bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Investigative Reporting
Authors: Aucoin James L.
Published: September 2017

Investigative journalism is the product of independent work by reporters and editors, which reveals a public or social issue that would otherwise remain unknown. Reporters produce original investigations for → Newspapers, → magazines, → books, broadcast outlets (→ Television; Radio), newsletters, and news websites (→ Internet). The process of investigation may take days, months, or years and include reviewing public documents, conducting multiple interviews, surveying public opinion, analyzing databases, or the like. Investigative reports are usually comprehensive and much longer than other → news stories.
Involvement with Media Content
Authors: Wirth Werner
Published: September 2017

Involvement is included in numerous theories and empirical studies of → information processing, → Persuasion, → advertising, knowledge acquisition, and other → media effects. It is mainly linked with or defined as more elaborative, self‐determined, active, and in‐depth acting with and processing of media content.
Intergroup Reconciliation, Processes of
Authors: Giles Howard
Published: September 2017

Although there is a paucity of work focusing explicitly on intergroup apologies, forgiveness, reconciliation, or reparations in the discipline of communication, even a casual observer of the international news scene suggests that these are ever‐increasing concerns in interethnic and international politics. Much of the academic research that does relate to these topics derives from social psychology (see Nadler et al. 2008) and international relations (e.g., Rothstein, 1999; Bar‐Siman‐Tov 2004) and is of the utmost relevance to intergroup and intercultural communication (→ Intercultural and Intergroup Communication).
Journalism: Legal Situation
Authors: Davidson Sandra
Published: September 2017

“Knowledge is power,” said English lawyer and philosopher Francis Bacon (1561–1626). But sometimes journalists have the knowledge while the government has the power. This can lead to clashes that, unfortunately for journalists, can sometimes lead to imprisonment and even death (→ Violence against Journalists). While civil libel suits against journalists remain the media's biggest financial danger, that danger pales in comparison to loss of freedom or life (→ Libel and Slander).
Journalists: Professional Associations
Authors: Høyer Svennik
Published: September 2017

The social and professional standing of journalists has been ambiguous throughout journalism history and still varies widely for at least three reasons: because journalism covers many different jobs, from manual to intellectual (→ Journalists' Role Perception); because journalists' control of what gets published varies greatly; and because the characteristics of journalism also vary, from making artistic compositions to straight reporting. These ambivalences, made acute by censorship in many countries, help explain the slow development of professional journalist associations.
Knowledge Gap Effects
Authors: Gaziano Cecilie
Published: September 2017

Building upon early research from rural sociology, diffusion of innovations, public opinion poll data, and information campaigns, Tichenor et al. (1970, 159–160) posed the hypothesis: “As the infusion of mass media information into a social system increases, segments of the population with higher socioeconomic status (SES) tend to acquire this information at a faster rate than the lower status segments, so that the gap in knowledge between these segments tends to increase rather than decrease.” The less advantaged were predicted to gain knowledge but at a slower rate than more advantaged groups. The gap can be studied at one time point or over time. Tichenor et al., also known as the Minnesota Team, focused on public affairs and scientific knowledge (→ Political Knowledge). They assumed that knowledge growth was irreversible (although forgetting can occur) and that ceiling effects occurred at varying rates for different SES groups or else had not been reached (→ Media Campaigns and Perception of Reality; Media Use by Social Variable).
Knowledge Gap Effects
Authors: Gaziano Cecilie
Published: September 2017

Building upon early research from rural sociology, diffusion of innovations, public opinion poll data, and information campaigns, Tichenor et al. (1970, 159–160) posed the hypothesis: “As the infusion of mass media information into a social system increases, segments of the population with higher socioeconomic status (SES) tend to acquire this information at a faster rate than the lower status segments, so that the gap in knowledge between these segments tends to increase rather than decrease.” The less advantaged were predicted to gain knowledge but at a slower rate than more advantaged groups. The gap can be studied at one time point or over time. Tichenor et al., also known as the Minnesota Team, focused on public affairs and scientific knowledge (→ Political Knowledge). They assumed that knowledge growth was irreversible (although forgetting can occur) and that ceiling effects occurred at varying rates for different SES groups or else had not been reached (→ Media Campaigns and Perceptions of Reality; Media Use by Social Variable).
Kurdish International Broadcasting
Authors: Akpinar Zozan
Published: September 2017

Med TV, the first Kurdish satellite TV channel, began its standard broadcasts in May 1995 from its head office in London and its main studios near Brussels. It was created by people close to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which had been conducting an armed struggle against the Turkish state since 1984. On the one hand, this channel was seen as an instrument in the struggle against Turkish media, which were used in the conflict by the Turkish army according to “psychological warfare” requirements. On the other hand, it was seen as a means of opposing the homogenization policy of the Turkish nation‐state, which banned the use of Kurdish in broadcasting. Europe, where a considerable Kurdish migrant population lived, constituted a human and material resource‐base favorable to creating a satellite network in Kurdish (→ International Television).
Objectivity in Reporting
Authors: Hackett Robert A.
Published: September 2017

