Iconography

Marion G. Müller

Jacobs University Bremen

Iconography is both a method and an approach to studying the content and meanings of visuals. In its colloquial use, the term ‘iconography’ describes the motif of a particular picture or a specific group of artworks. A general distinction can be made between religious, mainly Christian iconography and secular or political iconography. In its modern connotation it was framed by the German art historian Aby M. Warburg (1866–1929) at the beginning of the twentieth century.

Iconography can best be described as a qualitative method of visual content analysis and interpretation, influenced by cultural traditions and guided by research interests originating in both the humanities and the social sciences (→ Content Analysis, Qualitative). In its Warburgian sense, iconography/iconology is an interdisciplinary comparative method, focused on the ‘visual interval,’ both temporal and spatial.

Pre-iconographical description focuses on the primary or natural subject matter, which is usually the ‘world of artistic motifs.’ Iconographical analysis is concerned with ‘conventional subject matter’ – culturally shared visual → signs and connotations – and thus the world of images, stories, and allegories. Iconological interpretation aims to unravel the “intrinsic meaning or content constituting the world of ‘symbolical’ values” (Panofsky 1982[1955], 40; → Semiotics). Warburg himself enlarged the scope of art history by including “any visual image,” regardless of its artistic quality. This meant that press photographs and other forms of mass-mediated imagery could be considered appropriate objects of study for art history (→ Art as Communication; Photojournalism; Visual Communication).

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the combination of visual interpretation as a method and political pictures as a topic appears to be experiencing a revival, reflecting the need for explanation of visual phenomena like the terrorist instrumentalization of visuals (→ Mediated Terrorism), the publication of torture images at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, or the controversy about the publication of Muhammad cartoons (Müller & Özcan 2007; → Caricature).

References and Suggested Readings

1. Büttner, F. & Gottdang, A. (2006). Einführung in die Ikonographie: Wege zur Deutung von Bildinhalten [Introduction to iconography: Paths to interpreting the content of images]. Munich: C. H. Beck.
2. Müller, M. G. & Özcan, E. (2007). The political iconography of Muhammad cartoons: Understanding cultural conflict and political action. PS: Political Science and Politics, 40, 287–291.
3. Panofsky, E. (1982[1955]). Iconography and iconology: An introduction to the study of Renaissance art. In E. Panofsky, Meaning in the visual arts. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, pp. 26–54.

Identities and Discourse

Charles Antaki

Loughborough University

Discourse analysts are interested in identity in the sense of the category that an individual belongs to (or is made to belong to). The way that society classifies people, the laws it draws up, the visual images it promotes, the jokes it finds funny – all these are discursive ways of allocating persons to categorical identities.

Discourse analysis is a varied set of analytic practices (→ Discourse Analysis). Its five core features, applied to the study of identity, are these: (1) identities are to be understood not as essential and unchanging, but as subject to active construction, and liable to be imposed and resisted; (2) they appear in talk or text that is naturally found (in the sense of not invented or imagined by the researcher); (3) the identity words are to be understood in their co-text at least, and their more distant context if doing so can be defended; (4) the analyst is to be sensitive to the words’ non-literal meaning or force; (5) the analyst is to reveal the consequences achieved by the identities conjured by the words’ use – as enjoyed by those responsible for the words, and suffered by their addressees, or the world at large.

Interviews are still probably the method of choice for most qualitative researchers in the social sciences, on the proposition that they give respondents the freedom to express themselves, while at the same time allowing the researcher to probe specific questions that interest them. In analyzing identity, a respondent’s account of themselves and their experiences might be subjected to a thematic analysis, a narrative analysis, an interpretive phenomenological analysis, or to methods of free association borrowed from psychoanalysis. All these analyses differ among themselves, but they all look to find something between the lines of the respondent’s account (→ Interview, Qualitative).

Away from interviews, the ethnographically minded discourse researcher will locate people’s words in their context and culture. Interviews may form part of the ethnographic researcher’s toolkit, but principally as a way of informing the researcher of local meanings and → codes; the analysis will be done on recordings of language as it is actually used, and identities as they come into play. Researchers in an ethnomethodological tradition will eschew interviews entirely, in favor of analyzing the ways that people publicly identify themselves, or allude to their or others’ identities, as they go about their everyday business (→ Ethnography of Communication). They may use methods that pay close attention to the precise sequence of talk (e.g., → conversation analysis) to see how identities are brought into active service in the particular moment of the interaction, for particular interactional effects, whether casual or institutional.

Some discourse analysts prefer to approach their data from a given perspective on power and ideology in society, arguing that one must understand the social conditions of the production of a text before one can start reasonably to analyze it. The umbrella term ‘critical discourse analysis’ shelters a broad family of analysts, but all are concerned to identify the operation of power and ideology in discourse. Identities, their argument runs, are not always innocent, nor always under the control of the person identified; they can be oppressive, and the burden can be resisted (→ Critical Theory).

References and Suggested Readings

1. Bamberg, M., De Fina, A., & Schiffrin, D. (2011). Discourse and identity construction. In S. Schwartz, K. Luyckx, & V. Vignoles (eds.), Handbook of identity theory and research. New York: Springer, pp. 177–199.
2. Benwell, B. M. & Stokoe, E. (2006). Discourse and identity. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
3. Edwards, D. (1991). Categories are for talking: On the cognitive and discursive bases of categorization. Theory and Psychology, 1, 515–542.
4. Sacks, H. (1992). Lectures on conversation, vols. 1 and 2. Oxford: Blackwell.
5. Tracy, K. (2002). Everyday talk: Building and reflecting identities. New York: Guilford.
6. Wodak, R., De Cillia, R., Reisigl, M., Liebhart, K., & Hirsch, A.; trans. Mitten, R. & Unger, J. W. (2009). The discursive construction of national identity, 2nd edn. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

Image Restoration Theory

William L. Benoit

Ohio University

Image restoration (image repair) theory concerns what to say when we are accused or suspected of wrongdoing. Reputation influences how others will treat us. People, organizations, and countries use image repair (→ Organizational Image).

Accusations have two components: responsibility and offensiveness. An image is at risk only when one is believed to be responsible for an offensive act (→ Crisis Communication). Image repair includes five general options: (1) ‘denial’ argues that the accused is not responsible for the offensive act; (2) one may try to ‘evade responsibility’ with several strategies; (3) one can try to ‘reduce offensiveness’ of the offensive act; (4) ‘corrective action’ attempts to fix or prevent recurrence of the problem; and (5) ‘mortification’ confesses and asks for forgiveness. Fourteen total strategies, explained in Benoit (1995), exist.

Persuaders select image repair strategies with the accusations, the target audience, and the facts of the case in mind. Using more strategies is not necessarily better. Some strategies go together well, but some strategies do not work well together, for example, ‘I did not steal’ (denial) and ‘I stole for my starving family’ (justification, or transcendence). The facts are important in image repair. One who is innocent probably should use denial (although not all genuine denials are believed). One who is guilty probably should confess. Telling the truth is, of course, the right thing to do; however, some must worry about avoiding lawsuits. One must implement the selected strategies in a message using arguments and evidence that are likely to be persuasive to the audience.

In general, people do not like to admit wrongdoing. On the other hand, audiences usually want wrongdoers to admit their mistakes. So, the option that is often most likely to persuade audiences – mortification – tends to be shunned by those accused of wrongdoing. However, a false denial is often found out, at which point the offender will have committed two wrongs: the original offensive act and then the lie.

References and Suggested Readings

1. Benoit, W. L. (1995). Accounts, excuses, and apologies: A theory of image restoration discourse. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.
2. Benoit, W. L. (1997). Image restoration discourse and crisis communication. Public Relations Review, 23, 177–186.
3. Coombs, W. T. (1999). Ongoing crisis communication: Planning, managing, and responding. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Imagined Interactions

James M. Honeycutt

Louisiana State University

Imagined interactions are a type of social cognition and mental imagery (→ Information Processing; Cognitive Science), theoretically grounded in symbolic interactionism and cognitive script theory (→ Scripts), in which individuals imagine conversations with significant others for a variety of purposes (Honeycutt 2003). The imagined interaction construct has provided a beneficial mechanism for studying intrapersonal and interpersonal communication (→ Interpersonal Communication). Imagined interactions are a type of daydreaming that has definitive attributes and serves a number of functions including rehearsal, self-understanding, relational maintenance, managing conflict, catharsis, and compensation.

There are six functions of imagined interactions. First, they maintain relationships, as intrusive thinking occurs in which the partner is thought about outside of his or her physical presence. It has been found that they occur with friends, family members, intimate partners, roommates, and co-workers (Honeycutt 2003). They also occur among geographically separated couples. A second function of imagined interactions is rehearsing and planning messages (→ Strategic Communication). Individuals report how they prepare for important encounters and even think of various messages depending on their interaction partner's responses. A third function of imagined interactions is self-understanding, as imagined interactions allow people to clarify their own thoughts and promote understanding of their own views. The fourth function, catharsis, allows people to release emotions and vent feelings of frustration or joy. There is tension relief and anxiety reduction. This often occurs in conjunction with the fifth, compensation, function, in which individuals compensate for the lack of actual conversations. The final function is conflict management, which has resulted in a sub-theory in itself. The conflict management function of imagined interactions explains recurring conflict in personal relationships.

Honeycutt (2003) has presented three axioms and nine theorems for managing conflict, with numerous studies supporting them. Some therapists lament that counseling and intervention may not result in longitudinal benefits in getting couples to communicate constructively. Conflict may be maintained through retroactive and proactive imagined interactions that link a series of interactions. People may experience negative emotions as they ‘replay’ such encounters. The conflict management function of imagined interactions helps explain why instructions on rational models for conflict resolution often fail, as people regress to old ways for resolving conflict (e.g., ‘I win; you lose’). Old interaction scripts that are nonproductive may be mindlessly retrieved from long-term memory. Thus, conflict episodes may pick up where they last left off, despite a period of physical separation. In the meantime, conflict is maintained in the mind using the retroactive and proactive (rehearsal) features of imagined interactions. In this regard, imagined interaction conflict management theory explains why popular ‘time-out’ strategies advocated by educational interventionists may fail regularly.

The Survey of Imagined Interactions has proved to be a reliable measure of imagined interactions (Honeycutt 2003). An alternative measure, “Talk-out-loud” procedures, in which individuals role-play what they would say to a relational partner about an important relational issue (e.g., financial management, sexual relations) that they have chosen as problematic in their relationship, have been used in imagined interaction research. A third method is using interviews as a means of studying marital couples and their use of imagined interactions. A fourth method is journal accounts.

There are numerous personality, relational, individual, and physiological differences that are reviewed by Honeycutt (2003; 2010). Studies of couples who imagine discussing pleasing and displeasing topics reveal that heart-rate variability accompanies imagined interactions and actual discussions. Physiological linkage is the matching of heart rate, blood pressure, skin conductance, sweating, or other physiological variables that distinguish happy from unhappy couples in which the display of negative emotions (e.g., anger begets anger) is accompanied by both a reciprocity in physiology among unhappy couples when they argue. The strongest sign of physiological linkage occurred when partners were discussing their pleasing topic (partial r = ·25). Correlations around · 30 reflect a moderate association. Conversely, when discussing displeasing topics, the correlation was only · 10. When comparing his heart rate in the Imagined Interaction induction with his heart rate while actually discussing a pleasing topic resulted in a cross-correlation of · 10, while it was · 17 when compared to her discussing her pleasing topic. Other research has revealed that an increase in diastolic pressure while viewing escalating conflict is associated with taking conflict personally as well as ruminating about arguing.

References and Suggested Readings

1. Gottman, J. M. (1994). What predicts divorce? Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
2. Honeycutt, J. M. (2003). Imagined interactions: Daydreaming about communication. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press.
3. Honeycutt, James M. (2010). Forgive but don’t forget: Correlates of rumination about conflict. In J. M. Honeycutt (ed.), Imagine that: Studies in imagined interaction. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, pp. 17–29.

India: Media System

K. M. Shrivastava

Indian Institute of Mass Communication

India, with a population of more than 1.3 billion, is a multiethnic, multilingual, multi-religious, pluralistic society. Politically it is a union of states (28 states and 7 union territories) and a sovereign, secular, democratic republic with a bicameral, multiparty, parliamentary system of government. It has a written constitution, adopted by the Constituent Assembly on November 26, 1949, which came into force on January 26, 1950. India is an ancient civilization. There is evidence of human activity in India at least from 20,000 bce (Bhimbetka rock paintings); of farming from 7000 bce; and of city life from 2700 bce (Harappa).

As public writings, India had the Rock Edicts of Emperor Asoka (c.273–236 bce), writings on leaves and bark mentioned by the Uzbek scholar Al-Biruni (973–1049 ce) in his book Kitabu’l Hind (1030 ce), and newsletters (akhbar) mentioned by Emperor Zahiruddin Muhammad Babur in 1527, before the modern printing press landed in India on September 6, 1556. The first modern newspaper was the Bengal Gazette or Calcutta General Advertiser founded by James Augustus Hicky on January 29, 1780. In 2014, the Indian press, with over 80,000 registered newspapers serving a multilingual, diverse society, is independent and competitive, with various forms of ownership ranging from individuals, firms, and joint-stock companies to trusts. The 2012 Indian Readership Survey (IRS) from the Media Research and Users Council (MRUC) found that among the top 20 Indian dailies there is only one English-language daily, the Times of India, ranking sixth. The top three are the Hindi dailies Dainik Jagran, Dainik Bhaskar, and Hindustan. Though under discussion, there are as yet no cross-media ownership restrictions, and foreign investment has been allowed to differing degrees according to the nature of the media product (→ Newspaper, History of).

Radio came to India in 1921 and was initially in private hands. The government bowed to public pressure by starting the Indian State Broadcasting Service, which was rechristened All India Radio (AIR) in 1935. At the time of independence, after the creation of Pakistan, AIR had a network of 6 stations and 18 transmitters, and covered 2.5 percent of the area and 11 percent of the population. AIR, the public radio network run by Prasar Bharti Corporation, now has 406 broadcasting centers, including 194 FM relay centers, with 577 transmitters (144 medium-frequency (MW), 48 high-frequency (SW), and 385 frequency modulation (FM)) covering 99 percent of the area and 99.5 percent of the population of the country. AIR is going digital and will end analog by 2015. AIR remained a monopoly until May 2000, when the government opened it up to private FM broadcasters, 245 of which were operational in 2013. Community radio stations (→ Community Media) have been allowed to be run by educational institutions and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). In 2013 a total of 151 community radio stations were operational (→ Radio: Social History).

Television came to India in September 1959 as an educational experiment involving → UNESCO. Doordarshan, the public TV network run by Prasar Bharti, has a monopoly of terrestrial broadcasting, with 67 studio centers and 1,415 transmitters, and operates 35 channels: 7 national channels, 11 regional language satellite channels, 12 state networks, and 1 international channel. The flagship DD1 channel reaches some 400 million viewers. In 2013, there were 795 private satelite TV channels in India. FICCI-KPMG (2012) estimates a 17 percent CAGR (compounded annual growth rate) of the television industry during 2011–2016 (→ Television: Social History; Exposure to Television).

In 2012 Internet users were estimated at 121 million. Mobile phone companies have also introduced the Internet, and broadband connectivity is expanding. India has the third largest number of Internet users after China and the US and, with an estimated 919 million mobile phones in 2012, it is second only to China (→ Exposure to the Internet).

India’s entertainment and media sector is expected to grow steadily over the next five years. The industry is expected to grow at 18 percent annually from 2012 to 2017. Indian media companies are also expanding in foreign markets. For example, Zee claims to serve more than 500 million viewers in more than 120 countries across the globe in seven different languages.

Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution of India provides that all citizens shall have the right to “freedom of speech and expression,” and the courts have interpreted this as including freedom of the press. With the exception of the Internal Emergency of June 26, 1975, to March 21, 1977, there has been no censorship. Thus, in the typology developed by Hallin and Mancini (2004), the Indian media system is close to a “liberal model,” as there is a relative dominance of market mechanisms and of commercial media.

References and Suggested Readings

1. FICCI-KPMG (2012). FICCI-KPMG Media and Entertainment Industry Report 2012. Mumbai: KPMG.
2. Hallin, D. & Mancini, P. (2004). Comparing media systems: Three models of media and politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
3. Shrivastava, K. M. (2005). Broadcast journalism in the 21st century. New Delhi: New Dawn.

Information

Klaus Krippendorff

University of Pennsylvania

A widely used metaphor locates information as the content of messages or inherent in data – as if it were an entity that could be carried from one place to another, purchased, or owned. This metaphor is seriously misleading. Gregory Bateson (1972, 381) characterized communication as the circulation of differences in society. The acknowledgement that differences do not reside in nature but result from acts of drawing distinctions leads to defining information as the difference that drawing distinctions in one empirical domain makes in another. Information theories quantify these differences in terms of ‘bits,’ a short of ‘binary digits,’ or the number of binary distinctions needed to gain certainty within and across such domains.

The logical theory of information (Krippendorff, 1986, 13 ff.) quantifies the difference between two uncertainties U, before and after a message was received, in terms of the binary logarithm of the number N of possibilities in each situation:

Inasmuch as yes or no answers to questions distinguish between two possibilities, bits can be equated with the number of binary questions whose answers select among a set of possibilities. For example, the well-known party game Twenty Questions can exhaust up to 2²⁰ = 1,048,576, i.e., over a million conceptual alternatives. Each answer to well-chosen questions reduces that number by half (→ Uncertainty Reduction Theory).

Information is always relative to an observer. For example, the graphical, distributional, linguistic, or authorial properties of texts afford a reader numerous distinctions. Psychological, linguistic, and situational contingencies tend to render only some of them relevant, which keeps the amount of information to be processed within tolerable limits (→ Language and Social Interaction; Text and Intertextuality). Information is not tied to materiality. Receiving the same message a second time does not add information to the first. The relation between texts and the uncertainties they reduce is one of abduction. Abduction is informative; logical deductions do not say anything new.

The statistical theory of information was pioneered by Claude E. Shannon. For him, “the fundamental problem of communication is that of reproducing at one point, either exactly or approximately a message selected at another point” (Shannon & Weaver, 1949, 3). He called the statistical analogue to the uncertainty U entropy and defined entropy in terms of observed probabilities p_a , rather than the number N of logical possibilities in a variable, say A:

Shannon’s theory provides a calculus that partitions the entropies in variables into various conceptually meaningful quantities. The simplest expression for the amount of information transmitted T(S:R) between a source S and a receiver R is defined as the difference between the entropy at the receiver H(R) without knowledge of the source and the entropy remaining at that receiver H_S (R), or noise, after the source is known.

The amount of information transmitted is upwardly limited by the entropies H(S) or H(R) and the difference between what could be transmitted and what actually is transmitted is a measure of redundancy. Shannon’s theorems concern how much redundancy is needed to counter noise – without redundancy one would not be able to correct typographical errors or understand slurred speech – deciphering encrypted messages and developing unbreakable codes. Above all, he theorized limits that generalize the second law of thermodynamics.

The algorithmic theory of information is due to the Russian statistician Andrei Nikolaevich Kolmogorov (1965). He sought to quantify the complexity of any object, text, analytical protocol, or computer program in terms of the computational resources needed to reproduce it. The latter used a minimal algorithmic language consisting of strings of 0 s and 1 s. Because binary characters represent one bit each, the length of such descriptions equals the log₂ of the number of possible sequences of that length. Here, redundancy is the difference between the lengths of a description and the shortest possible one. Redundancy makes it possible to compress files into more efficient forms and to optimize the efficiency of computer code.

Historically, information theory was eagerly embraced by early theoreticians of human communication. Wilbur Schramm, Charles Osgood, Collin Cherry, and Gregory Bateson, for example, embraced it for it provided a scientifically sound vocabulary and measures of a novel concept that seemed to be the essence of communication (→ Communication as a Field and Discipline). Critics who argue that mathematical theories are too rigid to address uncertainties in human communication may have a point. Information theory is a theory of observable variation. It does not speculate what happens inside individual minds, treating cognition as a medium of communication.

References and Suggested Readings

1. Bateson, G. (1972). Steps to an ecology of mind. New York: Ballantine Books.
2. Kolmogorov, A. N. (1965). Three approaches to the quantitative definition of information. Problemy Peredachi Informatsii, 1(1), 3–11.
3. Krippendorff, K. (1986). Information theory; Structural models for qualitative data. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
4. Shannon, C. E. & Weaver, W. (1949). The mathematical theory of communication. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.

Information and Communication Technology, Economics of

Cristiano Antonelli

University of Turin

Pier Paolo Patrucco

University of Turin

Francesco Quatraro

University of Nice

Information and communication technology or technologies (ICT, ICTs) may be considered as a clear exemplar of the salient features and ingredients of a path-dependent and complex process based upon an array of complementary localized technological changes. Indeed, the path leading to the generation and adoption of ICT emerged out of a collective and interactive process induced by relevant changes in the economic environment. This stimulated the creative reaction of an array of learning agents based in a fertile context characterized by effective knowledge-governance mechanisms and positive feedback magnified by local externalities.

Beginning in the late 1960s the US experienced a progressive erosion of its economic and technological leadership. This decline in performance induced a myriad of interdependent, sequential, and creative efforts directed toward the introduction of complementary technological innovations. These were based upon the exploitation of locally abundant production factors, favorable conditions of use, and access to a large knowledge commons and localized learning processes. The main result of these developments has been the creation of a new technological system with a strong skill bias.

In the decades following their introduction, ICTs have improved considerably, and have slowly acquired the features of a general-purpose technology (GPT). These technologies have a high degree of fungibility, that is, usability in many different contexts, strong complementarities, and considerable spillover effects. Along with the improvements, the diffusion of ICT across US firms stemmed from a process of sequential, creative adoption (Lipsey et al. 2005).

