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Agonistic Depictions of Communication: Vaikeneminen [Silence] Versus Puhuminen [Speaking] in Classroom Settings for Adult Education in Finland

This study uses ethnographic methods to examine how an agonistic form occurring in a community of adult learners in Finland constitutes a scene for dramatic depictions of communication. The terms puhuminen [speaking] and aikeneminen [silence] are examined as a situated antithesis. The data present two competing ways of communicating in scenes of adult education: an exigency of subject matter talk, governed by a silent listener orientation juxtaposed with a desire for more expressive ways of speaking, communicating openness and individual meaning. Through an analysis of the ongoing dramas in civic contexts in Finland, I show what models for communication are contested and how these inform interpretations of change to the larger strategic communication culture.     

The impact of Serbian public relations on economic indices

This study presents the research results whose aim was to examine and define dependences and the impact of public relations on business effects (economic indices are taken as representatives of business effects). Serbian companies were the object of this research. The data were collected by polling 100 managers from 100 companies. Multivariate regression and correlation were applied in order to determine the observed dependences. The research results confirm the existence of a significant direct relation between public relations and economic indices.     

Casa de Esperanza [Part B]

When nonprofit organizations make significant changes in mission, there are many issues of organizational structure and culture that must be re‐examined and re‐aligned. As the second segment in the case of Casa de Esperanza illustrates, there are many human issues that must be navigated by leaders making such changes. Case B illustrates the challenges that must be confronted as leaders embrace the agency's identity as a community‐based Latina organization, rather than a government‐funded domestic violence organization. The case describes the management planning and implementation processes, including changes in leadership, programming, and operations. Staff responses to these changes are also stressed, revealing the very human elements of organizational change. © 2004 Jodi Sandfort     

The impact of internal communication on strategic and economic effects in Serbian companies

This paper presents the research results in relation to examining and defining dependences and the impact of internal communication on certain strategic and economic business effects. Serbian companies were the focus of this research. The data were collected by polling 100 managers from 100 companies. Afterwards, multivariate regression and correlation was carried out in the aim of the final determination of requested dependences. This research confirmed a strong positive relation between internal communication and strategic and economic business effects.     

Changing Forms of Inequality

Individual sorting models prevail in current explanations of inequality, but individual sorting systems form rarely and depend on extensive institutional infrastructure. Inequality results more generally from the conjunction of socially organized categories with (a) clique control of value–producing resources, (b) clique deployment of those resources in relations of exploitation and/or opportunity with members of subordinated or excluded categories, backed up by (c) emulation and adaptation. Historically, major value–producing resources in the production of inequality have included coercive means, labor, animals, land, commitment–maintaining institutions, machines, financial capital, information, media, and scientific–technical knowledge. In the future, financial capital, information, media, and scientific–technical knowledge will play increasing parts in the generation of social inequality.     

Using a model to structure psychosocial nursing [corrected]

1. Specifying a model to guide research projects helps clarify the study, permits several investigators to work in a coordinated fashion on large projects, and facilitates comparisons across studies. 2. This model is composed of seven domains and indicates some of the hypothesized relationships between domains. Adapting the model to individual studies may result in a different number of domains and in the specification of other hypothesized relationships. 3. When possible, researchers should make use of minimum data sets to enhance the comprehensiveness and generalizability of their research.     

A Comprehensive Employee Assistance Program [EAP] for Educators

The traditional employee assistance programs [EAP] focus on early detection and assessment of the teacher at risk for a health-related disorder; the value, financial and human, of servicing the needs of the teacher already on leave with a health disabling condition tends to go unrecognized. This article proposes a wellness or employee assistance program with an empowerment focus that responds to both the preventative and the remedial needs of educators at different phases of their careers. Accountability to all stakeholders, based on a built-in evaluation, research and development process, is also emphasized.     

A Culturally Salient Polish Emotion: Przykro ['Pshickro]

The author analyzes, on the basis of naturally occurring examples, the Polish word przykro, which, she argues, plays an important role in Polish emotion talk. She compares and contrasts this word with its closest English counterparts, such as hurt, offended, sorry, and sad, and she shows how each of these English words differs in meaning from the Polish key word przykro. To be able to show, clearly and precisely, what these differences are, she relies on the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM), based on a set of empirically established lexical and grammatical universals. In doing so, she seeks to demonstrate the explanatory power of the proposed methodological framework (the NSM semantic theory). At the same time the author shows how language-specific lexical categories such as the Polish word przykro are linked with a culture's core values. She also shows the cultural implications of the lexical category hurt in Anglo culture, and discusses the cultural implications of the absence of a word like przykro in English, and of a word like hurt in Polish.     

Structure and Forms of Use

A good deal of discourse relating to the 'democratic potential' of the Internet has tended to simplify the question of technology. Whilst it is true that the structure of the Internet may well facilitate certain 'democratic' forms of use, this is not a necessary fact. This paper argues that the Internet is not passive, but is shaped by the ways in which it is used. Such an account emphasizes the fact that certain forms of use may well conflict, leading to a struggle to define the technology, people's relation to it, and thus the ways in which it is used. The discussion concludes with the suggestion that, unless users strive to develop the Internet as a democratic tool, or one that enhanced non-commercial civil society, the potential often referred to will be lost.