The concept of “objectivity” connotes a set of practices and ideas, such as a stance of → neutrality or → balance in relation to the people and events being reported. It is a central ethos in journalism, especially in the Anglo American liberal democracies (→ Ethics in Journalism). It is also acquiring global significance as journalists seek new roles and institutional supports within the “transition societies” of formerly communist and third world dictatorships. What objectivity means in practice, however, and whether it is a desirable and achievable goal for reporting in a democratic society are questions very much debated.
Organizational Communication: Critical Approaches
Authors: Mumby Dennis K.
Published: September 2017

The term “critical approach” refers to a broad, interdisciplinary body of theory and research that conceives of organizations as dynamic sites of control and resistance. “Critical studies” covers several distinct yet related intellectual traditions, each of which examines the communicative practices through which control and resistance are produced, reproduced, and transformed in the process of organizing. These traditions include: neo‐Marxism, → critical theory, postmodernism, and feminism (→ Postmodernism and Communication; Feminist and Gender Studies). Each of these traditions shares the “post‐linguistic turn” assumption that language and → Discourse are central, constitutive elements of human meaning and reality formation.
Organizational Communication: Postmodern Approaches
Authors: Ganesh Shiv
Published: September 2017

Postmodern approaches to organizational communication elude easy description. Broadly speaking, they are diverse forms of inquiry that challenge and reconstruct systems of power, identity, and representation (→ Control and Authority in Organizations). Since the 1980s, postmodern approaches, situated with reference to a larger critical tradition, have burgeoned in organizational communication studies. Under this rubric, many extant theories and methods in → Organizational Communication inquiry have been challenged and refashioned.
P2P Networking
Authors: Dini Paolo , Krause Paul
Published: September 2017

The emergence of peer‐to‐peer (P2P) networking shows that technological determinism can be turned on its head: rather than socio‐economic systems being determined by technological developments, sometimes technology can be determined by its users. Although in general the coupling goes both ways, P2P networking culminates the progression in computer architectures from mainframes through minicomputers, workstations, PCs, and client–server (master–slave) architectures, as information and communication technology (ICT), over a 50‐year span, gradually adapted to the needs and behavior of its users (→ Communication Networks). In contrast to the master–slave or client–server architecture, in a peer‐to‐peer network each node has the same status and can issue requests to or respond to requests from any other node. Centralized management of network traffic becomes functionally unnecessary, with implications of increased local autonomy and lack of centralized control of the content carried by such traffic.
Parental Mediation Strategies
Authors: Nathanson Amy I.
Published: September 2017

“Parental mediation” refers to the interactions that parents have with children about their media use. The majority of the research has focused on interactions involving children's television viewing. Most scholars believe that parental mediation is comprised of three dimensions.
Pathos and Rhetoric
Authors: Gross Daniel M.
Published: September 2017

Derived from the Greek verbpaskhein, meaning to be in a certain condition, to experience, or to suffer, pathos is one of the three principal sources of rhetorical proof along with ethos and logos (→ Ethos and Rhetoric; Logos and Rhetoric). Typically translated into English as → “emotion,” pathos is a key term in the ancient debate between philosophy and rhetoric because it tracks basic attitudes about human nature and civil society.
Pedagogy, Communication in
Authors: Backlund Philip M.
Published: September 2017

Pedagogy is commonly defined as the principles and methods of instruction. Instructional pedagogy, at all levels, is mediated through the communication process. Successful pedagogy is thus dependent on successful communication among teachers and students. However, all teachers do not effectively use communication to support instruction. A teacher's thorough knowledge of content does not mean that she or he can communicate it to students.
Perceived Reality as a Communication Process
Authors: Kosicki Gerald
Published: September 2017

Beyond one's own direct experiences of the world, humans rely on communication to form impressions about the rest of reality. This fact makes communication a key to how people form their perceptions of reality. There is a rich literature grounded in communication dealing with the role of mass communication in forming individual‐level judgments as well as public opinion about conditions in the world (→ Media and Perceptions of Reality; Social Perception). This literature, which ranges over the areas of entertainment, news media, media effects, and various social indicators, is impressive in its breadth and depth (e.g., Bryant & Zillmann 2002).
Perceived Reality as a Communication Process
Authors: Kosicki Gerald M.
Published: September 2017