The integration of the array of interdependent, localized, and sequential innovations, characterized by substantial indivisibility, has been shaped by the implementation of: (1) economies of localized learning due to the increasing specialization in specific technological areas, the advantages of the growth in the number of users (network externalities), and the gains from the accumulation of know-how in complementary technologies (knowledge externalities); (2) qualified user–producer and business–academic interactions; and (3) organizational innovations, such as standardization committees (→ Communication Technology Standards), technological platforms, and technological clubs and alliances, to improve the dynamic coordination of the wide range of actors, products, and technologies into a single working system. This has resulted in the complementarity, compatibility, and interoperability of a variety of new localized technologies.

The effects of the introduction of ICT have been powerful. The US economy has been enjoying a new surge in productivity since 1995. The ICT industry has played a key role in this as a result of the rapid technological developments in the semiconductor industry. Strong US technological leadership encouraged a new international division of labor, which reversed the situation that prevailed in the 1980s. The US quickly became the main producer and user of ICTs, while the rest of the advanced countries engaged in creative adoption, involving adapting the technology to the idiosyncratic conditions of their markets and industrial structures.

Because of the strong directional skill bias of ICTs, a → digital divide is emerging between countries that have the ‘right’ amount of human capital and access to the knowledge commons. These countries are able to participate in the process of cumulative technological change and creative adoption. Other countries can, at best, adopt ICTs passively and enjoy fewer chances to take advantage of the new opportunities for productivity growth. Nevertheless, ICTs are global in character because they bring about increases in productivity and efficiency, such that their adoption is profitable across a great array of products and processes, and regions (Antonelli 2011).

The complex nature of ICT, and the complementarity among different physical devices and platforms, have led to the identification of two notions. First, the notion of ‘essential facility’ defines telecommunication networks as essential resources that are fundamental to economic development and thus need to be freed up and accessed by the largest possible share of firms and citizens. Second, according to the notion of ‘economies of density,’ production and distribution costs of telecommunication services decline with an increase in the number of users, leading to a steep reduction in the price of telecommunication services for both firms and citizens’ evaluation.

ICTs represent a clear case of a path-dependent complex process based upon the complementarity of a myriad of localized technological changes. At any point in time the structure of the existing endowments, industries, and regions, and the networks of communication flows in place among innovative agents, exert strong effects on their creative efforts so as to shape the direction and the rate of technological change. When effective knowledge-governance mechanisms are in place, the result may be a sweeping gale of innovations.

References and Suggested Readings

1. Antonelli, C. (2008). Localized technological change: Ingredients, governance and processes. London: Routledge.
2. Antonelli, C. (ed.) (2011). Handbook on the economic complexity of technological change. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
3. Fransman, M. (2010). The new ICT ecosystem: Implications for policy and regulation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
4. Lipsey, R. G., Carlaw, K. I., & Bekar, C. T. (2005). Economic transformations: General purpose technologies and long term economic growth. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
5. Von Hippel, E. (2005). Democratizing innovation. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Information Literacy

Sonia Livingstone

London School of Economics and Political Science

Elizabeth Van Couvering

London School of Economics and Political Science

New → information and communication technologies (ICTs) pose significant challenges for their users. They require the rapid development and continual updating of diverse skills, competences, and knowledge, from the most familiar to the brand-new, and from the most basic to the highly sophisticated. In academic research, these skills and knowledge requirements are increasingly brought together under the rubric of information literacy. By using the term ‘literacy,’ the skills needed to operate ICTs are related to the ability to read and write, although the concept is still being developed.

The expectation is that the information-literate person is able to participate fully in the world of work, for example, by being an ‘information worker’ or a ‘knowledge worker.’ However, the specific nature of key information literacy skills is still under debate. At a minimum these skills include the abilities to access, navigate, critique, and create the content and services available via ICTs. The conceptual foundations of information literacy lie in → information processing, the study of how symbols become information, and how information, in turn, becomes knowledge. Drawing on this approach, which is based in cognitive psychology, a range of experimental studies has been conducted in which tasks are performed and user reactions are tested and tracked. Information literacy is linked historically to computer skills, and so research also examines people’s (generally, adults’) ability to manipulate hardware and software in order to find information efficiently and effectively.

Researchers in the fields of education and library studies have been instrumental in distinguishing technical skills (e.g., the ability to open a web browser on a computer) from information skills (e.g., the ability to assess whether the information on a web page is reliable). These researchers have focused on motivation and the appropriateness of content as key barriers to use, rather than attributing poor usage to deficient technical skills. The study of information literacy has developed separately from the study of → media literacy, but the two traditions are beginning to converge, with some researchers referring to the notion of digital literacy (Livingstone et al., 2008).

References and Suggested Readings

1. Gasser, U., Cortesi, S., Malik, M., & Lee, A. (2012). Youth and digital media: From credibility to information quality. Cambridge, MA: Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University. At http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/node/7486, accessed August 6, 2014.
2. Livingstone, S., Van Couvering, E., & Thumim, N. (2008). Converging traditions of research on media and information literacies: Disciplinary, critical and methodological issues. In D. J. Leu, J. Coiro, M. Knobel, & C. Lankshear (eds.), Handbook of research on new literacies. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. At http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/23564/, accessed August 6, 2014.
3. UNESCO (2013). Overview of information literacy resources worldwide. At http://www.unesco.org/new/fileadmin/MULTIMEDIA/HQ/CI/CI/pdf/news/overview_info_lit_resources.pdf, accessed August 6, 2014.

Information Processing

John O. Greene

Purdue University

Information processing is an approach to the study of behavior that seeks to explain what people think, say, and do by describing the mental systems that give rise to those phenomena. At the heart of the information-processing perspective is the conception of the mind as a representational system. That is, the mind is viewed as a system that (1) holds information in some form; and (2) processes (i.e., utilizes, transforms, manipulates) that information in some way in carrying out its input-processing and behavioral-production activities. The mind is viewed not as a single representational system, but as a collection of subsystems, each coding information in its own way, and each carrying out its own particular operations on that information. The basic idea, then, is to describe how information is held in one or more subsystems, and how that information is processed in those subsystems, in order to explain the perceptual, mental, and behavioral phenomena of interest. The information-processing perspective has proven to be enormously important in advancing our understanding of a wide range of phenomena of interest to communication scholars (→ Cognitive Science; Memory).

Intellectual Foundations and Basic Approaches

Philosophers have concerned themselves with the nature of knowledge and thought since ancient times, and systematic, empirical investigations of mental processes date as far back as the late 1800s. Beginning in the period 1915–1925, experimental psychology came to be dominated by behaviorism, a stance most closely identified with the American psychologist John Watson. The desire to pursue a purely objective science of behavior led Watson to argue that appeals to mentalistic concepts had no place in psychology. A successive generation of scholars, the radical behaviorists, including most notably, B. F. Skinner, were willing to admit mental states and processes, but deemed such internal events tangential and ultimately unnecessary for understanding human behavior.

The period between 1950 and 1970 witnessed the emergence of a new experimental psychology, one that, in contrast to behaviorism, accorded central prominence to mentalistic structures and processes. This cognitive psychology drew from an array of disciplines in advancing a view of the mind as an information-processing system, i.e., one in which stimulus inputs were subjected to a series of processing stages, culminating in overt responses.

The domain of information processing and cognition is enormously heterogeneous, reflecting a wide array of both general conceptual approaches and specific characterizations of theoretical mechanisms, aimed at explicating a near-limitless list of behavioral and mental phenomena, and drawing upon a variety of sources and types of data. No single overarching conceptual framework is likely to encompass the breadth of the domain, but, at least with respect to conceptual approaches and theoretical mechanisms, it may be possible to develop a rudimentary organizational framework that can accommodate many of the most important contributions by drawing on the work of Daniel Dennett (e.g., 1987).

Dennett distinguished three approaches for apprehending and predicting the behavior of complex systems like chess-playing computers, or human beings. The physical stance seeks to understand the behavior of such systems by recourse to their physical constitution, i.e., the solid-state electronics of the computer or, for people, their neurophysiology. A second approach, the design stance, seeks to apprehend a system’s behavior in terms of functional (rather than physical) mechanisms. That is, in order to behave as it does, the system must carry out various functions, and the task is one of characterizing the nature of the mechanisms by which those functions are executed. Importantly, the same function can be carried out in two systems with very different physical constitution, a fact that makes the physical character of a system of secondary concern to theorists pursuing design-stance accounts. Finally, the intentional stance seeks to understand and predict a system’s behavior by ascribing to that system various beliefs, goals, expectations, and so on. Thus, the system’s behavior is seen to reflect choices made in order to accomplish goals in light of the information at the system’s disposal.

The Intentional Stance

As noted, the intentional stance seeks to apprehend a system’s behavior in terms of its goals and beliefs. Fundamental to this approach is an assumption of rationality, i.e., goals and beliefs are useful in explaining and predicting behavior only as long as the system does what it should, given its objectives and knowledge. Intentional-stance accounts of human behavior typically reflect a corollary assumption of self-awareness: The individual is assumed to be aware of his or her own mental states and activities.

Intentional accounts, then, make ready use of ordinary mental concepts, or “folk psychology” – concepts and terms afforded by everyday language and central to people’s lay understanding of their own behavior and that of others (Churchland 1988; Flanagan 1991). Examples of ordinary mental concepts that have found widespread application in theorizing about communication behavior include “attitudes,” “plans,” and “goals.”

Design and Hybrid Intentional/Design-Stance Approaches

The aim of design-stance approaches is to explain behavior by recourse to the functional design of a system. Importantly, on the design stance, explanation and prediction do not depend upon an assumption of rationality, nor are the mental processes of interest necessarily consciously available to the individual. The fundamental method of the design stance has been characterized as that of “transcendental deduction” (Flanagan 1991). This simply means that the theorist observes some input–output regularity and posits the nature of the system that would produce such a regularity.

Examples of design-stance concepts commonly employed in the field of communication include → ‘scripts,’ → ‘schemas,’ and ‘associative networks.’ Moreover, it is not uncommon to see hybrid intentional/design theories in which the nature and dynamics of intentional-stance concepts are explicated by recourse to ‘deeper’ design-stance mechanisms, as for example in the case of treatments of ‘self-concept’ (→ Information Processing: Self-Concept) and associative network conceptions of ‘attitudes.’

The Physical Stance

Physical-stance theories and models pursue explanations cast at the level of neuroanatomical systems and processes. In contrast to intentional- and design-stance approaches, then, physical-stance explanations are cast at the level of brain rather than mind. Research in this tradition has very often been conducted in fields other than communication, but does bear on topics of central interest to communication scholars. As examples, there are studies of brain activity while viewing media violence (e.g., Anderson & Murray 2006), processing facial expressions of emotion (e.g., Phelps 2006), and when engaged in acts of deception (e.g., Ganis 2013). Finally, just as there are hybrid intentional/design stance theories, the emerging field of cognitive neuroscience (Gazzaniga 1995) seeks to bridge the gap between design and physical-stance approaches by examining the way in which brain gives rise to mind.

References and Suggested Readings

1. Anderson, D. R. & Murray, J. P. (eds.) (2006). Special issue: fMRI in media psychology research. Media Psychology, 8(1).
2. Churchland, P. M. (1988). Matter and consciousness, rev. edn. Cambridge, MA: Bradford.
3. Dennett, D. (1987). The intentional stance. Cambridge, MA: Bradford.
4. Flanagan, O. J., Jr. (1991). The science of the mind, 2nd edn. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
5. Ganis, G. (2013). The cognitive neuroscience of deception. Paper presented at CogSci, Berlin, July.
6. Gazzaniga, M. S. (ed.) (1995). The cognitive neurosciences. Cambridge, MA: Bradford.
7. Greene, J. O. & Dorrance Hall, E. (2013). Cognitive theories of communication. In P. Cobley & P. J. Schulz (eds.), Theories and models of communication. Berlin: De Gruyter, pp. 181–197.
8. Phelps, E. A. (2006). Emotion and cognition: Insights from studies of the human amygdala. Annual Review of Psychology, 57, 27–53.

Information Processing: Self-Concept

Renee Edwards

Louisiana State University

Self-concept refers to personal identity or the body of knowledge that an individual holds about the self, including self-esteem. The self and self-concept influence → information processing in several specific ways. First, information that is relevant to the self-concept is retrieved more rapidly and successfully than other information (→ Memory). Second, the self-concept is a frame in person → perception. Traits important to the self are used in judging others. Third, individuals actively seek situations and relational partners who provide feedback consistent with their self-concepts (→ Cognitive Dissonance Theory). Finally, individuals interpret information in a way that is consistent with their self-concepts and personalities.

Concern with self-concept is generally traced to the symbolic interactionists. George Herbert Mead (1934) argued that each interaction partner calls forth a different “self” as a result of the unique responses that are communicated by the other (→ Self-Presentation). McCall and Simmons (1966) distinguished between personal and social identities. Social identity is a conventional dimension tied to generic expectations of social roles, whereas personal identity is the actor’s unique interpretation of the role. In the 1970s and 1980s, communication theorists investigated self-concept and self-esteem in public-speaking situations, ethnic identities, technology, and the role of speech. Recently, researchers have investigated how self-concept is affected by aging or a health condition.

The self is central to understanding the world. Individuals use a combination of behaviors and cognitions in self-verification processes (Swann & Brooks 2012). Social actors maintain their sense of self by seeking out interaction partners who perceive them the way they perceive themselves. For example, individuals with negative self-views prefer partners who give them negative feedback. When interaction partners do not confirm their sense of self, individuals attempt to shape perceptions held by the partners to make them consistent with the social actor’s own view of self. If social actors are unsuccessful at conveying their self-concepts to their interaction partners, they may withdraw from the relationship. College students, for example, are more likely to leave roommates who do not validate their self-conceptions.

Self-esteem is an individual’s evaluation of the self as positive (high self-esteem) or negative (low self-esteem) (Baumeister et al. 2003). Self-esteem is relatively stable (a trait dimension), but fluctuates around a baseline in response to success and failure (a state dimension). Self-esteem is positively related to self-reported communication competence, happiness, and life-satisfaction. Individuals with high self-esteem report better interpersonal relationships than individuals with low self-esteem, but objective measures do not provide evidence for their assessments. Self-esteem is positively related to academic success; it appears to be a consequence of success rather than a cause of it. Individuals seek out relational partners and contexts consistent with their self-evaluations.

High self-esteem can have negative consequences, such as higher levels of prejudice and derogation of out-group members. The category of individuals with high self-esteem includes narcissists and individuals with defensive self-esteem as well as those who genuinely accept their shortcomings. Communication research examining self-esteem has not investigated negative consequences or explored the complex nature of self-esteem.

Two competing views of self-concept are self-schemas and self-categorizations. A self-schema is a stable knowledge structure about the self that allows individuals to understand their social experiences. Individuals are ‘schematic’ with respect to a trait (e.g., competitiveness) if they perceive the characteristic to be true of them and it is important to their self-definition. In contrast, the self-categorization approach (Turner 1987) draws a distinction between personal identity and social identity. Personal identity defines an individual in comparison to other members of the same group (a woman perceives herself as competitive compared to other women). Social identity refers to the characteristics that define an individual when compared to members of a relevant outgroup (as a woman, she sees herself as less competitive than men). Self-concept is the identity that is salient at any given time; it is dependent on situational cues rather than being a function of a stable knowledge structure.

References and Suggested Readings

1. Baumeister, R. F., Campbell, J. D., Krueger, J. I., & Vohs, K. D. (2003). Does high self-esteem cause better performance, interpersonal success, happiness, or healthier lifestyles? Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 4, 1–44.
2. McCall, G. J. & Simmons, J. L. (1966). Identities and interactions. New York: Free Press.
3. Mead, G. H. (1934). Mind, self, and society. Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press.
4. Swann, W. B. & Brooks, M. (2012). Why threats trigger compensatory reactions: The need for coherence and quest for self-verification. Social Cognition, 30, 758–777.
5. Turner, J. C. (1987). Rediscovering the social group: A self-categorization theory. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

Information Seeking

Silvia Knobloch-Westerwick

Ohio State University

Scholars in communication research have employed the term ‘information seeking’ in a variety of contexts. In the interpersonal communication context ‘information seeking’ has been categorized into using passive, active, and interactive strategies to gain information about others, in particular in episodes of initial interaction between strangers (Berger 2002). Predictors and effectiveness of information seeking in organizational settings have also been studied because, obviously, newcomers who have just entered an organization need to acquire a lot of information to perform adequately. Seeking health information is generally viewed as a highly desirable behavior. The informed patient should be in a better position to understand diagnosis and to decide on and support treatments, as well as to prevent health problems.

A key research question is, however, why people attend to certain kinds of media information while avoiding others, and furthermore what factors produce situational and interpersonal differences in information-seeking processes. Information seeking includes a great variety of media-use behaviors, which can be categorized in two broad types: information receptivity and information search. The former is an openness to a question resulting from encountering cues during habitual information scanning of media messages; the latter characterizes deliberate, intentional seeking of information that is potentially capable of reducing uncertainty, of satisfying curiosity, and of problem-solving (→ Information Processing). Uncertainty is construed as a lack of knowledge about events, situations, and issues (→ Uncertainty and Communication). Such a lack of knowledge is assumed to impede formation of the → attitudes needed for appropriate behavior (→ Attitude–Behavior Consistency).

Early dissonance research produced results that showed → informational utility to foster selective exposure despite the dissonance-evoking capacity of messages. Later research explicated the construct of informational utility by suggesting the sub-dimensions of magnitude, likelihood, immediacy, and efficacy, which foster more information exposure the more the aspect applies.

References and Suggested Readings

1. Atkin, C. K. (1973). Instrumental utilities and information seeking. In P. Clark (ed.), New models of communication research. Newbury Park, CA: Sage, pp. 205–242.
2. Berger, C. R. (2002). Strategic and nonstrategic information acquisition. Human Communication Research, 28(2), 287–297.
3. Westerwick, A., Kleinman, S., & Knobloch-Westerwick, S. (2013). Turn a blind eye if you care: Impacts of attitude consistency, importance, and credibility on seeking of political information and implications for attitudes. Journal of Communication, 63, 432–453.

Information Society

Frank Webster

City University London

The designation ‘information society’ presupposes that information plays a defining role in the way we live today. There is a great deal more information than ever before. However, quantitative increases do not necessarily indicate the qualitative change that is conjured in designating a new type of society. Most commentators adopt a quantitative measure when considering the information society. This implies that a qualitative change follows from the quantitative increase in information, an argument that is not necessarily valid. In fact, it is possible to argue that relatively small quantitative changes can lead to major social transformations. For instance, it can be argued that expert knowledge has become central to the functioning of the modern world, that only a small minority of such experts is required because they command the axes of change, while the vast majority of people are surplus to requirements (→ Political Knowledge).

The most common form of definition of an information society is the one that takes technologies as the marker of informational increase. Recently it has been information and communications technologies (ICTs), the Internet especially, that are taken to identify the coming of the information society (→ Mobility, Technology for). But prior to the Internet an information society had already been heralded on the basis of different technologies, e.g. the PC and the microchip. A second problem is the lack of analysis of the actual relation between technology and the coming information society. A third problem is the challenge of ‘technological determinism’ that is evident in such accounts and which is criticized for its linear causal logic (→ Technology and Communication). The economic definition involves analysts calculating the worth of information businesses such as education, entertainment, and publishing and comparing them over time: as steel and engineering decline in comparison to, say, finance services, then so there develops a case for suggesting that an information society is being brought into being as the relative value of the latter increases.

Third, there is an occupational definition which suggests that, as jobs in information increase while those in industry and agriculture decline, then so emerges an information society. We have seen a transition from male-dominated manual occupations to feminized and information-saturated occupations. The expansion of white-collar occupations and the diminishment of manual labor means that we are witnessing the dominance of jobs that function with information as their key resource (Bell 1973). In this sense we have an information society because information work predominates. A fourth definition focuses on networks to emphasize the flows of information between people and places. A core notion here is that networks enable the transformation of time and space, allow the acceleration of activities, and mean that processes of globalization are encouraged (→ Globalization Theories). It is an approach closely associated with the work of Manuel Castells (1942–), whose trilogy (1996–1998) detailed the heightened significance of networks and ways in which they transform business, politics, and culture (→ Network Organizations through Communication Technology; Communication Networks).

A fifth definition involves the increase in culture (→ Culture: Definitions and Concepts). This centers on the increase in symbols, from fashion to media, to emphasize that we inhabit nowadays a world in which we are saturated in → signs – from the architecture of cities to the decoration of the body, from round-the-clock television to always-on broadband Internet services (→ Popular Communication; Visual Culture). It is asserted that the expansion of culture signals that we now inhabit a new world. Why this should be so is not demonstrated.

Whether it is a technological, economic, occupational, spatial, or cultural conception, we are left with problematical notions of what constitutes, and how to distinguish, an information society, in spite of the fact that large numbers of commentators offer the concept as a means of understanding the world today.

It is important that we remain aware of these difficulties of definition. Though as a heuristic device the term ‘information society’ has value in helping us to explore features of the contemporary world, it is far too inexact to be acceptable as a definitive term.

References and Suggested Readings

1. Bell, D. (1973). The coming of post-industrial society: A venture in social forecasting. Harmondsworth: Peregrine.
2. Castells, M. (1996–1998). The information age: Economy, society and culture, 3 vols. Oxford: Blackwell.
3. Webster, F. (2014). Theories of the information society, 4th edn. London: Routledge.

