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communication problems research papers

  • 16 Feb 2024
  • Research & Ideas

Is Your Workplace Biased Against Introverts?

Extroverts are more likely to express their passion outwardly, giving them a leg up when it comes to raises and promotions, according to research by Jon Jachimowicz. Introverts are just as motivated and excited about their work, but show it differently. How can managers challenge their assumptions?

communication problems research papers

  • 06 Nov 2023

Did You Hear What I Said? How to Listen Better

People who seem like they're paying attention often aren't—even when they're smiling and nodding toward the speaker. Research by Alison Wood Brooks, Hanne Collins, and colleagues reveals just how prone the mind is to wandering, and sheds light on ways to stay tuned in to the conversation.

communication problems research papers

  • 31 Oct 2023

Checking Your Ethics: Would You Speak Up in These 3 Sticky Situations?

Would you complain about a client who verbally abuses their staff? Would you admit to cutting corners on your work? The answers aren't always clear, says David Fubini, who tackles tricky scenarios in a series of case studies and offers his advice from the field.

communication problems research papers

  • 24 Jul 2023

Part-Time Employees Want More Hours. Can Companies Tap This ‘Hidden’ Talent Pool?

Businesses need more staff and employees need more work, so what's standing in the way? A report by Joseph Fuller and colleagues shows how algorithms and inflexibility prevent companies from accessing valuable talent in a long-term shortage.

communication problems research papers

  • 23 Jun 2023

This Company Lets Employees Take Charge—Even with Life and Death Decisions

Dutch home health care organization Buurtzorg avoids middle management positions and instead empowers its nurses to care for patients as they see fit. Tatiana Sandino and Ethan Bernstein explore how removing organizational layers and allowing employees to make decisions can boost performance.

communication problems research papers

  • 24 Jan 2023

Passion at Work Is a Good Thing—But Only If Bosses Know How to Manage It

Does showing passion mean doing whatever it takes to get the job done? Employees and managers often disagree, says research by Jon Jachimowicz. He offers four pieces of advice for leaders who yearn for more spirit and intensity at their companies.

communication problems research papers

  • 10 Jan 2023

How to Live Happier in 2023: Diversify Your Social Circle

People need all kinds of relationships to thrive: partners, acquaintances, colleagues, and family. Research by Michael Norton and Alison Wood Brooks offers new reasons to pick up the phone and reconnect with that old friend from home.

communication problems research papers

  • 15 Nov 2022

Why TikTok Is Beating YouTube for Eyeball Time (It’s Not Just the Dance Videos)

Quirky amateur video clips might draw people to TikTok, but its algorithm keeps them watching. John Deighton and Leora Kornfeld explore the factors that helped propel TikTok ahead of established social platforms, and where it might go next.

communication problems research papers

  • 03 Nov 2022

Feeling Separation Anxiety at Your Startup? 5 Tips to Soothe These Growing Pains

As startups mature and introduce more managers, early employees may lose the easy closeness they once had with founders. However, with transparency and healthy boundaries, entrepreneurs can help employees weather this transition and build trust, says Julia Austin.

communication problems research papers

  • 15 Sep 2022

Looking For a Job? Some LinkedIn Connections Matter More Than Others

Debating whether to connect on LinkedIn with that more senior executive you met at that conference? You should, says new research about professional networks by Iavor Bojinov and colleagues. That person just might help you land your next job.

communication problems research papers

  • 08 Sep 2022

Gen Xers and Millennials, It’s Time To Lead. Are You Ready?

Generation X and Millennials—eagerly waiting to succeed Baby Boom leaders—have the opportunity to bring more collaboration and purpose to business. In the book True North: Emerging Leader Edition, Bill George offers advice for the next wave of CEOs.

communication problems research papers

  • 05 Aug 2022

Why People Crave Feedback—and Why We’re Afraid to Give It

How am I doing? Research by Francesca Gino and colleagues shows just how badly employees want to know. Is it time for managers to get over their discomfort and get the conversation going at work?

communication problems research papers

  • 23 Jun 2022

All Those Zoom Meetings May Boost Connection and Curb Loneliness

Zoom fatigue became a thing during the height of the pandemic, but research by Amit Goldenberg shows how virtual interactions can provide a salve for isolation. What does this mean for remote and hybrid workplaces?

communication problems research papers

  • 13 Jun 2022

Extroverts, Your Colleagues Wish You Would Just Shut Up and Listen

Extroverts may be the life of the party, but at work, they're often viewed as phony and self-centered, says research by Julian Zlatev and colleagues. Here's how extroverts can show others that they're listening, without muting themselves.

communication problems research papers

  • 24 May 2022

Career Advice for Minorities and Women: Sharing Your Identity Can Open Doors

Women and people of color tend to minimize their identities in professional situations, but highlighting who they are often forces others to check their own biases. Research by Edward Chang and colleagues.

communication problems research papers

  • 12 May 2022

Why Digital Is a State of Mind, Not Just a Skill Set

You don't have to be a machine learning expert to manage a successful digital transformation. In fact, you only need 30 percent fluency in a handful of technical topics, say Tsedal Neeley and Paul Leonardi in their book, The Digital Mindset.

communication problems research papers

  • 08 Feb 2022

Silos That Work: How the Pandemic Changed the Way We Collaborate

A study of 360 billion emails shows how remote work isolated teams, but also led to more intense communication within siloed groups. Will these shifts outlast the pandemic? Research by Tiona Zuzul and colleagues. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

communication problems research papers

  • Cold Call Podcast

What’s Next for Nigerian Production Studio EbonyLife Media?

After more than 20 years in the media industry in the UK and Nigeria, EbonyLife Media CEO Mo Abudu is considering several strategic changes for her media company’s future. Will her mission to tell authentic African stories to the world be advanced by distributing films and TV shows direct to customers? Or should EbonyLife instead distribute its content through third-party streaming services, like Netflix? Assistant Professor Andy Wu discusses Abudu’s plans for her company in his case, EbonyLife Media. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

communication problems research papers

  • 11 Jan 2022

Feeling Seen: What to Say When Your Employees Are Not OK

Pandemic life continues to take its toll. Managers who let down their guard and acknowledge their employees' emotions can ease distress and build trust, says research by Julian Zlatev and colleagues. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

communication problems research papers

  • 04 Jan 2022

Scrap the Big New Year's Resolutions. Make 6 Simple Changes Instead.

Self-improvement doesn't need to be painful, especially during a pandemic. Rather than set yet another gym goal, look inward, retrain your brain, and get outside, says Hirotaka Takeuchi. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

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Communication Studies: Effective Communication Leads to Effective Leadership

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  • 1 University of Kansas.
  • PMID: 32187871
  • DOI: 10.1002/yd.20371

This chapter explores how communication studies focuses on human communication among people in groups, teams, and organizations. While persuasive communication has long been at the heart of leadership development, the discipline's contributions to effective leadership also range from advancing our understanding of organizational communicative systems to the development of skills for deliberative democracy and civic engagement.

© 2020 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

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  • Education, Professional*
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Negotiation communication revisited

  • Open access
  • Published: 22 January 2021
  • Volume 29 , pages 163–176, ( 2021 )

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  • Mareike Schoop   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-2232-9929 1  

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Negotiators communicate with each other and decide on offers or requests. Whilst the decision side of negotiations has long been a focus of negotiation research, the communication side has not been extensively supported. The current paper revisits the need for a communication perspective in business negotiations and reviews current research on negotiation communication. Both strands of relevant work are then integrated to provide a concept of electronic negotiation communication and to discuss how this concept was implemented in the system Negoisst and thus operationalised.

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1 Introduction

Negotiation—digital or non-digital—is a process of communication and decision making. Negotiators make offers, counter-offers, requests, explain their statements, compliment or threat the negotiation partner, accept or reject the offer at hand. These communicative acts are integrated with decision acts, namely which particular offer to make, which value to accept or reject for a negotiation issue, which alternative to choose, which improvements to make etc. The main motivation for a negotiation is that the partners cannot reach their goals by themselves; rather they need the other party for that. A negotiation is, therefore, an intertwined process; negotiators always depend on their partner. That holds for both communication and decision making. For example, it has been shown that communicative behaviour (such as threats, insults, or niceties) leads to a mirror effect, i.e. the negotiation partner will communicate accordingly (Schoop et al. 2014 ). Concession making can equally be reciprocal, i.e. a larger concession leads to a greater willingness by the negotiation partner to make concessions; the opposite also holds true (e.g. Vetschera 2016a , b ). The result of a negotiation process is a compromise if a consensus can be reached.

Whilst decision support has long been researched and is the more structured and formalised part of negotiation, communication support has been less researched as it is the richer but also the more flexible part of negotiation.

In this paper, we will revisit negotiation communication from two angles. The first is a communication perspective that is rooted in communication theories and views negotiation as a specific form of communication. The second is a negotiation perspective that views communication as one part of negotiation. These two strands of research will then be integrated to revisit negotiation communication in 2020 and beyond. An operationalisation of such integrated concept of negotiation communication is presented by introducing the negotiation support system (NSS) Negoisst. Finally, the contributions and challenges of communication support in (electronic) negotiations are discussed.

2 The communication perspective

Negotiation is communication and decision making. A good negotiator is thus somebody who can communicate clearly, appropriately, convincingly, and who is empathic because they understand that negotiators depend on each other. Furthermore, a good negotiator is somebody who can make the right decisions, choose the best alternatives, offer appropriate deals, and make concessions whenever necessary.

In their seminal paper, Weigand et al. ( 2003 ) argue for the need for a communication perspective in business-to-business negotiation support. Whilst decision making has been well supported, communication has not seen much dedicated support.

2.1 Habermas, Searle, and the language–action perspective

The arguments of Weigand et al. ( 2003 ) are shaped by the works of Habermas, Searle, and the language–action perspective.

The Theory of Communicative Action by Habermas ( 1981 ) is seen as his main contribution to assessing the meaning of communicative action for society (McCarthy 1984 ). Strategic action is oriented towards achieving individual goals. The communicator wants the communication partner to agree on what would be favourable to the communicator. Sometimes deception or power are used to achieve the desired effect. In contrast, communicative action is oriented towards mutual understanding. The communicator interacts with the communication partner to achieve a common background and reach mutual agreement. Here, interaction between the communication partners is essential. In Habermas’ view, communicative action is the positive form of action whereas strategic action is seen as negative or at least less favourable. Therefore, communicative action should be performed and supported.

To conceptualise mutual understanding, Habermas introduces four so-called validity claims that are raised with an utterance: (1) comprehensibility, (2) truth, (3) truthfulness, (4) appropriateness.

An utterance is comprehensible if the hearer understands the speaker. If comprehensibility is problematic, then the hearer will not understand the speaker, e.g. because unknown words are used or because the speaker cannot be heard. An example would be to use different professional terminologies in a negotiation so that the partners do not understand (some of) each other’s terms. Comprehensibility problems are solved through using other words that are known to the hearer, through defining what is meant by an unknown word, through translating, through switching to a different (professional) terminology, or through using the appropriate medium for an utterance.

An utterance is true if the hearer shares the speaker’s knowledge. If truth is problematic, then the hearer will take the utterance to be false, e.g. because a fact is incorrect or because an implicit precondition is unknown to the hearer. An example would be a negotiator claiming that a product needs to fulfil a certain standard assuming that the standard is universal. The recipient of such message might evaluate this utterance to be false because such standard does not exist in their country. Communication problems concerning truth are solved by providing more information on the statement and thus explaining why the utterance is true after all.

An utterance is truthful if the hearer believes the speaker. If truthfulness is problematic, then the hearer will think that the speaker lies. Communication problems concerning truthfulness add a personal layer to the communication problem because challenging the truthfulness of an utterance means challenging the sincerity of the speaker. Truthfulness problems are thus inter-personal problems and require careful assurance of sincerity by the speaker and consistent actions.