Beyond their own direct experiences of the world, humans rely on communication to form impressions about the rest of reality. This fact makes communication a key to how people form their perceptions of reality. There is a rich literature grounded in communication dealing with the formation of individual‐level judgments as well as public opinion about conditions in the world (→ Media and Perceptions of Reality; Social Perception). This literature, which ranges over the areas of entertainment, news media, media effects, and various social indicators, is impressive in its breadth and depth (e.g., Bryant & Oliver 2009).
Perception
Authors: Shrum L. J.
Published: September 2017

Perception is an ambiguous term and is used in many different ways, at least in the field of communication. Perhaps this is understandable given that communication is a diverse field that draws on concepts from a number of disciplines. Thus, in reading communication literature, one might encounter terms such as precept, perceptual field, or perceptual fluency (terms basic to cognitive psychology), → social perception and selective perception (terms basic to social psychology; → Selective Perception and Selective Retention), and perception of social reality (a term almost unique to communication; → Media and Perceptions of Reality). In fact, each set can be thought of as representing particular stages of information processing, and each is fundamentally important to communication processes (Shrum 2006).
Personal Communication by CMC
Authors: Walther Joseph B.
Published: September 2017

Computer‐mediated communication (CMC) includes → electronic mail, group discussion systems, real‐time chat, personal blogs, micro‐blogs (→ Blogger), conversational components of online games (→ Computer Games and Reality Perception) and date‐finding sites (→ Online Relationships), and interactive aspects of web‐based participatory platforms such as → social network sites (→ Intergroup Contact and Communication; Network Organizations through Communication Technology). Through these platforms people send messages either to a defined individual or set of recipients, or to a space where many people may read and reply to others' messages. Much CMC is used for professional pursuits, yet even there personalizing features help users relate to one another, which may enhance both the instrumental and interpersonal aspects of such communication. A great deal of CMC is used specifically for personal goals and activities. In some ways CMC is a simple alternative to other forms of communication (→ Online Media), with some socio‐technical features that alter communication dynamics (→ Human–Computer Interaction). In other ways CMC offers significant opportunities that enhance communication in personal settings by allowing users to contact a large field of potential communication partners, reducing aspects of human interaction that impede communication effectiveness in conventional interaction. CMC can enhance personal communication by allowing users to enhance messaging in ways that conventional interaction does not as readily afford, facilitating new relationships and relational maintenance.
Personalization of Campaigning
Authors: Brettschneider Frank
Published: September 2017

Election campaigning is considered to be personalized if it focuses on the top candidates and their personal qualities more than on political issues. The personalization of campaigning is part of the personalization of politics as a whole (→ Political Personality in Media Democracy). Moreover, the personalization of voting behavior and that of media coverage play an important role (Brettschneider 2002). Yet the personalization of election campaigns receives the bulk of criticism. Some observers see in it a dangerous trend toward depolitization. Politics, according to them, is increasingly meaningless, issues are marginalized, and elections are turned into mere beauty contests, designed by → spin doctors who are practically “packaging” their candidates for the media (Franklin 2004).
Piracy
Authors: Bettig Ronald V.
Published: September 2017

The origin of the term “piracy” dates back to the thirteenth century when rogue seamen who intercepted merchant and military vessels to rob them of their cargo were known as “pirates.” In the early eighteenth century, the term took on a new meaning, referring to the unauthorized use of intellectual property. Images of the swashbuckling pirate are still reproduced in → 
Popular Culture
today: in movies (→ Film as Popular Culture), → Television programs, romance novels, and theme parks. By the late 1900s, the term had been loosened from its original meaning and become the primary descriptor of the unauthorized use of copyrighted works, patents, and trademarks (→ Trademarks in the Media; Copyright). By the early years of the twenty‐first century, the most common usage of the term piracy had come to signify unauthorized uses of intellectual property via the → Internet and sale of CDs, DVDs, and computer software on the black market. While seafaring pirates pilfered material property to keep or resell, piracy of intellectual property involves the infringing appropriation of immaterial goods, including creative and intellectual works.
Planned Social Change through Communication
Authors: McLeod Douglas M.
Published: September 2017

Planned social change is the result of an intervention by a change agent (an individual or organization that seeks to induce change) in order to transform the nature of human communities, most often as a response to some perceived problem such as health risks, environmental crises, political instability, economic hardships, underdeveloped infrastructures, and recovery from natural disasters. Thus, there are a variety of contexts in which planned social change is practiced including → Health Communication, political transformation, crisis management (→ Crisis Communication), technological innovation, and → modernization. Across each of these areas, the predominant goal is to improve the quality of life and the standard of living within a given social system. Ostensibly, the goal of planned social change is the betterment of society, though there may be no consensus on which goals of the campaign are most important and indeed whether they are socially desirable at all.
Poland: Media System
Authors: Hadamik Katharina
Published: September 2017

