In this review, we examine current practices in mixing methods in communication research. We examined 209 mixed-method organizational communication articles published between 1994 and 2014. Our analysis revealed four trends: (1) the dominance of single-paradigm, interpretive studies; (2) the preponderance of triangulation, complementarity, and development as purposes for mixing methods; (3) varied combinations of methods; and (4) a lack of mixed methods citations. In response to findings, we clarify the value proposition of mixing methods, suggest criteria for when communication researchers should or should not consider mixing methods, and recommend strategies for greater transparency in the reporting of mixed-method research.
Messages pose fundamental challenges and opportunities for empirical communication research. To address these challenges and opportunities, we distinguish between message variability (the defined and operationalized features of messages in a given study) and message heterogeneity (all message features that are undefined and unmeasured in a given study), and suggest approaches to defining and operationalizing message variability. We also identify alternative message sampling, selection, and research design and analysis strategies responsive to issues of message variability and heterogeneity in experimental and survey research. We conclude with recommendations intended to advance the study of messages in communication research.
The principle of net neutrality posits that packets circulating within the Internet should be treated equally, regardless of content, platform, source, recipient, or service. This chapter explores the implications of the net neutrality debate for communication research and the public sphere. First, the divergent disciplinary contexts of net neutrality-related research are introduced. Then, we adopt a public sphere framework to discuss areas of net neutrality that are relevant for communication studies, and the contributions of communication scholarship to their analysis are highlighted. Peter Dahlgren’s three-dimensional framework—structure, representation, and interaction—serves as an entry point into the field.
There has been an increasing attention to “big data” as a source of information about individuals. Much of the focus has been on the structured data such as demographics and behavior. However, other unstructured data in the form of utterances from individuals could shed light on personal opinions and attitudes. These data are considered as tiny narrative bits—narbs—that offer insights into the life of the individual. This chapter offers a way of categorizing the unstructured component to offer an analytical starting point to answer questions that arise when big data are examined through the lens of narbs.
Women frequently reference weight in their talk (e g., "I'm so fat"). This chapter reviews the literature on weight-related communication-fat talk-and presents a conceptual model describing the antecedents and consequences of engaging in communicative interactions about weight at the individual, relational, and social identity levels. Our model expands previous understandings by proposing that fat talk needs to be understood as a psychological, interpersonal, and collective phenomenon. By investigating and acknowledging the causes, consequences, and processes of fat talk, we anticipate potential in altering individuals' and society's ideas, expectations, and discourse about the ideal body image.
Although language and cultural brokering is important for immigrant families, this behavior may have both positive and negative consequences for the well-being of young brokers and their family members. Few communication studies, however, have examined brokering in relation to the well-being of immigrant families, despite its prevalence in the United States and elsewhere. Thus, this chapter offers an interdisciplinary review of the brokering literature, identifies four primary perspectives on the well-being of young brokers, offers a unified theoretical model that represents past brokering research (while noting critical concerns that warrant future investigation), and concludes with implications for communication research.
In the past few decades, worldwide increases in chronic illness and life expectancies have drastically amplified the burden experienced by family caregivers. As a result of their many responsibilities, caregivers are prone to greater physical, psychological, and relational strain as compared to their peers. The goal of this chapter is to spur interdisciplinary research to aid intergenerational family caregivers by integrating research from different disciplines and cultures. Three central communication challenges faced by caregivers (identity, attribution, and relationship) serve as reference points for this discussion.
In this chapter, we review an important distinction in interpersonal argumentation between public-issue arguments and personal-issue arguments. Public-issue arguments focus on concerns outside an interpersonal dyad, whereas personal-issue arguments focus on issues tied closely to an interpersonal relationship. These two types of interpersonal arguments differ in terms of who argues about these topics, how argumentative episodes are interpreted and enacted, and the stakes that the arguments have for relational outcomes. This distinction is argued to be consequential for several areas of communication research including persuasion, conflict, relational communication, political deliberation, and public argument.
Most end-of-life research assumes that effective communication is critical to the delivery of high-quality end-of-life health care, but less is known about what constitutes effective end-of-life communication. In this review, I synthesize literature on improving advance directive completion, physician training, and family communication about end-of-life issues. I demonstrate how this work has produced mixed results about what makes end-of-life communication more or less effective because this research has remarkably little grounding in a communication perspective. I conclude by arguing that communication scholars, especially those utilizing a multiple goals approach, are well positioned to take end-of-life research in new directions that will improve end-of-life practice.