An utterance is appropriate if the hearer agrees with the speaker on norms, standards, and values guiding the utterance. If appropriateness is problematic, then the hearer does not believe the speaker to have the appropriate role to make such speech act. Communication problems concerning the validity claim of appropriateness are solved by referring to unproblematic norm and standards and by citing acknowledged experts for support.

If problems regarding truth and appropriateness cannot be solved through discussion, communicators can enter into a discourse which is an ideal speech situation with all participants having equal rights and are not constrained, e.g. by position, rank, experience etc. Theoretical discourse deals with truth; practical discourse deals with appropriateness.

Speech Act Theory by Searle ( 1969 ) classifies utterances into five classes.

Assertives state facts about the objective world as, for example, in statements, reports, remarks, summaries, introductions. Commissives represent the speaker’s intention to carry out an action that is described in the utterance as, for example, in promises, pledges, assurances, guarantees, vows. Directives represent the speaker’s attempt to get the hearer to carry out an action as described. Examples are requests, orders, demands, questions. Expressives represent the speaker’s psychological states and attitudes as, for example, in apologies, condolences, insults, compliments, regrets. Declaratives represent an institutionalised speech act which changes a state of affairs. Examples are sentencing a prisoner, declaring a couple to be lawfully married, conveying a doctorate to a candidate, appointing an applicant.

The different classes of utterance are related to the validity claims as follows. Assertives must be understood by the hearer who needs to agree on the utterance. Therefore, the claims of comprehensibility and truth are the ones raised when one makes an assertive speech act. Commissives are about the speaker’s commitment to an action whereas directives represent the hearer’s commitment to an action. They must be comprehensible and sincere and appropriate. A speaker would not be expected to commit to an action they and the hearer knew they could not fulfil; a hearer would not be expected to be committed to an action that was requested to ridicule them. Expressives represent the speaker’s psyche and must be comprehensible and sincere. If an apology is taken to be half-hearted, it will not be accepted. Declaratives as normative speech acts must be comprehensible and, in addition, they must be appropriate. A lay person cannot sentence a suspect so this would be an inappropriate speech act.

Habermas’ critical theory and Searle’s speech act theory shaped a new approach to organisational communication, called the language–action perspective (LAP) (Flores and Ludlow 1980 ; Schoop 2001 ; Winograd 1988 ; Winograd and Flores 1987 ). The assumptions are that language is action and thus has a performative as well as a descriptive character and that people are fundamentally communicative beings (Schoop 2001 ).

LAP has also shaped information systems and in particular the conceptual design and implementation of information systems (Dietz and Widdershoven 1991 ; Lyytinen 1985 ; Lyytinen and Klein 1985 ). It is argued that the main task of an information system is to support organisational communication, thereby empowering people to enter into meaningful and open conversations to prevent misunderstandings and to achieve (communicative) goals.

2.2 The need for a communication perspective

Based on Searle’s speech act classification and Habermas’ validity claims, Weigand et al. ( 2003 ) introduce three types of negotiations.

Norm - based negotiations aim to achieve an agreement via authorisation/obligation. There are formalised types of negotiation following clear protocols. For example, a request-for-quote is a formally defined directive speech act that carries an obligation for the recipient to send a quote. Such quote then carries an authorisation for the recipient to buy as quoted and for the sender to sell for the conditions offered in the quote. Such norm-based negotiations were the state-of-the-art in early electronic negotiation processes as they were relatively easy to support and didn’t pose a grand challenge. The interaction is very formal and there is a minimal amount of communication involved.

In contrast, goal - based negotiations see the negotiators being motivated by goals rather than positions. Such negotiations allow all partners to challenge the other’s position and to enter into discussions. It is important to find out the reasons for a particular offer or rejection and to be open to questions or criticism by the partner. The interaction is flexible and there is a significant amount of communication involved.

Document - based negotiations focus on the exchange of formalised documents such as contract templates and contain communication for explaining questions or the required changes in contract versions. Again, the process of interaction is a very structured one but one that is enriched through communication.

Both norm-based and document-based negotiations mainly carry the validity claim of appropriateness. The norms that are the basis for norm-based negotiations can be challenged which means that the appropriateness of such declarative speech acts is questionable. The contract documents in document-based negotiations can also be challenged in terms of their content appropriateness for the current state of negotiation. Both types also raise the validity claim of comprehensibility which is a claim that is raised in any type of communication.

Goal-based negotiations are rich communicative interactions. Therefore, all validity claims can be challenged depending on the type of speech act that is made as discussed above. A discussion on both the content and the mode of interaction is possible. Apart from comprehensibility, a negotiator can challenge the truth of an offer claiming to show the market price or they can challenge the truthfulness of a take-it-or-leave-it offer because they don’t believe it will be the last offer or they can challenge the appropriateness of a tit-for-tat strategy by questioning whether the negotiation partner has the authority to make big concessions.

3 The negotiation perspective

Negotiation cannot be performed without communication as communication is the essence of negotiation and bargaining. Tutzauer ( 1992 ) argues that there is offer communication and non-offer communication. Offer communication is the pure exchange of offers and counter-offers. It is obvious that there must be offer communication for each negotiation process (Schoop and Reiser 2007 ). Non-offer communication comprises of the arguments, explanations, apologies, preferences, emotions, information etc. They are vital for the mutual understanding about facts and positions, about correlations between the negotiation items, and about norms, values, and rules that the negotiation process and the social process are expected to obey.

When it comes to electronic negotiations, the medium plays a vital role. Deterministic approaches argue that the medium determines the outcome. For example, Social Presence Theory (Short et al. 1976 ) argues that the degree of social presence is equal to degree of awareness of the other person in a communication interaction. Therefore, an electronic medium has a lower degree of social presence. Media Richness Theory (Daft and Lengel 1986 ) argues that there is a right medium for a given collaboration task. A complex task needs to be supported by a rich medium. If an inappropriate medium is chosen, there is either too much irrelevant information which will distract the communicator or too few cues for interpretation which will lead to misunderstandings. Non-deterministic approaches argue that communicators have learned to adapt to different types of media to compensate for missing cues in electronic media so that complex communicative exchanges can take place electronically. For example, the Technology Acceptance Model argues that users presented with a new system are influenced by how much they believe using the system would enhance their performance and these benefits would outweigh the effort of learning to use the system (Davis 1989 ).

Körner ( 2019 ) shows that an identical negotiation case negotiated using the identical system leads to very different communicative and economic outcomes by different negotiators. Therefore, the deterministic view cannot be valid for electronic negotiations.

The negotiation perspective is a largely decision-oriented perspective. Although negotiations are defined as consisting of communication and decision making, the decision making dominates the negotiation research. Reviewing negotiation systems, the decision perspective has also long dominated this type of system research. The first systems to support electronic negotiations were decision support systems (Jarke et al. 1987 ; Jelassi and Foroughi 1989 ). Much of the negotiation research by Vetschera has a decision-analytic focus (e.g. Engin and Vetschera 2017 ; Filzmoser and Vetschera 2008 ; Vetschera 2016a , b to name but a few). From a more design-oriented perspective, the focus of Kersten has also been on decision support in negotiation support systems (NSSs) (e.g. Carbonneau et al. 2016 ; Kersten 1989 ). The well-known NSS Inspire which has been much used in negotiation teaching is a decision-based system that offers little communication support (Kersten and Noronha 1999 ). Dedicated communication support that goes beyond message exchange (Yuan et al. 1998 ) is still scarce (Schoop 2010 ).

Compared to research on decision making and decision support, research on negotiation communication and communication support is less formalised and structured and must take the richness of language into account. However, it is vital given the definition of negotiation as communication and decision making as the following examples show.

Schoop et al. ( 2010 ) analyse communication quality in e-negotiations and develop a communication quality measure for negotiation processes. It consists of effectiveness, efficiency, and relationship management. Effectiveness measures the degree of shared understanding of task and structure and whether the outcome (i.e. reject or accept) makes sense given the last offer. Efficiency represents whether discussions could clear up misunderstandings, whether the process had unwanted latencies, and whether the utterances were interrelated. Relationship management measures mutual trust, the negotiation climate, the satisfaction with oneself and the partner, and the enjoyment of the process. Duckek ( 2010 ) shows that a high communication quality leads to economic benefits such as lower transaction costs and more straightforward and conclusive and thus more cost-effective processes.

Communication in negotiations does not always have to be formal. Indeed, many deals have been prepared or advanced during coffee breaks. In a project on business-to-business electronic negotiation support for architects and small and medium-sized trade companies (such as plasterers, roofers, plumbers), the need for supporting informal communication in addition to formal negotiation communication became apparent. It was important for the negotiators to step away from the formal arena into an informal one where possibilities could be discussed without issuing formal requests or offers (Schoop 2002 ).

Negotiation communication is not only about the values of issues at hand. Rather, there is often also meta-communication concerning the issues themselves or, more generally, the negotiation agenda (Fernandes et al. 2013 ). At the start of a negotiation process, the negotiation partners need to agree on what they will negotiate about. They thus set up the negotiation agenda. Information that is gathered during a negotiation, external constraints that limit the negotiation freedom, or the strategic retention of negotiation goals might and in most cases will lead to changes to the negotiation agenda. If such changes are not enabled in negotiation systems, then these systems do not support the communication sufficiently which has been shown to lead to less favourable outcomes (Fernandes 2016 ).

Both essential parts of a negotiation can lead to conflicts. Decision conflicts arise when insufficient concessions are made and at least one of the partners does not believe in the possibility of a deal. Communication conflicts arise when the communication is impolite, threatening or breaches norms or expectations. To find out whether communication conflicts or decision conflicts have a larger impact on the likelihood and quality of an agreement, Schoop et al. ( 2014 ) report on an e-negotiation experiment analysing such conflict types. One group of students negotiated with a uniform opponent (which they were unaware of) who was very polite but made only small concessions. This group was thus exposed to a decision conflict. The second group of students negotiated with a uniform opponent (which they were also unaware of) who was impolite to the point of being insulting but made large concessions. This group was thus exposed to a communication conflict. The third group was a control group negotiating with each other. It was shown that the communication conflict was the most threatening one for reaching an agreement. A polite partner who was tough on concessions still got away with a higher number of deals and a higher satisfaction of their partners whereas the negotiators faced with a communication conflict were dissatisfied although they could and indeed often did strike a good deal. This shows how important the support of communication is in negotiations as communication is the vital factor for success or failure in negotiations.

4 Taking stock

Almost 20 years ago, Weigand et al. ( 2003 ) argued that there needs to be a communication perspective in negotiations. Based on established communication theories and on a communicative approach to information systems, they designed three concepts of electronic negotiations that have different communicative intensities and different levels of formality. The main conclusion is that the communication perspective is underrepresented in negotiation research and thus needs to be applied to negotiation research and negotiation systems.

Twenty years later, the communication perspective is still underrepresented in negotiation research. There are only few studies on negotiation communication and communication support in negotiation systems although it was shown that communication problems will often lead to bad or no outcomes at all.

Therefore, there must be a dedicated communication support, especially in negotiation systems dealing with the challenges of 2020 and beyond. The next section will show the synthesis of the two strand of work on communication in negotiations, namely the communication perspective and the negotiation perspective.

5 The synthesis

Having discussed the communication perspective and the negotiation perspective, we will now synthesise both into an overall model of electronic negotiation communication and discuss its implementation.

5.1 Negotiation communication

Whilst the concept of integrative negotiation is usually seen as an economic concept where both parties get a mutually benefit deal and thus a win–win result, we argue that there is also an integrative communication paradigm.