The Republic of Poland is one of the largest countries in central Europe, and in size of population (38.7 million people) ranks eighth in Europe. Of that population, 98 percent are of Polish ethnic origin, and over 90 percent are Roman Catholics. Politics in Poland takes place in the framework of a parliamentary representative democratic republic.
Political Advertising
Authors: Holtz‐Bacha Christina
Published: September 2017

Political advertising is a form of political communication that uses the mass media to promote political candidates, parties, policy issues, and/or ideas. Advertising messages are generally controlled messages allowing for direct communication with the public and voters without interpretation or filtering by news media or other sources.
Political Communication Systems
Authors: Pfetsch Barbara
Published: September 2017

Looking at political communication phenomena in a systems framework is a common approach in comparative communication analysis. The term “system,” in its general meaning, denotes a multitude of component parts that depend on each other and function as a whole (→ Systems Theory). The nature of the political communication system is thought of as a multi‐component structure of producing, processing, and communicating political messages. As Blumler and Gurevitch (1977) indicate, adapting the systems approach to political communication processes implies the assumption that variation in one of its component parts would be associated with variation in other components.
Political Language
Authors: Jarvis Sharon E.
Published: September 2017

Political language has been studied by sociolinguists, communication scholars, political scientists, historians, sociologists, anthropologists, psychologists, and marketing professionals (→ Language and Social Interaction; Political Communication). Shared assumptions across these fields are that (1) citizens come to know their political worlds through messages and symbols, and (2) political words do not have → meaning in themselves; rather their meanings are a function of contexts, speakers, audiences, and predispositions. Beyond these shared assumptions, specific fields have made unique contributions to what is known about political language.
Political Media Use
Authors: Peiser Wolfram , Jandura Olaf
Published: September 2017

News media, alongside parties and associations, act as an intermediary in society, as a hinge between the governing and the governed (principal‐agent approach). Analyzing the reasons as well as the intensity of the actual usage of political media content is necessary in order to assess the extent to which citizens and their representatives draw on these functions (legitimation, integration, and information) of the news media.
Political News
Authors: Schulz Winfried
Published: September 2017

Shortly after the advent of printing in the fifteenth century, leaflets and early newspapers published political news (→ Newspaper; Printing, History of). However, only the cheap, mass circulation press in the nineteenth century and, most notably, → radio and → television about a century later brought political news to a general audience (→ Media History). Today, regular newscasts on many radio and television programs, 24‐hour news networks, and a multitude of websites on the Internet make political news continuously available and pervasive in society (→ Internet News; Newscast, 24‐Hour). The deployment of global news logistics – → foreign correspondents, → news agencies, and news pools around the world – as well as advances in cable, satellite, and other transmission technologies, have brought about an enormous expansion of the political news supply.
Political Persuasion
Authors: Perloff Richard M. , Horowitz Edward , Pettey Gary
Published: September 2017

Persuasion is an integral part of politics and a necessary component of the pursuit and exercise of power. Political persuasion is a process in which communicators try to convince other people to change their attitudes or behavior regarding a political issue through messages, in an atmosphere of free choice (Perloff 2003, 34). As the field of political communication has grown, so too has the number of studies exploring the processes and effects of political persuasive communication (→ Persuasion). Political persuasion involves the application of persuasion principles to a context in which most individuals possess the seemingly incompatible characteristics of harboring strong feelings about a host of issues, yet caring precious little about the context in which these issues are played out.
Politics in Popular Communication
Authors: Macey Deborah A.
Published: September 2017

Political communication is an interdisciplinary field with roots stretching back to Aristotle and Plato, who debated the meaning of democracy and society (→ Political Communication; Rhetoric, Greek). Modern political communication research incorporates not only the field of communication, including → Journalism and rhetoric, but also political science, sociology, history, psychology, geography, and others (→ Rhetorical Studies).
Polls and the Media
Authors: Traugott Michael W.
Published: September 2017

Election polls have a long history of a symbiotic relationship with the media, dating back to the nineteenth century (Converse 1987; Frankovic 2008). However, it was not until the 1920s that polls insinuated themselves into the news operations of election coverage on a regular basis. Before the advent of the modern polling period, the major political poll operating in the United States was conducted by a leading circulation magazine, the
Literary Digest
. Based upon its subscriber lists, eventually supplemented by information from telephone directories and automobile registrations, the
Literary Digest
conducted large mail surveys to produce estimates of the outcome of presidential elections. While the magazine made good estimates from its data in 1928 and 1932, its 1936 estimate that predicted a Landon win over Roosevelt was a disaster (Squire 1988). Of greater significance, George Gallup had started a new public polling operation and promised his first major news client, the
Washington Post
, that his methods could outperform the
Literary Digest
. When he did, a new era of public polling for news organizations was born (→ Public Opinion Polling; Survey).
Popular Music
Authors: Burnett Robert
Published: September 2017