Informational Utility

Silvia Knobloch-Westerwick

Ohio State University

In the context of → information seeking through the use of mass media, the concept of informational utility has been developed to predict which information items an individual will attend to and which will be ignored. Atkin (1973) suggested four domains of informational utility and conceptualized information to potentially meet four needs resulting from uncertainties in how to respond to everyday environmental requirements. In his theory, information is needed for adaptation to the environment, cognitive adaptation (surveillance), behavioral adaptation (performance), affective adaptation (guidance), and sometimes defensive adaptation (reinforcement). Cognitive adaptation (surveillance) has attracted most attention in subsequent research.

On surveillance as an informational utility facet, Atkin stated that the individual “maintains surveillance over potential changes that may require adaptive adjustments, monitoring threats or opportunities and forming cognitive orientations such as comprehension, expectations, and beliefs” (Atkin 1973, 212). More specific predictions on surveillance needs, as they may guide selective exposure to information, can be derived from a more detailed model of informational utility developed by the author. This model projects that information relating to individuals’ immediate and prospective encounter of threats or opportunities will have a varying utility for these individuals. The degree of this utilty will increase with (1) the perceived magnitude of challenges or gratifications; (2) the perceived likelihood of their materialization; (3) their perceived proximity in time or immediacy; and (4) their perceived efficacy to influence the suggested events or consequences.

Depending on the extent to which these dimensions characterize reported events, the news report carries utility for the recipient. The increased utility of messages, in turn, fosters longer exposure to information. Hence, it is the perceived utility of information that motivates exposure; low-utility material is passed over in favor of attention to material of higher utility. Drawing on the classic approach/avoidance dichotomy, these impacts are suggested for both negative and positive news reports, as information on both threats and opportunities should carry utility.

References and Suggested Readings

1. Atkin, C. K. (1973). Instrumental utilities and information seeking. In P. Clark (ed.), New models of communication research. Newbury Park, CA: Sage, pp. 205–242.
2. Knobloch-Westerwick, S., Dillman Carpentier, F., Blumhoff, A., & Nickel, N. (2005). Informational utility effects on selective exposure to good and bad news: A cross-cultural investigation. Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, 82, 181–195.
3. Knobloch-Westerwick, S. & Meng, J. (2011). Reinforcement of the political self through selective exposure to political messages. Journal of Communication, 61(2), 349–368.

Infotainment

Geoffrey Baym

University of North Carolina at Greensboro

The term ‘infotainment’ refers to a cluster of program types that blur traditional distinctions between information-oriented and entertainment-based genres of television programming. Primarily a pejorative term, infotainment is often used to denote the decline of hard news and public affairs discussion programs and the corresponding development of a variety of entertainment shows that mimic the style of news. At the same time, however, the early years of the twenty-first century have seen a complex spectrum of hybrid programming with a potentially wide range of implications for public information, political communication, and democratic discourse.

The emergence of infotainment has been enabled by a confluence of technological, economic, and cultural changes that have created a media landscape structured by the competing forces of fragmentation and integration. Advances in personal computer-based technologies of media production have significantly lowered barriers to entry, in terms of both the capital and expertise required to create and distribute informational content.

Much scholarly concern with the phenomenon has focused on the encroachment of entertainment on the domain of news. The conflation of news with entertainment is indicated, for instance, by news producers’ frequent use of music, fast-paced editing, and a variety of visual and aural effects to build a sense of drama in the news story; a disproportionate interest in celebrity, sports, and lifestyle topics; and a celebration of individual newscasters as marketable personalities. Recently, scholarly attention has turned to the other side of infotainment: the increasing penetration of news form and content into entertainment programming.

Scholarly approaches to infotainment investigate the negative effects of the phenomenon for public information, political communication, the democratic process, and political culture. An expanding body of scholarship, however, is developing the counterargument: that infotainment is not just good for democracy, but perhaps necessary because it is democratizing political discourse by legitimizing narrative and affective forms of reasoning, acknowledging the irreversible interconnection between politics and popular culture, and drawing linkages between politics and the audience’s everyday lives.

References and Suggested Readings

1. Baym, G. (2010). From Cronkite to Colbert: The evolution of broadcast news. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
2. Jones, J. P. (2010). Entertaining politics: Satiric television and political engagement, 2nd edn. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.
3. Thussu, D. (2009). News as entertainment: The rise of global infotainment. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Ingratiation and Affinity Seeking

John Daly

University of Texas at Austin

People often try to get others to like them when initiating and intensifying romances, friendships, and even brief encounters. When they do this they are engaging in ‘affinity seeking’ (→ Interpersonal Communication). The affinity-seeking construct (Bell & Daly 1984) highlights the dynamic and strategic notion suggesting that people intentionally engage in certain behaviors in hopes of engendering liking. For instance, people might systematically highlight their similarity on some attitudes with someone to make the other person see them positively. Or, they might dress up, fix their hair, and even exercise, hoping to get another person’s attention. The key move made in the affinity-seeking construct was emphasizing the strategic intentionality of behaviors that people use to ingratiate themselves to others.

Affinity seeking falls under the broader rubric of impression management (→ Self-Presentation). In their early research Bell and Daly found seven more general clusters in the major strategies people typically use when they engage in ingratiation: (1) control and visibility (e.g., presenting an interesting self, being dynamic); (2) mutual trust (e.g., being open, appearing trustworthy); (3) politeness (e.g., following conversational rules); (4) concern and caring (e.g., listening); (5) other involvement (e.g., engaging in nonverbal immediacy); (6) self-involvement (e.g., influencing perceptions of closeness); and (7) commonalities (e.g., highlighting similarities). These seven clusters fall along three dimensions: (1) activity: active/passive; (2) aggressiveness; and (3) orientation. A person’s affinity-seeking skills and competency are assessed via observation, peer ratings, and self-ratings.

Using a number of different measures and methods, researchers have found that successful affinity seeking typically has positive consequences in relationships and interactions. Affinity seeking is positively and significantly associated with variables such as extroversion, assertiveness, and interaction involvement, and inversely and significantly related to constructs such as communication apprehension, loneliness, and neuroticism. Soon after the affinity-seeking concept was introduced, Bell et al. (1987) proffered the related concept of affinity maintenance. Affinity maintenance behaviors are strategies people actively use to maintain, as opposed to establish, positive relationships with others.

References and Suggested Readings

1. Bell, R. A. & Daly, J. A. (1984). The affinity-seeking function of communication. Communication Monographs, 51, 91–115.
2. Bell, R. A., Daly, J. A., & Gonzalez, M. C. (1987). Affinity maintenance and its relationship to women’s marital satisfaction. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 49, 445–454.
3. Stafford, L., Dainton, M., & Haas, S. (2000). Measuring routine and strategic relational maintenance: Scale revision, sex versus gender roles, and the prediction of relational characteristics. Communication Monographs, 67, 306–323.

Institutional Theory

Thomas B. Lawrence

Simon Fraser University

Masoud Shadnam

NEOMA Business School

Institutional theory is a theoretical framework for analyzing social (particularly organizational) phenomena, which views the social world as significantly comprising institutions – enduring rules, practices, and structures that set conditions on action. Institutions are fundamental in explaining the social world because they are built into the social order, and direct the flow of social life. Institutions condition action because departures from them are automatically counteracted by social controls that make deviation from the social order costly. These controls associate nonconformity with increased costs, through an increase in risk, greater cognitive demands, or a reduction in legitimacy and the resources that accompany it (→ Organizational Communication).

The new wave of academic interest and attention to what became known as neo-institutional theory started with two seminal works in the area of organization theory. First, Meyer and Rowan (1977) argued that, in modern societies, organizations are in a highly institutionalized context of various professions, policies, and programs, which serve as powerful myths. Many organizations ceremonially incorporate these products, services, techniques, policies, and programs, because they are understood to produce rationality. In this way, organizations do not necessarily make their structures more efficient in terms of task-performing functions. Rather, organizations align their structures with the institutional context, and in so doing gain legitimacy, resources, stability, and better survival chances. The second key work that established neo-institutional theory was DiMaggio and Powell’s (1983) analysis of the institutional processes by means of which the institutional context forces organizations to be isomorphic – similar to each other, in form and practice.

More recent institutional research has focused on the question of how social actors may purposively influence their institutional context. This line of research was initiated by the introduction of the concept of institutional entrepreneurship and has attracted a great deal of attention in recent years. This issue has been developed as the more general concept of institutional work – purposive action aimed at creating, maintaining, or disrupting institutions (Lawrence & Suddaby 2006).

References and Suggested Readings

1. DiMaggio, P. J. & Powell, W. W. (1983). The iron cage revisited: Institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields. American Sociological Review, 48, 147–160.
2. Lawrence, T. B. & Suddaby, R. (2006). Institutions and institutional work. In S. R. Clegg, C. Hardy, T. B. Lawrence, & W. R. Nord (eds.), Handbook of organization studies, 2nd edn. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, pp. 215–254.
3. Meyer, J. W. & Rowan, B. (1977). Institutionalized organizations: Formal structure as myth and ceremony. American Journal of Sociology, 83, 340–363.

Instructional Television

Robert K. Avery

University of Utah

The term ‘instructional television’ (ITV) is multidimensional, with definitions varying widely, depending on context, time period examined, and other factors. The term is frequently related or used interchangeably with other terms in this encyclopedia, including Classroom Instructional Technology and → Educational Media, among others. At the most basic level, ITV refers to the use of the medium of television to deliver instructional content to one or more viewers, but the multiple interpretations of the term are tied directly to delivery/reception variables, content variables, and viewer variables.

ITV has existed as long as the medium of television itself, since some of the earliest experimental demonstrations of the medium in both Great Britain and the United States were for the purpose of instruction. When the → Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in the US (→ United States of America: Media System) authorized noncommercial educational television in 1952, a number of the licenses subsequently awarded were assigned to boards of education, school districts, and other instructional agencies that developed the medium of television for direct formal instruction in the classroom setting.

Although some functions have been taken over by computer-mediated forms of communication, ITV in one form or another is an important part of the curricular offerings of virtually every modern school, college, and university in the world today. Research established early on that television was an effective means of delivering information to students, and that when content was properly designed, viewers could learn as much from ITV as from a classroom teacher. The classroom of the twenty-first century is rich in media resources, regardless of the grade level or subject area. The fundamental production principles developed by ITV pioneers continue to be utilized today, as visual and auditory content or videos pervade the seemingly countless delivery and reception platforms of our mediated instructional environment.

References and Suggested Readings

1. Center for Children and Technology (2004). Television goes to school: The impact of video on student learning in formal education. Washington, DC: Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
2. Ely, D. P. (ed.) (1996). Classic writings in instructional technology. New York: Libraries Unlimited.

Integrated Marketing Communications

Michael A. Belch

San Diego State University

George E. Belch

San Diego State University

Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) is “A concept of marketing communications planning that recognizes the added value of a comprehensive plan that evaluates the strategic roles of a variety of communications disciplines – for example, general advertising, direct response, sales promotion, and public relations – and combines these disciplines to provide clarity, consistency, and maximum communications impact” (Belch & Belch 2012). As consumers’ needs and media habits have changed, media continue to proliferate and evolve, and clients continue to demand accountability, the need for an integrated approach has become obvious.

The changing media landscape requires marketers to rethink their communications strategies (→ Marketing; Marketing: Communication Tools). Besides watching less TV, younger demographic groups subscribe to fewer magazines (most of which are specialty magazines as opposed to general news), rarely read the newspapers (and almost always online), shop online, and are seemingly addicted to their smart phones and → social media. Mobile media are changing all aspects of shopping and communicating. Technological changes have enabled receivers to obtain information when they want it, not when the marketer sends it, and to interact, not just passively accept messages (→ Advertising; Advertising Strategies).

To adopt an IMC orientation, companies must (1) recognize that consumer perceptions of a company and its brands are a synthesis of all the messages consumers receive or contacts they have with the company; (2) identify all of the contacts that a consumer has with the company, including advertisements, → public relations, word of mouth, sponsorships and/or events, and social media postings – among others; (3) consider the strengths and weakness of the various communication channels that form an effective IMC program; (4) create a consistent unified message to current and potential customers; (5) focus attention on the achievement of communications objectives, which will lead to the attainment of marketing goals; (6) develop new metrics and keep traditional measures to evaluate the effectiveness of IMC programs. Finally, companies have to (7) reorganize the department or agency responsible for communications. Eliminating communications silos is critical.

References and Suggested Readings

1. Belch, G. E. & Belch, M. A. (2012). Advertising and promotion: An Integrated Marketing Communications perspective, 9th edn. New York: McGraw Hill-Irwin.

Intellectual Property Law

Robert L. Kerr

University of Oklahoma

The law of intellectual property encompasses legal concerns represented by → copyrights, trademarks, patents, design rights, trade secrets, and related concerns. It focuses on protecting the rights of the owners of intellectual property to control when and if a work is reproduced, related adaptations, and distribution and performance.

Intellectual property law is in a more dynamic state of tension than ever before, driven by two historic and interrelated phenomena of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries: The fact that most intellectual property has been both internationalized and digitized. Protected works can be digitally copied and distributed anywhere in the world, in unlimited numbers, and virtually instantly via the Internet, satellite transmission, and other media (→ Digital Media, History of). Intellectual property law today races to keep pace in a struggle between what rights creators shall have in relation to their works and the direction in which intellectual property law should evolve in response to revolutionary technological changes.

Multinational efforts to more greatly protect intellectual property began more than a century ago and have been vastly advanced in recent years. The Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, first instituted in 1886, is the oldest and most important international copyright treaty. The Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) is considered the most significant strengthening of international norms in intellectual property law to date. Such legislative efforts have generated considerable criticism that corporate commercial interests are locking away too much of the world’s creative capital. Although it was once relatively common for creative works to fall into the public domain over time, lengthened copyright terms and other protections have slowed that process, arguably undermining the traditional balance between encouraging creators to produce by protecting their work in limited ways and encouraging further creativity through sharing of common cultural stock. Owners of protected works, however, argue that the value of their intellectual property rights can be dramatically diminished by technologies that make possible virtually unlimited copying and distribution of their works without permission or compensation.

References and Suggested Readings

1. Lessig, L. (2004). Free culture: How big media uses technology and the law to lock down culture and control creativity. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
2. Masterson, J. T., Jr. (ed.) (2004). International trademarks and copyrights: Enforcement and management. Chicago, IL: American Bar Association.
3. Stim, R. (2006). Patent, copyright, and trademark, 8th edn. Berkeley, CA: Nolo.

Interaction

W. Russell Neuman

University of Michigan

The term ‘interaction’ is used to identify a pattern of reciprocal influence or exchange among two or more entities. While the core idea of interaction is very close to the concept of communication, a terminology of interaction tends to suggest a particular set of preferred epistemologies, methodologies, and analytical objects in communication research.

Interaction in communication scholarship most often signals a counterpoint to what is still widely perceived as a dominant one-way transmission model of communication effects, typically associated with the early researchers. In comparison, → cultural studies scholars, for instance, frequently emphasize the way in which audience members interact with – actively interpret and appropriate – the symbols and ideas that are prevalent in popular culture, rather than simply being influenced by them (→ Media Effects, History of).

The idea of interaction has also influenced communication research at a social-systemic level. Because interaction is critical to the frameworks of some of the most distinguished social and cultural theorists, especially those with an interest in the cultural reproduction of inequality, several of these have developed neologisms to capture the specific role of interaction processes in their theory-building. In each case, however, the motivation has been to reject a simple one-way causality and to acknowledge a multidirectional behavioral phenomenon. Anthony Giddens (1984), for one, with his influential notion of “structuration”, emphasized what he calls a duality of structure (→ Group Communication). Society and culture, accordingly, do not simplistically determine individual → perception or behavior. But, if cultural traditions resonate with a freely initiated human agency, they function to reproduce the social structure, which survives and evolves in interaction with successive generations of human actors.

When communication scholars do refer to interaction, it is frequently in the tradition studying → interpersonal communication, i.e., the micro-analysis of routinized, contextualized, and usually dyadic exchanges between individuals.

A specific position, in the study of communication as well as other research fields, is the symbolic interactionist perspective as coined by Herbert Blumer.

The term ‘interaction’ appears only irregularly in current communication scholarship. That seems likely to change in the decades ahead, as new interactive technologies of mediated communication, including the Internet, digital information retrieval and control systems, and → video games, grow and spread (→ Communication Networks; Network Organizations through Communication Technology).

References and Suggested Readings

1. Blumer, H. (1969). Symbolic interactionism: Perspective and method. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
2. Giddens, A. (ed.) (1984). The constitution of society. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Interactivity, Concept of

W. Russell Neuman

University of Michigan

Interactivity refers to the phenomenon of mutual adaptation, usually between a communication medium such as the Internet or a → video game and a human user of that medium. The key element is responsiveness – what one says or does depends on another – a notion clearly rooted in human face-to-face conversation (→ Interpersonal Communication).

From several typologies of interactivity one can derive four common themes even as terminologies vary. The first and perhaps most straightforward criterion is the directionality of communication. Advanced digital systems and the Internet changed conditions, compared to traditional media, fundamentally, as every audience member was empowered to send as well as receive data, text, audio, and video (→ Digital Media, History of). The second criterion is selectivity – the breadth of choice that is available to the user in terms of both types and formats of information and entertainment. The third criterion is responsiveness – the rapidity with which and extent to which a medium responds to user input. The fourth criterion is awareness, defined as the degree of reciprocal awareness of system states and user reactions.

Bucy (2004), among others, made the case that interactivity should be conceptualized exclusively as a perceptual variable, arguing that the perceived reality of participating is more important than the technical reality of users’ actual input or control. Others argue that it is at least necessary analytically to separate user inclinations and skills from the technical capacities of systems. Perhaps, in time, communication research will acknowledge several components of interactivity in a multilayered model: (1) the technical affordance of interactivity (or components thereof), (2) the user’s perception of an interactive potential, (3) the actual use of the affordance, and (4) behavioral outcomes resulting from either perception or use.

The literature on interactivity has been more utopian than dystopian, tending to celebrate the benefits of presumed higher levels of attention, engagement, learning, and satisfaction. In historical perspective, however, this might be akin to arguing that if there are more books in libraries, the populace will be better informed. The interactive affordances of new media systems may indeed contribute significantly to positive outcomes, but only under certain conditions of expectation and motivation, with appropriate designs, and for certain types of users.

References and Suggested Readings

1. Bucy, E. R. (2004). Interactivity in society: Locating an elusive concept. The Information Society, 20, 373–383.
2. McMillan, S. J. (2005). Exploring models of interactivity from multiple research traditions. In L. A. Lievrouw & S. Livingstone (eds.), Handbook of new media. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, pp. 162–182.
3. Reinhard, Carrie Lynn D. (2011). Studying the interpretive and physical aspects of interactivity: Revisiting interactivity as a situated interplay of structure and agencies. Communications: The European Journal of Communication Research, 36(3), 353–374
4. Sundar, S. S. (2004). Theorizing interactivity’s effects. The Information Society, 20, 385–389.

Intercultural Conflict Styles and Facework

Stella Ting-Toomey

California State University, Fullerton

Competent intercultural conflict management depends on many factors. One of the key factors is to increase our awareness and knowledge concerning diverse conflict styles and facework issues. Intercultural conflict can be defined as any implicit or explicit antagonistic struggle between persons of different cultures due, in part, to cultural or ethnic group membership differences. Beyond cultural group membership differences and intergroup historical grievances, differences in situational expectations, goal orientations, conflict styles, facework tendencies, and perceived scarce resources (e.g., time, power currencies) may further complicate an already complex conflict situation.

Some prominent sources of intercultural conflict include cultural/ethnic value clashes, communication decoding problems, and identity inattention issues (→ Encoding–Decoding). Cultural value clash issues can involve the clash of individualistic ‘I-identity’ values with collectivistic ‘we-identity’ values with one party emphasizing ‘self-face-saving’ and the other party valuing ‘relational-face-compromising’ (→ Intercultural and Intergroup Communication). In connecting national cultures with face concerns, for example, research reveals that while ‘individualists’ (e.g., US respondents) tend to use more direct, self-face concern conflict behaviors (e.g., dominating/competing style), ‘collectivists’ (e.g., Taiwanese and Chinese respondents) tend to use more indirect, other-face concern conflict behaviors (e.g., avoiding and obliging styles). In addition, self-face concern has been associated positively with dominating and emotionally expressive conflict styles.

Self-face concern is the protective concern for one’s own identity image when one’s own face is threatened in the conflict episode. Other-face concern is the concern for accommodating the other conflict party’s identity image. Mutual-face concern is the concern for both parties’ images and for the image of the relationship. A new addition, communal-face concern (e.g., extended family or close-knit network circle) is the concern for upholding ingroup-based face sensibility and sensitivity (Ting-Toomey & Oetzel, 2013).

Conflict style is defined as the broad-based verbal and nonverbal responses to conflict in a variety of frustrating conflict situations. Whether we choose to engage in or disengage from a conflict process often depends on our ingrained cultural conflict habits and how we negotiate various face concerns. Face is really about identity respect and other-identity consideration issues within and beyond the actual conflict encounter. It is tied to the emotional significance and estimated appraisals that we attach to our own social self-worth and the social self-worth of others (Ting-Toomey & Kurogi 1998).