The overall goal of negotiation is mutual understanding. To ensure this, negotiators must constantly work on preventing misunderstandings that could lead to severe communication problems and in the worst case be the cause of a negotiation failure. Therefore, rich negotiation processes must take place that enable and even encourage discussions, challenges, and the discovery of mutual benefits. To ensure mutual understanding, the negotiators must develop their common background and will negotiate about meanings of utterances. To this end, grounding will be used as a communicative method (Duckek 2010 ). When an utterance is made, it is not enough to wait for a reply. Rather, it is important to receive or ascertain feedback to assure that the negotiation partner understood what was said. If the partner does not understand (because there was a comprehensibility problem) or does not agree (because there was a problem with truth or appropriateness) or does not trust the negotiator (because there was a problem with truthfulness), then these problems with the validity claims associated with the utterance must be solved (cf. Sect.  2.1 ). Furthermore, the communication processes themselves need to be negotiated. It is important to retain the communication thread during a complex and often lengthy negotiations. To this end, coherence is important (Duckek 2010 ). The overall theme must be retained which is global coherence. Referring to a specific topic, to specific utterances, or to parts of an utterance helps the negotiators to interpret negotiation messages in the intended way, e.g. there must be answers when questions are raised. In general, utterances have to be connected to previous ones in an orderly and meaningful way. By communicating, relationships can be built and maintained (Duckek 2010 ). If a negotiator does not communicate, the relationship with the negotiation partner will break down. The way a negotiator communicates shows what kind of relationship exists and how important that (professional) relationship is for the negotiator. Relational communication can be performed in different ways. For example, offering information and being cooperative enhances trust. Exchanging personal information (“schmoozing”) enables the negotiation partner to relate. Social norms are followed; for example, if a negotiator finds an offer unfair or a message offensive, the author should apologise. Relational communication thus negotiates the norms and rules that form a relationship. These three types of negotiation are all meta-negotiations, i.e. negotiations about communication (cf. Duckek 2010 ; Schoop et al. 2010 ), see Fig.  1 .

figure 1

Meta negotiation communication

The individual goals are reached by using effective and efficient negotiation communication (cf. Sect.  3 ). In particular, the negotiation system must support rich communication exchanges. This will be the subject of the following section.

5.2 System support of negotiation communication

A negotiation support system must support the richness of negotiation. That means that both communicative action and strategic action must be enabled. Communicative action is particularly important for meta negotiation communication (cf. Fig.  1 ). Strategic action will sometimes be performed for achieving individual negotiation goals.

To enable rich exchanges that are open to challenges and explanations, conflict and solutions, threats and compliments, there must be a possibility to solve problems with validity claims. The negotiation support system Negoisst (Schoop et al. 2003 ; Schoop 2010 ) is a system that is rooted in the language–action perspective. It offers maximum support whilst retaining maximum flexibility of the negotiators. The negotiation protocol provides a structure that helps to interpret utterances (e.g. as an informal information or a formal offer) and provides transparency. Validity claims can be discussed in an informal negotiation area. Figure  2 shows the negotiation protocol. The negotiation begins in the start state and ends either with an acceptance or a rejection. The informal states are questions and clarification.

figure 2

Negotiation protocol with formal and informal negotiation states

The negotiation speech acts shown in Fig.  2 are related to the classification of speech acts by Searle ( 1969 ), cf. Sect.  2.1 . Offers and counteroffers are commissives; requests and questions are directives; clarifications are assertives; rejects and accepts are declaratives. Questions and clarifications represent the informal messages that were requested by the professional negotiators (cf. Sect.  3 ) and that represent a virtual coffee/tea break.

Enabling the discussion of validity claims enables what Weigand et al. ( 2003 ) call goal-oriented negotiations. However, Negoisst also supports more formal and structured negotiations, be they norm-oriented or document-oriented. This ensures maximal flexibility.

The meta negotiation communication to ensure mutual understanding is also represented in the system, see Fig.  3 . Grounding is supported in two ways. Firstly, each message carries a message type that explicitly shows the intention of the sender and thus provides the common ground for interpretation. Secondly, the negotiation communication message can be semantically enriched. That means that the natural language text can be linked to the structured negotiation ontology that provides the definitions of the negotiation issues at hand. This enables the grounding of the negotiation issues whilst not restricting the message text.

figure 3

Grounding of negotiation communication in Negoisst (Schoop 2010 )

Of course, negotiators must seek to achieve grounding and coherence in every single negotiation message. As the system does not restrict the use of terms in any way, the negotiators are responsible for ensuring mutual understanding and for being aware of any communication problems which can then be discussed in the informal negotiation area. We are on the way to a proactive communication system which will advise negotiators on the risk of a negotiation failure based on an automated emotion pattern recognition (Kaya and Schoop 2019 , 2020 ; Körner 2019 ).

It is important to state that Negoisst certainly offers decision support as well as conflict management and document management. However, these are not the focus of this paper and were discussed elsewhere (Schoop 2010 ; Schoop et al. 2004 ).

6 Conclusion

Whilst negotiation definitions acknowledge that negotiations consist of communication and decision making, research has been less balanced. Almost 20 years after Weigand et al. ( 2003 ) called for a communication perspective in negotiations, there is still a shocking lack of communication support in negotiation support systems other than Negoisst and in negotiation concepts in general. Negotiation quality is partly communication quality and partly a beneficial agreement.

The assessment of the interplay of communication and decision making in electronic negotiations shows that communicative conflicts are the most problematic type of conflict in electronic negotiations (Schoop et al. 2014 ). If there are communication conflicts, then there is a higher likelihood of no or an unfavourable agreement compared to the occurrence of decision making conflicts, e.g. too few concessions made by the partner. It was shown that the existence of decision support in an NSS does not lead to a focus on the relationship. This is what communication does and what NSSs must provide in terms of communication support. Likewise, decision support does not lead to more integrative behaviour. Again, good communication can help to find integrative deals. This shows the importance of the communication perspective. It also shows that 18 years after the work by Weigand et al. ( 2003 ), there is still a need for such perspective in negotiation support systems.

With the technological advances of machine learning, communication support can even be proactive in NSSs. By automatically analysing and evaluating communication messages in electronic negotiations, predictions are possible as to whether an ongoing process is likely to end in agreement or not (Kaya and Schoop 2019 , 2020 ) which is one of the grand challenges of communication-focused NSS research that we are currently working on.

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Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my research assistants and PhD students who have contributed to the much needed communication support in Negoisst. I am proud to be part of this issue celebrating my esteemed colleague Professor Rudolf Vetschera. I have had the pleasure of working with Rudolf for many years and our collaboration has turned into a friendship that I value tremendously. I have always admired Rudolf’s intellect, ideas, and enthusiasm as well as his kindness and empathy. This is to many more years of joint research!

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Schoop, M. Negotiation communication revisited. Cent Eur J Oper Res 29 , 163–176 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10100-020-00730-5

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School of Journalism and Mass Communication

Visual communication quarterly, visual communication quarterly special issue call for papers:  , the state of visual evidence  .

Abstract submission deadline:

March 5, 2024

Notification on submitted abstracts:

March 15, 2024  

Full manuscript submission deadline:

May 1, 2024  

“Pictures provide a point around which other pieces of evidence collect.” — American Film Director Errol Morris  

Morris’s sentiment emphasizes the role of images—especially photographs and videos—to help galvanize evidentiary claims and to help create the foundations from which societies can construct notions of truth or fact. Although this role is socially constituted rather than being an inherent quality of the medium (Tagg, 1988), it has been instrumental in both emancipatory and oppressive projects since its inception. Yet, with the surge in visual misinformation, disinformation, and evolving artificial intelligence (AI), the epistemic role of still and moving images to convey truth has reached a crucible. This prompts a critical inquiry: What theoretical and interpretive frameworks, technologies, and practices can identify, categorize, and preserve images’ evidentiary value? To delve deeper, what precisely is worth preserving?   

Thus far, the literature on visual misinformation, disinformation, and AI-generated visuals has primarily explored the social impact of deceptive or augmented visuals. This includes individuals’ ability to detect deception (meleers et al., 2023; Köbis et al., 2021; Korshunov & Marcel, 2021; Shahid et al., 2022), public perceptions of deepfakes and their engagement (Ahmed, 2023; Ahmed et al., 2023; Ahmed & Chua, 2023), their impact on news credibility (Jin et al., 2023; Shin & Lee, 2022; Vaccari & Chadwick, 2020), detection methods (Sohrawardi et al., 2020), and the construction of deepfakes through meta-journalistic discourse (Gosse & Burkell, 2020; Yadlin-Segal & Oppenheim, 2021).

One component this literature lacks, however, is theoretical and interpretive frameworks that can redefine and reorient the epistemological role of image-based news in a networked society. To fill this gap, we invite contributors to critically evaluate the challenges, opportunities, and dynamics surrounding visual representations influenced by misinformation, disinformation, and/or evolving AI technology. The special issue welcomes empirical studies utilizing diverse approaches—qualitative, quantitative, computational, and mixed-methods—and theoretical contributions assessing the contemporary state of visual evidence.  It considers topics such as:

  • Spectacle, simulation, and the social construction of truth in visual media
  • The role of embodied witnessing and authorship in credibility
  • Visual mis/disinformation intervention strategies (technological/social)
  • Political economy of synthetic visual media
  • Journalism’s role in addressing visual misinformation, disinformation, and AI-generated visuals
  • Ethics in evaluating and reporting visual misinformation, disinformation, and AI-generated visuals
  • Theoretical and interpretive frameworks in examining visual misinformation, disinformation, and AI-generated visuals

We also invite portfolio submissions that have used generative visual AI technology in any capacity for storytelling purposes. Portfolios should be submitted to foster discussions on the utility of synthetic visual media and associated ethical, ontological, and epistemological implications. Submissions may encompass endeavors to visualize abstract social processes, reimagine past events, or explore speculative futures.    

Information about Submissions  

Abstracts of no more than 1,000 words (not including references) should be submitted to  [email protected] in a PDF document by March 5, 2024. Please use the special issue title (“ The State of Visual Evidence” in the subject line of the email and in the body include a brief biography that includes your previous and current research and how it relates to the special issue theme. Accepted abstracts are expected to have a completed draft (of no more than 8,000 words inclusive of references) by May 1, 2024. 

Portfolio submissions should include 7 to 11 color or black and white images, a 150-1,000-word artist statement, and a biography of 50 or fewer words. Please compress these files into a single .zip folder and submit this to  [email protected] by March 5, 2024. See the journal’s instructions to authors for complete details.

Special Issue Editors      

Dr. Alex Scott ([email protected]) is an assistant professor at the University of Iowa School of Journalism and Mass Communication specializing in the qualitative examinations of non-fiction practices of photography. His research is informed by his experiences as a photojournalist and focuses on the construction of social differences and the production of visual knowledge.   

Dr. Sang Jung Kim ([email protected]) is an assistant professor at the University of Iowa School of Journalism and Mass Communication specializing in the computational examination of visual content. Her research focuses on how multi-modality (visual, text, audio, video) exacerbates the devastating consequences of mis- and disinformation.   

Dr. Bingbing Zhang ([email protected]) is an assistant professor at the University of Iowa School of Journalism and Mass Communication specializing in studying the effects of visual content on audiences’ perceptions, attitudes, and behaviors. Her research also investigates the impact of algorithms and AI-related technology on these message effects.   

The special issue editors are affiliated with the  Visual Media Lab , which aims to examine the (1) attributes, (2) prevalence, and (3) impact of visuals in journalism and social media in the digital age. Additionally, they are organizers of the symposium ‘State of Visual Evidence,’ addressing the challenges and opportunities that synthetic media pose for the contemporary media environment, which is highly relevant to the VCQ special issue.   