Music in various functions plays an increasingly important role both as an indicator of and as a medium for changes in society. Popular music is with us constantly; it is part of our everyday environment, and increasingly part of the aural or sonic soundscape that surrounds us. Not only do we listen to music in our homes and at concerts, but also as a background in cars, bars, airplanes, restaurants, and shopping malls. Our brains are constantly registering, monitoring, and decoding popular music. Popular music is one of the more powerful expressions of the → “culture industry” worldwide. Some would claim that popular music is the only truly universal “mass medium.” Certainly most people would agree that music speaks a universal language of → emotions. Popular music is now the lingua franca for a large segment of the world's youth population. It is probably fair to say that music is the most universal means of communication we now have, instantly traversing language and other cultural barriers (→ Popular Communication).
Population Campaigns
Authors: Sullivan Tara M.
Published: September 2017

Communication campaigns have become a central component of family planning programs designed to shape social norms and individual behavior related to fertility. Communication at multiple levels (individual, family, community and mass media) has been used to heighten awareness of family planning, change attitudes toward contraceptive use, and shape norms surrounding family planning. Communication campaigns play a key role in providing people with access to accurate information in order to promote informed choice and to dispel rumors and myths about family planning. They also help improve service quality by enhancing the interpersonal skills of providers (Robey et al. 1994).
Populism and Responsiveness
Authors: Hardmeier Sibylle
Published: September 2017

Populism and responsiveness are rather broad and messy concepts. They are not only used for scientific analysis but for political allegations as well. A simple and general definition of the two terms shows what holds the two concepts together:
responsive
refers to politics that are open to the electorate and respond to what the people want (Latin:
responsum
= response);
populist
refers to politics that attach great importance to people's opinions (Latin:
populus
= people). The two terms operationalize the sovereignty of the people, albeit with different connotations. Responsiveness, at least to some degree, is considered an essential element of representation, and thus of democracy. By contrast, interpretations of populism are in most cases not only highly charged but also negative. Only some authors find the sources of populist protest in the heart of the “democratic project” (Canovan 2002, 33) or treat the populist principle as an institutionalist feature which mainly determines direct democracy and therefore stands for a broader plebiscitarian transformation of politics. The proponents of responsiveness hold that this concept makes politics
more representative
, whereas populists criticize the
nonrepresentativeness
of politics.
Positioning Theory
Authors: Zerfass Ansgar
Published: September 2017

Positioning is an essential concept in → communication management, → Public Relations, and → 
Marketing
communication. The process of positioning includes identifying, defining, and managing the → Perception relevant audiences have of a particular organization, product, person, or idea. Three lines of thought relevant to communication theory have emerged during the last decades: strategic positioning, positioning strategies, and discursive positioning.
Postmodernism and Communication
Authors: Bolter Jay David
Published: September 2017

Postmodernism is one of a series of terms, including postmodernity and poststructuralism, that is applied to cultural production in western Europe and North America in the period from the 1960s to the present. Postmodernity is sometimes used to refer to the cultural history of this period. Poststructuralism was a critical practice directed toward literary, linguistic, and philosophical movements that flourished around this time. The term “postmodernism” itself is defined in opposition to “modernism” in order to describe contemporary forms of art and architecture and their aesthetics.
Power and Discourse
Authors: Vine Bernadette
Published: September 2017

The concept of power, who holds it and how they use it has been of great interest to almost every field of social science. A crucial way in which power is expressed and resisted is through language. Ng and Bradac (1993) argue that language reveals power, language creates power, language reflects power, and language obscures or depoliticizes power. It has even been claimed that there is no language situation, involving either public or private discourse, free from effects of power.
Precision Journalism
Authors: Doig Stephen K.
Published: September 2017

Precision journalism is the use of social and behavioral science → Research Methods to gather and analyze data, bringing a level of rigor to journalistic work beyond anecdotal evidence. Although it can be practiced without computers, precision journalism is usually a subset of “computer‐assisted reporting
,”
the catch‐all term for anything from using the Internet for gathering information to developing newsroom intranets for sharing information among reporters. Another common term is “database journalism,” which focuses on gathering and analyzing large collections of government data.
Priming Theory
Authors: Iyengar Shanto
Published: September 2017

The priming effect refers to media‐induced changes in voters’ reliance on particular issues as criteria for evaluating government officials. The more prominent any given issue in the news, the greater the impact of voters’ opinions about that issue on their evaluations of government. The priming effect creates volatility in public opinion, especially during election campaigns (→ Public Opinion, Media Effects on → Election Campaign Communication). As casual observers of the political scene, ordinary citizens only notice events and issues in the news; those not covered by the media might as well not exist. What is noticed becomes the principal basis for the public's beliefs about the state of the country. Thus, the relative prominence of issues in the news is the major determinant of the public's perceptions of the problems facing the nation (see, e.g., Iyengar and Kinder 1987).
Public Broadcasting, History of
Authors: Medhurst Jamie
Published: September 2017