In a nutshell, Ting-Toomey’s (2005) conflict face-negotiation theory assumes that: (1) people in all cultures try to maintain and negotiate face in all communication situations; (2) the concept of face is especially problematic in emotionally threatening or identity vulnerable situations when the situated identities of the communicators are called into question; (3) the cultural value spectrums of individualism–collectivism and small/large power distance shape facework concerns and styles; (4) individualist and collectivist value patterns shape members’ preferences for self-oriented facework versus other-oriented facework; (5) small and large power-distance value patterns shape members’ preferences for horizontal-based facework versus vertical-based facework; (6) the value dimensions, in conjunction with individual, relational, and situational factors, influence the use of particular facework behaviors in particular cultural scenes; and (7) intercultural facework competence refers to the optimal integration of knowledge, mindfulness, and communication skills in managing vulnerable identity-based conflict situations appropriately, effectively, and adaptively (→ Interpersonal Communication). In a direct empirical test of the theory (Oetzel & Ting-Toomey 2003), the research program uncovered that self-face concern was associated positively with dominating style and other-face concern was associated positively with avoiding and integrating styles. The research also found significant differences between subjects from different countries (→ International Communication).

Current face-negotiation theory effort has been directed to testing the intricate relationship among face, emotional facets, and conflict styles in different cultures. Further effort has also extended the face-negotiation theory to the realm of intergroup (i.e., different social identity membership issues such as intergenerational family conflicts) face-threatening and face-honoring situations, and examining the shifting values of face in diaspora communities.

References and Suggested Readings

1. Oetzel, J., Garcia, A., & Ting-Toomey, S. (2008). An analysis of the relationships among face concerns and facework behaviors in perceived conflict situations: A four-culture investigation. International Journal of Conflict Management, 19, 382–403.
2. Oetzel, J. G. & Ting-Toomey, S. (2003). Face concerns in interpersonal conflict: A cross-cultural empirical test of the face-negotiation theory. Communication Research, 30, 599–624.
3. Ting-Toomey, S. (2005). The matrix of face: An updated face-negotiation theory. In W. B. Gudykunst (ed.), Theorizing about intercultural communication. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, pp. 71–92.
4. Ting-Toomey, S. & Kurogi, A. (1998). Facework competence in intercultural conflict. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 22, 187–225.
5. Ting-Toomey, S. & Oetzel, J. G. (2013). Culture-based situational conflict model: An update and expansion. In J. G. Oetzel & S. Ting-Toomey (eds.), The Sage Handbook of Conflict Communication, 2nd edn. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, pp. 763–789.
6. Zhang, R., Ting-Toomey, S., Dorjee, T., & Lee, P. (2012). Culture and self-construal as predictors of relational responses to emotional infidelity: China and the United States. Chinese Journal of Communication, 5, 137–159.

Intercultural and Intergroup Communication

Bernadette Watson

University of Queensland

Howard Giles

University of California, Santa Barbara

Social groups, such as adolescents and ethnic groups, very often have their own distinctive cultures that include specialized foods, customs and rituals, literature, music, while other intergroup situations (e.g., artificially constructed laboratory groups) constitute social categories that cannot claim such cultural artifacts. This entry compares two parallel traditions of theorizing communication between such groups: Intercultural communication (ICC; Gudykunst 2002) and Intergroup communication (IGC; Giles 2012).

Origins of the Theories

ICC has been studied for over 50 years (see Leeds-Hurwitz 1990) and developed to focus on how different cultures are distinguished from one another through their management of behaviors such as personal space and gestures. Particular attention has been devoted to understanding the cultural values that underpin different cultures’ communicative practices, including individualism–collectivism, high–low contexts, and so forth (Watson 2012). From the ICC perspective, when an individual recognizes that he is engaged in an intercultural interaction, the focus remains on competent interpersonal communication (→ Intercultural Conflict Styles and Facework)

In contrast to ICC, the IGC approach came out of social identity theory (SIT: Tajfel 1978) which states that individuals categorize themselves and others into social groups and have a need to compare themselves with others, as a way of attaining a positive self-concept. We seek to favor our own groups (ingroups) compared to groups to which we do not belong (outgroups) and, communicatively act in accord with these social identities (Giles & Giles 2012). To join an outgroup, as, for instance, with immigrants wishing to acculturate into a host community, we communicate with members in ways akin to them so that we may gain membership to that group (Giles et al. 2012). SIT is not a communication theory but, rather, represents a theory of intergroup behavior and cognitions. Communication theories such as → communication accommodation theory explain how and why individuals engage in specific communication strategies when they interact with representatives of salient ingroups and outgroups.

Applications

Wiseman (2002) detailed the applications of ICC competence to assist individuals from differing cultures to communicate effectively with one another (→ Culture: Definition and Concepts). The ICC literature embraces a skills training approach, the premises of which are that individuals must have knowledge of the culture with which they engage, the motivation to effectively communicate (including intercultural sensitivity and empathy), and appropriate communication skills. Interactions are viewed as activities that occur at the interpersonal level.

In contrast, the main focus in IGC is on interactants implicitly (and sometimes explicitly) taking on the role of being representatives of their respective cultures. This explicit acknowledgment that at times our intergroup identities take precedence has important implications for any interaction. Individuals who perceive that their personal identity is salient may engage in different communications strategies from those who believe they are representative of a particular group. Whether individual or group identities, or both, are made salient will shape the communication process in different ways which, in turn, can reconstruct the very nature of those identities (Dragojevic & Giles in press).

The way a group or culture expresses its unique identity through a dialect, specialized jargon, or nonverbal demeanor (→ Nonverbal Communication and Culture), is fundamental to a healthy social identity, and to one (under differing conditions) that group members can vigorously and creatively sustain and proliferate. Intercultural communication is not subsumed under, or even a special case of, intergroup communication, but rather the two are parallel traditions capable of significant coalescence (Gudykunst 2002).

Assumptions of Both Theories

There are assumptions within ICC theories that are not held in IGC (Brabant et al. 2007). These are: that strangers to a new culture will take on an ethno-relativist position; they need to be educated in the new culture’s values and norms; and when strangers possess knowledge of the culture and use expedient communication skills, effective communication will prevail. However, there is no extension within ICC theories to predict and explain when misunderstanding could in some cases be inevitable, despite any one individual’s excellent skills and cultural knowledge. Socio-psychological theories that emphasize the intergroup nature of intercultural communication, rather than only its interpersonal aspects, directly address miscommunication and related issues of prejudice and intercultural tensions.

IGC is highly cognizant of how status and power differentials impact communication behavior. Power is, arguably, not a key consideration in ICC and the implicit overarching assumption is that competent communication is the main communication goal (→ Power in Intergroup Settings). However, when two individuals from different cultures with a history of power differentials and consequent perceived injustices come together, effective and competent communication may not be their mutual goal. A training and skills focus on achieving effective communication does not take account of the fact that culturally-salient power differentials may dictate what is appropriate communication for any particular encounter.

ICC as well as IGC – beyond the study of national and ethnic groups – can truly embrace an array of different categories including older people, homosexuals, bisexuals, or academicians from different disciplines, as well as those embedded in for example, religious, or organizational cultures (Giles 2012). Importantly, their members may view themselves as belonging to a group that owns specific characteristics and traits that set them apart from others. IGC theories distinguish between “me” in an interaction as an individual and “us” as a virtual representative of a group. While intercultural as well as intergroup perspectives have sometimes been infused into studies in such contexts, there is much more room for invoking each other’s positions. The challenge is to move toward bringing these two theoretical viewpoints together in order to explain and predict the variables that determine effective and ineffective interactions (Kim, forthcoming).

References and Suggested Readings

1. Brabant, M., Watson, B. M., & Gallois, C. (2007). Psychological perspectives: Social psychology, language and intercultural communication. In H. Kotthoff & H. Spencer-Oatey (eds.), Handbook of intercultural communication. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 55–75.
2. Dragojevic, M. & Giles, H. (in press). Language and interpersonal communication: Their intergroup dynamics. In C. R. Berger (ed.), Handbook of interpersonal communication. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.
3. Giles, H. (ed.) (2012). The handbook of intergroup communication. London: Routledge.
4. Giles, H., Bonilla, D., & Speer, R. (2012). Acculturating intergroup vitalities, accommodation and contact. In J. Jackson (ed.), Routledge handbook of intercultural communication. London: Routledge, pp. 244–259.
5. Giles, H. & Giles, J. L. (2012). Ingroups and outgroups communicating. In A. Kuyulo (ed.), Inter/cultural communication: Representation and construction of culture in everyday interaction. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, pp. 141–162.
6. Gudykunst, W. B. (2002). Intercultural communication theories. In W. B. Gudykunst & B. Mody (eds.), Handbook of international and intercultural communication, 2nd edn. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, pp. 183–205.
7. Kim, Y. Y. (ed.) (forthcoming). The international encyclopedia of intercultural communication. New York: Wiley Blackwell.
8. Leeds-Hurwitz, W. (1990). Notes on the history of intercultural communication: The Foreign Service Institute and the mandate for intercultural training. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 76, 262–281.
9. Tajfel, H. (ed.) (1978). Differentiation between social groups: Studies in the social psychology of intergroup relations. New York: Academic Press.
10. Watson, B. M. (2012). Intercultural and cross-cultural communication. In A. Kurylo (ed.), Inter/cultural communication. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, pp. 25–46.
11. Wiseman, R. L. (2002). Intercultural communication competence In W. B. Gudykunst & B. Mody (eds.), Handbook of international and intercultural communication, 2nd edn. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, pp. 207–224.

Intergenerational Communication

Mary Lee Hummert

University of Kansas

The term ‘intergenerational communication’ applies to interactions involving individuals who are from different age cohorts or age groups. Families provide ready examples of individuals whose communication would be classified as intergenerational: parent and child or grandparent and grandchild. These interactions stand in contrast to intragenerational communication or communication between individuals from the same generation or age cohort, such as siblings. Intergenerational communication occurs outside the family context as well. Any interaction between a child and an adult, a young person and one who is middle-aged or older, or a middle-aged person and an older person fits the definition of intergenerational communication. As a result, much communication in daily life – in the workplace, social settings, and the home – is intergenerational in nature.

Although common, intergenerational communication carries a strong potential for miscommunication and unsatisfying interpersonal interactions. This occurs not only because people from different age cohorts vary in their life experiences, but also because people at different points in the life-span vary in their communication goals, needs, and behaviors. Other challenges to satisfying intergenerational communication come from age stereotypes and social role expectations, which can also vary across cultures (→ Social Stereotyping and Communication). Some intergenerational communication problems, even conflicts, can be tied to the participants’ being from different age cohorts. Examples include the divergent life experiences reflected in the differing value placed on thriftiness by members of the ‘greatest generation’ (which came of age during the Great Depression and World War II) and ‘baby-boomers,’ or the importance placed on careers by baby-boomers versus ‘generation Xers’ emphasis on work–life balance (Myers & Davis 2012).

Several theoretical approaches can be distinguished. The ‘cohort approach’ to understanding intergenerational communication presumes that individuals are, to an extent, prisoners of their history, and therefore does not consider the role of individual development across the life-span as an influence on intergenerational communication. The ‘life-span developmental approach’ recognizes that communication needs, goals, and skills change as individuals move through the various age groups from childhood to older adulthood (Williams & Nussbaum 2001; → Developmental Communication). ‘Socio-emotional selectivity theory’ illustrates how communication needs and goals differ for those early and late in the life-span (English & Carstensen, 2014). According to this theory, young adults face life tasks (e.g., choosing a career, finding a mate) that make new experiences and new communication partners their primary communication goals. They seek variety and novelty in communication, which increases their risk of experiencing some encounters with negative emotional consequences. Older individuals, in contrast, seek to maximize their positive emotional experiences through an emphasis on interactions with a few well-known communication partners. These differing communication goals of young and older persons can also lead to misunderstanding and intergenerational conflict, especially within families as they negotiate the amount of time spent together, topics of conversation, etc. Two communication behaviors have been especially associated with advancing age: reminiscence and painful self-disclosures. Both may reflect developmental processes. Reminiscence and painful self-disclosures involve revealing personal information about a problem or negative life event in conversation with a relative stranger.

Because age groups are social groups, intergenerational communication can also be examined from an intergroup perspective (Hummert 2012). Communication accommodation theory provides a framework for understanding how stereotypes about members of other age groups lead to expectations about appropriate communication behaviors in intergenerational interactions (→ Communication Accommodation Theory). Just as stereotypes can affect intergenerational communication, so can communication expectations for social roles. Social role expectations may conflict with age role expectations (e.g. age and rank or parent–child relationships) and long-term role relationships may evolve over the life-span. Both can contribute to problematic intergenerational communication. The parent–child relationship illustrates the second case. The nominal familial roles stay the same across the life-span. That is, the parent is always the parent and the child is always the child, whether the parent is 40 and the child is 10 or the parent is 80 and the child is 50.

The majority of the research on intergenerational communication has focused on western cultures such as those in the United States and Western Europe (Giles & Gasiorek 2011). To the extent that cultures differ in their values, they can also have different age stereotypes, norms for social roles, and standards for acceptable intergenerational communication behaviors (→ Culture: Definitions and Concepts).

References and Suggested Readings

1. English, T. & Carstensen, L. L. (2014). Selective narrowing of social networks across adulthood is associated with improved emotional experience in daily life. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 38, 195–202.
2. Giles, H. & Gasiorek, J. (2011). Intergenerational communication practices. In K. W. Schaie & S. L. Willis (eds.), Handbook of the psychology of aging, 7th edn. San Diego, CA: Academic Press, pp. 233–247.
3. Hummert, M. L. (2012). Challenges and opportunities for communication between age groups. In H. Giles (ed.), The handbook of intergroup communication. London: Routledge, pp. 223–236.
4. Myers, K. K. & Davis, C. W. (2012). Communication between the generations. In H. Giles (ed.), The handbook of intergroup communication. London: Routledge, pp. 237–249.
5. Williams, A. & Nussbaum, J. F. (2001). Intergenerational communication across the life span. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Intergroup Accommodative Processes

Cindy Gallois

University of Queensland

We constantly interact with people from different social groups: cultures, ethnic groups, genders, ages, occupations, organizations, even clubs (→ Intercultural and Intergroup Communication; Culture: Definitions and Concepts). Intergroup accommodation focuses on the ways in which we modify language and communication as a function of our and others’ group memberships in context. The main theory describing and explaining them is → Communication Accommodation Theory (CAT: see Gallois et al. 2005).

Language and style change to signal important group memberships. A French–English bilingual in Canada may switch from English to French to signal the importance of being French Canadian, and may even refuse to speak English to an English Canadian. Other choices include changing accent, formality of style, jargon or slang use, or particular nonverbal behavior. This idea is linked to language attitudes. Intergroup processes are closely tied to social identity, or a person’s sense of self as a group member. Social identity is most salient whenever groups are in conflict or rivalry, whereas personal identity and interpersonal processes are more salient in friendly contexts.

Accommodative processes describe the ways we reflect our attitude and identity through language and communication. We may use expressive language and communication to show identification or solidarity, and thus to bring another person psychologically closer to us (accommodation). Alternatively, we may communicate hostility or rivalry (counter-accommodation), reflect a (perhaps unintentional) patronizing or ingratiating attitude (over-accommodation), or mark our own social identity distinctly from another’s (under-accommodation); these all indicate ‘nonaccommodation.’ We may change our communicative behavior to be more like that of the conversational partner (convergence) or less like it (divergence). Often, however communication as viewed by outsiders does not reflect communicators’ own perceptions. For example, in mixed-gender conversations, people may adopt exaggerated versions of their own gender’s behavior, but believe they are converging to the other gender. Sometimes, people lack the linguistic or communicative skills to converge (Giles et al. 1991; → Gender and Discourse).

Accommodation can be across any group boundary, and signaled by a wide array of linguistic, nonverbal, and discursive moves (→ Intergroup Communication and Discursive Psychology; Nonverbal Communication and Culture). Accommodative strategies, in addition to the above, include ‘nonapproximation strategies.’ Accommodation in intergroup contexts begins with socio-historical context, including history and societal norms. At the individual level, it is reflected in initial orientation, including strength and salience of social identity. These lead to one’s accommodative stance, or motivation to accommodate (or not). Accommodative stance is expressed in accommodative strategies employed by speakers. These include approximation – changing communication to be more like the other person or emphasizing one’s own group markers); interpretability – communicative behaviors intended to make the encounter easier or harder for the other person to participate in; discourse management – whether each person communicates to share the conversation; interpersonal control – whether each person treats the other as an individual of equal status; and relational expression – intended to maintain or threaten the relationship or another’s status and face. Overall, stance is aimed toward a more or less intergroup interaction. Strategies are translated into behavior and tactics, which change across the interaction. There is no one-to-one correspondence between strategies and tactics, or between them and specific behaviors. In interaction, behavior is perceived and labeled by other interactants, and people make attributions about each other’s motives and goals. Finally, these attributions result in intentions about whether and how to interact with the other person or the person’s group in the future.

The study of accommodative intergroup processes now emphasizes close examination of encounters, particularly organizational behavior. A key new finding is that accommodation by police to citizens is the strongest predictor of attitudes toward police across cultures and social classes (Giles et al. 2007). Increasingly, there are links to qualitative approaches to intergroup relations (→ Discourse Analysis).

References and Suggested Readings

1. Gallois, C., Ogay, T., & Giles, H. (2005). Communication accommodation theory: A look back and a look ahead. In W. Gudykunst (ed.), Theorizing about intercultural communication. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, pp. 121–148.
2. Giles, H., Coupland, N., & Coupland, J. (1991). Accommodation theory: Communication, context, and consequence. In H. Giles, J. Coupland, & N. Coupland (eds.), Contexts of accommodation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 1–68.
3. Giles, H., Hajek, C., Barker, V., Lin, M.-C., Zhang, Y. B., Hummert, M. L., & Anderson, M. C. (2007). Accommodation and institutional talk: Communicative dimensions of police–civilian encounters. In A. Weatherall, B. M. Watson, & C. Gallois (eds.), The social psychology of language and discourse. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 131–159.

Intergroup Communication and Discursive Psychology

Jonathan Potter

Loughborough University

Discursive psychology studies intergroup relations through analyzing the way discourse works in the practical settings in which intergroup issues become live: for example, major public events such as parliamentary debates on migration and asylum; institutional interaction such as where the police interview a suspect who has been accused of racist violence, and everyday talk, such as conversations about political positions and nationality over a family meal (→ Intercultural and Intergroup Communication).

The key point is that social groups become live entities as they are invoked in practical settings through the telling of stories and building descriptions in talk and texts (→ Text and Intertextuality). A full understanding of conflict and racism will need to explicate these discourse processes. It must describe the building blocks which people draw on to assemble their talk and texts as well as the practices through which the building is done in specific settings. These building blocks can be as simple as words such as “asylum seeker” or as complex as organized explanatory units such as “interpretative repertoires”.

Key studies have considered discourse and racism. Wetherell & Potter (1992) showed how the discourse of professional, white majority group New Zealanders constructed a version of intergroup relations that stifled social change and yet managed the relevance of noxious categories such as bigot. Intergroup relations was built using a range of maxims, commonplaces (“everyone should be treated equally”) and repertoires of culture that Billig has called the “kaleidoscope of common sense”. Durrheim & Dixon (2005) found that in post-apartheid South Africa strong support for the principle of desegregation was combined with racist stereotyping and a weave of ‘practical’ arguments that justified segregation (→ Social Stereotyping and Communication).

A common feature of discursive research has been its highlighting of the heterogeneity of the discourse resources that people have available to them and the subtle ways in which they can assemble versions of events, cultures and politics to support specific courses of action. Any understanding of social change and its failure must understand the role of this web of resources.

References and Suggested Readings

1. Condor, S. (2006). Temporality and collectivity: Diversity, history and the rhetorical construction of national entitativity. British Journal of Social Psychology, 45, 657–682.
2. Durrheim, K. & Dixon, J. A. (2005). Racial encounter: The social psychology of contact and desegregation. London: Psychology Press.
3. Wetherell, M. & Potter, J. (1992). Mapping the language of racism: Discourse and the legitimation of exploitation. Hemel Hempstead: Harvester Wheatsheaf.

Intergroup Contact and Communication

Jake Harwood

University of Arizona

Intergroup contact occurs when members of different social groups come into contact with one another. Research has focused on whether/when such contact influences attitudes and prejudices about the respective groups (→ Intercultural and Intergroup Communication). Intergroup contact requires at least minimal awareness of group difference among the participants. “Ingroups” are the groups into which individuals categorize themselves, or into which they might be categorized by others. “Outgroups” are those to which the individual does not belong (e.g., for Muslim men, outgroups include Hindus, women, or children).

Intergroup contact theory (Allport 1954; Brown & Hewstone 2005) claims that contact improves intergroup attitudes, but that facilitating conditions have to be present: equal status, cooperative contact, and the support of relevant authorities. Recent meta-analysis confirms that contact can improve attitudes, and the facilitating conditions help but are not essential (Pettigrew & Tropp 2006). In contact theory, some researchers focus on whether dealing with others as individuals (rather than group members) facilitates contact. Others focus on the role of superordinate identification (moving to a higher level of categorization) in overcoming intergroup hostilities (e.g., “we’re all humans”). This same effect can be achieved with “cross-cutting” categorizations: reframing an intergroup situation as intragroup (e.g., Muslim and Christian men focusing on their shared gender).

Communication processes have received little attention in contact research even though intergroup contact is by definition a communicative event. Self-disclosure is an important communication variable that has been studied. Intergroup relationships high in self-disclosure involve less intergroup prejudice than more superficial intergroup relationships. Self-disclosure develops depth in relationships, and reveals more detailed information about the outgroup member, presumably making it unlikely that straightforward negative perceptions of the outgroup can be maintained (→ Social Stereotyping and Communication). Self-disclosure is also associated with increased perceptions of outgroup heterogeneity. Social support, direct expressions of affection, and accommodation processes seem ripe for examination as determinants of attitudinal change (→ Intergroup Accommodative Processes), providing insight on the process by which contact influences attitudes. These communication behaviors characterize friendships; contact within friendships is a fruitful contact context.

