with preference for weak-tie support, and preference for weak-tie support was found to moderate the relationship between stigma and both stress and depression. The implications of the findings for the role of on-line weak-tie network supportive relationships in reducing stigma and its application to developing support-focused health interventions and segmenting potential intervention participants are discussed.     

ImaginOn,The First Twenty‐First Century Public Library Building in the U.S.

This article presents a portrait of ImaginOn, a combined children's library and theater building in Charlotte, NC. Unlike so many modern library buildings intended primarily as warehouses for materials or as civic icons, this structure is designed to encourage visitors to experience the joy to be found in stories of all kinds. The author conveys the excitement of ImaginOn and, using photographs, highlights the principal features of the structure.     

Wild West Libraries: A Study of Southwest Kansas Public Libraries

Public Libraries developed and grew along with the United States. In southwest Kansas, money, materials, staffing, and distance have been factors in the growth of the public libraries, and they remain current factors as well. Library consortia have aided in this development and have helped solve small library problems. This article reports a 2008 survey of public libraries that are served by the Southwest Kansas Library System (SWKLS). The survey lays out the operating conditions of some of America's small libraries and shows the extent of their interrelationship with their consortium.     

Browsing Through Daily Life in a Neighborhood Library

Our neighborhoods are full of life. This life flows into and through our libraries. The cares, worries, joys, and pleasures of everyday living accompany these visits. Members of these communities may walk in, be pushed in, and sometimes perhaps, skate in. Those of us who work in their libraries are the beneficiaries. The stories of some of these neighbors as they use the Colonial Heights, Elk Grove, and Fair Oaks branches of the Sacramento Public Library are conveyed in this anecdotal‐based article.     

Trends in Public Library Design from the 19th to the 21st Centuries

In the early 19th century, public libraries in America tended toward grand appearances befitting seriousness of purpose. Library design changed gradually throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, and more dramatically with automation and new technology. True to its roots, the public library continues to maintain areas for quiet, individual study. But, in addition, today’s library has become a cultural center in the community, offering art galleries, auditoriums, meeting rooms, spaces for collaborative work, digital information and instruction, and even cafés. Change is inevitable, as innovations in library design and patron use illustrate. Yet, from the earliest libraries to modern times, one overarching constant defines their purpose: libraries inspire.     

Acculturation and academic achievement of rural to urban migrant youth: The role of school satisfaction and family closeness

China's 'tidal wave' of rural to urban migration has had a tremendous impact on the educational outcomes of its children. It remains unexplored how and when do migrant children’s experience of acculturation following arrival in the place of settlement influence their academic achievement. This study used a stratified cross-sectional sample of 2412 Chinese migrant children and adolescents aged 10–18 (Mean = 14, 45 % female) to investigate the role of school satisfaction and family closeness in the relationship between acculturation patterns and academic achievement. Acculturation patterns are derived from the bidimensional model proposed by Berry (2005). The results indicated that integration had a positive association with concurrent academic achievement. School satisfaction was a mediator between integration and academic achievement. Furthermore, the full mediation of school satisfaction was only supported when there was a high level of family closeness. Findings from this study underline the usefulness of the bi-dimensional model in understanding the individual differences in academic achievement and suggest greater attention to the cultural variations in interpersonal functioning at the family and school context.     

四大制度变革：中国加快城市化进程的制度安排

工业化和城市化是互相促进、协调发展的。中国过去30年的城市化已严重滞后于工业化．中国过去对城市化投资存在着巨大欠账。新形势下,中国迅速推进城市化的一系列制度变革是继农村家庭联产承包责任制和市场体制的建立两大革命之后的第三大革命。