Public broadcasting is notoriously difficult to define, and yet it has been at the center of debates in → media policy for decades in those countries where it exists. Proponents of public broadcasting argue that at its heart is the notion of providing the “best” in programming for all, while detractors would argue that it is a form of state control over what we can listen to or watch (→ Public Service Broadcasting: Law and Policy).
Public Meetings
Authors: Castor Theresa
Published: September 2017

A public meeting is a gathering in which there are limited, if any, restrictions on who may participate. Public meetings, as an ideal, are a form of democracy (→ Discourse, Deliberative; Public Sphere), but are often viewed as frustrating and futile. Labeling an event as a meeting calls attention to the communicative dimensions of this activity. Language and social interaction scholars study public meetings as situations in which identity, social action, and culture, among other practices, are enacted (→ Language and Social Interaction).
Public Opinion Polling
Authors: Petersen Thomas
Published: September 2017

The term “public opinion polling” generally refers collectively to both the representative → survey method and to the institutes that specialize in employing this method, particularly to commercial survey institutes. Other terms commonly employed in this context are: “public opinion research,” “survey research,” or simply, if somewhat confusingly, → “public opinion.” The term “demoscopy” (Greek: “observation of the public”), originally suggested by American scientist Stuart Dodd (Dodd 1946), is also commonly used in some European countries, particularly in connection with political debate, although it has not gained a foothold in English‐speaking countries.
Public Relations Ethics
Authors: Bowen Shannon A.
Published: September 2017

A core responsibility of communicators in public relations is to manage issues (→ Issue Management; Communication Management). Public relations holds the substantial moral responsibility of defining issues, communicating about those issues with publics and the media, and working to prevent and resolve problems between organizations and publics. This weighty responsibility includes deciding what concepts are related or unrelated to an issue, what facts are relevant or irrelevant, and what potential solutions exist. A moral responsibility to conduct these activities in an ethical manner is inherent in pursuits of such significance, and public relations professionals worldwide are therefore obligated to act with ethical rectitude by the very nature of their responsibilities (→ Corporate Social Responsibility).
Quantitative Methodology
Authors: Scholl Armin
Published: September 2017

The results of polls tell us how many people intend to vote for a certain political party, watch TV more than four hours a day, or favor a certain TV program. We call methods of collecting and analyzing such data “quantitative methodology” because individuals' attributes are counted in large numbers. One can count not only single persons (→ Survey), but also propositions within texts, visual elements within pictures or sequences of film material (→ Content Analysis, Quantitative), or observed actions and overt behaviors (→ Observation). Counting people, words, the duration of a TV program, and so on is deeply rooted in our everyday lives and nothing artificial. Quantitative methodology joins these basic social phenomena but works out systematic (methodological) rules to a complex pattern of standards.
Radio Technology
Authors: Hendy David
Published: September 2017

The history of radio technology can be divided
chronologically
into four main eras: experimentation with basic equipment between the 1890s and 1920s; broadcasting to mass audiences using established processes between the 1930s and 1950s; adjustment to the arrival of television from the 1950s; and, finally, the emergence of digital radio technology from the late 1980s.
Rating Methods
Authors: Webster James G.
Published: September 2017

A rating, as the term is most often used in media industries, is an estimate of the size and demographic composition of a radio, television, or Internet audience. Such metrics are of enormous importance to advertiser‐supported media because they set the value of the time used to run commercial messages. The larger and more desirable the audience, the more the media can charge advertisers. Ratings are typically measures of exposure to media based on surveys of various target populations conducted by “third‐party” firms independent of the sales transaction. The practice of ratings research emerged in the United States in the 1930s, and has since been refined and adopted worldwide (→ Nielsen Ratings). However, new technologies that allow people to consume a wide range of media anywhere, at any time, coupled with the desire of advertisers to reach ever‐more narrowly drawn markets, have strained current systems of audience measurement. Ratings companies have responded by developing new methods to keep pace with the demands of their client industries (→ People‐Meter).
Reality and Media Reality
Authors: Morgan Michael
Published: September 2017

Since the earliest days of mass media, researchers, social critics, politicians, and the general public have been concerned about the extent to which media representations reflect or deviate from “reality.” Over the years, a great deal of research and public debate have revolved around the kinds of images of the world that are created and disseminated by media, and how they compare to the “real world” as revealed by official statistics or other objective indicators (→ Media and Perceptions of Reality).
Reciprocity and Compensation in Interaction
Authors: Patterson Miles L.
Published: September 2017

