Communication Disposition Research Articles

“Conjoint Communicated Experience”: Art as an Instrument of Democracy

“Conjoint Communicated Experience”: Art as an Instrument of Democracy

Understanding the Pyrimethamine Drug Resistance Mechanism via Combined Molecular Dynamics and Dynamic Residue Network Analysis.

In this era of precision medicine, insights into the resistance mechanism of drugs are integral for the development of potent therapeutics. Here, we sought to understand the contribution of four point mutations (N51I, C59R, S108N, and I164L) within the active site of the malaria parasite enzyme dihydrofolate reductase (DHFR) towards the resistance of the antimalarial drug pyrimethamine. Homology modeling was used to obtain full-length models of wild type (WT) and mutant DHFR. Molecular docking was employed to dock pyrimethamine onto the generated structures. Subsequent all-atom molecular dynamics (MD) simulations and binding free-energy computations highlighted that pyrimethamine’s stability and affinity inversely relates to the number of mutations within its binding site and, hence, resistance severity. Generally, mutations led to reduced binding affinity to pyrimethamine and increased conformational plasticity of DHFR. Next, dynamic residue network analysis (DRN) was applied to determine the impact of mutations and pyrimethamine binding on communication dispositions of DHFR residues. DRN revealed residues with distinctive communication profiles, distinguishing WT from drug-resistant mutants as well as pyrimethamine-bound from pyrimethamine-free models. Our results provide a new perspective on the understanding of mutation-induced drug resistance.

To argue or not to argue? The role of personality traits, argumentativeness, epistemological beliefs and assigned positions for students’ participation in controversial political classroom discussions

In a part of the video study “Argumentative teaching-learning processes” in civic education classrooms, students’ participation in controversial political classroom discussions is described and related to personality traits and communicative dispositions. Besides person-related variables, effects of assigned positions for in-class discussion on participation were investigated. Based on research from educational psychology, civic education and the political sciences, it was assumed that the tendency to approach or avoid arguments such as in political discussions is meaningfully affected by five-factor personality traits and epistemological beliefs. Regression and path analyses were conducted on a sample of nine civic education classes at the eighth and ninth grades (N = 221 students) in North Rhine-Westphalia. Results primarily confirmed expectations and revealed that participation in controversial classroom discussions, but not in teacher-led classroom talk, was clearly associated with relatively stable personality traits and dispositions. Students that had to argue a position divergent to their personal view on the controversy were less likely to take part in the discussion. These findings have practical implications for instructors.

“Playing Hooky” Health Messages: Apprehension, Impression Management, and Deception

ABSTRACTThis study investigates playing hooky in higher education classrooms and associates this behavior with students’ communicative dispositions, instructor perceptions, and language use. We define “playing hooky” as students skipping class and explaining their absence to their instructor with deceptive health messages. The purpose of Study 1, an online survey (N = 177), is to further understand the characteristics of students who engage in this type of deceptive health communication. Study 1 measures communication apprehension and perceived instructor credibility in students who had played hooky from class and those who had not. Findings reveal that students who communicate playing hooky health messages (a) reported more instructor communication apprehension and (b) perceived the instructors with whom they had played hooky to be less credible. Study 2 uses facework theory and MEH analysis to reveal the different linguistic strategies students use to communicate (a) truthful health messages (N = 165) and (b) deceptive heath messages (N = 82) to their instructor following an absence. Results demonstrate that students’ facework strategies are more geared toward saving instructors’ negative face in the deceptive health message condition. Implications of both studies are offered.

The Morality of Performance: HIV Disclosure in Speech and Song in South Africa

AbstractThis article synthesizes anthropological research on morality and performance, drawing from ethnographic fieldwork with a Zulu choir that was an HIV support group and AIDS activist organization. The article responds to an increasing level of anthropological interest in the topic of morality and contributes to an emerging body of literature on language and experience. The concept of moral assemblages is used to examine the embodied communicative dispositions of choir members amid two overlapping and sometimes conflicting public discourses about HIV disclosure. Building on previous research on how performance makes it possible to address topics otherwise outside cultural boundaries of acceptable speech, the article explores how framing HIV disclosure as performance allowed some South Africans living with HIV to embody the conflicting prescriptions of two distinct public discourses about disclosure.