State of Visual Evidence Symposium  

This special issue corresponds with The State of Visual Evidence virtual symposium, which will be held on April 8, 2024. The symposium features keynote talks by Dr. T.J. Thomson, senior lecturer at RMIT University, Dr. Cindy Shen, Professor at the University of California-Davis and Dr. Bryce Dietrich, Associate Professor at Purdue University. Attendance to the symposium is encouraged regardless of intent to submit abstracts to this special issue.  

Ahmed, S. (2023). Examining public perception and cognitive biases in the presumed influence of deepfakes threat: empirical evidence of third person perception from three studies. Asian Journal of Communication , 33 (3), 308–331. https://doi.org/10.1080/01292986.2023.2194886

Ahmed, S., & Chua, H. W. (2023). Perception and deception: Exploring individual responses to deepfakes across different modalities. Heliyon , 9 (10), e20383. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e20383

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Does Couples’ Communication Predict Marital Satisfaction, or Does Marital Satisfaction Predict Communication?

Justin a. lavner.

University of Georgia

Benjamin R. Karney

University of California, Los Angeles

Thomas N. Bradbury

The quality of communication between spouses is widely assumed to affect their subsequent judgments of relationship satisfaction, yet this assumption is rarely tested against the alternative prediction that communication is merely a consequence of spouses’ prior levels of satisfaction. To evaluate these perspectives, newlywed couples’ positivity, negativity, and effectiveness were observed four times at 9-month intervals and these behaviors were examined in relation to corresponding self-reports of relationship satisfaction. Cross-sectionally, relatively satisfied couples engaged in more positive, less negative, and more effective communication. Longitudinally, reliable communication-to-satisfaction and satisfaction-to-communication associations were identified, yet neither pathway was particularly robust. These findings raise important doubts about theories and interventions that prioritize couple communication skills as the key predictor of relationship satisfaction, while raising new questions about other factors that might predict communication and satisfaction and that strengthen or moderate their association.

Communication occupies a central role in models of relationship deterioration, as intimate bonds are believed to remain strong to the extent that partners respond with sensitivity to one another (e.g., Reis & Patrick, 1996 ). Nonetheless, evidence substantiating the critical importance of communication comes almost exclusively from cross-sectional studies ( Woodin, 2011 ) and from longitudinal studies in which communication observed at one time point is used to predict later marital satisfaction ( Karney & Bradbury, 1995 ). If changes in communication are truly the mechanism by which satisfaction changes, however, longitudinal data on communication behaviors are needed to show that communication consistently predicts changes in satisfaction over time. Moreover, in the absence of such data, cause and effect cannot be disentangled: actual effects of communication on later satisfaction might be overstated if earlier assessments of satisfaction are generating variability in later communication. In the current study we addressed this gap by using four waves of observed communication and self-reported satisfaction data from a sample of newlywed couples to examine whether communication predicts changes in satisfaction and whether satisfaction predicts changes in communication.

Brief Review of Research: Communication and Marital Satisfaction

Guided by social exchange theory, early approaches argued that happy marriages could be distinguished from unhappy marriages by the ratio of positive to negative behavior in the relationship ( Jacobson & Margolin, 1979 ). Since then, cross-sectional studies have consistently indicated that distressed couples display more negative communication behaviors and fewer positive communication behaviors during conflict resolution tasks than relatively satisfied couples ( Bradbury & Karney, 2013 ). Behavioral theory extended these findings to posit that marital distress is a consequence of poor communication, arguing that “distress results from couples’ aversive and ineffectual response to conflict” ( Koerner & Jacobson, 1994 , p. 208).

Evidence for the notion that poor communication predicts couple outcomes is mixed. Consistent with the aforementioned pattern, low levels of positive affect and high levels of negative skills predict steeper declines in marital satisfaction over time ( Johnson et al., 2005 ), negative behaviors observed at baseline distinguish between satisfied and dissatisfied intact couples at 10-year follow-up ( Kiecolt-Glaser, Bane, Glaser, & Malarkey, 2003 ), and couples who express more negativity in the first 2 years of marriage report greater unhappiness in their marriages after more than a decade compared to couples who are more positive early on ( Huston, Caughlin, Houts, Smith, & George, 2001 ). However, other studies are inconsistent with this general pattern, revealing counterintuitive associations between negative communication and changes in satisfaction. Husbands’ negativity has been shown to predict a positive change in wives’ satisfaction 1 year later, for example, and is unrelated to their own satisfaction ( Heavey, Layne, & Christensen, 1993 ); more negative communication predicts slower, not faster, declines in satisfaction ( Karney & Bradbury, 1997 ); and few links are found between positive communication and satisfaction trajectories (e.g., Markman, Rhoades, Stanley, Ragan, & Whitton, 2010 ).

Considering Bidirectional Linkages

These findings pose a critical challenge for behavioral theories: if poor communication reliably distinguishes between distressed and nondistressed couples in the cross-section ( Woodin, 2011 ), how is it that poor communication does not consistently predict relationship distress? One possibility is that communication and satisfaction are correlated concurrently not because communication predicts satisfaction but because satisfaction predicts communication. This idea is consistent with longstanding evidence from the social psychological literature that attitudes guide behavior (e.g., Ajzen & Fishbein, 1977 ), and would suggest that couples’ global evaluations of their relationship should predict how partners behave toward one another. As such, communication may be a consequence of marital satisfaction rather than a cause.

Support for this competing theoretical perspective would have important applied implications. Because communication has been viewed as the key mechanism underlying relationship functioning, interventions designed to prevent or ameliorate couples’ distress have emphasized communication skills (e.g., Benson, McGinn, & Christensen, 2012 ; Rogge, Cobb, Lawrence, Johnson, & Bradbury, 2013 ). In particular, this focus on decreasing negative communication and increasing positive communication forms the core agenda in large-scale, federally sponsored tests of leading couple education programs (e.g., Hsueh et al., 2012 ; Wood, Moore, Clarkwest, & Killwald, 2014 ), following the assumption that improving couples’ communication will improve relationships and, ultimately, prevent relationship dissolution. This focus is appropriate if poor communication is the root of marital distress. If poor communication is a symptom or correlate of distress, however, prevention programs targeting communication may prove less useful than programs targeting more proximal mechanisms generating distress. Thus, clarifying the relationship between communication and marital satisfaction may advance understanding of their association and inform intervention.

Understanding the antecedent-consequent associations involving communication and satisfaction therefore requires multiwave assessments of both variables. Yet few studies to date have assessed communication at multiple time points, limiting our ability to directly test these questions. Implementing a multiwave design also allows for new questions about whether the communication-to-satisfaction and satisfaction-to-communication effects have differential temporal sequencing, such that marital satisfaction initially predicts communication early in marriage whereas communication predicts marital satisfaction as time passes.

Prior research on the association between communication and satisfaction is also limited by its focus on middle-class Caucasian couples, which narrows the range of experiences captured and limits the generalizability of findings. Studying samples that are culturally and economically diverse is especially important in light of the interventions described earlier, as recent federal initiatives have sought to develop and deliver communication-based interventions to ethnically diverse low-income couples ( Hsueh et al., 2012 ; Wood et al., 2014 ). The theoretical assumption underlying these models—that better communication yields stronger and more fulfilling relationships—has yet to be tested in these populations, however.

The Current Study

In this study we used four waves of data from a sample of low-income, ethnically diverse newlywed couples studied over the first 3 years of marriage to examine the direction of the relationship(s) between marital satisfaction and observed communication. The early years of marriage are an ideal time to study these associations because they are a period of significant risk and change for many couples (e.g., Kreider & Ellis, 2011 ). Disentangling associations between satisfaction and communication also requires studying them before any linkages between them become too well-established, thus necessitating research early in couples’ marital careers.

The antecedent-consequent models yield two sets of basic predictions: (1) communication at one time point should lead to changes in satisfaction at a subsequent time point, consistent with behavioral models, and (2) satisfaction at one time point should lead to changes in communication at a subsequent time point, consistent with attitude-behavior models. Bidirectional associations between satisfaction and communication may also be present, indicating that communication and satisfaction mutually reinforce one another. In addition, simultaneously examining communication-to-satisfaction and satisfaction-to-communication allowed us to compare the relative magnitude of the pathways, providing new information about which is a stronger predictor.

We considered two factors that may affect these general patterns. First, we examined whether the relationship between communication and marital satisfaction varies depending on what type of communication is being considered. We can distinguish between several different types of communication behavior, including positive communication (warmth, endearment), negative communication (hostility, contempt), and effective communication (assertiveness, generating solutions); each of these may operate differently. Kim, Capaldi, and Crosby (2007) found that positive emotion was more important than negative emotion in predicting subsequent marital satisfaction, consistent with the view that positivity serves a predictive role in promoting intimacy and enhancing relationship functioning. However, other theoretical frameworks—most notably Gottman’s (1994) ‘Four Horseman of the Apocalypse’—predict that negativity should prove especially destructive to relationship satisfaction. It is also possible that low levels of effective communication may serve to undermine the relationship, whereas positivity may only be the result of positive feelings about the relationship. Accordingly, we considered separate models for positivity, negativity, and effectiveness to allow for the possibility that the pattern of results may vary across communication type.

Second, we examined reciprocal associations between spouses’ own satisfaction and communication (e.g., husband satisfaction and husband negativity) and between their satisfaction and their partner’s communication (e.g., husband satisfaction and wife negativity). Within the marital literature there has been a great deal of interest in partner effects in domains such as personality (e.g., Luo, Chen, Yue, Zhang, Zhaoyang, & Xu, 2008 ) and stress (e.g., Neff & Karney, 2007 ), but there has been less attention to these processes within the context of communication. Examining partner effects can provide a test of the robustness of the within-sex effects, and also allows for the possibility that within-spouse and cross-spouse effects will take different forms. For example, satisfaction might predict one’s own future communication behaviors, consistent with attitude-behavior models, but communication might predict the partner’s subsequent satisfaction. This study examined these possibilities.

The sampling procedure was designed to yield participants who were first-married newlywed couples in which partners were of the same ethnicity, living in low-income neighborhoods in Los Angeles County. Recently married couples were identified through names and addresses on marriage license applications in 2009 and 2010. Addresses were matched with census data to identify applicants living in low-income communities, defined as census block groups wherein the median household income was no more than 160% of the 1999 federal poverty level for a four-person family. Next, names on the licenses were weighted using data from a Bayesian Census Surname Combination, which integrates census and surname information to produce a multinomial probability of membership in each of four racial/ethnic categories (Hispanic, African American, Asian, and Caucasian/other). Couples were chosen using probabilities proportionate to the ratio of target prevalences to the population prevalences, weighted by the couple’s average estimated probability of being Hispanic, African American, or Caucasian, which are the three largest racial/ethnic groups among people living in poverty in Los Angeles County ( U.S. Census Bureau, 2002 ; see also, Elliott, Becker, Beckett, Hambarsoomian, Pantoja, & Karney et al., 2013 ). These couples were telephoned and screened to ensure that they had married, that neither partner had been previously married, and that both spouses identified as Hispanic, African American, or Caucasian. A total of 3,793 couples were contacted through addresses listed on their marriage licenses; of those, 2,049 could not be reached and 1,522 (40%) responded to the mailing and agreed to be screened for eligibility. Of those who responded and agreed to be screened for eligibility, 824 couples were screened as eligible, and 658 of those couples agreed to participate in the study, with 431 couples actually completing the study. The response rate to the initial screening compares favorably to other studies of newlywed couples recruited from marriage licenses (e.g., 17.8% in Johnson et al., 2005 ; 18% in Kurdek, 1991 ).