Awareness of group memberships is a defining feature of intergroup contact, but important questions surround the extent and nature of that awareness. Some perspectives argue that group awareness must be high (and that outgroup members must be ‘typical’ of their group) for attitudes about one individual to generalize to attitudes about the entire outgroup (Brown & Hewstone, 2005). Atypical outgroup members are treated as exceptions, and do not influence prejudice. Group salience/typicality is associated with more negative contact, perhaps because of the anxiety engendered in intergroup situations. Thus, contact that is most likely to generalize is not likely to yield positive outcomes: negative contact may generalize more easily than positive (Paolini et al. 2006).

Indirect contact covers multiple diverse areas of research. Extended contact addresses situations in which knowledge of an ingroup friend’s intergroup relationships causes positive intergroup attitudes. Media (or parasocial; → Parasocial Interactions and Relationships) contact operates when exposure to media portrayals of outgroup members affects attitudes (Joyce & Harwood, 2012) – an effect typically explained via social learning/modeling processes (→ Media and Group Representations; Social Cognitive Theory). Broader cultural contact also has effects. For example, bilingual education reduces prejudice independent of other contact experience (→ Prejudiced and Discriminatory Communication). Imagined contact operates when people imagine intergroup contact rather than actually experiencing it. Indirect contact is important because it circumvents many logistical and affective barriers to actual contact (see Harwood, 2010, for an integrative model of indirect and direct contact).

References and Suggested Readings

1. Allport, G. W. (1954). The nature of prejudice. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
2. Brown, R. & Hewstone, M. (2005). An integrative theory of intergroup contact. In M. Zanna (ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology, vol. 37. San Diego, CA: Academic Press, pp. 255–343.
3. Harwood, J. (2010). The contact space: A novel framework for intergroup contact research. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 29, 147–177. doi: 10.1177/0261927X09359520.
4. Joyce, N. & Harwood, J. (online first, 2012). Improving intergroup attitudes through televised vicarious intergroup contact: Social cognitive processing of ingroup and outgroup information. Communication Research. doi:10.1177/0093650212447944.
5. Paolini, S., Harwood, J., & Rubin, M. (2010). Negative intergroup contact makes group memberships salient: Explaining why intergroup conflict endures. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 36, 1723–1738. doi:10.1177/0146167210388667.
6. Pettigrew, T. F. & Tropp, L. R. (2006). A meta-analytic test of intergroup contact theory. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 90, 751–783.

Intergroup Reconciliation, Processes of

Howard Giles

University of California, Santa Barbara

Intergroup reconciliation refers to the process of establishing or restoring harmonious (and even friendly) relations between conflicting groups in contact, and has been studied with respect to the roles of apologies, forgiveness, and deliberative communication (amongst other mediating variables).

History has recorded the stark reluctance of some groups to apologize for past transgressions (e.g., Japanese brutalities in World War II) while, at other times, a group’s public apology for past intergroup harm has received considerable media attention, as in the Irish Republic Army’s apology for bringing about many civilian deaths. Philpot & Hornsey (2008) underscored the limitations of the (albeit perhaps necessary) enactment of a full-blown apology. In their study, Japanese government officials were purported to have apologized for causing the deaths of Australian prisoners of war. While it did have a positive effect in conveying remorse and was more effective than no apology, it failed to promote forgiveness (an important element enabling reconciliation) among Australian respondents. Indeed, they also argued that unforgiveness is a powerful social advantage an ingroup may often be reluctant to squander. Studies have also found that when trust is low, apologetic stances can regarded as devious or worse than no such expressions at all. However, the means to achieving intergroup trust is elusive.

In studying intractable conflicts, Ellis (e.g., 2012) went beyond current theorizing about the values and complexities of intergroup contact (→ Intergroup Contact and Communication) to the critical communication dynamics that can come into play. Besides a readiness for compromise, Ellis discussed the need for both groups to be empathic, take responsibility for past humiliations and injustices, de-escalate threats to the other’s identity and existence, and be ingroup-critical. He proposed not only the need for de- and re-categorizing the involved intergroup parties into a viable superordinate entity, but also for competing groups jointly to redefine and rewrite their intergroup histories together, thereby empowering both entities. Ellis argued also that problem-solving in the form such so-called “deliberative communication” can assist the construction of superordinate identities that facilitate the acceptance of different points of view and tolerance for diversity, both central to the reconciliation process.

Further work on the interrelationships between apologies, forgiveness, and trust (as well as shame, guilt, and reparations) provides a solid foundation from which to pursue theoretically-guided applied communication research across a plethora of intergroup conflict settings on this enormously significant societal topic.

References and Suggested Readings

1. Ellis, D. G. (2012). Deliberative communication and ethnopolitical conflict. New York: Peter Lang.
2. Nadler, A., Malloy, T., & Fisher, J. D. (eds.) (2008). Social psychology of intergroup reconciliation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
3. Philpot, C. R. & Hornsey, M. J. (2008). What happens when groups say sorry: The effect of intergroup apologies on their recipients. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 34, 474–487.

Intermediality

Klaus Bruhn Jensen

University of Copenhagen

Intermediality refers to the interconnectedness of modern media of communication – as means of expression and exchange; as components of particular communicative strategies; and as constituents of a wider cultural environment.

Three conceptions of intermediality derive from three notions of what is a medium (→ Medium Theory). First, intermediality is the combination of separate material vehicles of representation and reproduction, as exemplified by the audio and video channels of television. Second, the term denotes communication through several sensory modalities at once, for instance, music and moving images. Third, intermediality concerns the interrelations between media as institutions in society, as addressed by technological and economic terms such as convergence and conglomeration.

As a term and a theoretical concept, intermediality has been most widely used in reference to multiple modalities of experience, as examined in aesthetic and humanistic traditions of communication research. Crediting an 1812 use of “intermedium” by the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, in 1965 Dick Higgins reintroduced “intermedia” to art theory in the context of the Fluxus movement (Higgins 2001; → Art as Communication). In media studies, the aesthetic focus on intermedia relations has been placed in historical perspective by research on how a given medium ‘remediates’ other media (Bolter & Grusin 1999; → Remediation). The general differences, similarities, and complementarities between historically shifting media have also been the focus of so-called medium theory since the foundational work by Harold Innis and Marshall McLuhan.

The various ‘inter’ structures of media – including hypertext and hypermedia – are currently being reshaped as part of an open-ended process of digitization. What used to be understood as separate media might, in the future, be produced, distributed, and consumed as one (inter)medium. At the institutional level, however, the jury is still out on the wider tendencies towards a convergence or divergence of media in terms of their technological developments and social applications (Jensen 2010).

References and Suggested Readings

1. Bolter, J. D. & Grusin, R. (1999). Remediation: Understanding new media. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
2. Higgins, D. (2001). Intermedia. Leonardo, 34(1), 49–54.
3. Jensen, K. B. (2010). Media convergence: The three degrees of network, mass, and interpersonal communication. London: Routledge.

International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR)

Cees Hamelink

University of Amsterdam

The International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR) is an international professional organization in the field of media and communication research (www.iamcr.org). Its aims are to promote global inclusiveness and excellence in research, to stimulate interest in media and communication research, to disseminate information about research results, and to provide a forum where researchers can meet to exchange information about their work.

The history of the IAMCR is closely linked to the development of a proposal first initiated by the → UNESCO Committee on Technical Needs in the Mass Media in 1946. This committee drafted a constitution for an “International Institute of the Press and Information, designed to promote the training of journalists and the study of press problems throughout the world.” In December 1956 an international conference took place at Strasbourg, where a committee was formed that prepared the constituent assembly of what was to become the IAMCR. This constituent assembly took place on December 18 and 19, 1957, at UNESCO headquarters.

The identifying characteristics of the association can be summed up as its ecumenical nature (in the sense of interdisciplinary and multi-method approaches to research topics), its global inclusiveness, which is reflected in its use of three official languages (English, French, and Spanish), and the active encouragement of the participation of young scholars, women, and researchers from economically disadvantaged regions of the world.

References and Suggested Readings

1. Halloran, J. D. (ed.) (1979). International Association for Mass Communication Research: Past, present and future. Leicester: Centre for Mass Communication Research.
2. United Nations (1948). Proceedings of the Freedom of Information Conference, Geneva.
3. Wells, C. (1987). The UN, UNESCO and the politics of knowledge. London: Macmillan.

International Communication

John D. H. Downing

Southern Illinois University

The → propaganda operations of the great powers in the twentieth century – today often reframed as ‘soft power’ – mostly initiated interest in the field of international communication. Lasswell first addressed the propaganda issue early in the 1920s. The long Cold War entrenched this issue in government-funded research priorities. Then the preferred term was ‘psychological warfare,’ not ‘propaganda’ (→ War Propaganda).

Four Theories of the Press, by Siebert, Petersen and Schramm (1956), was the first major comparative media study. The theories in question were normative, the official views of media goals in four contrasting polities: authoritarian, libertarian, Soviet, and “social responsibility.” Comparative news studies have substantially revived recently (→ Political Communication Systems).

Another major stimulus to research was ‘third world’ development, often framed (→ Framing Effects) at the time by the modernization’ schema which held that unless the west’s → modernity spread, global raw materials and markets risked Soviet/Chinese takeover. Lerner’s book, The Passing of Traditional Society (1958) and Rogers’ Diffusion of Innovations (1962) were key texts (→ Development Communication).

Schiller’s series of studies of global media from 1969 onwards (e.g. Schiller 1991) challenged this schema. From the 1980s onwards, he argued emerging ICTs were being used to intensify transnational corporate hegemony. A second challenge came from Armand Mattelart (2000), who wrote on international advertising, international communication history, and multicultural policies, but paid more attention to cultural dynamics than Schiller.

Three Theories of International Communication

‘Cultural imperialism’ (Schiller, Mattelart) covered education, religion, business practice, consumerism, law, governmentality, dress, as well as media. The term framed the US as a global superpower pursuing cultural domination overseas. Tomlinson (1991) argued that cultural imperialism presumed that third world media users could not interpret western media fare in their own ways, and that the term’s popularity canalized discontent at modernity’s juggernaut. China’s (→ China: Media System) and India’s global media industries (→ India: Media System), and Nigeria’s video-movie industry (Nollywood), considerably complicated these issues.

The ‘hybridization’ metaphor focused on how global audiences refract cultural imports (Kraidy 2005). Some Latin American scholars argued that Latin America’s history of Indigenous, European, and African exchange, and Mexican–US cultural exchanges, made the metaphor more compelling. The notion of ‘cultural proximity’, although critiqued for cultural essentialism, claimed that regional or linguistic resonances often rivaled foreign cultural imports’ attractiveness. The emergence of ‘Hallyu’, the ‘Korean Wave’ of media exports, complicated the picture further.

‘Globalization’ could mean cultural imperialism, modernity, postmodernity, or even the ascendancy of free-market dogma. The roles of computer networks, satellites (→ Satellite Communication, Global), and global media firms were plainly central, as were key world cities. Some found the term over-stated for the media and information sectors (→ Globalization of the Media; Globalization Theories).

Global Media Firms

Global media players such as Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Bertelsmann, → News Corp., Samsung, → Sony and Time Warner Inc. (Fitzgerald 2012) usually have varied media interests (e.g., cinema, publishing, music, video games, theme parks). Advertising (→ Advertising: Global Industry), → public relations and → marketing firms also play significant roles internationally (Sinclair 2012). The recorded music industry has three key global players (Warner Music, Universal Music and Sony Music).

This scenario marks a sea change from some decades earlier, when cultural policies were often run by government ministries. All these companies are considerably smaller in financial terms than General Motors or ExxonMobil. Nonetheless, although media products are tradable commodities (→ Cultural Products as Tradable Services), their cultural impact cannot be assessed simply by the money spent on them.

Global Media Policies

In the years before and since World War II, the US government worked in a sustained manner to promote the ‘free flow of information policy’ (→ Freedom of Communication). This challenged British domination of ocean cable traffic and its Reuters news agency. Attempts to forge partly noncommercial global policies emerged in the 1970s NWICO debates (Many Voices, One World, 1980/2004, the MacBride Report), and the 2003 and 2005 World Summits on the Information Society (WSIS). The international Internet Governance Forum has emphasized ‘multi-stakeholderism’, i.e. the public, not just states and corporations, has a compelling interest in framing Internet policies (→ Internet: International Regulation).

Certain trade regimes and international agencies influence transnational communication policies: the World Trade Organization, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the European Union, → UNESCO, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).

Within the EU, France has actively supported exempting cultural products trade from WTO rules (the so-called ‘cultural exception’), while the UK has militantly supported the US. Canada and South Korea, amongst others, have supported France’s stance. Global media and information policy has been marked by clashing agendas.

Global News Flows

The 1980 MacBride Report noted how most western news coverage (as now) emanated within the global north and reported on its doings. International news about the global south, when available at all, focused on disasters, natural or political (→ International News Reporting). This made for a gravely under-informed planetary citizenry.

However, the turn of the millennium witnessed new international news interventions. Established stalwarts, such as the BBC World Service, Voice of America, → CNN International, Deutsche Welle, Radio France Internationale, and Vatican Radio, were joined by → Arab satelliteTV news and entertainment channels, and China’s English-language global TV channel CCTV-9 (→ China Central Television, Foreign Language Program of). Britain’s The Guardian newspaper could claim 16 million Internet readers worldwide.

Nonhegemonic International Communication Flows

Given the increasing activity of global social movements of many kinds, it appears likely that nonhegemonic transnational media may become a growing force. The emergence of the Qatar-based news broadcaster Al-Jazeera is an example. It has challenged the deferential state broadcast news of the Arabic-speaking world, and influential US government definitions of Middle Eastern affairs.

Perhaps the successful anti-apartheid movement (1948–94), challenging the white-minority regime which ran South Africa during those decades, could be defined as the first major transnational media campaign. In a series of countries, independent media, campaigning mainstream journalists, ongoing demonstrations, university teach-ins, media smuggled into and out of South Africa, the African National Congress’s Zambia radio station, very effectively combined together over time.

References and Suggested Readings

1. Curtin, M. & Shah, H. (eds.) (2010). Reorienting global communication: Indian and Chinese media beyond borders. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.
2. Fitzgerald, S. (2012) Corporations and cultural industries. New York: Lexington.
3. Kraidy, M. (2005). Hybridity, or the cultural logic of globalization. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.
4. Lerner, D. (1958). The passing of traditional society. Glencoe, IL: Free Press.
5. Mattelart, A. (2000). Networking the world: 1794–2000. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
6. Rogers, E. (2003). Diffusion of innovations, 5th edn. Glencoe, NY: Free Press. (Original work published 1962).
7. Schiller, H. (1991). Not yet a post-imperialist order. Critical Studies in Mass Communication, 8(1), 13–28.
8. Siebert, F., Peterson, T., & Schramm, W. (1956). Four theories of the press. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.
9. Sinclair, J. (2012). Advertising, the media and globalization. London: Routledge.
10. Tomlinson, J. (1991). Cultural imperialism. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.

International Communication Agencies

Marc Raboy

McGill University

International communication agencies play a significant role in the global media governance environment. Whether under the aegis of the United Nations (UN), or as independent authorities (→ United Nations, Communication Policies of), they spearhead multilateral and multi-stakeholder collaboration on issues like intellectual property (→ Intellectual Property Law; Copyright), Internet governance (→ Internet Law and Regulation; Internet: International Regulation), media ownership (→ Concentration in Media Systems), network infrastructure, cultural diversity, → privacy and surveillance, as well as promoting communication for human rights and development objectives. (Ó Siochrú & Girard 2002; Raboy 2002). These agencies bring together governments, the private sector and civil society, to influence, inform, and direct decision-making for relevant policy matters.

International efforts for the regulation of cross-border communication date to the 1860s, and dealt, first, with postal services and, soon after, with the new technology of telegraphy. The first intergovernmental organization, the International Telegraph Union (ITU, now International Telecommunication Union), was set up in 1865 to provide a framework for international telegraphy. The Treaty of Berne (1875) created the General Postal Union (now the Universal Postal Union, UPU), and an international convention on copyright was also adopted in Berne in 1886. With the emergence of wireless communication (radio), new issues arose that required international agreement. International conferences in 1927 and 1932 drafted international regulations on radio that remain essentially in effect today.

The United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (→ UNESCO) was established in 1945. The 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights established freedom of expression as a fundamental human right. In the commercial sphere, the 1947 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT, managed since 1995 by the World Trade Organization) accepted the legitimacy of foreign film import quotas. The United Nations communication agencies each provide leadership on a specific aspect of international communication (→ Development Communication). International agencies in the field of communication have also emerged outside the UN system. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), an international, nonprofit corporation, is responsible for various functions of domain name system management.

References and Suggested Readings

1. Ó Siochrú, S. & Girard, B. (2002). Global media governance: A beginner’s guide. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
2. Raboy, M. (ed.) (2002). Global media policy in the new millennium. Luton: University of Luton Press.
3. WSIS (2012). Basic information: About WSIS. At http://www.itu.int/wsis/basic/background.html, accessed August 8, 2014.

International Communication Association (ICA)

Michael L. Haley

International Communication Association

The International Communication Association (ICA) began in 1950 as a small association of US researchers and is now a truly international association with more than 4,500 members in 85 countries. With its headquarters in Washington, DC, the ICA publishes five refereed journals, a yearbook, and a monthly online newsletter; sponsors a book series; and holds regional conferences and an annual conference. The annual conference meets around the world on a geographical rotation in the Americas, Asia, and Europe. The ICA’s diverse structure of 25 divisions and special interest groups represents sub-fields of communication research (→ Communication as a Field and Discipline). Since 2003, the ICA has been officially associated with the United Nations as a nongovernmental association (NGO).

The overall purposes of the ICA are to advance the scholarly study of human communication and to facilitate the implementation of such study in order to be of maximum benefit to humankind by (1) encouraging the systematic study of theories, processes, and skills of human communication; and (2) facilitating the dissemination of research through an organizational structure responsive to communication study areas, a program of organizational affiliates, regular sponsorship of international meetings, and a commitment to a program of scholarly publication.

The international identity of the ICA has been a key issue with several debates about what it means to be ‘international.’ The most significant change began in the late 1990s when the ICA purposefully set about to change itself from a US-based organization that happened to have international members to a truly international organization that happened to be based in the US.

ICA is an organization of continuous change that highlights the fluid nature, improvisation, and cyclical process of organizations and organizational change without any seeming end state. At the same time, it continues to engage in the clearly purposeful, infrequent, and divergent behavior that is symptomatic of episodic change. The two processes have served the organization in complementary fashion.

International News Reporting

Chris Paterson

University of Leeds

International news reporting evolved with the advent of the telegraph in the mid-1800s. The explosion of foreign news that followed largely supported the colonial empires; it also focused on international conflicts involving them (while all but ignoring others).

Only a relatively small number of large media organizations routinely engage in international reporting. These include the global news services such as the → BBC, → CNN, and news agencies (Reuters, Associated Press, Agence France-Presse), and large newspapers and broadcasters from the world’s wealthiest countries, such as the New York Times, Le Monde, NHK in Japan, or the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Foreign coverage is most often provided, if at all, through news agency subscriptions or the purchase of syndicated stories from larger organizations. Only the rare international journey is undertaken, usually to find a ‘local angle’ on a massive story receiving saturation coverage by the global press.

A classic critique of international reporting bore the label ‘parachute journalism,’ signifying the practice of jetting correspondents to breaking stories around the world, where they would spend just hours or days before moving on to the next. As international coverage increasingly became conflict reporting parachute journalism evolved into ‘rooftop’ journalism, where inaccessible military action a great distance away was described to international television audiences by correspondents on the roofs of luxury hotels.

Numerous journalists have been expelled from countries by having their visas or work permits revoked, but given the high numbers of journalists killed in recent years, this is now regarded as a mild penalty – if not a badge of honor (→ Violence against Journalists).

Crucial technological change in international reporting has come about since the mid-1990s, driven mostly by the ability to compress, and therefore transmit more cheaply, streams of digital information, including high-quality television pictures. Smaller and better cameras, satellite video-telephones, video transmission via Internet and laptop computers, enabling the writing of stories and editing of pictures in the field, have revolutionized the logistics of news gathering, and allowed journalists to distribute their content by television, radio, newspaper, Internet, and, increasingly, mobile phone from nearly anywhere on earth.

References and Suggested Readings

1. Carruthers, S. (2011) The media at war, 2nd edn. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
2. Hamilton, J. (2004). Redefining foreign correspondence. Journalism, 5(3), 301–322.
3. Paterson, C. (2011) The international television news agencies: The world from London. New York: Peter Lang.
4. Williams, K. (2011) International journalism. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

International Radio

Per Jauert

Aarhus University

Since radio broadcasting was launched shortly after World War I, it has served two culturally different functions. On the one hand it was an effective instrument in the nation-building process, and on the other it was from its initial years distributed on a global scale. Over the past century, radio in large part shaped a national sense of shared imaginations and frames of reference, and at the same time also maintained its position as an international medium.

During the 1930s radio was perceived as one of the most powerful media to influence → public opinion. The Nazis described and used it as an efficient → propaganda instrument (Hendy 2000). American, British, and other European broadcasters – public, state, and private – shared the assessment of radio as an instrument of strong political influence. Apart from the interventionist use of radio as a political instrument, one also finds services related to the export and dissemination of cultural values and commodities. From the mid-1960s, the → BBC World Service, Deutsche Welle, and Radio France Internationale mainly served these functions.

