Media system dependency theory is employed to examine the usefulness of information on sexuality in the eyes of Israeli Jewish and Arab adolescents. Arabs perceive most of the information sources as more useful than Jews do. In comparison with males, females perceive their parents as more useful and the electronic media as less useful, but there is no gender-ethnicity interaction and no clear-cut relationship between the adolescents' own sexual experience and their perception of the usefulness of information on sex. The results partly replicate the findings of American studies; however they are not strongly supportive of media system dependency theory.

Although the amount of television that young children watch at home is well-described, to date no study has examined how much television preschool children watch in day care settings. We performed a cross-sectional analysis using the Profile of Child Care Settings Study, examining predictors of television viewing in center (n = 2089) and home-based (n = 583) child care programs. On average, preschool-aged children were reported to watch more than four times as much television while at home-based programs than at center-based programs (1.39 hours per day vs 0.36 hours per day); with significant differences between groups in the type of television content viewed, and in the proportions of programs in which no television viewing occurred at all. The proportion of programs where preschool-aged children watched no television during the child care day was 65% in center-based programs and 11% in home-based programs. The hours a program was open each day was associated with increased television viewing in both settings; provision of after-school care to older children and being in a county with high family poverty rates were only significant factors in center-based programs. Factors associated with decreased television viewing included post-secondary education of staff members, as well as the average staff volume of the program. Preschool children in day care settings watch a considerable amount of television in addition to what is viewed at home. These results further highlight the urgent need to better understand the effects of viewing on young children.

Data from 263 individuals who had been hurt by something a dating partner said or did offered support for the interpersonal forgiveness model—forgiveness associated positively with integrative communication and negatively with de-escalation and distributive communication. When hurt individuals believed the partner had sincerely apologized they were more likely to grant forgiveness and report using the direct strategies of integrative and distributive communication, and less likely to report using de-escalation and loyalty. Among the various hurtful events investigated, breaking up with the partner and being sexually unfaithful were reportedly the least forgivable offenses. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 2003 meeting of the International Communication Association, San Diego, CA. Data for this study were taken from the first author's dissertation, which was directed by the second author. The authors thank the other members of the dissertation committee, Dan Canary and F. Scott Christopher.

The present study applied attribution theory in examining how college students interpret success and failure for themselves and their partners in collaborative presentations. Questionnaires were completed by 174 students based on a 2 (positive vs. negative feedback) × 2 (self vs. other) design. The results revealed that people who received positive feedback made similar attributions about themselves and their presentation partners. However, as predicted, people attributed their own poor performance less to internal causes and more to the nature of the assignment than they did their partners’ poor performance. Explanations of the findings and the implications for future research are discussed.

Apparently wary of backlash, candidates are sponsoring fewer negative ads while their party’s national committees do more of the dirty work. In this experiment (N = 107), contrary to expectations, candidate evaluations were more positive when participants saw the candidates’ own attacks than when they saw party‐sponsored attacks. An interaction showed that this was true particularly for viewers higher in political knowledge in their overall candidate evaluations. The recent embrace of ‘plain‐spoken’ candidates is mentioned as a possible explanation. Implications of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act in light of this study are discussed.

When employees express displaced dissent their organizations do not hear and as a result forfeit important critical feedback. The purpose of this study was to assess the conditions in which employees tend to favor expressing displaced dissent. To that end full‐time employees who worked in a variety of organizations completed self‐report survey instruments. Results indicated that age and total years work experience related significantly and negatively to the expression of displaced dissent and that nonmanagement employees expressed significantly more displaced dissent than management employees. Collectively these findings provide support for a workplace experience explanation of displaced dissent.

Research in public speaking arousal patterns can be used as a framework for understanding the anxiety produced in an employment interview setting. Because heightened levels of anxiety are linked to negative behavioral outcomes, identifying specific anxiety producing milestones in the interviewing process is important for successful therapeutic and pedagogical interventions. By adapting methods used to measure anxiety in public speaking, this study identifies patterns of anxiety produced in employment interviewing settings. Results indicated that unlike public speaking where anxiety is highest immediately before speaking, anxiety in an employment‐interviewing context remains stable until the interview is over, when anxiety levels drop. Interestingly, anxiety levels returned to the initial level at the evaluation milestone. The interpersonal nature of interviewing as well as other contextual differences are discussed to explain anxiety pattern differences between public speaking and employment interviewing.

Because of the taken‐for‐granted, common sense position, it is often difficult to examine what is naturalized in our culture. Semiotic analysis is one method in which scholars may apply to common everyday practices revealing subtleties about what our culture perpetuates and values. Golf is no exception, for the game contains naturalized phenomenon privy to examination and representative of larger social issues. This essay contains a semiotic analysis of the language used on golf course scorecards. Specifically, the tee box nomenclatures stated on the scorecards traditionally designate a location from which women should tee off; however, for men, this designation is determined by ability. Thus, men are offered more semantic choices, while women are instructed to tee off from the same location as junior golfers (the red or forward tees) regardless of their abilities. Further, symbolic decoding of scorecards represents “men's continued attempts to retain power and privilege over women” (Messner, 1988, p. 207) in the sport of golf, while indexical decoding disengages hegemony deeply rooted within the game of golf.

This study investigates perceptions of intra‐ and intergenerational communication among young adults in Thailand, Japan, and the U.S.A. Interactions with older adults were reported to be generally more problematic than those with other younger people. While older people were seen as more nonaccommodative than younger people, younger adults felt more obliged to be polite to, and respectful of, the former than their peer age group. Young adults were also avoidant of communication with older people. Overall, young Americans reported their intergenerational communicative encounters to be more positive than both young Thais and Japanese. Young Thai people reported the highest levels of respect/obligation and avoidant communication among young people of the three cultures, and found older Thais to be particularly nonaccommodative. Cultural and modernity issues were invoked to account for these findings.