Participants

For the 431 couples who completed the study, at the time of initial assessment, marriages averaged 4.8 months in duration ( SD = 2.5), and 38.5% of couples had children. Men’s mean age was 27.9 ( SD = 5.8), and women’s mean age was 26.3 ( SD = 5.0). Wives had a mean income of $28,672 ( SD = $24,549), and husbands had a mean income of $34,153 ( SD = $27,094). Twelve percent of couples were African American, 12% were Caucasian, and 76% were Hispanic, which is comparable to the proportion of people living in the sampled neighborhoods in Los Angeles County (12.9% African American, 14.7% Caucasian, and 60.5% Hispanic; U.S. Census Bureau, 2002 ). Of the Hispanic couples, 33% spoke Spanish during their interactions and 67% spoke English. All African American and Caucasian couples spoke English during their interactions.

Couples were visited in their homes by two trained interviewers who described the IRB-approved study and obtained written informed consent from each participant. The marital satisfaction measure was administered orally to participants by an interviewer who entered their responses immediately via computer. After completing this and other self-report measures individually, partners were reunited for three 8-minute videotaped discussions. For the first interaction, which was designed to assess problem-solving behaviors, partners were asked to identify a topic of disagreement in their relationship and then to devote 8 minutes to working toward a mutually satisfying resolution of that topic. For the second interaction, which was designed to assess social support behaviors, one randomly chosen spouse was asked to “talk about something you would like to change about yourself” while the partner was instructed to “be involved in the discussion and respond in whatever way you wish.” Spouses were instructed to avoid selecting or discussing any topics that were sources of tension or difficulty within the relationship. After a short break, a third discussion was held that was identical to the second discussion, with the roles reversed. Couples were debriefed and paid $75 for participating.

These procedures were repeated three more times at approximately 9-month intervals subsequent to the initial assessment (i.e., Wave 2 = 18 months into marriage; Wave 3 = 27 months into marriage; Wave 4 = 36 months into marriage). After completing each phase, couples were paid for participating ($100 at Wave 2, $125 at Wave 3, and $150 at Wave 4).

Behavioral Observation

Videotapes were scored by 16 trained coders using the Iowa Family Interaction Rating Scales (IFIRS; Melby et al., 1998 ). Coders—five of whom were native Spanish speakers—coded only in their native language. Factor analysis was used to reduce the IFIRS codes to three scales: positivity, negativity, and effectiveness. At Wave 1, principal axis factor analysis was applied to the IFIRS codes, which were formed by averaging each individual’s scores for each code across the three discussion tasks, to investigate their latent structure. The scree plot suggested three factors (i.e., positivity, negativity, effectiveness) for husbands and for wives ( Cattell, 1966 ), which explained 35.7% of the total variance for husbands and 34.7% of the total variance for wives. Adding a fourth factor accounted for only an additional 3.6% of the variance for husbands and 5.1% for wives, and was not indicated by the scree plot (for details, see Williamson, Bradbury, Trail, & Karney, 2011 ). The means, standard deviations, and intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs) for each of the behavioral scales are presented in Table 1 .

Means and Standard Deviations of Marital Satisfaction and Communication over Time

Note. ICC = intraclass correlation coefficient: SD = standard deviation. We report results for all available data.

A composite positivity behavioral scale was created by averaging an individual’s scores on the group enjoyment, positive mood, warmth/support, physical affection, humor/laugh, endearment, and listener responsiveness codes. At each time point, a positivity score was calculated for each of the three discussion tasks, and the average of these three scores was used in the analyses. A composite negativity behavioral scale was created by averaging an individual’s scores on the angry coercion, contempt, denial, disruptive process, dominance, hostility, interrogation, and verbal attack codes. At each time point, a negativity score was calculated for each of the three discussion tasks, and the average of these three scores was used in the analyses. Finally, a composite effectiveness scale was created by averaging an individual’s scores on the assertiveness, communication, effective process, solution quality, and solution quantity codes. At each time point, an effectiveness score was calculated for each of the three discussion tasks, and the average of these three scores was used in the analyses.

Marital Satisfaction Questionnaire

Marital satisfaction was assessed by summing responses on an eight-item questionnaire. Five items asked how satisfied the respondent was with certain areas of their relationship (e.g., “satisfaction with the amount of time spent together”), and were scored on a 5-point scale (ranging from 1 = very dissatisfied to 5 = very satisfied ). Three items asked to what degree the participant agreed with a statement about their relationship (e.g., “how much do you trust your partner”) and were scored on a 4-point scale (1 = not at all , 2 = not that much , 3 = somewhat , 4 = completely ). Scores could range from 8 to 37, with higher scores indicating higher marital satisfaction. Coefficient α was acceptable at each time point (mean = .77 for husbands and .75 for wives; range: 0.70 – 0.83). The means and standard deviations of marital satisfaction for husbands and wives at each wave are shown in Table 1 .

Cross-Sectional Correlations

Before examining the longitudinal associations between marital satisfaction and communication behaviors, we examined their cross-sectional associations ( Table 2 ). For husbands, marital satisfaction was positively associated with positivity at each time point (all p s < .01), and negatively associated with negative communication at each time point (all p s < .05). Effectiveness was not associated with marital satisfaction at the first two time points for husbands, was marginal at the third time point ( p < .10), and positively associated at the fourth time point ( p < .05). For wives, marital satisfaction was positively associated with positivity and effectiveness at each time point (all p < .05), and negatively associated with negativity at each time point (all p < .01). Together, these findings are consistent with the idea that more satisfied couples communicate in a more positive manner (more positive, less negative, and more effective), with robust findings for positivity and negativity across husbands and wives.

Cross-Sectional Correlations Between Marital Satisfaction and Communication for Husbands and Wives

Analytic Plan

We then used cross-lagged path models to examine the bidirectional associations between communication and marital satisfaction over time (see Figure 1 for sample model). These models are commonly used in longitudinal research to test the direction of influence between two variables (e.g., Johnson & Anderson, 2015 ; Shaffer, Lindhiem, Kolko, & Trentacosta, 2013 ). This design examines both pathways of interest (e.g., early communication to later marital satisfaction and early marital satisfaction to later communication) simultaneously, while controlling for all potential relationships among the variables (e.g., Martens & Haase, 2006 ). It is more conservative than a regression analysis because both dependent variables are entered into the model and allowed to correlate, thereby accounting for the multicollinearity between the two dependent variables and leaving less variance in the dependent variables to be explained by the independent variables.

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Cross-Lagged Panel Model Examining Bidirectional Associations Between Newlyweds’ Marital Satisfaction and Communication over Time.

Analyses were conducted in MPlus ( Muthén & Muthén, 2002 ). This procedure accommodates missing data using full information maximum likelihood (FIML), so models were estimated using all available observations (i.e., N = 431 for each of the models). Predictor variables included communication and marital satisfaction from the preceding time point (e.g., when dependent variables were negativity and marital satisfaction at Wave 2, predictor variables were negativity and marital satisfaction at Wave 1). Because the stability paths are included in the model (e.g., negativity at Wave 1 to negativity at Wave 2), each of the effects should be conceptualized as examining change over time (e.g., negativity at Wave 1 predicts marital satisfaction at Wave 2, controlling for marital satisfaction at Wave 1). Of note, in cross-lagged path models, the stability paths represent rank-order stability within the sample (e.g., whether someone high on satisfaction at one time point continues to be high on satisfaction at the subsequent time point; Shaffer et al., 2013 ) rather than an estimate of within-person change (e.g., whether someone’s satisfaction changes over time) like in growth curve analysis.

All results presented here and in the tables are standardized model results (STDYX standardization). We examined the significance of the stability and cross-lagged paths and compared their relative magnitude using Wald tests. In all models, stability paths for satisfaction and communication were significant ( p < .01), and Wald tests indicated that the satisfaction-to-satisfaction paths were stronger than the communication-to-communication paths (results are shown in Tables 3 – 6 ). We focus now on the cross-lagged effects.

Stability and Cross-Lagged Effects for Positivity and Marital Satisfaction

Note . Wald tests compare the relative strength of the paths (all df = 1). All results are standardized coefficients.

Stability and Cross-Lagged Effects Using the First and Last Waves

Cross-Lagged Models: Four-Wave Analyses

We analyzed 12 four-wave models, one for each of the communication behaviors of interest (positivity, negativity, and effectiveness), run separately for husbands’ within-sex effects (e.g., husbands’ positivity and husbands’ satisfaction), wives’ within-sex effects (e.g., wives’ positivity and wives’ satisfaction), husbands’ cross-spouse effects (e.g., husbands’ positivity and wives’ satisfaction), and wives’ cross-spouse effects (e.g., wives’ positivity and husbands’ satisfaction).

Results for positivity are shown in Table 3 . Satisfaction was a significant predictor of positivity at 6 of the 12 lags (median |β| across all lags = .10). Effects were found across all three lags and on a within- (e.g., husbands’ positivity to husbands’ satisfaction) and cross-spouse (e.g., wives’ satisfaction to husbands’ positivity) basis. Positivity was a significant predictor of communication at 2 of the 12 lags (median |β| across all lags = .02): husbands’ positivity predicted their satisfaction over the first lag (Wave 1–2) and their wives’ satisfaction over the second lag (Wave 2–3).

We compared the relative magnitude of the satisfaction-to-positivity effect and the positivity-to-satisfaction effect using Wald tests ( Table 3 ). The satisfaction-to-positivity effect was stronger than the positivity-to-satisfaction effect at two lags [husbands’ positivity and husbands’ satisfaction (Wave 1–2) and husbands’ positivity and wives’ satisfaction (Wave 2–3)]. The relative magnitude of the cross-lagged effects did not differ significantly at the other lags (all p > .10).

Results for negativity are shown in Table 4 . Satisfaction was a significant predictor of negativity at 5 of the 12 lags (median |β| across all lags = .09). Effects were found at the first two lags and on a within- and cross-spouse basis. Negativity was a significant predictor of satisfaction at 4 of the 12 lags (median |β| across all lags = .06), with effects found at the first two lags and on a within- and cross-spouse basis.

Stability and Cross-Lagged Effects for Negativity and Marital Satisfaction

Wald tests comparing the satisfaction-to-negativity effect and the negativity-to-satisfaction effect indicated that the satisfaction-to-negativity effects were stronger than the negativity-to-satisfaction effects at four of the lags: husbands’ negativity and husbands’ satisfaction (Wave 1–2), husbands’ negativity and wives’ satisfaction (Wave 2–3), wives’ negativity and wives’ satisfaction (Wave 2–3), and wives’ negativity and husbands’ marital satisfaction (Wave 1–2). The relative magnitude of the cross-lagged effects did not differ significantly at the other lags (all p > .10).

Effectiveness

Results for effectiveness are shown in Table 5 . Satisfaction was a significant or marginal predictor of effectiveness at 3 of the 12 lags (median |β| across all lags = .08), with effects across all three waves and on a cross-spouse basis. Effectiveness was a significant predictor of satisfaction only once (median |β| across all lags = .05): husbands’ effectiveness was a significant predictor of wives’ marital satisfaction from Wave 1–2. Wald tests comparing the relative magnitude of the lags indicated that husbands’ effectiveness was a stronger predictor of wives’ satisfaction from Wave 1–2 than wives’ satisfaction was of husbands’ effectiveness during that period. The relative magnitude of the cross-lagged effects did not differ significantly at the other lags (all p > .10).

Stability and Cross-Lagged Effects for Effectiveness and Marital Satisfaction

Wave 1 to Wave 4 Analyses

Finally, we used only the first and last waves of data to examine the associations between satisfaction and communication over a longer period of time (approximately 2.5 years between waves). Doing so allowed us to examine whether the length of the lags affected the results and is more consistent with previous studies that have examined couples’ initial communication as a predictor of subsequent satisfaction.