Implementasi E-Government di Kabupaten Wonosobo

Policy e-goverment reference to presidential instruction no 3 / 2003 which requires the whole range of minister for government and regional governments moreover, there were blueprint e-government program as improve the quality of public services, melelui technology it the emergence of kepemerintahan clean, transparent and able to answer charges change by effective and repairs organization, a system of management and the process of working kepemerintahan.One of them by making website of the local government.In fact in the county of wonosobo this website, not in use to the utmost proven links with a lot of empty so that the information in give not optimal. In seeing the implementation of e-government district wonosobo is seen from first shared purpose output and impact and the second was process.The implementation of e-government in achieving its goal not regardless of factors affecting this policy.Based on theories van meters and van horn inferred factors impeding of resources, communication disposition, external environment. The research used by the researchers is the kind of qualitative descriptive study. By selecting informants considered the most know (non probability sampling), then use the snowball sampling. Later this research attempts to describe the existing problems and analysing a conclusion which is absolute. On the implementation of e-Government in Wonosobo Regency, procurement website has been held since in 2009, but the number of empty links make an impact/benefits generated insufficient. This is caused by a lack of human resources, implementor, disposition and the external environment. Based on the results of the implementation of the e-government policy in Wonosobo Regency views his purpose and process of this policy is insufficient and will still need revamping. The authors provide recommendations in the form of: (1) the addition of the appropriate number of staff (2) socialization in order for the community to know about this policy (3) additions to the budget allocation for the e-government policy (4) enhance the commitment of the implementor (5) create other accounts on social media in order to increase public participation.

The relationship between Theory X/Y: assumptions and communication apprehension

PurposeThis study seeks to explore whether McGregor's Theory X/Y assumptions are related to managers’ communication apprehension (CA) – their degree of comfort when interacting with others.Design/methodology/approachSurveys measuring Theory X/Y assumptions and CA were administered to 281 full‐time managers from divergent industries across the USA. Hypotheses were tested using correlations.FindingsModerate scores on the Theory X scale were positively correlated with traitlike CA and CA in interpersonal contexts. Managers’ total and high scores on the Theory Y scale were negatively correlated with traitlike CA and CA in groups, interpersonal conversations, and meetings. Moderate scores on the Theory Y scale were positively correlated with CA in groups. Low scores on the Theory Y scale were positively correlated with traitlike CA and CA in interpersonal and public speaking settings.Originality/valueThis study extends the broad landscape of literature on management communication. Findings deepen our understanding of how managers’ communicative dispositions are linked to their Theory X/Y assumptions.

Doxa and deliberation

Recent democratic theorists have drawn on the work of the late Pierre Bourdieu to make the case that patterned inequalities in the social capacity to engage in deliberation can undermine deliberative theory’s democratic promise. They have proposed a range of deliberative democratic responses to the problem of cultural inequality, from enabling the marginalised to adopt the communicative dispositions of the dominant, to broadening the standards that define legitimate deliberation, to strengthening deliberative counter‐publics. The author interprets Bourdieu’s theory of the linguistic habitus to prompt an even more radical critique of deliberative democracy than these theorists acknowledge, one to which the proposed solutions fail adequately to respond. Her argument suggests that empirical work on deliberative democracy should expand to address specifically the problems of cultural inequality that Bourdieu’s work highlights.

Individual differences in on‐air television and radio personalities

This study examined on‐air television and radio newscasters' traitlike communication dispositions. Television and radio personalities were found to be less apprehensive, less shy, less responsive, more assertive, more willing to communicate, and more extroverted than the average individual. The study also indicated that individuals working for higher paying/ranked television or radio stations/ markets are more willing to communicate, more extroverted, more assertive, less responsive, and less shy than those in the same field working at smaller, lower‐paying/ranked stations.

On the Character and Mentality of the French

Abstract I cannot leave this great and good country, without expressing my sense of its pre-eminence of character among the nations of the earth. A more benevolent people I have never known, nor greater warmth and devotedness in their select friendships. Their kindness and accommodation to strangers is unparalleled, and the hospitality of Paris is beyond anything I had conceived to be practicable in a large city. Their eminence, too, in science, the communicative dispositions of their scientific men, the politeness of the general manners, the ease and vivacity of their conversation, give a charm to their society, to be found nowhere else. In a comparison of this, with other countries, we have the proof of primacy, which was given to Themistocles, after the battle of Salamis. Every general voted to himself the first reward of valor, and the second to Themistocles. So, ask the traveled inhabitant of any nation, in what country on earth would you rather live?—Certainly, in my own, where are all my friends, my relatives and the earliest and sweetest affections and recollections of my life.—Which would be your second choice? — France.