With the introduction of the FM band from around 1960, radio became a more clearly defined national medium. The FM band is limited to a range of 50 miles, but has a better hi-fi sound quality than AM, and thus was an excellent vehicle for the expanding popular music industry (→ Music Industry; Popular Music). During the late 1990s three major platforms for radio distribution were adopted: analog broadcast radio, digital audio broadcasting (specialized channel formats), and radio on the Internet/web radio, where the user is able to compose different media elements from the website, often parallel streaming of the analog channels, streaming audio, and supplementary written information, video clips, downloading of programs (podcasting), and other features.

References

1. Hendy, D. (2000). Radio in the global age. Cambridge: Polity.
2. Scannell, P. (1996). Radio, television and modern life. Oxford: Blackwell.
3. Milan, S. (2013). Social Movements and Their Technologies. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

International Television

Michael Curtin

University of California, Santa Barbara

During the latter half of the twentieth century, most discussions about international television tended to focus on national media systems and relations of exchange among those systems. Since the 1990s, however, television has increasingly been studied as a global phenomenon. Although national systems still figure prominently, research and policy debates now explore the ways in which television participates in broader processes of globalization (→ Globalization of the Media; Globalization Theories).

The crisis of legitimacy of many national broadcast media in Europe in the 1980s was exacerbated by a growing competition from transnational satellite services that fell outside the domain of national broadcast regulation (→ Satellite Communication, Global; Satellite Television). Businesses supported these new technologies since they promised to expand the availability of television advertising time and diminish government control over the airwaves. Cable and satellite channels initially targeted two groups: transnational niche viewers, e.g., business executives, sports enthusiasts, and music video fans, and sub-national niche groups, e.g., regional, local, or ethnic audiences (→ Cable Television). These trends soon spread beyond Europe to countries such as India, Australia, and Indonesia. Meanwhile, in countries where national commercial systems had long prevailed, existing broadcasters likewise found themselves challenged by a growing number of niche competitors.

Changes in television were further stimulated by a new generation of corporate moguls – such as Rupert Murdoch (→ News Corporation), Ted Turner (→ CNN), and Akio Morita (→ Sony Corporation) – who aspired to build global media empires that integrated television, music, motion picture, → video games, and other media enterprises. This ‘neo-network era’ of multiple channels and flexible corporate structures has also fostered the growth of commercial media conglomerates outside the west, such as Zee TV in India and Phoenix TV in China. And it has forced western corporations, such as Viacom, to adapt their content to local and regional markets around the globe.

Many scholars took a critical perspective on international television. Television’s changing character worldwide was seen part of a broader process of globalization that has been unfolding for at least 500 years and was facilitated already over the past 150 years by electronic communication technologies like the telegraph, telephone, radio, cinema, television, and computer. Throughout the twentieth century, preserving and promoting national culture over the airwaves was characterized as a key element of national sovereignty. Critics warned that the huge flood of media messages exported from the core industrialized countries served the interests of a western ruling class by squeezing out authentic local voices and promoting a culture of consumption. This “media imperialism” thesis emerged in the 1960s and enjoyed widespread acceptance into the 1980s (→ Cultural Imperialism Theories).

Others began to notice the erosion of → Hollywood’s dominance as the productivity of local TV industries increased. One indication of these new patterns of TV flow can be gleaned from the emergence of global media capitals, such as Bombay (now Mumbai), Cairo, and Hong Kong, each of them now competing for growing shares of the global media market (→ Bollywood). Such locales have developed transnational logics of production and distribution, ones that do not necessarily correspond to the geography, interests, or policies of particular nation-states. Finally, even in countries where the presence of US programs is pervasive, the impact on viewers remains a matter of speculation. Cultural studies researchers have shown how audiences make unanticipated uses of television programming, often reworking the meanings of transnational television texts to accommodate the circumstances of their local social context. Consequently, the homogenizing effect of transnational television flows has been called into question.

These challenges to the media imperialism thesis have formed the foundation of globalization studies of television and they have opened the door to new critical perspectives. By fostering a web of complex connectivity, television participates in the production of new opportunities as well as new anxieties. Our increasingly ‘glocal’ popular culture may, in fact, lay the foundations for nascent transnational political movements around issues such as labor, ecology, and human rights.

The study of international television today examines programming, audiences, and institutions, but it also encourages us to consider the role that electronic media have played for almost two centuries in the longer trajectory of globalization. Writing shortly before the first television satellite launch in 1962, Marshall McLuhan hyperbolically heralded the arrival of a “global village.” Perhaps more modestly today, we might suggest that television facilitates processes whereby villages around the world increasingly perceive their circumstances in relation to global issues, forces, and institutions, as well as local and national ones.

References and Suggested Readings

1. Ang, I. (1996). Living room wars: Rethinking media audiences for a postmodern world. London: Routledge.
2. Curtin, M. (2007). Playing to the world’s biggest audience: The globalization of Chinese film and TV. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
3. Morley, D. (2000). Home territories: Media, mobility, and identity. London: Routledge.
4. Paterson, C. (2011). The International Television News Agencies. The World from London. New York: Peter Lang.
5. Tomlinson, J. (1999). Globalization and culture. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Internet: International Regulation

Wolfgang Kleinwächter

Aarhus University

The first Internet governance institutions reflected the layered, decentralized and denationalized technical architecture of the Internet. For different issues, different nongovernmental and global institutions were established as, inter alia, the Internet Engineering Task Force, the Internet Architecture Board, the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority for domain names and numbers, and the Internet Society for social and economic issues. This network of organizations was further enhanced in the 1990s by the establishment of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) for web protocols, Regional Internet Registries for the IP addresses and others. The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) was established by the father of the domain name system Jon Postel (University of Southern California). In 1988 his institute entered into an agreement with the US Department of Commerce including some funding mechanisms and a shared responsibility which gave the National Information and Telecommunication Authority (NTIA) of the DoC an oversight role.

In July 1997 the Clinton Administration announced that it would transfer some of its oversight functions to a new corporation with the aim of privatizing and globalizing the emerging domain name market based on the principles of security, stability, competition and bottom up multi-stakeholder policy development. In 1998 the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) was established. ICANN got a mandate to coordinate policies for domain names, IP addresses, protocols and root servers. The US Department of Commerce entered into a Memorandum of Understanding with ICANN, but separated the so-called IANA functions – the oversight over the root server plus some elements for allocation of IP address blocks and Internet Protocol parameters assignments – in a special contract and put this again under the oversight of the National Telecommunication and Information Administration (NTIA) of the US Department of Commerce (DoC).

In 2009, the Obama administration gave ICANN its formal independence via a so-called Affirmation of Commitments (AoC), which liberated it from its duties to report to the US government. The AoC introduced an issue based decentralized Review Mechanism where multi-stakeholder review teams oversee ICANN’s performance in various fields such as accountability and transparency, security and stability, competition and database management. The AoC also fixes ICANN’s legal seat and headquarters in Marina del Rey, California, but does not forbid ICANN continuing to globalize itself. ICANN is a private corporation which operates under not-for-profit public law. It is managed by a board which is composed of 16 voting members (eight come from a Nominating Committee, six from Supporting Organizations, one from the At-Large Advisory Committee, plus the elected CEO. Five non-voting liaisons, representing the technical community and the governments, complete the Board.

The main policy-development bodies of ICANN are the Generic Domain Name Supporting Organization, the Country Code Supporting Organization and the Address Supporting Organization. Each of these is managed by a council which is elected by the constituencies of the supporting organizations. Constituencies are, inter alia, Internet registries, registrars, the business community, the noncommercial user constituency, not-for-profit organizations, and the trademark community. A special role is played by the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC), which has a membership of 134 governments (as at 2014). As the name suggests, governments have only an advisory role within ICANN.

At the governmental level, discussed within the United Nations (→ United Nations, Communication Policies of) and the International Telecommunication Union, there are differing viewpoints on the role of governments in Internet regulation, with the United States opting for the liberal approach, as practiced in ICANN, and China opting for more leadership by governments. A UN working group came to a compromise definition declaring that all stakeholders have to be involved. This multi-stakeholder model is based on the concept of sharing policy development and decision-making. Furthermore, it differentiates between the evolution and the use of the Internet. This broad definition made clear that Internet governance is much more than merely Internet names and numbers and goes far beyond the ICANN vs. ITU conflict.

Additionally, the UN Working Group on Internet Governance recommended the establishment of an Internet Governance Forum (IGF) as a discussion platform to discuss public policy related Internet issues. The IGF was designed as a non-decision-making body, convened by the UN Secretary General but distanced from the UN bureaucracy with its own lightweight Secretariat in Geneva. Over the years the IGF transformed itself into a high-level annual meeting-place of more than 2,000 participants from all over the world for the discussion of all related public policy Internet issues. Its annual meetings became something like the ‘Davos of the Internet.’ However the fact that the IGF has no decision-making capacity remains a cause of criticism, in particular by developing countries.

The process of enhanced cooperation remains an issue of controversy. The two different interpretations of Internet regulation deadlock any progress. In the meantime, Internet governance is becoming a focus of more and more governmental and nongovernmental policy activities at other levels including the G8 summits and OECD.

References and further Reading

1. Hamm, I. & Machill, M. (2001). Who Controls the Internet? ICANN as a Case Study in Global Internet Governance. Gütersloh: Verlag Bertelsmann Stiftung. At: http://www.bertelsmann-stiftung.de/cps/rde/xbcr/SID-80708384-1F7BFF70/bst/xcms_bst_dms_15627_15628_2.pdf, accessed August 8, 2014.
2. Noman, H. (2011). In the Name of God: Faith-Based Internet Censorship in Majority Muslim Countries. At: https://opennet.net/sites/opennet.net/files/ONI_NameofGod_1_08_2011.pdf, accessed August 8, 2014.
3. Van Eeten, M. J. G. & Mueller, M. (2012). Where is the governance in Internet governance? New Media & Society, 15 (5), 720–736.
4. Mueller, M. & Kuerbis, B. (2014). Internet Governance Project. Roadmap for globalizing IANA: Four principles and a proposal for reform. A submission to the Global Multistakeholder Meeting on the Future of Internet Governance. At http://www.internetgovernance.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/ICANNreformglobalizingIANAfinal.pdf, accessed August 8, 2014.
5. ICANN (2014). Governmental Advisory Committee. At http://www.icann.org/en/news/correspondence/gac-to-board-27mar14-en.pdf, accessed August 8, 2014.

Internet Law and Regulation

Lyombe Eko

University of Iowa

The Internet is a global network of computer networks. It is regulated by all countries within the framework of their political, economic, social, and cultural regimes. This multiplicity of regulatory approaches has transformed cyberspace into a series of interconnected jurisdictions. (→ Communication and Law).

Since the Internet is a global multi-communication space, its regulation is multilayered. The basic unit of Internet regulation is code, the programming software or logic that makes the Internet function. In his highly acclaimed book, Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace, Lawrence Lessig (1999) conceptualized Internet regulation as space dominated by corporate commercial technologies and the logic of their underlying computer codes, operating within the framework of the rule of law. Additionally, through code, information and communication technologies are used to regulate the behavior of Internet users on a global scale, in accordance with the values, ideals, and ethics of manufacturers, controllers, and hardware and software designers.

Multilateral or International Regulations

International regulation of the Internet consists of a basket of conventions, United Nations resolutions, declarations, and plans of action that cover electronic commerce and electronic signatures, child pornography, and intellectual property. The legal basis for the suppression of child pornography on the Internet is the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. As child pornography became prevalent on the Internet, the UN General Assembly adopted the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography. The United Nations called for worldwide criminalization of the production, distribution, exportation, transmission, importation, and intentional possession and advertising of child pornography.

One of the most significant multilateral Internet agreements on intellectual property was carried out within the framework of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). WIPO’s Internet Domain Name Process involves making recommendations on the management of Internet domain names and addresses worldwide. The WIPO process also involves the settlement of disputes arising from intellectual property issues associated with domain names.

The Neo-Mercantilist Model

The American political and economic system is premised on the notion that the United States is a marketplace of ideas (→ Freedom of Communication; Freedom of the Press, Concept of). As such, except in the narrowest of circumstances, the government may not regulate speech on the basis of its content. These principles are the foundation of the country’s neo-mercantilist Internet law regime. In 1997, the Clinton–Gore administration offered the world a framework for the expansion and regulation of electronic commerce. The administration conceptualized the Internet as a global capitalist marketplace. The Clinton–Gore framework essentially globalized America’s libertarian principles (→ Globalization of the Media): the marketplace of ideas, laissez-faire economics, free trade, and the free flow of information, goods, and services.

One of the most contentious issues of the Internet age is unauthorized online peer-to-peer exchange of copyrighted material. The first free music exchange company, Napster, was shut down when federal courts in the United States found that users who participated in the peer-to-peer music exchange promoted by the company infringed on the exclusive reproduction and distribution rights of musicians and record companies. In 2005, the Supreme Court of the United States held in MGM v. Grokster that companies whose free software allowed peer-to-peer distribution of lawful and unlawful copyrighted material on the Internet by third parties were liable for acts of infringement facilitated by the software.

Other Models of Regulation

Under its ideology of ‘exception culturelle’ (cultural exception), France has classified the French language, and the French media and telecommunications infrastructure, as part of its cultural heritage that should be jealously protected against Anglo-American domination. This culturalist perspective has also been applied to the Internet. In order to protect French national identity, language, and culture on the Internet, new terminology spawned by Internet technology is systematically replaced with French neologisms (→ Cultural Products as Tradable Services; Communication Law and Policy: Europe; France: Media System).

The Internet has, over the years, been increasingly impacted by ‘Euro-governmentality,’ the hierarchical relationship between the European Union (and to a lesser extent, the Council of Europe) and European nation-states. The Euro-communitarian Internet regulatory system is a market-based system of governance characterized by the formulation and transfer of directives, in specific issue areas of Internet communication, from the European Union to its member countries. The system is based on the transposition and uniform application of EU Directives on the Information Society for purposes of harmonization.

In the ‘gateway model’ a governmental agency serves as the gateway to the Internet. Usually, the government creates a national intranet that insulates and isolates the country domain from the rest of the Internet. Access to the Internet is thus granted or denied in the name of national security, culture, morality, or some other governmental interest. The gateway model of Internet regulation is most evident in Russia, China, Burma, Cuba, North Korea, and other countries (→ China: Media System; Communication Law and Policy: Asia; Russia: Media System).

Geert Hofstede (2005) advanced a typology of cultural dimensions that includes a “Confucian-Asian cluster” of countries ranging from China and Japan, through South Korea and Vietnam. Tu Wei-ming and other scholars assert that Confucianism has enjoyed a resurgence in Asia since the 1980s, where its cultural values have been reinvented and reasserted as a defense mechanism against cultural globalization. These countries have a Confucianist model of Internet regulation that reflects culture-specific appropriations of the governmentality, worldview, and social hierarchies that originated in China.

The postures of Arab-Islamic countries toward the Internet have evolved over time. They have gone from active resistance – the Internet was viewed as a conduit for western decadence that would infect Arab-Islamic culture – to allowing controlled access to government-approved content on national intranets that insulate and isolate country domains from the live, uncensored Internet. During the Arab uprisings that started in 2010, many governments shut down the Internet to prevent social media from being used to rally anti-government demonstrators.

With the diffusion of the Internet around the world in the 1990s, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), United Nations agencies, and international aid agencies conceptualized the Internet as a catalyst for economic and social development in the third world. The main shortcoming of this rather deterministic ‘developmentalist model’ of the international community is that it focuses almost exclusively on Internet connectivity and pays little or no attention to infrastructural and content issues. (→ Africa: Media Systems; Communication Law and Policy: Africa).

References and Suggested Readings

1. Clinton, W. & Gore, A. (1997). A framework for electronic commerce. Washington, DC: United States Printing Office.
2. Eko, L. (2001). Many spiders, one world wide web: Towards a typology of Internet regulation. Communication Law and Policy, 6, 448–460.
3. Eko, L. (2006). New medium: Old free speech regimes: The historical and ideological foundations of French and American regulation of bias-motivated speech and symbolic expression on the Internet. Loyola of Los Angeles International and Comparative Law Review, 28(1), 69–127.
4. Hofstede, Geert H. (2005). Cultures and organizations: Software of the mind. New York: McGraw-Hill.
5. Lessig, L. (1999). Code and other laws of cyberspace. New York: Basic Books.
6. Mattelart, A. (2002). La mondialisation de la communication [Globalization of communication]. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.
7. Tu Wei-ming (ed.) (1996). Confucian traditions in East Asian modernity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Internet News

Lyombe Eko

Indiana University Bloomington

Thorsten Quandt

Westfälische Wilhelms-University Münster

Between the release of the world wide web standard in 1991, the start of the first online news publications worldwide in the mid-1990s, the ‘Kidon Media-Link’ international database of 18,318 online news media in 2006, and the emergence of 70 million or more weblogs and podcasts, of which about one-tenth focus on news, one could say the web has become a widely accepted and used platform for the production and dissemination of news – by both professional reporters and amateurs (→ Citizen Journalism). Not only have thousands of professional news media started websites, but millions of individual users and special interest groups have used the web as an outlet for their news as well.

Research on internet news has addressed several topics. As journalists are now using the Internet regularly in their daily work several scholars have studied the effects of this adoption process, including the practices of computer-assisted reporting (CAR). Another aspect related to CAR is how to deal with online communication such as email, posts in newsgroups and discussion forums, weblogs, and instant or chat messages (including SMS and MMS via cell phones) in an environment where the verification of information is extremely difficult due to the often anonymous, fast-paced (or instantaneous) communication involved. With the integration of user-generated content (UGC) into mainstream media (e.g. via user-produced pictures or eyewitness accounts), the filtering, checking, and reworking of material supplied by lay people becomes an important aspect of editorial work (→ Web 2.0 and the News). In parallel with this development, questions of authorship, quality, and process control – and essentially the meaning of journalism in an open system – gain significance (Singer et al. 2011). Several studies also signal the worrying fact that the Internet sometimes even causes journalists to spend more time at their computer instead of going ‘out on the street.’

Online journalism should be seen as journalism produced more or less exclusively for the web (the graphic user interface of the Internet; → Online Journalism). It has been functionally differentiated from other kinds of journalism by using its technological component as a determining factor in terms of an operational definition – just like the fields of print, radio, and television journalism before it. The online journalist has to make decisions on which media format or formats best tell a certain story (multimediality), has to consider options for the public to respond, interact, or even customize certain stories (interactivity), and thinks about ways to connect the story to other stories, archives, resources, and so on through hyperlinks.

How online journalists in their daily work articulate the characteristics of the new medium can be considered across two dimensions. First, online journalists are more likely than their offline colleagues to consider interactivity-related issues (such as providing a forum for public debate) among the most important aspects of their job. Internet news thus exists somewhere on a continuum between professionally produced content and the provision of public connectivity (→ Interactivity, Concept of). The second dimension represents the level of participatory communication offered through a news site. A site can be considered to be ‘open’ when it allows users to share comments and posts, and upload files without moderating or filtering intervention, or ‘closed’ when users may participate but their communicative acts are subject to strict editorial moderation and control (Domingo et al. 2008).

It is possible to map four more or less distinct categories of Internet news. The most widespread form of Internet news is the ‘mainstream news site,’ generally offering a selection of (aggregated) editorial content and a minimal, usually filtered or moderated, form of participatory communication. ‘Index and category sites’ are generally operated by net-based companies such as certain search engines, marketing firms, Internet service providers, or enterprising individuals. ‘Meta- and comment sites’ contain numerous examples of Internet news that either serve as a platform to exchange and discuss news published elsewhere online, or offer an outlet for so-called ‘alternative’, non-mainstream, or nonprofit news (→ Alternative Journalism). ‘Share and discussion sites,’ finally, are places where any meaningful distinction between the producer and the user, between the news professional and the amateur reporter, or between opinion and fact, for that matter, is lost.

References and Suggested Readings

1. Deuze, M. (2003). The web and its journalisms: Considering the consequences of different types of news media online. New Media and Society, 5(2), 203–230.
2. Domingo, D., Quandt, T., Heinonen, A., Paulussen, S., Singer, J., & Vujnovic, M. (2008). Participatory journalism practices in the media and beyond: An international comparative study of initiatives in online newspapers. Journalism Practice, 2(3), 326–342.
3. Paterson, C. & Domingo, D. (2008). Making online news: The ethnography of new media production. New York: Peter Lang.
4. Quinn, S. (2006). Convergent journalism. New York: Peter Lang.
5. Singer, J., Hermida, A., Domingo, D. et al. (2011). Participatory journalism: Guarding open gates at online newspapers. New York: Wiley Blackwell.

Internet and Popular Culture

Jacqueline Lambiase

Texas Christian University

Communication created and shared through the Internet has proliferated since 1990, with nearly 4 billion people worldwide adapting to the web’s creative spaces through easy-to-use technology on computers, mobile phones, smart phones, and tablets (→ Exposure to the Internet). The Internet not only provides access to web spaces where people view or listen to professional and amateur digital video, photographs, music, and stories, but also allows people to produce and disseminate their creative materials to mass audiences (→ Photography; Popular Music). In this respect, the Internet serves as a literal ‘circuit of culture,’ a theory explaining human identity, production, consumption, regulation, and representation of the cultural objects of everyday life (→ Information Society).

The most common popular communication applications for the Internet include social networking (→ Social Media), blogging, instant messaging, and → electronic mail messages. With rising use of email in the mid-1990s, attachments containing computer-generated images began to be exchanged among private individuals, with some attachments achieving incredible popularity. Weblogging sites provide templates to make reverse chronology journal postings easy for users. Other social networking sites such as → Twitter.com or → Facebook.com, started in 2004 and now serving more over one billion users, also provide templates for users who create personal web pages linked to networks of real-world friends and new online acquaintances. All of these social media sites allow users to share opinions, links, and media with communities of interest through an RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed, which updates material across the web in real time, causing some messages or images to ‘go viral,’ reaching thousands of people within hours (→ Network Organizations through Communication Technology).

