manuscripts. The articles draw on combinations of discourse analysis, conversation analysis, participant observation, ethnography, and cogni- tive mapping, and ...
Editors’ Foreword Over time, through what it publishes, a journal develops a substantive and methodologicalprofile. Once established, that profile largely shapes the journal’s future course, influencing the scholars who consider submitting their work and the people who regularly read the journal. Often, this tacit profile has more impact on what appears in the journal than its espoused scope and mission. In a word, the methodological and substantive contents of prior issues tend to be treated as a working definition of what the journal’s mission really is. As a result, a journal that wishes to broaden its base can have a difficult time doing so. Merely telling interested audiences that a journal is committed to a broader mission than past issues might imply is unlikely to do the trick. Amore dramatic action will be needed. The purpose of this special issue, the first for Human Communication Research (HCR), is to signal such a change. HCR’s current profile, in terms of the articles that have appeared in recent and past issues, is that of an important outlet for well-designed studies testing theories in communication, using experimental, content-analytic, and questionnaire methods in combination with sophisticated statistical tests. Of course, such work is very appropriate to the journal’s brief, but HCR’s research mission is broader than this. As each issue states, it is “devoted to advancing knowledge and understanding about human symbolic activities” within a “broad behavioral and social scientific focus . . . reflect[ing] no particular methodological or substantive biases.” Recent editors have worked hard to broaden the scope of articles submitted to the journal, and these efforts have been successful in attracting a wider range of content areas than in the past. The perception that HCR publishes only quantitative research, however, has not yet changed, and very few articles using qualitative methodologieshave been submitted. This special issue, “QualitativeContributions to Empirical Research,” highlrghts the journal’s commitment to bringing its methodological profile in line with its mission. We seek to make HCR a visible and happy home for excellent qualitative research making theoretically implicative and analytically insightful arguments and presenting newsworthy results about communication processes. The six articles in this special issue were selected from 50 submitted manuscripts. The articles draw on combinations of discourse analysis, conversation analysis, participant observation, ethnography, and cognitive mapping, and they use recorded spontaneous interactions and inHuman Communication Research, Vol. 23 No.4,June1997 451-452 0 1997 Intematicmal Communication Association
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depth interview, focus group, and stimulated recall methodologies. The articles come from language and social interaction;interpersonal, organizational, health; and mass communication. Each study is grounded in empirical specifics, has sigruficant implications for theory, and advances interesting and important arguments about particular communicative practices. Daena J. Goldsmith and Kristine Fitch provide a sense of the difficulties involved in giving and receiving advice. Richard Buttny explores the ways in which students talk about race. E. Sean Rintel and Jeffery Pittam examine how people build interpersonal connections on Internet chat channels. Rebecca Ann Lind develops a procedure for analyzing ethical sensitivities in television viewing. Wayne A. Beach and Terri R. Metzger identdy the multiple meanings involved in people’s claim that they ”don’t know.”Finally, Anita Pomerantz, B. J. Fehr, and Jack Ende’s study unpacks some interactionally problematic points in medical supervision. With this special issue, we hope to establish a broader profile for HCR as a journal committed to methodological pluralism, a place where qualitative and quantitative research of the highest caliber, from all areas of communicationstudies, will routinelybe found. We are pleased to present these articles to the wide readership of our journal, and we would like to thank all the researchers who submitted their work to us.
--Karen Tracy University of Colorado -Cindy Gallois University of Queensland