First, as shown in Table 6 , we analyzed the cross-lagged models described earlier using the first and last wave of data. Initial satisfaction reliably predicted subsequent communication in 6 of 12 possible effects (median |β| = .10), with significant results found for all three communication behaviors and on a within- and cross-spouse basis. In contrast, communication did not predict subsequent satisfaction in any of the 12 possible tests (median |β| = .01). However, the relative magnitude of these cross-lagged effects did not differ significantly for any of the effects (all p > .10).

Given that stability effects were consistently stronger for satisfaction than for communication (see Table 6 , left side), it is possible that the nonsignificant behavior-to-satisfaction effects are a statistical artifact, as controlling for baseline satisfaction removes more explainable variance in satisfaction than is the case when controlling for baseline communication. To evaluate this possibility, we examined whether Wave 1 behavior scores covaried with Wave 4 satisfaction scores before controlling for Wave 1 satisfaction scores. We therefore calculated the zero-order correlations between (a) Wave 1 satisfaction scores and Wave 4 communication behaviors and (b) Wave 1 communication behaviors and Wave 4 satisfaction scores. As shown in Table 7 , 10 of the 12 satisfaction-to-behavior correlations were statistically significant, whereas only 3 of the 12 behavior-to-satisfaction correlations were significant. When we directly compared the magnitude of the correlations using a macro developed by Lee and Preacher (2013) , there was no instance where the communication-to-satisfaction correlation was stronger than the satisfaction-to-communication correlation, but there were two instances where the satisfaction-to-communication correlation was stronger than the communication-to-satisfaction correlation (wives’ satisfaction and husbands’ positivity and wives’ satisfaction and wives’ positivity). These results indicate that behavior-to-satisfaction effects were not reliable or stronger than the satisfaction-to-behavior effects even prior to controlling for baseline satisfaction, and indicate that the reported results are not an artifact of differential stabilities for satisfaction and communication.

Zero-Order Correlations Between Communication and Satisfaction Using the First and Last Waves

Note . Z-tests compare the relative strength of the correlations (all N = 313).

Communication has long been viewed as a key element in partners’ judgments of relationship satisfaction, but questions remain regarding cause-and-effect in these associations. Using four waves of data from a diverse sample of low-income newlywed couples, we assessed concurrent and longitudinal links between relationship satisfaction and spouses’ observed positivity, negativity, and effectiveness. Consistent with the idea that higher levels of satisfaction are associated with better communication, cross-sectional correlations at each of the four assessments were significant, such that more satisfied spouses showed more positive, less negative, and more effective communication.

Cross-lagged analyses examining the reciprocal predictive relationships between satisfaction and communication shed light on the directionality of these cross-sectional effects. Support for the hypothesis that communication predicted satisfaction was limited. Of the 36 cross-lagged effects using the 9-month lags, only 7 were significant for communication-to-satisfaction, and communication did not predict subsequent satisfaction using only the first and fourth waves of data. More support emerged for the reverse pathway examining satisfaction-to-communication effects. For the 9-month lags, satisfaction was a significant predictor of communication in twice as many cases, and there was some evidence that satisfaction was a reliable predictor of subsequent communication using only the first and last lags. However, in the majority of cases, there was not significant cross-lagged prediction.

Directly comparing the magnitude of the communication-to-satisfaction effects and the satisfaction-to-communication effects indicated that the effects did not differ significantly in 85% of cases. Of the seven lags that did differ in magnitude, satisfaction was a stronger predictor of communication than communication was of satisfaction in six cases. Taken together, these results indicate that satisfaction is a more consistent and stronger predictor of communication than the reverse, but overall both effects are fairly inconsistent and similar in magnitude.

Before discussing the implications of these results, we first outline several caveats. First, the study used a sample of low-income, ethnically diverse, first-married, newlywed couples. This sampling strategy was a notable strength of the study, as it captured the experiences of an understudied population and likely allowed for a larger range of communication behavior and marital satisfaction than would be seen in a sample of middle-class White couples. At the same time, the results may not generalize to other populations, such as more established couples, remarried couples, same-sex couples, and low-income, ethnically diverse couples who choose not to marry. Further research is needed to determine whether the predictive power of communication on relationship satisfaction varies across sample types. We note also that these associations were examined over the first 3 years of marriage. This sampling method had the advantage of teasing apart these associations early in couples’ marital trajectories before they became well-established, but it is possible that different associations could emerge later in couples’ marital trajectories. Third, our assessment of communication behavior was limited to the positivity, negativity, and effectiveness dimensions coded during couples’ interactions. Although the use of observational ratings of communication behaviors in couples’ homes is a significant strength of the study, these structured interactions may not fully capture the ways that couples interact in their everyday lives. Observational ratings from the IFIRS do correlate with couples’ own reports of their behavior ( Lorenz, Melby, Conger, & Surjadi, 2012 ), but it is nonetheless possible that couples’ subjective ratings of their communication quality or other behavioral patterns (e.g., demand-withdraw behavior, Christensen & Heavey, 1990 ) may show different patterns of association with satisfaction over time. Finally, the stability paths for satisfaction were significantly stronger than the stability paths for communication. This pattern of results indicates that the between-person, rank-order stability for satisfaction was greater than that for communication, resulting in less variability in satisfaction to be explained relative to communication scores. Nonetheless, after we removed this constraint by computing zero-order correlations between Wave 1 communication and Wave 4 satisfaction (and Wave 1 satisfaction and Wave 4 communication), there was no evidence that communication-to-satisfaction effects were particularly robust or stronger than the satisfaction-to-communication effects ( Table 7 ). Thus, the differential stability effects did not disproportionately drive the effects reported here.

Notwithstanding these limitations, the current study advances understanding of the association between couples’ communication and marital satisfaction during the newlywed years. Although poor communication (more negative, less positive, less effective) was associated with lower levels of satisfaction cross-sectionally, communication was an inconsistent predictor of spouses’ own satisfaction or their partner’s satisfaction over time. Thus, although communication predicted satisfaction in some instances, in general these exchanges did not have lasting effects on relationship satisfaction. These results — indicating that the causal influence of communication on satisfaction may be more limited than previously thought — challenge leading behavioral models of relationship change that argue that relationship satisfaction changes as a function of couples’ communication. This work suggests that more specificity is needed to clarify the circumstances under which communication does and does not predict satisfaction. For example, it could be the case that only more severe forms of negative exchanges such as aggressive behavior undermine relationship quality (e.g., Lawrence & Bradbury, 2007 ). Alternatively, couples’ subjective interpretations of their behavior may prove critical, even if the observable behavior itself does not, consistent with attributional models (e.g., Bradbury & Fincham, 1990 ). More attention is also needed to clarify whether factors other than communication serve as the drivers of change in satisfaction. For example, external stressors and the broader environmental context have been shown to undermine couples’ relationship satisfaction, particularly among low-income populations such as we have examined here (e.g., Conger et al., 1990 ; Cutrona et al., 2003 ). Future empirical work examining factors that do consistently predict satisfaction over time during the early years of marriage will do much to enhance our theoretical understandings of why relationships change.

Satisfaction was a more consistent predictor of husbands’ and wives’ communication behaviors, and when the cross-lagged effects differed in magnitude they favored the satisfaction-to-communication paths in all but one instance. At the same time, the results for satisfaction-to-communication were not altogether consistent across time or across all domains of functioning. Across all behaviors, for example, we identified no instances in which satisfaction predicted that behavior across all three of the lags that we studied (see Tables 3 , ​ ,4, 4 , and ​ and5). 5 ). Moreover, although it was true that the magnitude of the satisfaction-to-satisfaction lags were in some cases stronger than the communication-to-satisfaction lags, in the vast majority of cases the relative magnitude of the lags did not differ. Thus, while satisfaction was a more consistent predictor of communication than communication was of satisfaction, the effect of satisfaction on communication was not particularly robust either, suggesting that other potent forces are at work in affecting change in marriage. As the vulnerability-stress-adaptation model asserts ( Karney & Bradbury, 1995 ), core functions in relationships are likely governed by personality characteristics (e.g., neuroticism, self-esteem), dyadic processes (e.g., time spent together, sexual intimacy), and external factors (e.g., chronic and acute stress), any of which may explain the cross-sectional associations between satisfaction and communication and perhaps even serve as more robust predictors of these constructs. As spouses’ communication is unlikely to be simply a downstream manifestation of earlier satisfaction, exploring other potential explanations for how dyadic processes change over time would be particularly illuminating.

More broadly, this study highlights the benefits of repeated assessments of independent variables like communication for understanding relationship development. Prior studies have typically relied on data from a single initial assessment to predict longitudinal change in satisfaction (e.g., Johnson et al., 2005 ), under the assumption that this information captures an unfolding process (e.g., increasingly negative interactions) that remains robust over time. In contrast, this study indicates these processes may not remain consistent over time; longitudinal linkages between communication and satisfaction were generally less robust as time passed, despite consistent cross-sectional associations at each assessment and significant prediction early in marriage. Fully understanding the nature of the linkages between satisfaction and independent variables like communication thus requires assessing these variables repeatedly over time in tandem with satisfaction in order to adequately test theoretical models of relationship change. The present findings also point to the importance of not assuming that prediction of shorter term follow-up will generalize to prediction at longer term follow-up, given that the few significant results for communication did not replicate across the short and longer lags. Greater clarity in the marital literature about the definition of and meaning that can be inferred from different follow-up periods would be valuable.

Several applied implications also follow from these results. Poor communication is the most commonly cited reason why couples seek therapy ( Doss, Simpson, & Christensen, 2004 ), and is estimated by therapists to have the most damaging impact on relationships ( Geiss & O’Leary, 1981 ). Improving communication has thus been the primary goal in leading models of prevention (e.g., Wood et al., 2014 ) and intervention (e.g., Benson et al., 2012 ), driven by this perceived need and by the assumption that communication is a key predictor of relationship satisfaction. Our results indicate that a more nuanced assumption is needed: poor communication does in some cases lead to changes in satisfaction, but assuming that poor communication consistently leads couples to be less satisfied is not supported by these data. One consequence of this insight is that improving communication may be a valuable first step so that couples can engage more readily in treatment, but it is unlikely to be a sufficient ingredient for lasting change in relationship satisfaction. Interventions that also help couples understand and process their other difficulties, and that teach them to navigate these problems more effectively, are likely to be beneficial (e.g., Jacobson & Christensen, 1996 ). These interventions may foster the development of higher-order dyadic capacities such as helping couples learn when to raise concerns or why certain problems are particularly difficult. Such skills are distinct from helping them learn how to discuss their difficulties and could have more robust and long-lasting effects on satisfaction.

In sum, these results indicate that communication does in some cases foreshadow later judgments of relationship satisfaction and that higher levels of initial satisfaction can eventuate into unions that are more interpersonally harmonious. On the whole, however, these effects are not particularly strong or consistent over time, leaving open important questions about the interpersonal processes that enable couples to sustain high levels of satisfaction and adaptive communication during the newlywed years.

Acknowledgments

Preparation of this report was supported by Research Grants HD053825 and HD061366 from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development awarded to Benjamin R. Karney. We thank Andrew Christensen, Rashmita Mistry, and Letitia Anne Peplau for helpful feedback on earlier versions of this manuscript, and Cameron Neece and Hannah Williamson for statistical consultation.

Contributor Information

Justin A. Lavner, University of Georgia.

Benjamin R. Karney, University of California, Los Angeles.

Thomas N. Bradbury, University of California, Los Angeles.

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8 facts about black americans and the news.

communication problems research papers

Black Americans have long had a complex relationship with the news media . In 1967, the  Kerner Commission  – a panel established by President Lyndon Johnson to investigate the causes of more than 150 urban riots in the United States – sharply criticized the media’s treatment of Black Americans.