Personal and collaborative websites – where users are encouraged to upload their own digital art, music, photography, video, and written text through peer-to-peer file sharing – serve a variety of interests including mass media, religion, politics, education, and celebrity fandom. Online literary efforts include hypertextual novels, websites that allow people to upload stories about favorite characters or to share fan-written television scripts.

References and Suggested Readings

1. Fishwick, M. (2004). Probing popular culture: On and off the Internet. Binghamton, NY: Haworth.
2. Hermes, J. (2005). Re-reading popular culture. Malden, MA: Blackwell.
3. Hills, M. (2002). Fan cultures. London: Routledge.
4. Johnson, S. (2006). Everything bad is good for you: How today’s popular culture is actually making us smarter. New York: Riverhead.

Interorganizational Communication

Marya L. Doerfel

Rutgers University

Interorganizational communication (IOC) emphasizes relationships organizations have with external constituents as opposed to relationships that occur internally. IOC considers issues like information flows, information sharing, reputation, cooperation, competition, coalition building, and power (→ Organizational Communication).

Scholarship considers organizational roles within social structures and how structures influence and are influenced by organizational power, reputation, dependency on others, market share, and social influence. A substantial component involves understanding relationships from a social networks perspective (→ Communication Networks).

Macro-level theory involves analysis of the greater interorganizational contexts in the pursuit of uncovering idealized structures, understanding dynamics of interorganizational systems, and investigating how collective systems are formed and maintained. Communication scholarship typically identifies individual organizational actions and their subsequent contribution to a greater context of relationships. Theory development is in areas of reputation, social influence, cooperative/competitive relationships, and evolutionary dynamics. Overall, interorganizational structures are assessed with a variety of methodological approaches, and theory development is tightly coupled with such methodologies. For example, dense networks of local organizations indicate social capital; macro structures of communication flows indicate distribution of power.

On the micro-level ‘alliance theories’ suggest that organizations network with others in order to manage uncertainty and relationships. Extending information sharing to seemingly altruistic intentions, ‘public goods theory’ attempts to unravel the nature of organizational activities that contribute to overall collective benefits without necessarily offering instantly observable advantages to contributors. Early developments reflect the underlying principle that IOC is marked by the simultaneous existence of cooperative–competitive relationships. Such studies showed the evolution of communication activities that facilitated sharing resources without realizing instant reward for such behavior (e.g., Browning et al. 1995).

Monge et al. (1998) integrated communication technologies as a resource for supporting information sharing and collective action. Ongoing collaborative activities create a neutral ‘space’ for information sharing, and that information sharing begins with small contributions with transformation toward more collective, cooperative ventures. Future research is directed toward understanding the IOC processes that facilitate collaborative endeavors and result in collective advantages.

‘Resource dependency theory’ explains the influence of organizations’ roles in their environment relative to the extent to which they are wielders or needy of resources. More reliant organizations are more likely to cooperate, comply with external demands, and engage in activities that support obtaining resources. Meanwhile, resource-wielding organizations reap benefits including improved reputation, power, and social influence. Doerfel & Taylor (2005) showed that the extent to which an organization is seen as cooperative relates to the extent to which the organization needs more key resources. Flanagin et al. (2001) demonstrated advantages associated with early entrants to cooperative ventures- founding members experienced greater reputational benefits and more social influence than later system entrants.

IOC also involves stakeholders, which can include other organizations and also those who care about (“have a stake in”) the focal organization such as volunteers and employees. Lewis et al. (2003) integrated stakeholder theory and resource dependency theory in understanding communication strategies used by organizations during planned change (→ Organizational Change Processes). IOC research demonstrates that ‘history matters.’ Cooperation-competition, reputation and social influence related to and emerge from past relationships. New directions promote models that advance psychological, social, and communication theory (multi-theoretical models) with individuals’, groups’, and organizations’ interactions (multilevel models).

References and Suggested Readings

1. Browning, L. D., Beyer, J. M., & Shetler, J. C. (1995). Building cooperation in a competitive industry: SEMATECH and the semiconductor industry. Academy of Management Journal, 38, 113–151.
2. Doerfel, M. L. & Taylor, M. (2005). Network dynamics of interorganizational communication: The Croatian civil society movement. Communication Monographs, 71, 373–394.
3. Flanagin, A. J., Monge, P., & Fulk, J. (2001). The value of formative investment in organizational federations. Human Communication Research, 27, 69–93.
4. Lewis, L. K., Richardson, B. K., & Hamel, S. A. (2003). When the “stakes” are communicative: The lamb’s and the lion’s share during nonprofit planned change. Human Communication Research, 29, 400–430.
5. Monge, P. & Contractor, N. S. (2003). Theories of communication networks. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
6. Monge, P., Fulk, J., Kalman, M. E., Flanagin, A. J., Parnassa, C., & Rumsey, S. (1998). Production of collective action in alliance-based interorganizational communication and information systems. Organization Science, 9, 411–433.
7. Stohl, M. & Stohl, C. (2005). Human rights, nation states, and NGOs: Structural holes and the emergence of global regimes. Communication Monographs, 72, 442–467.

Interpersonal Attraction

Susanne M. Jones

University of Minnesota

Interpersonal attraction was conceptualized initially as a relatively stable attitude that leads to positive sentiments for another person and that serves as the catalyst for initiating interpersonal interaction. It is now viewed as a dynamic, affective force that draws people together and permeates all stages of interpersonal relationships (→ Ingratiation and Affinity Seeking).

McCroskey & McCain (1974) identified three types of interpersonal attraction. Task attraction refers to our desire to work with someone, whereas physical attraction occurs when we are drawn to a person’s physical appearance. Social attraction reflects our desire to develop a friendship with that person. Their interpersonal attraction scale (IAS) measures these three types of attraction. Judgments of physical attractiveness are one of the top predictors of interpersonal attraction. Both sexes are biased toward beauty and tend to perceive physically attractive people as more rewarding than physically unattractive people. A second factor that influences interpersonal attraction is similarity. Similar others are attractive because they serve as universal reinforcers of our worldview. Several communication qualities seem also to play a crucial role in interpersonal attraction; among them are warmth, sociability, and competent communication (→ Interpersonal Communication Competence and Social Skills). Proximity and familiarity are two final predictors of attractiveness.

Integral to the vast majority of interpersonal attraction studies is the assumption that we find others attractive if we perceive them to be rewarding, an idea that has been drawn from → social exchange theories. Berger and Calabrese’s → Uncertainty Reduction Theory (URT) contends that it is not perceived reward value per se that causes attraction; rather it is the extent to which we are able to reduce our initial uncertainty about others that attracts us to others. A second theoretical approach that explains the causes and outcomes of attraction is social evolutionary theory (Buss 1994). Humans, like all mammalian species, are driven to advance the species by mating with those who are most genetically fit. Genetic fitness is manifested in phenotypic features such as physical attractiveness and other personality characteristics. Consequently, people are drawn to those who possess advantageous phenotypic features because these features suggest strong genes and thus provide a survival advantage.

References and Suggested Readings

1. Berscheid, E. & Walster, E. H. (1969). Interpersonal attraction. Reading, MA: Addison Wesley.
2. Buss, D. M. (1994). The evolution of desire: Strategies of human mating. New York: Basic Books.
3. McCroskey, J. C. & McCain, T. A. (1974). The measurement of interpersonal attraction. Speech Monographs, 41, 261–266.

Interpersonal Communication

Charles R. Berger

University of California, Davis

Interpersonal communication concerns the study of social interaction between people. Interpersonal communication theory and research seek to understand how individuals use discourse and nonverbal actions to achieve a variety of instrumental and communication goals. Interpersonal communication has been traditionally viewed as a process that occurs between people encountering each other face to face. Increasingly, however, social interaction is being accomplished through the use of interactive media. As a sub-field of the communication discipline, interpersonal communication can be divided into the six unique but related areas of study described below.

Uncertainty in Interpersonal Communication

When individuals engage in social interaction with each other, they cannot be completely certain of their conversational partners’ current goals, emotional states, beliefs, attitudes, and future actions. Individuals also harbor uncertainties about how they should act toward their partners. These uncertainties are maximal when strangers meet, but uncertainties can also arise in close relationships of long duration. → Uncertainty Reduction Theory (URT; Berger & Calabrese 1975) proposes that individuals must reduce their uncertainties to some degree in order to be able to fashion verbal discourse and actions that will allow them to achieve their interaction goals.

URT has found purchase in explaining social interaction in intercultural (Gudykunst 1995) and organizational (Kramer 2004) communication contexts (→ Organizational Communication; Intercultural and Intergroup Communication). Individuals may experience uncertainty with respect to their relationships with each other (→ Relational Uncertainty), and individuals may not necessarily be motivated to reduce their uncertainty when they anticipate experiencing negative outcomes by so doing (→ Uncertainty Management).

Interpersonal Adaption

When individuals converse, they show strong proclivities to reciprocate each other’s verbal and nonverbal behaviors. Although the forces for reciprocity in social interaction are highly pervasive, there are conditions under which interacting individuals will show compensation in response to each other’s behaviors. Compensation occurs when a behavior displayed by one person is not matched in some way by another. A number of alternative theories have been devised to illuminate the conditions under which reciprocity and compensation are likely to occur, especially with respect to nonverbal behaviors. Although these theories differ in terms of their explanations for reciprocity/compensation, they share a common assumption that when expectations for nonverbal behavior are violated, individuals tend to experience arousal. Research comparing these theories has been inconclusive and has prompted the development of Interaction Adaptation Theory (Burgoon et al. 2010).

Message Production

Just as language is a tool for attaining everyday goals, social interaction is an instrument for goal achievement. Consistent with this proposition, constructivist researchers have endeavored to determine the characteristics of messages deemed to be effective for achieving a variety of goals, most of them concerned with → persuasion. A more comprehensive and abstract message production theory labeled → Action Assembly Theory (Greene 1997) has been developed to explain how individuals produce actions and discourse. Theories featuring such knowledge structures as scripts and plans have also been devised (Berger 1997). According to these Goal-Plan-Action (GPA) theories (Dillard et al. 2002), scripts and plans are hierarchically organized knowledge structures representing action sequences that will bring about the achievement of goals. Once goals are activated, these knowledge structures guide actions toward goal attainment.

Relationship Development

Interpersonal communication plays a critical role in the development, maintenance, and deterioration of social and personal relationships. A central question researchers have sought to answer is why some relationships become closer over time while others grow distant and perhaps end. Social exchange theories have frequently been invoked to explain why relationship growth and deterioration occur (Roloff 1981; → Social Exchange). These theories suggest that individuals experience both rewards for and costs of being in relationships with each other. Favorable relative reward/cost ratios fuel relationship growth, whereas unfavorable ratios are associated with relationship deterioration. Relational dialectics researchers contend that the development of relationships is fraught with dialectical tensions that may serve to pull individuals in opposite directions simultaneously (Baxter & Montgomery 1996; → Relational Dialectics). Because tensions between these polarities shift over time, relationships are in a constant state of flux.

Deceptive Communication

Many interpersonal communication researchers recognize that deception is an integral part of social interaction. Many times ‘white lies’ are told to help co-interlocutors save face when potentially embarrassing circumstances arise in social situations (→ Politeness Theory). Two enduring questions concerning deceptive communication have attracted considerable research attention. One of these concerns the degree to which engaging in deception alters nonverbal behaviors; i.e. do truth tellers’ nonverbal behaviors differ systematically from those of individuals who are telling lies? Specific behaviors may be diagnostic of deceptive communication in specific individuals; however, no universal nonverbal indicator of deceptive communication has yet been identified (→ Deception Detection Accuracy).The second enduring question is the degree to which individuals are skilled at detecting deception. Research has shown that most individuals, including law-enforcement professionals, are not very adept at detecting deception.

Mediated Social Interaction

Increasingly, social interaction is being accomplished through various communication technologies. These developments have prompted a concomitant increase in research aimed at understanding their potential individual and social effects (→ Mediated Social Interaction). Research has sought to determine how computer-mediated communication (CMC) and face-to-face (FtF) interaction differ with respect the outcomes associated with their use (Walther 2010). Because text-based CMC filters out many nonverbal cues available to people engaged in FtF interactions, it is presumed that communication via text-based CMC is more task focused than is FtF communication. Although relatively cue-deprived, text-based CMC venues may be useful for initially encountering and screening potential friends and romantic partners, they apparently do not afford sufficient information for developing close relationships. Individuals who initially meet in the text-based CMC world usually elect to communicate with each other through other channels, e.g., phone and FtF encounters.

References and Suggested Readings

1. Baxter, L. A. & Montgomery, B. M. (1996). Relating: Dialogues and dialectics. New York: Guilford.
2. Berger, C. R. (1997). Planning strategic interaction: Attaining goals through communicative action. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
3. Berger, C. R. & Calabrese, R. J. (1975). Some explorations in initial interaction and beyond: Toward a developmental theory of interpersonal communication. Human Communication Research, 1, 99–112.
4. Burgoon, J. K., Floyd, K., & Guerrero, L. K. (2010). Nonverbal communication theories of interaction adaptation. In C. R. Berger, M. E. Roloff, & D. R. Roskos-Ewoldsen (eds.), Handbook of communication science, 2nd edn. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, pp. 93–108.
5. Dillard, J. P., Anderson, J. W., & Knobloch, L. K. (2002). Interpersonal influence. In M. L. Knapp & J. A. Daly (eds.), Handbook of interpersonal communication, 3rd edn. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, pp. 425–474.
6. Greene, J. O. (1997). A second generation action assembly theory. In J. O. Greene (ed.), Message production: Advances in communication theory. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, pp. 151–170.
7. Gudykunst, W. B. (1995). Anxiety/uncertainty management (AUM) theory. In R. L. Wiseman (ed.), Intercultural communication theory. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, pp. 8–58.
8. Kramer, M. W. (2004). Managing uncertainty in organizational communication. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
9. Roloff, M. E. (1981). Interpersonal communication: The social exchange approach. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
10. Walther, J. B. (2010). Computer-mediated communication. In C. R. Berger, M. E. Roloff, & D. R. Roskos-Ewoldsen (eds.), Handbook of communication science, 2nd edn. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, pp. 489–505.

Interpersonal Communication Competence and Social Skills

Brian H. Spitzberg

San Diego State University

Interpersonal communication competence and social skills are concerned with both the performance of communication and the evaluation of its quality. ‘Interpersonal communication competence’ is typically defined either as the ability to enact message behavior that fulfills requirements of a given situation, or as the subjective evaluation of the quality of message behavior. The first conception views competence as a set of skills or abilities that enable repeated, goal-directed behaviors that fulfill task demands of a particular communication context. The second conception, i.e. the judgment of what constitutes a ‘good’ message behavior brings with it a perceptual dimension that necessarily connects the ability perspective to the subjective evaluation perspective. ‘Social skills’ are similarly defined as either the ability to perform various requisite behaviors in everyday interpersonal encounters, or the evaluation of the quality of performance in such encounters.

A variety of communication dispositions have revealed substantial genetic components in social intelligence. To the extent that social skills are genetically enabled, a set of neurological and physiological processes associated with social skills would be likely. For example, research has demonstrated connections between affectionate skills and stress hormones and conflict skill deficits and immune function. One particular development has been the discovery of ‘mirror neurons’ and their relationship to empathic skills. Mirror neurons are identified by the fact that the same neurons discharge signals for actions that are enacted as well as observed. This discovery suggested a capacity to decode the actions of others in the process of encoding actions by self, a fundamental component of social perception and empathy (Nagy et al., 2010). Further research has begun to examine audiovisual and communicative mirror neurons, as well as neural correlates of emotion recognition (Lee & Siegle 2012). The interpretation is that over time, from early attunement and attachment interactions throughout life, genetic capacities and opportunities for observation of social actions populate neuron coding in action contexts, and such coding facilitates attribution of intentions and social comprehension in interaction contexts.

Most approaches to interpersonal communication competence vary in the extent to which they attend to some combination of affect (motivation), cognition (knowledge), behaviors, outcomes, and evaluations (Spitzberg 2009). Motivational approaches tend to focus on social anxiety (→ Communication Apprehension and Social Anxiety) or goals (→ Goals, Social Aspects of). Knowledge approaches tend to focus on the mental processes by which communicative action is produced (→ Action Assembly Theory). Skills approaches tend to focus on the behavioral abilities that represent quality performance. Finally, outcomes approaches tend to focus on the extent to which communication fulfills or violates expectancies (→ Expectancy Violation), or the subjective dimensions by which communication quality is evaluated or achieves objective outcomes (e.g., recounts information content of a message accurately as a measure of listening).

Exemplary research on interpersonal communication competence examines its role in phenomena such as depression, loneliness, and drug abuse. Other research examines its role in the intercultural adaptation of sojourners, adapting to interpersonal or group differences, or adapting face-to-face skills to a computer-mediated context. Over 100 measures have been identified, and depending on the particular purpose of research, there are approximately a dozen measures available with sufficient research traditions to recommend their use. Examination of the measures of interpersonal communication competence and social skills produces a list of well over 100 potentially distinct skills attributed to competence.

There are five persistent challenges to assessment of interpersonal communication competence: (1) identifying the appropriate domain of skills; (2) the problem that skills exist at different levels of abstraction, at the level of molecular skills (e.g., eye contact) or more molar skills (e.g., assertiveness); (3) whether to measure competence as a trait or state; (4) identifying the most appropriate judge of interpersonal communication competence (a person evaluating self, a person judging a conversational partner, a person being evaluated by an uninvolved third party, or a person being evaluated by an expert judge); and the differentiation between objective and subjective evaluations.

Future research may show promise from advances in theory development or from application of the analysis of expert communicators in certain targeted interpersonal contexts (e.g., managers, negotiators, etc.).

References and Suggested Readings

1. Lee, K. H. & Siegle, G. J. (2012). Common and distinct brain networks underlying explicit emotional evaluation: A meta-analytic study. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 7, 521–534.
2. Nagy, E., Liotti, M., Brown, S., Waiter, G., Bromiley, A. et al. (2010). The neural mechanisms of reciprocal communication. Brain Research, 1353, 159–167.
3. Shah, D. V., McLeod, J. M., & Lee, N. (2009). Communication competence as a foundation for civic competence: Processes of socialization into citizenship. Political Communication, 26(1), 102–117.
4. Spitzberg, B. H. (2009). Axioms for a theory of intercultural communication competence. Annual Review of English Learning and Teaching, 14, 69–81.
5. Spitzberg, B. H. & Cupach, W. R. (2011). Interpersonal skills. In M. L. Knapp & J. A. Daly (eds.), Handbook of interpersonal communication, 4th edn. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, pp. 481–524.

Interpersonal Communication, Sex and Gender Differences in

Daniel J. Canary

Arizona State University

Beth Babin-Gallagher

Arizona State University

Sex differences refer to behavioral variations between men and women based on biological differences; gender differences refer to behavioral variations between people due to cultural, sociological, and/or psychological differences. This entry focuses on the manner in which sex differences affect interpersonal communication behavior (→ Gender and Discourse; Interpersonal Communication).

Self-disclosure refers to information about oneself that is shared with others. Much research suggests that women self-disclose more than do men to friends, parents, spouses, and strangers. For example, women self-disclose more intimately and discuss more topics than do men in their friendships, and men and women differ in their expectations for intimacy in romantic relationships. Although sex differences in self-disclosure appear to be consistent, the significance of those differences is debatable since the effect sizes reported in studies are generally small.

Relational maintenance behaviors refer to ongoing actions and activities undertaken to keep one’s personal relationships as one wants them to be. Several studies have found that women use more openness and sharing tasks to maintain their close involvements than do men, and some research indicates that men are more likely to rely on positivity and assurances (Canary & Wahba 2006). Overall, however, a slight tendency exists for women to engage in maintenance actions more than do men.

In contexts of conflict communication, where they have familiar footing, women appear to be equally or more assertive and confronting than are men. Assertive behaviors include such tactics as attempts to discuss the problem, identifying causes for the conflict, self-disclosure, and so forth. Confronting, assertive behaviors include showing anger, blaming the partner, and putting down the partner. Men tend to engage in more avoidance tactics, including withdrawing from the situation and denying the problem. One explanation for these differences focuses on how boys and girls tend to segregate into groups in the playground, with boys involved in team sports that rely on clearly defined rules of the game and girls engaged in less structured games that focus on relational interaction in lieu of scoring points. Because, on this view, girls develop their conflict negotiation skills whereas boys do not, women tend to want to discuss relational issues and details and men prefer to avoid them. An alternative explanation is that because women are less benefited in conjugal relationships with men, women have more to complain about. A third explanation resides in how men tend to be very sensitive to their own physiological reactions to conflict and withdraw as the result of trying to retain self-control. Women, however, tend to ignore physiological reactions in their focus on attempts to solve relational problems.

Although men and women are more similar than different regarding supportive communication research has revealed that women are more likely than men to seek and provide emotional support (e.g., expressions of sympathy), attend to the other’s feelings, and engage in more highly person-centered (HPC) comforting messages.

Performing a meta-analysis of nonverbal behavior, Hall (2006) found that women display more nonverbal sensitivity and smiling than do men. That is, women tend to be more capable than men at reading cognitive and affective meanings conveyed nonverbally. This effect is largely due to women’s superior reading of facial expressions but not vocal or postural variations. On the other side, Andersen (2006) found that men can decipher spatial nonverbal behaviors and mapping better than women can. Social role theory proposes that the division of labor has led to differences in how men and women relate to other people. An alternative theoretic explanation derives from evolutionary theory, which posits that men’s larger size required them to hunt and to battle competitors. Due to their ability to breast-feed and to their smaller size, women remained at home and took care of children as well as injured warriors, which involved learning how to ascertain the meaning of nonverbal messages.

