Narrative forms of communication-including entertainment education, journalism, literature, testimonials, and storytelling-are emerging as important tools for cancer prevention and control. To stimulate critical thinking about the role of narrative in cancer communication and promote a more focused and systematic program of research to understand its effects, we propose a typology of narrative application in cancer control. We assert that narrative has four distinctive capabilities: overcoming resistance, facilitating information processing, providing surrogate social connections, and addressing emotional and existential issues. We further assert that different capabilities are applicable to different outcomes across the cancer control continuum (e.g., prevention, detection, diagnosis, treatment, survivorship). This article describes the empirical evidence and theoretical rationale supporting propositions in the typology, identifies variables likely to moderate narrative effects, raises ethical

This study attempts to show the relevance of behavioral theory for developing communications designed to promote healthy and/or to prevent or alter unhealthy behaviors. After describing an integrative model of behavioral prediction, the model's implications for designing persuasive communications are considered. Using data from a study on smoker's intentions to continue smoking and to quit, it is shown how the theory helps identify the critical beliefs underlying these or other intentions. Finally, it is argued that although behavioral theory can help identify the beliefs that should be targeted in a persuasive communication, our ability to change these beliefs will ultimately rest on communication theory.During the past decade, there has been a growing recognition of the usefulness of behavioral theory in the development of behavior-change interventions (see, e.g., National Institutes of Health, 1997). Theories of behavioral prediction and behavior change are useful because they provide a framework to help identify the determinants of any given behavior, an essential first step in the development of successful interventions to change that behavior. Clearly, the more one knows about the determinants of a given behavior, the more likely it is that one can develop an effective communication or other type of intervention to reinforce or change that behavior. The purpose of this study was to show the relevance of behavioral theory for developing communications designed to promote healthy and/or to prevent or alter unhealthy behaviors.Although there are many theories of behavioral prediction such as the Theory of Planned

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SignificanceWhy do humans share information with others? Large-scale sharing is one of the most prominent social phenomena of the 21st century, with roots in the oldest forms of communication. We argue that expectations of self-related and social consequences of sharing are integrated into a domain-general value signal, representing the value of information sharing, which translates into population-level virality. We analyzed brain responses to New York Times articles in two separate groups of people to predict objectively logged sharing of those same articles around the world (virality). Converging evidence from the two studies supports a unifying, parsimonious neurocognitive framework of mechanisms underlying health news virality; these results may help advance theory, improve predictive models, and inform new approaches to effective intervention.

Literature on the structure of two-person conversations has consistently found that partners become more similar i n mean duration of pauses and switching pauses over the course ot interaction. Evidence on influence in vocalization duration is primarily negative. N o direct evidence otinterspeaker influence on a moment-to-moment basis is at ailable. In this study 12 dyadic conversations are analyzed for interspeaker influence, with the use ot'time series regression procedures. Two versions ofthe data are presented: a probability suniniary including the probability of breaking mutual silences, continuing simultaneous talk, and continuing talking alone and a turn summary including vocaliration, pause, and switching pause duration. Results show that ( I ) moment-to-moment intluences are present in both versions ofthe data, ( 2 ) these intluences differ from dyad to dyad, (3) the intluences are both positive (matching) and negative (compensating), and (4) the magnitude of interspeaker influence on a temporal basis is small but detectable. In addition, there are overall tendencies to match in switching pause, probability of continued simultaneous speech, and probability of breaking mutual d e n c e s . Dyads show both compensation and matching on vocalization duration and pause-related variables. Implications of these data for past and future explanation of social interaction are explored To claim that social interaction is an interdependent process of message exchanges has become a clichCd assumption in interpersonal communication. The assumption is not without backing. Cappella ( 1 9 8 0~) reviewed over 200 studies of the influence of one speaker's expressive behavior (i.e., overt behaviors indicative of involvement) on the expressive behavior of the partner. Strong evidence of interspeaker influence across types of expressive behaviors and across developmental periods was found. Interactants' behavioral expressions of involvement seem to affect the behavioral expressions of their partners. Joseph N . Cappella (Ph.D., Michigan State University, 1974) is associate professor of communication at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin 53706. Sally Planalp (M.A., University of Colorado at Denver, 1977) is a doctoral candidate in communication at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin 53706.Despite a wealth of evidence indicating that partners affect one another's noncontent speech, affiliative behaviors, verbal intimacy, and body movements, the vast majority of studies provides little sequential information on influence between speakers. Most research has manipulated a confederate's behavior (e.g., duration of utterance) and measured the average response of subjects as a criterion. Although such designs are useful in showing the presence of influence in controlled settings, they cannot tell us whether such influence would remain in more freewheeling encounters and, by analyzing mean responses, they hide information on moment-to-moment mutual tracking and adjustment by partners.The present study focuses ...

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Public confidence in Congress, the government, and social institutions has reached new lows. Healthy skepticism may have given way to corrosive cynicism. Some media watchers and critics blame the media for their preoccupation with the game and strategy of politics rather than social problems and their solution. Others deny that changes in news have affected the quality of democracy or the depth of political alienation. Studies that we have conducted over the past four years show that subtle changes in the way news stories are framed can affect consumers' responses, activating their cynicism when strategic or conflict-oriented frames are used. The studies directly implicate media framing of political news in activating, if not creating, cynicism about campaigns, policy, and governance and imply that cynicism about the news media may be an indirect consequence.