More than 50 years later, there is  ongoing discussion  of  many of the themes raised  in the commission’s report. Amid these discussions, here are some key facts about Black Americans’ experiences with and attitudes toward the news, based on recent Pew Research Center surveys:

This analysis is based on several recent Pew Research Center surveys, including our 2023 study on Black Americans’ experiences with news . Details on the methodologies of these surveys, including field dates and sample sizes, can be found by following the links in this analysis.

Pew Research Center is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts, its primary funder. This is the latest report in Pew Research Center’s ongoing investigation of the state of news, information and journalism in the digital age, a research program funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts, with generous support from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

Black Americans are more likely than other racial and ethnic groups in the U.S. to get their news on TV.  About three-quarters of Black adults (76%) say they at least sometimes get news on TV , compared with 62% of both White and Hispanic adults and 52% of Asian adults. And 38% of Black Americans say they prefer to get their news on TV over any other platform – again higher than people of other racial or ethnic backgrounds.

Black Americans are more likely than White Americans to get news from certain social media sites. The shares of Black adults who say they regularly get news on YouTube (41%), Facebook (36%), Instagram (27%) and TikTok (22%) are each higher than the shares of White Americans who get news on these platforms. Like Americans overall, Black Americans get news from a wide variety of sources in addition to social media, including other digital platforms such as news websites and search engines.

Black Americans see issues with the way Black people are covered in the news, according to a 2023 survey . For example, 63% of Black adults say the news they see or hear about Black people is often more negative than the news about other racial and ethnic groups. And eight-in-ten say they at least sometimes see or hear news coverage about Black people that is racist or racially insensitive, including 39% who see such coverage extremely or fairly often.

We also asked Black Americans how likely it is that Black people will be covered fairly in the news in their lifetime. A relatively small share – 14% – see this as extremely or very likely.

A pie chart showing that most Black Americans say news about Black people is more negative than news about other groups.

Black Americans see a number of steps that could improve news coverage of Black people . For example, most Black adults say it is extremely or very important that journalists and reporters cover all sides of the issues (76%) and understand the history of the issues (73%) when covering Black people. Many also say it is crucial for journalists to personally engage with the people they cover (59%) and to advocate for Black people (48%).

A bar chart showing that Black Americans say journalists should cover all sides, understand history when they cover Black people.

Among Black Americans who say they at least sometimes see racist or racially insensitive news coverage of Black people, 64% say educating all journalists about issues impacting Black people would be highly effective in making coverage more fair. Substantial shares also say more representation would help – such as including more Black people as sources in news stories or hiring them at news outlets for leadership roles or as journalists and reporters.

Black Americans tend to be underrepresented in U.S. newsrooms. Just 6% of reporting journalists are Black, according to a 2022 Pew Research Center survey of U.S. journalists . That is well below the Black share of U.S. workers (11%) and adults overall (12%).

About half of all U.S. journalists (52%) say their news organization does not have enough diversity when it comes to race and ethnicity. That is much larger than the shares of journalists who say the same about gender, sexual orientation and other aspects of diversity.

There is more proportional representation by race and ethnicity in  local TV newsrooms , according to the Radio Television Digital News Association . It found in 2022 that 13% of local TV newsroom employees are African American. However, only 6% of news directors – the leaders of such newsrooms – are Black.

Many Black Americans say it’s important to get news about race and racial inequality from Black journalists. But fewer feel this way when it comes to news in general. Four-in-ten Black Americans say it’s extremely or very important that the news they get about race and racial inequality comes from Black journalists. A much smaller share (14%) say it’s highly important that the news they get in general – regardless of topic – comes from Black reporters.

A bar chart showing that 40% of Black Americans say it’s crucial for news about race to come from Black reporters, but far fewer say the same about news in general.

Similarly, just 15% of Black Americans say that whether a journalist is Black is extremely or very important to deciding if a news story in general is trustworthy. Black Americans are much more likely to see other factors as highly important when assessing the trustworthiness of a news story. These factors include the sources cited in the story, the news outlet that covers the story, whether the story is reported by multiple outlets, and their own gut instinct.

About a quarter of Black Americans (24%) say they extremely or fairly often get news from Black news outlets . These outlets, which have a long history in the U.S. , are defined as those created by Black people and focused on providing news and information specifically to Black audiences. Another 40% of Black adults say they sometimes get news from such outlets.

A pie chart showing that About a quarter of Black adults often get news from Black news outlets.

Black Americans are more likely than other racial and ethnic groups to feel that the news media misunderstand them because of their race or some other demographic trait. Roughly similar portions of Americans who are White (61%), Black (58%) and Hispanic (55%) say the news media misunderstand them , but they cite markedly different reasons for this misunderstanding.

Among Black adults who feel this way, about a third (34%) say that what news organizations misunderstand about them most is their personal characteristics. This is far higher than the 10% of White adults and 17% of Hispanic adults who say the same. (The survey included Asian Americans, but the sample size for this group is too small to analyze separately.)

Note: This is an update of a post originally published on Aug. 7, 2019.

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Key facts about the nation’s 47.9 million Black Americans

Facts about the u.s. black population, african immigrants in u.s. more religious than other black americans, and more likely to be catholic, across religious groups, a majority of black americans say opposing racism is an essential part of their faith, most popular.

About Pew Research Center Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research. Pew Research Center does not take policy positions. It is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts .

A once-ignored community of science sleuths now has the research community on its heels

communication problems research papers

A community of sleuths hunting for errors in scientific research have sent shockwaves through some of the most prestigious research institutions in the world — and the science community at large.

High-profile cases of alleged image manipulations in papers authored by the former president at Stanford University and leaders at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have made national media headlines, and some top science leaders think this could be just the start.

“At the rate things are going, we expect another one of these to come up every few weeks,” said Holden Thorp, the editor-in-chief of the Science family of scientific journals, whose namesake publication is one of the two most influential in the field. 

The sleuths argue their work is necessary to correct the scientific record and prevent generations of researchers from pursuing dead-end topics because of flawed papers. And some scientists say it’s time for universities and academic publishers to reform how they address flawed research. 

“I understand why the sleuths finding these things are so pissed off,” said Michael Eisen, a biologist, the former editor of the journal eLife and a prominent voice of reform in scientific publishing. “Everybody — the author, the journal, the institution, everybody — is incentivized to minimize the importance of these things.” 

For about a decade, science sleuths unearthed widespread problems in scientific images in published papers, publishing concerns online but receiving little attention. 

That began to change last summer after then-Stanford President Marc Tessier-Lavigne, who is a neuroscientist, stepped down from his post after scrutiny of alleged image manipulations in studies he helped author and a report criticizing his laboratory culture. Tessier-Lavigne was not found to have engaged in misconduct himself, but members of his lab appeared to manipulate images in dubious ways, a report from a scientific panel hired to examine the allegations said. 

In January, a scathing post from a blogger exposed questionable work from top leaders at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute , which subsequently asked journals to retract six articles and issue corrections for dozens more. 

In a resignation statement , Tessier-Lavigne noted that the panel did not find that he knew of misconduct and that he never submitted papers he didn’t think were accurate. In a statement from its research integrity officer, Dana-Farber said it took decisive action to correct the scientific record and that image discrepancies were not necessarily evidence an author sought to deceive. 

“We’re certainly living through a moment — a public awareness — that really hit an inflection when the Marc Tessier-Lavigne matter happened and has continued steadily since then, with Dana-Farber being the latest,” Thorp said. 

Now, the long-standing problem is in the national spotlight, and new artificial intelligence tools are only making it easier to spot problems that range from decades-old errors and sloppy science to images enhanced unethically in photo-editing software.  

This heightened scrutiny is reshaping how some publishers are operating. And it’s pushing universities, journals and researchers to reckon with new technology, a potential backlog of undiscovered errors and how to be more transparent when problems are identified. 

This comes at a fraught time in academic halls. Bill Ackman, a venture capitalist, in a post on X last month discussed weaponizing artificial intelligence to identify plagiarism of leaders at top-flight universities where he has had ideological differences, raising questions about political motivations in plagiarism investigations. More broadly, public trust in scientists and science has declined steadily in recent years, according to the Pew Research Center .

Eisen said he didn’t think sleuths’ concerns over scientific images had veered into “McCarthyist” territory.

“I think they’ve been targeting a very specific type of problem in the literature, and they’re right — it’s bad,” Eisen said. 

Scientific publishing builds the base of what scientists understand about their disciplines, and it’s the primary way that researchers with new findings outline their work for colleagues. Before publication, scientific journals consider submissions and send them to outside researchers in the field for vetting and to spot errors or faulty reasoning, which is called peer review. Journal editors will review studies for plagiarism and for copy edits before they’re published. 

That system is not perfect and still relies on good-faith efforts by researchers to not manipulate their findings.

Over the past 15 years, scientists have grown increasingly concerned about problems that some researchers were digitally altering images in their papers to skew or emphasize results. Discovering irregularities in images — typically of experiments involving mice, gels or blots — has become a larger priority of scientific journals’ work.   

Jana Christopher, an expert on scientific images who works for the Federation of European Biochemical Societies and its journals, said the field of image integrity screening has grown rapidly since she began working in it about 15 years ago. 

At the time, “nobody was doing this and people were kind of in denial about research fraud,” Christopher said. “The common view was that it was very rare and every now and then you would find someone who fudged their results.” 

Today, scientific journals have entire teams dedicated to dealing with images and trying to ensure their accuracy. More papers are being retracted than ever — with a record 10,000-plus pulled last year, according to a Nature analysis . 

A loose group of scientific sleuths have added outside pressure. Sleuths often discover and flag errors or potential manipulations on the online forum PubPeer. Some sleuths receive little or no payment or public recognition for their work.

“To some extent, there is a vigilantism around it,” Eisen said. 

An analysis of comments on more than 24,000 articles posted on PubPeer found that more than 62% of comments on PubPeer were related to image manipulation. 

For years, sleuths relied on sharp eyes, keen pattern recognition and an understanding of photo manipulation tools. In the past few years, rapidly developing artificial intelligence tools, which can scan papers for irregularities, are supercharging their work. 

Now, scientific journals are adopting similar technology to try to prevent errors from reaching publication. In January, Science announced that it was using an artificial intelligence tool called Proofig to scan papers that were being edited and peer-reviewed for publication. 

Thorp, the Science editor-in-chief, said the family of six journals added the tool “quietly” into its workflow about six months before that January announcement. Before, the journal was reliant on eye-checks to catch these types of problems. 

Thorp said Proofig identified several papers late in the editorial process that were not published because of problematic images that were difficult to explain and other instances in which authors had “logical explanations” for issues they corrected before publication.

“The serious errors that cause us not to publish a paper are less than 1%,” Thorp said.

In a statement, Chris Graf, the research integrity director at the publishing company Springer Nature, said his company is developing and testing “in-house AI image integrity software” to check for image duplications. Graf’s research integrity unit currently uses Proofig to help assess articles if concerns are raised after publication. 

Graf said processes varied across its journals, but that some Springer Nature publications manually check images for manipulations with Adobe Photoshop tools and look for inconsistencies in raw data for experiments that visualize cell components or common scientific experiments.

“While the AI-based tools are helpful in speeding up and scaling up the investigations, we still consider the human element of all our investigations to be crucial,” Graf said, adding that image recognition software is not perfect and that human expertise is required to protect against false positives and negatives. 

No tool will catch every mistake or cheat. 

“There’s a lot of human beings in that process. We’re never going to catch everything,” Thorp said. “We need to get much better at managing this when it happens, as journals, institutions and authors.”

Many science sleuths had grown frustrated after their concerns seemed to be ignored or as investigations trickled along slowly and without a public resolution.  