In this chapter, we present conjoined models of parent-child sexual communication. These models rely on communication privacy management theory to show how sexual information is contained within individual privacy boundaries and shared when a question is asked. Information is revealed in little bits and pieces over the course of a child’s development. Privacy boundary permeability opens, and the circumference of privacy boundaries expands over time. During a specific interaction, parents and children regulate how much information they share. These models apply to parent-child relationships where sexual communication is accomplished, recognizing that many parents and children never or rarely talk about sex.
This chapter reviews key theoretical perspectives on treatment decision making, examines situation and relational influences on the treatment decision-making process, reviews models of patient and family participation in treatment decision making, and proposes a typology for understanding the different ways in which families negotiate treatment decisions. The typology suggests new insights for theorizing decision-making processes related to cancer treatment and offers strategies for integrating the typology into clinical practice in order to improve medical and psychosocial outcomes for patients and their families.
We propose a research agenda to study mentoring as constituted communicatively from episodic, network, and intersectional perspectives. The episodic perspective highlights the everyday communicational events and moments of interactions where actions and meanings of mentoring are co-constructed. The network perspective encourages a holistic analysis of myriad agents, relationships, and evolutions for mentoring at different levels and stages in the form of communicative networks. Finally, the intersectional perspective enables researchers to view mentorship as comprised of complex, politically invested, and socially constructed intersections of identities. We call for communication research and practice on mentoring from these perspectives.
Communication Accommodation Theory (CAT) has served as a cross-disciplinary framework for understanding the adjustments individuals make to create, maintain, or decrease social distance in interactions. We provide a systematic review of CAT by examining 149 articles (1973-2010) to identify categories and trends in the contexts of inquiry, sample characteristics, and locus of assessment. Next, we summarize a meta-analysis of a subset of these articles (k = 76, N = 18,382) to identify effect sizes for specific behaviors (e.g., nonaccommodation, reluctant accommodation) and correlates of these behaviors (e.g., quality of contact, relational solidarity). Theoretical and methodological considerations are discussed.
The situational theory of publics (STP), one of the most popular public relations theories, provides a mechanism for the identification of publics and their information behaviors. The situational theory of problem solving (STOPS), an extension of the STP, is a more general theory of communication that looks at antecedents of individuals' communication and information behaviors in the process of problem solving. This chapter reviews and explicates the differences and similarities between the two theories, their respective intellectual origins, and the body of new research that is being and could be generated from the STOPS.
Researchers across disciplines share an enduring interest in the social impacts of immigration. I review key intersections between communication and immigrant integration scholarship in order to demonstrate how communication research and theory can address gaps in the literature on immigrant integration. These applications also reveal how communication theories, when extended to the integration experiences of immigrants and their children, more robustly reflect the increasing diversity of our globalizing societies. The conclusion provides suggestions for future inquiry at the nexus of these fields.
Experiments that compare the persuasiveness of two message types (e.g., strong vs. weak fear appeals) characteristically examine persuasive impact using atti-tudinal, intention, or behavioral outcomes. The equivalence of these three outcomes as indices of relative persuasiveness is assessed by re-analyzing data from 2,062 effect sizes in 29 meta-analyses of 13 different message variations, including one-sided and two-sided messages, negative political advertising, and several fear appeal variations. The relative persuasiveness of alternative message types is found to be largely invariant across these different outcomes: If message type A is more persuasive than message type B with attitudinal outcomes, it is also—and equally—more persuasive with intention and behavioral outcomes. Methodological and theoretical implications are discussed.
This literature review of the media-and-science field identifies a traditional and alternative media-sociological approach and reflects on how two structural developments in late modern societies-reflexive scientization and commercialization of science-influence their performance and strategic use. As the literature review reveals how successfully the institution of science has adapted to the mediatisation of society in terms of a relatively effective control of its public image, this chapter concludes by calling for a rethinking of (a) the paradigm of science communication, (b) the role of science journalism, and (c) the aims and methods of (science) communication research.
Communication network research is increasingly being used across the communication discipline. However, most social network research is limited in its generalizability because it focuses on either a single network case or ego-centric network data. In order to generate knowledge across network studies, a mechanism is needed to synthesize. This chapter presents a taxonomy of communication relations, differentiating between communication flow, affinity, representational, and semantic networks. Then, it demonstrates the utility of the taxonomy for synthesizing network research by reviewing 139 studies in communication journals, focusing on the antecedents, outcomes, and processes of each type of network.