References and Suggested Readings

1. Canary, D. J. & Wahba, J. (2006). Do women work harder than men at maintaining relationships? In K. Dindia & D. J. Canary (eds.), Sex differences and similarities in communication, 2nd edn. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, pp. 359–377.
2. Dindia, K. & Canary, D. J. (eds.) (2006). Sex differences and similarities in communication, 2nd edn. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
3. Hall, J. A. (2006). How big are nonverbal sex differences? The case of smiling and nonverbal sensitivity. In K. Dindia & D. J. Canary (eds.), Sex differences and similarities in communication, 2nd edn. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, pp. 59–82.
4. Reis, H. T. & Sprecher, S. (eds.). (2009). Encyclopedia of human relationships. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
5. Siegman, A.W. & Feldstein, S. (2009). Nonverbal behavior and communication. New York: Psychology Press.

Interpersonal Conflict

William R. Cupach

Illinois State University

Interpersonal conflict occurs when individuals perceive their own self-interest to be incompatible with another person’s interest, and the other person’s actions undermine the achievement of self-interest. Such incompatibilities are commonplace in all kinds of interpersonal relationships, including those among friends, romantic partners, family members, and co-workers. The opportunities for conflict are greatest in relationships characterized by interdependency and intimate exchange, such as marriage. It is through communication that conflicts are recognized, expressed, and managed.

Numerous sources of perceived incompatibility can trigger interpersonal conflict. Sometimes one person’s goal clashes with another’s (→ Goals, Social Aspects of). Other times, parties disagree about the means to achieve a common goal, or they mistakenly perceive incompatibility due to miscommunication or lack of communication. Conflicts often emerge when behavior violates expectations (→ Expectancy Violation) or runs contrary to social or relational rules. Under such circumstances, one person perceives another’s behavior as annoying, inappropriate, interfering, offensive, or otherwise dispreferred. Conflicts can also reflect broader relationship issues such as power, intimacy, privacy, respect, trust, and commitment. Conflicts about relationship issues and personality tend to be more serious and more difficult to resolve than conflicts about particular behaviors.

Occasionally the source of conflict is not about the incompatibility that is expressed. In such cases the confrontational person creates a conflict to vent latent (and perhaps subconscious) dissatisfaction unrelated to the expressed conflict. For instance, a friend may criticize a companion’s behavior, but the real source of discontent is a bad mood due to a stressful day at work.

One common distinction used to characterize conflict behavior is its constructive versus destructive nature. Constructive conflict conveys neutral or positive affect, assumes a collaborative orientation, and tends to be relationship-preserving. Constructive conflict is reflected in behaviors that focus on problem solving, show respect, save face, share information, and validate each person’s worth. Destructive conflict, on the other hand, conveys negative affect, assumes a competitive orientation, and tends to be relationship-undermining. Behaviors that demean, ridicule, attack, and coerce are typically destructive.

When individuals perceive a conflict, they can choose either to confront the issue or avoid it. People withhold their dissatisfactions when the issue is relatively trivial, when they see little hope of resolving the conflict, or when they feel that confrontation will yield irreparable damage to the relationship. Neither confrontation nor avoidance of conflict is always constructive or destructive. Effective confrontation can yield positive consequences, such as promoting desired change, finding creative solutions to problems, defusing negative arousal, and developing relational solidarity. When confrontation goes awry, it can lead to polarization, stalemate, relationship damage, and physical violence. Thus, strategic avoidance of some conflicts is necessary for interpersonal relationships to develop and be maintained. However, systematically withholding complaints is damaging to relationships when the avoided issues are important, recurring, and foster growing feelings of resentment.

The attributions one makes about another’s conflict behaviors influence how one responds to that behavior. Individuals in distressed relationships are more likely to view their partner’s conflict behavior as global rather than confined to a single issue, stable rather than fleeting, and personality-driven rather than context-driven. Moreover, they perceive their partner’s conflict behavior as intentional, blameworthy, and selfishly motivated. These interpretations foster defensive, hostile, and otherwise destructive responses, which further erode relationship stability.

References and Suggested Readings

1. Canary, D. J., Lakey, S. G., & Sillars, A. (2013). Managing conflict in a competent manner: A mindful look at events that matter. In J. G. Oetzel & S. Ting-Toomey (eds.), The Sage handbook of conflict communication: Integrating theory, research, and practice, 2nd edn. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, pp. 263–289.
2. Caughlin, J. P., Vangelisti, A. L., & Mikucki-Enyart, S. (2013). Conflict in dating and marital relationships. In J. G. Oetzel & S. Ting-Toomey (eds.), The Sage handbook of conflict communication: Integrating theory, research, and practice, 2nd edn. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, pp. 161–186.
3. Gottman, J. M. (1994). What predicts divorce: The relationship between marital processes and marital outcomes. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
4. Roloff, M. E. & Chiles, B. W. (2011). Interpersonal conflict: Recent trends. In M. L. Knapp & J. A. Daly (eds.), The Sage handbook of conflict communication: Integrating theory, research, and practice, 2nd edn. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, pp. 423–442.

Interpretive Journalism

Brant Houston

University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign

Interpretive journalism goes beyond the basic facts of an event or topic to provide context, analysis, and possible consequences. Interpretive journalists are expected to have expertise about a subject and to look for motives and influences that explain what they are reporting. Interpretive journalism also overlaps with other forms of reporting (→ Advocacy Journalism) in which journalists identify who committed wrong or what caused failure.

The levels of interpretation have generally risen since the beginning of the twentieth century in the US (Barnhurst & Mutz 1997; → Journalism, History of) while in Africa, Europe and Latin America interpretation has been at the forefront of reporting. For example, journalist Walter Lippmann in 1920 urged reporters to base their work on facts and analysis. Journalism professor Curtis D. MacDougall encapsulated those concepts in his 1937 textbook Interpretative Reporting (1987). Critics say interpretive journalism permits baseless comment and bias (→ Bias in the News). Yet, journalists in African countries routinely intersperse opinion in articles and in western Europe, objectivity was seldom a central professional value (Donsbach & Klett 1993; → Objectivity in Reporting; Journalists’ Role Perception).

Leading journalists now say the public will need more interpretive journalism because the Internet offers complex information and unsupported opinion (→ Internet News; Citizen Journalism). But some media observers say objectivity and impartiality will become more important as journalism globalizes (→ Globalization of the Media).

References and Suggested Readings

1. Barnhurst, K. & Mutz, D. (1997). American journalism and the decline of event-centered reporting. Journal of Communication, 47(4), 27–53.
2. Donsbach, W. & Klett, B. (1993). Subjective objectivity: How journalists in four countries determine the key term of their profession. Gazette, 51, 53–83.
3. MacDougall, C. D. (1987). Interpretative reporting, 9th edn. New York: Macmillan.

Interview, Qualitative

Daniela Schlütz

Hanover University of Music, Drama and Media

Wiebke Möhring

Hanover University of Applied Sciences and Arts

In a qualitative interview, trained interviewers, often the researcher him- or herself, embark on a question and answer exchange. In contrast to quantitative interviews (→ Interview, Standardized) the interviewer asks open-ended questions and has more flexibility in adjusting the question wording to the individual respondent and the situation. At first sight, a qualitative interview resembles a common conversation. Unlike any day-to-day conversation, however, this method of collecting empirical data follows specific rules and aims at a predefined goal.

An open-ended interview can be conducted for two different reasons. It may be explorative, i.e., aiming at a first understanding of a topic and a deeper insight into the relevant dimensions. An explorative interview is only the first in a series of other, usually standardized research steps. A qualitative interview, on the other hand, is a method of inquiry in its own right. It is theoretically rooted in Mead’s symbolic interactionism (Carreira da Silva 2007). The high value of open-ended interviews lies in the fact that respondents reveal their individual understanding of the topic in question in the context of and from their social position. Qualitative interviewing cannot and does not seek to produce statistical evidence but provides an insight in individual sense-making processes.

Qualitative interviews can be conducted individually or in a group situation. Individual interviews can be differentiated by two dimensions: their degree of standardization (open vs. semi-structured) on the one hand and the kind of knowledge they elicit (narrative-episodic vs. semantic-analytic) on the other hand. More structured types make use of an interview guideline with pre-selected dimensions (but without strict order or specific wording). Completely open-ended interviews (also called in-depth interviews) reconstruct social events as first-hand experience via storytelling. The underlying notion is that stories are less influenced by ex post rationalizations.

Group interviews (or ‘focus groups’) bring together a group of subjects to discuss an issue in the presence of a moderator. He or she stimulates a dialogue, ensures that the topic of discussion stays in focus while eliciting a wide range of opinions. It is important to note that a group interview is not just an easy way to obtain a range of opinions from different people at the same time in order to speed up social research. Group dynamics will interfere with every single opinion. Group interviews should, therefore, only be conducted if the research topic in question is linked to social interaction (like notions of → public opinion).

Two basic approaches can be distinguished. Focus groups are used to generate hypotheses and research questions in a group situation by utilizing a focus to concentrate the respondents’ attention on a particular subject. They allow for identifying the salient dimensions of a complex topic to complement further quantitative research (explorative approach). The group discussion approach, on the other hand, is based on the notion that meaning is created socially. The interactive nature of a group discussion makes this process both visible and understandable. The groups are representatives of real social entities such as classes and thus share common interpretative codes that are disclosed within the discussions.

The interviews, be they individual or group discussions, are audio- or video-taped in an unobtrusive way and later transcribed. The transcripts are analyzed manually or, more frequently, by using qualitative data analysis (QDA) software. The aim is to reduce complexity and to expose underlying structures. Two basic ways of analyzing can be distinguished: theoretical and thematic coding (→ Content Analysis, Qualitative). The latter uses a priori categories; the former works on the material at hand for building categories (‘open coding;’ Glaser & Strauss, 1967; → Grounded Theory). In both cases, the guiding principle is the interaction between the material and the (emerging) theory (hermeneutic circle). The main focus varies between interpretative sensitivity and systematic coding.

Qualitative studies usually search for the special or the typical rather than the general, they seek to generate variance instead of explaining it. Therefore, sampling does not strive for representativeness. More relevant sampling criteria are typicality and accessibility. Two sampling methods are used in qualitative studies: classic and theoretical sampling. The former applies an a priori matrix based on specific characteristics to choose the subjects. The latter evolves during the research progress based on the collected findings and their theoretical saturation.

References and Suggested Readings

1. Carreira da Silva, F. (2007). G. H. Mead: A critical introduction. Cambridge: Polity Press.
2. Denzin, N. K. & Lincoln, Y. S. (eds.) (2000). Handbook of qualitative research, 2nd edn. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
3. Denzin, N. K. & Lincoln, Y. S. (eds.) (2011). Handbook of qualitative research, 4th edn. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
4. Flick, U. (2009). An introduction to qualitative research, 4th edn. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
5. Glaser, B. G. & Strauss, A. (1967). The discovery of grounded theory. Strategies for qualitative research. Chicago, IL: Aldine.
6. Merton, R. K. (1987). The focussed interview and focus groups: Continuities and discontinuities. Public Opinion Quarterly, 51, 550–566.

Interview, Standardized

Wiebke Möhring

Hanover University of Applied Sciences and Arts

Daniela Schlütz

Hanover University of Music, Drama and Media

Quantitative surveys usually comprise standardized interviews conducted by using a questionnaire. The term ‘standardization’ reflects the pre-determination of the course of the interview. In a fully standardized questionnaire each respondent is presented with the same stimulus, i.e., an identical question wording. Therefore, the response (i.e., the answer) is, in theory, statistically comparable to that of another respondent which allows for generalization. Furthermore, the sequence of the questions is exactly specified and the social situation should be constant in every interview.

Standardization aims at the comparability of results as an important prerequisite for generalization and representativeness of the whole → survey. Apart from using a specific sampling technique, this is achieved by a high degree of standardization and by complying with specific criteria regarding selection, training, and control of the interviewers. In media and communication research, quantitative interviews are frequently employed because researchers strive for representative results, e.g. in audience research or studies of → public opinion.

There are several methods of conduct or ‘modes’. Quantitative interviews can be conducted orally, either in person (face-to-face interview) or via telephone. They can also be carried out in writing (self-administered questionnaire). All three forms may be supported by use of the computer. The interview situation will change significantly according to the applied mode.

In standardized interviews the interviewer has a different role than in qualitative interviews (→ Interview, Qualitative). Their task is to set the stimulus interviewers in an invariant way without knowing too much about the purpose of the study.

The question then directly activates a multilevel cognitive process consisting of at least five steps (Schwarz & Oyserman 2001, 129). The interviewee has to (1) understand the question, (2) recall the relevant behavior, (3) make inferences and estimations concerning this behavior, (4) adapt his or her answer to fit the response format, and (5) edit the answer for reasons of social desirability. This process implies that respondents are able and willing to report their behavior properly.

A quantitative survey is normally based on a particular research question. The relevant theoretical constructs are translated into appropriate indicators which then become the content of respective questions (→ Operationalization). The final version of the questionnaire is subject to a pre-test and afterwards submitted to the selected sample. Subsequently, the data are transferred into a data processing program and statistically analyzed.

Each of these steps is prone to possible error and has to be conducted meticulously to guarantee methodological quality. The operationalization of the research question, i.e. the wording of the questionnaire, is a particularly important step. First, this requires the pre-definition of the indicators that have to be collected. Second, they have to be phrased in a wording comprehensible to all respondents. In a good questionnaire, the researcher’s frame of reference is transferred into questions that are adequate to the respondents’ frame of reference. In methodological research, this aspect is the subject of many studies because the survey’s → reliability and → validity depend on the quality of the questions and the respondents’ understanding of them. Thus, survey questions have to be clear and concrete, explicit, and nonsuggestive.

Generally, there are two types of questions: open-ended (without alternative answers) and closed ones (including all alternative answers). Because research has shown that open-ended questions are more prone to error (due to different memory and verbalization capabilities on the side of the respondent) closed questions are mostly used in standardized interviews. Closed questions enable the researcher to compare respondents as the answers define the frame of reference. These categories guide the respondents more strongly and constrain them at the same time. Therefore, they are regarded as more valid and reliable than open-ended questions. There are various forms of closed questions. They may be simple alternative questions, multi-choice questions with a range of possible answers, ranking scales to measure order, or rating scales to measure intensity. The scale types can be classified as nominal, ordinal, or interval according to the data level they produce.

References and Suggested Readings

1. Bradburn, N., Sudman, S., & Wansink, B. (2004). Asking questions: the definitive guide to questionnaire design. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
2. Möhring, W. & Schlütz, D. (2010). Die Befragung in der Kommunikationswissenschaft [Standardized interviewing in communication research]. Wiesbaden: VS.
3. Schwarz, N. & Oyserman, D. (2001). Asking questions about behavior: Cognition, communication, and questionnaire construction. American Journal of Evaluation, 22, 127–160.
4. Sudman, S., Bradburn, N. M., & Schwarz, N. (1996). Thinking about answers: The application of cognitive processes to survey methodology. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Involvement with Media Content

Werner Wirth

University of Zurich

In modern communication research, 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 processing of media content. However, conceptualizations of involvement are multifaceted. In general, one can distinguish between a broader and a more confined concept of involvement.

Involvement as a meta-concept or a general research perspective encompasses a family of related though distinct concepts that inform us of how users are occupied with the media and their content in diverse ways, and how they engage with them in a cognitive, affective, conative, and motivational way (Salmon 1986). These concepts include cognitive responses, felt emotions, attention, recall, → information seeking, and discussions about a topic. More confined, a process-oriented definition of involvement directly refers to the phase of media usage and encompasses the intensity of an individual’s cognitive, emotional, or conative engagement with the media message (Cameron 1983, Wirth, 2006)

In origin, involvement is rooted in three major research traditions. (1) Within the social judgment theory, ego-involvement is the relatedness of an issue to a person’s self-picture and self-identity (Salmon 1986). In contrast, task-involvement results from the experimental manipulation performed by the researcher (→ Experiment, Laboratory). (2) In the framework of the dual process theories on persuasion, involvement is conceptualized as personal relevance of an issue (→ Elaboration Likelihood Model). (3) In (early) consumer research, involvement is conceptualized as conscious bridging experiences between the life of a media user and a media stimulus.

Audience and effects research sometimes differentiates between the often high-involved usage of print media and the frequently low-involved usage of electronic media (→ Exposure to Radio; Exposure to Television). Alternatively, within the → Uses-and-Gratifications approach, involvement is part of the concept of audience activity. Further, we can distinguish between different references or ‘targets of involvement’ (e.g. the message, a product, a protagonist), long-term/persistent versus short-term/situational involvement, the ‘components of involvement’ (cognitive, affective, conative/motivational), the ‘valence of involvement’ (negative versus positive), and the ‘intensity of involvement’ (Salmon, 1986; Wirth 2006).

References and Suggested Readings

1. Cameron, G. L. (1993). Spreading activation and involvement: An experimental test of a cognitive model of involvement. Journalism Quarterly, 70, 854–867.
2. Salmon, C. T. (1986). Perspectives on involvement in consumer and communication research. In B. Dervin & M. J. Voigt (eds.), Progress in communication sciences. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, pp. 243–268.
3. Wirth, W. (2006). Involvement. In J. Bryant & P. Vorderer (eds.), Psychology of entertainment. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, pp. 199–213.

Issue Management

Ulrike Röttger

University of Münster

Issue management is a systematic procedure that helps organizations to identify, analyze, and respond to external or internal concerns that can significantly affect them. On this note, strategic issues management is a managerial function, which creates the information bases for a proactive examination of (potentially) critical themes that can limit strategic scope (→ Strategic Communication). It has to be accentuated that issues management does not solely relate to the effects of a crisis or a conflict. It also considers the positive and negative repercussions concerning promotional themes in regard to a → brand or a company image.

Issues are debatable topics of public interest that are connected with controversial opinions, expectations, or problem solutions by an organization and its stakeholders. Issues have actual or potential effects on the organization. An issue is an immediate problem requiring a solution (Heath 2006, 82–83; → Crisis Communication).

There is a wide variety of models for the issues management process mostly differentiating between five or six key stages (see in particular Chase 1984; Dutton & Jackson 1987). Issue identification: It is important to observe the environment systematically, continually, and comprehensively, in order to identify weak signals that point to a conflict topic or a chance as early as possible. Scanning is the inductive observation of the environment. In a second step, potential issues as well as known issues are observed more closely (monitoring).

Analysis and interpretation: Issues must be prioritized with respect to their relevance, exigency, and consideration of the amount of resources dedicated to deal with the issues. Furthermore, the future trend of the issue will be forecast on the basis of its current and past development. Selection and prioritizing of key issues: The organization must develop action decisions and issue positions to its key issues. The key issues need to be further researched and observed. Development of the strategy and program implementation: The results of the analysis are the basis for the development of the strategy which can be reactive, adaptive, proactive, initiative, and interactive. Program evaluation: The evaluation of the output and outcome is a great challenge, since successful issues management shows up finally in the fact that an issue is not escalated or has not become public.

References and Suggested Readings

1. Chase, W. H. (1984). Issue management: Origins of the future. Stamford, CT: Issue Action.
2. Dutton, J. E. & Jackson, S. E. (1987). Categorizing strategic issues: Links to organizational action. Academy of Management Review, 12, 76–90.
3. Heath, R. L. (2006). A rhetorical theory approach to issues management. In C. H. Botan & V. Hazleton (eds.), Public relations theory II. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, pp. 63–99.

Issue Management in Politics

Spiro Kiousis

University of Florida

Issue management in politics refers to the process by which politicians, campaigns, parties, and other political groups identify, prioritize, develop, and convey positions on key issues (→ Issue Management). A step in effective political issue management involves formative and evaluative research where groups investigate the perceptions, attitudes, and behaviors of target audiences concerning policy preferences and problems.

From a theoretical standpoint, the concepts of → agenda building and agenda setting (→ Agenda-Setting Effects) are germane for understanding the process of political issue management. The core proposition of agenda-setting theory is that the issues made salient in news media often become the issues that are considered important in public opinion (McCombs & Shaw 1972). Agenda building suggests that issue salience is determined by several groups in addition to media and voters, such as politicians, organizations, and activists, and involves reciprocal influence. Thus, an integral part of successful issue management entails developing strategies for dealing with these diverse sets of stakeholders and constituencies.

A vital factor impacting the issue-management process involves meaningfully classifying different types of issues, including obtrusive vs. unobtrusive issues and concrete vs. abstract issues. The tone and frames associated with issues are also relevant for issue-management purposes (→ Framing Effects). The use of information subsidies by political groups or organizations to exert influence on news media, voters, and other stakeholders represents a pervasive approach for effective issue management (news releases, interviews, political advertising, social media messages (→ Facebook; Twitter), ‘op-ed pieces’).

Much of the scholarly and applied interest in political issue management is based on the premise that issue perceptions and opinions sway elections. The concept of priming provides insight into how this influence transpires (→ Priming Theory). As a consequence, political campaigns and groups aim to influence the news media agenda by highlighting issues with which their organizations or candidates perform well. Issue-ownership theory indicates that certain political parties are thought to handle some issues more competently than other parties.

References and Suggested Readings

1. Kiousis, S., Mitrook, M., Wu, X., & Seltzer, T. (2006). First- and second-level agenda-building and agenda-setting effects: Exploring the linkages among candidate news releases, media coverage, and public opinion during the 2002 Florida gubernatorial election. Journal of Public Relations Research, 18, 265–285.
2. McCombs, M. E. & Shaw, D. L. (1972). Agenda-setting function of mass media. Public Opinion Quarterly, 36, 176–184.