Measurement and Effects of Attention to Media News

Survey measures of attention, in addition to the usual measures of exposure to media use, are explored in detail. Using data from a two-year longitudinal study of adolescents and their parents, the reliability and validity of self-report questions about attention to newspaper and television news are examined. Attention measures proved to be highly stable across three waves of interviews; repeated items were summed to form reliable indices of attention to each medium's news, and to general news topics without specific mention of medium. Changes in knowledge about public affairs and politics were assessed to test the effects of both exposure and attention to media news. These tests showed significant increments of knowledge gain associated with media attention, even after exposure to the medium was controlled in hierarchical regression analysis. Addition of the attention measures was especially important in evaluating television news, which contributes much more to public knowledge than has been suggested by previous studies that use only measures of TV exposure.     

A HANDBOOK FOR SCRIPTURAL REASONING

The essay includes twelve “rules” to define the nature and goals of the practice of Scriptural Reasoning (SR). These rules are intended for heuristic and pedagogic purposes to introduce Scriptural Reasoning to those who have little experience in and knowledge of the practice of SR. The rules emerged from my observations of SR practice and, taken together, the rules are meant to be a guide or “handbook” for future SR practice.     

SLCA III: A METATHEORETIC APPROACH TO THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE

Discourse analysis is a fundamental concern for the study of human communication, accessible through an analysis of language behavior. A theoretic basis is provided for eight variable classes identified by Syntactic Language Computer Analysis (SLCA-III). Numerous empirical studies support its utility as an indicator of perception and cognition. Issues are raised regarding the role of language research in communication. Emphasis is placed on treatment of language as a behavioral indicator of experience, fluctuating as a barometer of social roles, psychological states, communication disorders, and communication mode.     

SOCIAL COMMUNICATIVE ANXIETY AND THE PERSONNEL SELECTION PROCESS: TESTING THE SIMILARITY EFFECT IN SELECTION DECISIONS

Three studies tested competing predictions about the role of similarity in personnel selection decisions. Previous research suggests a significant role for applicant-selector similarity in the determination of selection decisions. Applicants who are similar to selectors are evaluated, by selectors, more positively than dissimilar applicants. The current investigations found that when the object of similarity is the applicant's and selector's level of anxiety, this relationship fails to appear. Regardless of the selector's own level of anxiety, the high anxious applicant is less positively evaluated than the low anxious one. This effect appears even when the communication demands of the position are specified.     

An Indirect Argument for Strategic Voting

abstract   A common bit of public political wisdom advises that in certain three-way elections, one should cast a strategic vote for one of the top two candidates rather than a conscience-driven vote for a third candidate, since doing otherwise amounts to 'throwing one's vote away'. In this paper, I examine the possible justifications for this pragmatic advice to vote strategically. I argue that the most direct argument behind such advice fails to motivate strategic voting in large-scale elections, since there is no significant chance that one's own vote will alter the outcome of the election, even in plausible close-call cases. In short, the lack of probable pragmatic effect undermines the pragmatic motivation for altering one's baseline voting behavior. However, an indirect argument succeeds in motivating strategic voting in some scenarios. Such an indirect argument relies on the possibility of one acquiring an obligation to engage in public strategic campaigning for one of the top two candidates. In many cases in which one strategically campaigns, one will, indirectly, acquire an obligation to vote strategically in accord with one's prior public campaign activities. Thus, the common bit of political wisdom about strategic voting can be justified, though only indirectly.