Social interaction is a complex, yet often subtle, process through which humans transmit information, pursue social goals, and initiate and sustain relationships. Even in the current digital age with its various forms of remote communication, face‐to‐face interaction is still critical for our social and emotional well‐being. One way of characterizing the give‐and‐take between people in interactions is in terms of the relative changes partners make in their behavior over time; specifically, compensation and reciprocation. Compensation refers to a pattern of balancing or controlling the partner's behavioral intimacy by moving in the opposite direction. Thus, too much intimacy by one person precipitates avoidance and too little intimacy precipitates approach. In contrast, when a partner's behavioral intimacy is matched or intensified, the resulting pattern is described as reciprocation. On the verbal side of interactions, reciprocation or matching of self‐disclosure seems to be the dominant pattern. Although verbal communication is obviously important, nonverbal communication typically has a greater impact than the verbal on social judgments, interpersonal attitudes, and influence (Patterson 2002). In fact, most of the research and theory on compensation and reciprocation has focused on nonverbal communication. Consequently, this discussion examines the evolution of our understanding of compensation and reciprocation in nonverbal communication (→ Nonverbal Signals, Effects of).
Relational Control
Authors: Millar Frank E.
Published: September 2017

Relational control is the most dynamic of the three dimensions of social relationships proposed by Millar and Rogers (1987) – the other two are trust and intimacy. Control represents the vertical “distance” between the persons in an ongoing interaction; it refers to the pattern of rights and obligations to define or direct and to defer or accept the other's assertions while constructing the continually re‐produced form of any interpersonal relationship. The temporal relevance of control is the present, since the right to direct and the obligation to accept the dyad's form varies by topics, social roles, and social settings. Functionally, control structures serve to regulate how each person acts toward and with the other and the dyad's ability to accomplish interdependent and individual goals (→ Social Interaction Structure). Subjective judgments about the vertical distance between persons are encapsulated in the notions of freedom and equity. Freedom concerns the possibility of one's own actions affecting the forms and outcomes of the relationship, while equity judgments concern the fairness of one's own rewards in comparison to the other's, considering the amount and type of one's contributions to the relationship (→ Social Exchange).
Reliability
Authors: Krippendorff Klaus
Published: September 2017

Linguistically, the word “reliability” occurs in contexts of relying on something, for example, on one's tools, someone else's service, given measuring instruments, or data. In the conduct of science, the reliability of data is an important bottleneck for the construction of theories or scientific conjectures, and for giving reasonable advice.
Rhetoric, Argument, and Persuasion
Authors: van Eemeren Frans H.
Published: September 2017

Rhetoric, argument, and persuasion come together in the study of argumentation. According to a handbook definition,argumentationis a verbal, social, and rational activity aimed at convincing a reasonable critic of the acceptability of a standpoint by advancing a constellation of propositions justifying or (in cases where the standpoint is negative) refuting the proposition expressed in the standpoint (van Eemeren et al. 2014). This definition does justice to the “process–product ambiguity” of the term “argumentation” because it captures not only the activity of advancing reasons, but also the discourse or text resulting from it.
Rhetoric in Central and South America
Authors: Paglialunga Esther
Published: September 2017

This entry presents an overview of recent rhetorical studies by scholars from universities in Central and South America, where there is a renewed interest in this field. Generally, rhetorical studies in Central and South America are concerned with the main theoretical notions of literary criticism in antiquity; the application of such notions to the analysis of Greek and Roman classical texts (→ Rhetoric, Greek; Rhetoric, Roman); the influence of classical rhetoric on Latin American thought and literature from the discovery of the New World; and → Discourse Analysis, especially according to modern linguistic theories.
Rhetoric in East Asia: China and Japan
Authors: Chen Rudong
Published: September 2017

Chinese rhetorical thought can be traced back to the Spring and Autumn period (770–476
bce
). The word for “rhetoric” in Chinese came from Confucius' (551–479
bce
) speech in
The book of changes
: “The gentleman advances in virtue, and cultivates all the spheres of his duty. His honesty and good faith are the way in which he advances in virtue. His sincere rhetoric (Xīu Cí) is the way in which he fulfills his spheres of duty.” In ancient Chinese, “rhetoric” means to decorate oral and written words, to use language appropriately and effectively.
Rhetoric, Epideictic
Authors: Haskins Ekaterina
Published: September 2017

The term “epideictic” derives from the Greekepideixis, translated as “showing forth” or “display.” According to Aristotle's classification of rhetorical genres inThe art of rhetoric, epideictic → Discourse is concerned with topics of praise and blame, deals with the present, and is addressed to an audience of spectators, rather than judges (1358a–b). Epideictic relies on verbal amplification (auxesis) to portray desirable qualities of the object of praise and to depict the object of blame as base and dishonorable (1368a). AlthoughThe art of rhetoricidentifies epideictic as a distinct form or genre of rhetoric, it also notes that epideictic elements can be used in the other two main genres of oratory, when, for example, a deliberative speaker portrays a particular course of action as more attractive than others and a judicial orator's defense employs amplification to depict the accused in a favorable way (→ Rhetoric, Greek).
Rhetoric and Ethics
Authors: Arnett Ronald C.
Published: September 2017

