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A randomly assigned sample of 376 college students responded to a survey involving a between-subjects 2 × 3 experiment designed to assess the impact of age (older versus younger) and tattoo status (i.e., no tattoo, feminine tattoo, or masculine tattoo) on three dependent measures: credibility, attractiveness, and promiscuity. Older and younger women are perceived differently depending on tattoo status. Not wearing a tattoo may lead to a more favorable perception of older women than wearing one, but wearing a feminine tattoo may engender a more favorable impression of older women than having a masculine tattoo. But not having a tattoo may not be as helpful for the perception of younger women as it is for older women. Also, while younger women may be rewarded for gender role transgression with respect to tattoo status, this is not so for older women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper re-visits Hall's foundational writing concerning Arabs and olfaction made in the book The Hidden Dimension. In light of an historical climate demanding a better understanding of the Arab world and the social biases uniquely associated with the sense of smell, this article seeks to rectify misconceptions promulgated in intercultural communication pedagogy. Hall's claims are contrasted with recent interview data. The implications of this research for (a) intercultural communication instructors, (b) olfaction and culture, (c) relationships between Americans and Arabs/Arab Americans, and (d) future research are considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analyzed all Association for Education in Journalism & Mass Communication refereed convention papers from 1999 to 2008 with regard to author names and author institutional affiliations, in order to rank by productivity individual scholars and institutions globally. All refereed papers sponsored by twenty-seven AEJMC organizational units were examined by author name and affiliation to establish institutional productivity patterns and rankings based on the Carnegie Classification system, and individual productivity rankings per organizational unit. The link between top paper productivity and refereed regular paper productivity was assessed with regard to AEJMC organizational units. While top paper institutional productivity was substantially correlated with institutional refereed regular paper productivity, this was not the case for individual paper productivity. Findings are potentially useful for students, educators, and administrators by filling a void in the literature on leading institutions and individuals across specialties of journalism and mass communication represented in AEJMC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Communication is believed to hold a central role in recreating an individual's sense of meaning and well-being after a loss. Narrative theory in particular points to ways that people create meaning and connection with others. Literature on bereavement suggests that the formation of connections with others, or building community, comprises an important part of the healing process. For this study, the content of bulletin board postings commemorating deceased children was studied quantitatively and qualitatively. Data were examined to learn how contributors used the Web site to connect with others who shared experience of losing a child, engage in meaningful shared activities, and create community. Findings from the data analysis suggest that the Web site contributors are able to discuss topics that might be restricted in other communication scenes. The discussion of these topics allows them to serve as witnesses to truths learned as a result of the loss of a child and enables the participants to keep the memory of the child alive. By participating in this scene of meaning negotiation, we argue that the participants actively construct a counterplot to societal narrative expectations for bereavement that facilitates the creation of some positive meanings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study investigated how two distinct perspectives apply to the role of gender in parents' memorials on The Compassionate Friends (TCF) electronic bulletin board; cyberspace as merely a mirror of societal gendered patterns of bereavement, and cyberspace as a medium or context in which societal gendered patterns of bereavement are neutralized. Data were evaluated to determine to what extent gender differences exist concerning instrumental versus intuitive styles of bereavement. Analytic categories used in assessing gender differences in parental bereavement style included the following: invoking spirituality, directing messages to the deceased, artistic expressions, and special powers accorded to the deceased. With some exceptions, the findings supported the perspective emphasizing the gender neutralizing aspects of cyberspace parental bereavement for the population studied. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite an historical tendency among psychologists to pathologize continuing attachment to the deceased, scholars of grief have come to appreciate that maintaining a connection to the deceased can be a healthy part of bereavement. Using Fisher's perspective on narrative, data from The Compassionate Friends bulletin board were analyzed, both quantitatively and qualitatively, to unravel how messages to the deceased contribute to a healing story of bereavement. It is argued here that messages to the deceased can be healthy due to cathartic emotion expression and maintenance of a relationship that brings solace and meaning to the bereaved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lists the top-ranking doctorate-granting institutions in communication studies in the United States. Combination of the National Communication Association and International Communication Association awards from 1994 to 1998; Use of the rankings to assess the programs of particular doctoral institutions.

A postmodernist perspective is suggested as more appropriate than a modernist perspective for purposes of examining cross-cultural communication between African societies and the United States. By assuming a single universal truth and an instrumentalist view of communication, a modernist perspective portrays this process ineffectively as a one-way process of positive influence with the United States as benefactor while African societies are beneficiaries. However, a postmodernist perspective assumes multiple truths or realities and a constitutive view of communication, permitting two major conclusions: (1) cross-cultural communication between African cultures and the United States may have mutual positive influence, and (2) U.S. society can benefit from the appropriation of even more aspects of African cultures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Researchers have generally ignored the role of communication in academic leadership as it relates to chair-faculty relationships. A turning point analysis was employed to examine what types of communicative events influence the construction, maintenance, and alteration of chair-faculty relationships. Seven types of turning point were discovered: (1) performance evaluation, (2) recognition, (3) support, (4) trustworthiness, (5) job interference, (6) outside interaction, and (7J interpersonal discussion. Trustworthiness turning points promoted the greatest negative change in faculty perceptions of the chair-faculty relationship and significantly decreased the amount of personal information a faculty member would share with the department chair. Subsequent analysis revealed that department chairs pursuing benevolent goals (e.g. helping socialize the faculty member regarding department expectations) were perceived as moving the chair-faculty relationship in more positive directions while department chairs pursuing impersonal or selfish goals (e.g. lying to the faculty member in order to gain information) were perceived as moving the chair-faculty relationship in negative directions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]