The field of communication has historical roots in the interplay of human speech and ethics (→ Communication as a Field and Discipline). Our journals record scholarly investigation of communication ethics beginning in 1934 with Pellegrini's
Quarterly Journal of Speech
essay, “Public speaking and social obligations.” The founding scholarly work on speech and ethics is Aristotle's
Nichomachean ethics
. Aristotle's public descriptive account of Homer's narrative responsiveness to Athenian virtues in action establishes the enduring heart of communication ethics –
responsiveness
, commencing with responsiveness to the Athenian polis.
Rhetoric, Pre‐Socratic
Authors: Enos Richard Leo
Published: September 2017

An awareness of the relationship between thought and discourse is apparent in ancient Greece long before Plato's dialogue‐character Socrates challenged the legitimacy of rhetoric as a subject of serious study. When we understand how consciousness of the dynamics of communication evolved we can better understand that pre‐Socratic rhetoric is an overarching concept capturing not only the traits of Hellenic rhetoric that were demonstrated by the sophists who immediately preceded Socrates, but also the antecedent forces that shaped sophistic views on cognition and its relationship to expression. The dialogues of Plato and the development of the Socratic movement have often been considered the seminal events in recognizing rhetoric as a formal discipline or
technê
(→ Rhetoric, Greek). Yet, the dramatic date of these dialogues – particularly such dialogues as Plato's
Gorgias
and his later
Phaedrus
– reveal that sophists were already established and teaching rhetoric within and throughout Hellenic culture well before Plato (apparently) abstracted and coined “rhetoric” as a discipline worthy of scrutiny. Gorgias, for example, a sophist who was clearly older than Socrates, professed to be an established teacher of rhetoric, claiming a pedagogical ancestry dating back to his fellow Sicilians, Corax and Tisias.
Rhetoric and Psychology
Authors: Simons Herbert W.
Published: September 2017

This entry examines the fields of rhetoric and psychology, each from the perspective of the other, and both from the meta‐perspective of a psychologist‐turned‐rhetorician who retains equal measures of respect (and disrespect) for both. Rhetoric and psychology each study → Persuasion but from radically different approaches that reflect their contrasting origins in the humanistic and scientific traditions of communication studies (→ Communication Theory and Philosophy). With a view toward advancing consideration of the issues that divide rhetoric and psychology, we can imagine their representatives as engaged in a conversation of sorts on questions of relative worth to their students, to the general advancement of knowledge, and to each other (→ Psychology in Communication Processes; Rhetorical Studies).
Rhetoric, Roman
Authors: Hall Jon
Published: September 2017

Roman rhetoric aims to present practical and theoretical guidelines for effective verbal → persuasion. In ancient Rome such precepts found an application most regularly in speeches made in the criminal and civil courts, but they were relevant also to debates on political policy in the senate and at popular assemblies. All of these oratorical activities were traditionally restricted in ancient Rome to men of the elite classes. The main principles of Roman rhetoric derive largely from earlier Greek rhetorical theory, which achieved impressive levels of sophistication during the fourth centurybce, and which formed the major focus of formal education in the Hellenistic world (→ Rhetoric, Greek). As these Greek‐speaking communities were gradually incorporated into the Roman Empire from the second centurybceonwards, the value of rhetorical training came to be appreciated by members of the ruling elite, although the process of acceptance and integration took considerable time. The first teachers of rhetoric in Rome essentially reproduced the existing Greek system; it is not until 92bcethat we hear of Latin being used as a language of rhetorical instruction in the city. Over the next 50 years or so, formal training in rhetoric finally became established as a central feature of upper‐class Roman education.
Rhetoric of the Second Sophistic
Authors: Whitmarsh Tim
Published: September 2017

“The Second Sophistic” is the name given by Flavius Philostratus (c. 170–245
ce
) in his
Lives of the sophists
(481, 507) to the rhetorical style current in his day. The sophistic culture described by Philostratus involved highly educated members of the Greek elite improvising public declamations, often in the personae of famous figures from Greece's historical or mythological past. The primary emphasis was upon the re‐enactment of key moments of military or political significance: most themes were drawn from the times of either imperial Athens (fifth century
bce
) or the conquests of Philip and Alexander (fourth century
bce
). This historical emphasis was matched at the level of diction, morphology, and style by the revival of the “Attic” dialect used by classical Athenian writers such as Thucydides, Plato, and Demosthenes (→ Rhetoric, Greek).