Sholto David, who publicly exposed concerns about Dana-Farber research in a blog post, said he largely “gave up” on writing letters to journal editors about errors he discovered because their responses were so insufficient. 

Elisabeth Bik, a microbiologist and longtime image sleuth, said she has frequently flagged image problems and “nothing happens.” 

Leaving public comments questioning research figures on PubPeer can start a public conversation over questionable research, but authors and research institutions often don’t respond directly to the online critiques. 

While journals can issue corrections or retractions, it’s typically a research institution’s or a university’s responsibility to investigate cases. When cases involve biomedical research supported by federal funding, the federal Office of Research Integrity can investigate. 

Thorp said the institutions need to move more swiftly to take responsibility when errors are discovered and speak plainly and publicly about what happened to earn the public’s trust.  

“Universities are so slow at responding and so slow at running through their processes, and the longer that goes on, the more damage that goes on,” Thorp said. “We don’t know what happened if instead of launching this investigation Stanford said, ‘These papers are wrong. We’re going to retract them. It’s our responsibility. But for now, we’re taking the blame and owning up to this.’” 

Some scientists worry that image concerns are only scratching the surface of science’s integrity issues — problems in images are simply much easier to spot than data errors in spreadsheets. 

And while policing bad papers and seeking accountability is important, some scientists think those measures will be treating symptoms of the larger problem: a culture that rewards the careers of those who publish the most exciting results, rather than the ones that hold up over time. 

“The scientific culture itself does not say we care about being right; it says we care about getting splashy papers,” Eisen said. 

Evan Bush is a science reporter for NBC News. He can be reached at [email protected].

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Virtual homesteaders built an internet of ‘little autocracies.’ Is digital democracy doomed?

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By Joe Arney

When his mother was elected president of her neighborhood gardening club, it prompted Nathan Schneider to think differently about his work.

Headshot of Nathan Schneier

“I was running a large online community and having problems managing the behavior that takes place in those spaces,” said Schneider, an assistant professor of media studies at the College of Media, Communication and Information at the University of Colorado Boulder. “Meanwhile, my mother’s garden club had bylaws, tools for solving problems, elected officers—ordinary stuff, nothing mysterious or experimental. Why is it that our online spaces haven’t caught up even to my mother’s garden club?”

Schneider’s work in this area—which looks back to the earliest online communities—has resulted in a new book, Governable Spaces: Democratic Design for Online Life, due out Feb. 27. The book explores what Schneider calls “implicit feudalism”—the logic of how online spaces have been organized, from the amateur-run digital bulletin boards to modern social networks. The typical online community, he said, has become “a kind of mini autocracy.”

“When you start a Facebook group, there’s no option to say, ‘I want the democratic version,’” he said. “It assumes all the power will emanate from whoever starts the group. That person alone has absolute ability to censor and exile others. No one else gets a say.”

The roots of this problem lie in the basic design of the internet. “Whoever owns the server, and can plug it in and take it out, has all the power,” Schneider said. But the problem is also cultural: “This is not only a configuration issue with the internet, but a matter of what we, the users, accept. Together, these are contributing to the worldwide rise of authoritarianism.”

No ‘democratic version’ option

“Why is it that our online spaces haven’t caught up even to my mother’s garden club?” Nathan Schneider, assistant professor, media studies

In the book, Schneider explores ways to change the internet—from regulation to design—to build democratic online spaces that reinforce democracy in everyday culture and practice. He also presents experimental projects he and his students have developed, including a website for designing rules for communities, a mod for online games and an art exhibit that appeared at the UN Internet Governance Forum.

Questions of online governance and democracy have long fascinated Schneider. In addition to his teaching and research, he is director of CMCI’s Media Economies Design Lab and is a fellow at the college’s Media Archeology Lab , where much of his research on the origins of the tools and platforms that shaped the internet as we know it live. He also helped develop the conference on Local Tech Ecologies through the MED Lab, which has examined how to bring local ownership to social media platforms to improve the level of discourse.

That idea of democracy being about the everyday as well as the major election is key to both governance and how Schneider believes technology should operate. A book he returned to in the course of his research, The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier, offers a mid-1990s look at the democratic logic of the internet.

“It presented a vision that by enabling widespread access to the internet, you would produce democracy,” he said. “There was this idea that you could build democracies out of little autocracies through the conquest of virtual space. But those autocratic notions are so built into the platforms we use that you have to work against the defaults to practice democracy.”

Top-down democracy

His book explores different strategies to encourage democratic practices online. For instance, when the Senate Judiciary Committee excoriated a group of big tech CEOs earlier this month for how platforms like Facebook and TikTok are harmful to children—presaging a legislative fix—it was likely the first step in companies demanding even more aggressive data collection and policing of what kinds of content can be seen by different audiences.

 Democratic Design for Online Life.

“What if instead of imposing democracy, we used it as a tool to solve these problems?” Schneider said. “For instance, when it comes to conflicts among users in social media, what if we had more accountable judiciaries and ways to address problems together at the community level?”

It could be modeled on our court system, he added, where you can articulate a complaint, argue it and seek appropriate redress, but online, “we don’t have a way to address our problems more collaboratively, reinforces the idea that the only option is the mob option.”

He also encourages online communities to be more intentional about choosing technologies—a practice he’s brought to the MED Lab, which runs its own servers and governs the tools available to students—and advocates for blockchain. While this technology has so far been associated mostly with scams, “it is a reminder that we could design our networks differently—for more collective ownership, rather than the assumption that every service is somebody’s server plugged into a wall,” Schneider said.

‘No separation’ between internet, democracy

One of the biggest takeaways in the book is the notion that we can no longer consider what the internet is doing to democracy—we should also think about democracy on the internet.

“There is no separation between the two,” Schneider said. “If we’re going to live so much of our lives online, it really matters how we organize ourselves there. If we’re serious about a democratic society, we need to be serious about a democratic internet.”

Even as the mainstream media have beat a steady drum of doom about the general election, the course of his work has made Schneider more hopeful about the less-told stories of people working to influence democracy in their everyday lives.

As he is quick to point out, that’s been a bedrock of democracy since Alexis de Tocqueville visited in the 1800s.

“I’ve taken a lot of hope from focusing my attention on what people are doing at other levels, and in focusing on advancing democracy, rather than just defending it,” he said. “That’s something Tocqueville saw—that this cannot be a static practice. That’s just as true of how we live and engage online.”

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A Columbia Surgeon’s Study Was Pulled. He Kept Publishing Flawed Data.

The quiet withdrawal of a 2021 cancer study by Dr. Sam Yoon highlights scientific publishers’ lack of transparency around data problems.

Supported by

Benjamin Mueller

By Benjamin Mueller

Benjamin Mueller covers medical science and has reported on several research scandals.

  • Feb. 15, 2024

The stomach cancer study was shot through with suspicious data. Identical constellations of cells were said to depict separate experiments on wholly different biological lineages. Photos of tumor-stricken mice, used to show that a drug reduced cancer growth, had been featured in two previous papers describing other treatments.

Problems with the study were severe enough that its publisher, after finding that the paper violated ethics guidelines, formally withdrew it within a few months of its publication in 2021. The study was then wiped from the internet, leaving behind a barren web page that said nothing about the reasons for its removal.

As it turned out, the flawed study was part of a pattern. Since 2008, two of its authors — Dr. Sam S. Yoon, chief of a cancer surgery division at Columbia University’s medical center, and a more junior cancer biologist — have collaborated with a rotating cast of researchers on a combined 26 articles that a British scientific sleuth has publicly flagged for containing suspect data. A medical journal retracted one of them this month after inquiries from The New York Times.

A person walks across a covered walkway connecting two buildings over a road with parked cars. A large, blue sign on the walkway says "Columbia University Irving Medical Center."

Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, where Dr. Yoon worked when much of the research was done, is now investigating the studies. Columbia’s medical center declined to comment on specific allegations, saying only that it reviews “any concerns about scientific integrity brought to our attention.”

Dr. Yoon, who has said his research could lead to better cancer treatments , did not answer repeated questions. Attempts to speak to the other researcher, Changhwan Yoon, an associate research scientist at Columbia, were also unsuccessful.

The allegations were aired in recent months in online comments on a science forum and in a blog post by Sholto David, an independent molecular biologist. He has ferreted out problems in a raft of high-profile cancer research , including dozens of papers at a Harvard cancer center that were subsequently referred for retractions or corrections.

From his flat in Wales , Dr. David pores over published images of cells, tumors and mice in his spare time and then reports slip-ups, trying to close the gap between people’s regard for academic research and the sometimes shoddier realities of the profession.

When evaluating scientific images, it is difficult to distinguish sloppy copy-and-paste errors from deliberate doctoring of data. Two other imaging experts who reviewed the allegations at the request of The Times said some of the discrepancies identified by Dr. David bore signs of manipulation, like flipped, rotated or seemingly digitally altered images.

Armed with A.I.-powered detection tools, scientists and bloggers have recently exposed a growing body of such questionable research, like the faulty papers at Harvard’s Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and studies by Stanford’s president that led to his resignation last year.

But those high-profile cases were merely the tip of the iceberg, experts said. A deeper pool of unreliable research has gone unaddressed for years, shielded in part by powerful scientific publishers driven to put out huge volumes of studies while avoiding the reputational damage of retracting them publicly.

The quiet removal of the 2021 stomach cancer study from Dr. Yoon’s lab, a copy of which was reviewed by The Times, illustrates how that system of scientific publishing has helped enable faulty research, experts said. In some cases, critical medical fields have remained seeded with erroneous studies.

“The journals do the bare minimum,” said Elisabeth Bik, a microbiologist and image expert who described Dr. Yoon’s papers as showing a worrisome pattern of copied or doctored data. “There’s no oversight.”

Memorial Sloan Kettering, where portions of the stomach cancer research were done, said no one — not the journal nor the researchers — had ever told administrators that the paper was withdrawn or why it had been. The study said it was supported in part by federal funding given to the cancer center.

Dr. Yoon, a stomach cancer specialist and a proponent of robotic surgery, kept climbing the academic ranks, bringing his junior researcher along with him. In September 2021, around the time the study was published, he joined Columbia, which celebrated his prolific research output in a news release . His work was financed in part by half a million dollars in federal research money that year, adding to a career haul of nearly $5 million in federal funds.

The decision by the stomach cancer study’s publisher, Elsevier, not to post an explanation for the paper’s removal made it less likely that the episode would draw public attention or affect the duo’s work. That very study continued to be cited in papers by other scientists .

And as recently as last year, Dr. Yoon’s lab published more studies containing identical images that were said to depict separate experiments, according to Dr. David’s analyses.

The researchers’ suspicious publications stretch back 16 years. Over time, relatively minor image copies in papers by Dr. Yoon gave way to more serious discrepancies in studies he collaborated on with Changhwan Yoon, Dr. David said. The pair, who are not related, began publishing articles together around 2013.

But neither their employers nor their publishers seemed to start investigating their work until this past fall, when Dr. David published his initial findings on For Better Science, a blog, and notified Memorial Sloan Kettering, Columbia and the journals. Memorial Sloan Kettering said it began its investigation then.

None of those flagged studies was retracted until last week. Three days after The Times asked publishers about the allegations, the journal Oncotarget retracted a 2016 study on combating certain pernicious cancers. In a retraction notice , the journal said the authors’ explanations for copied images “were deemed unacceptable.”

The belated action was symptomatic of what experts described as a broken system for policing scientific research.

A proliferation of medical journals, they said, has helped fuel demand for ever more research articles. But those same journals, many of them operated by multibillion-dollar publishing companies, often respond slowly or do nothing at all once one of those articles is shown to contain copied data. Journals retract papers at a fraction of the rate at which they publish ones with problems.

Springer Nature, which published nine of the articles that Dr. David said contained discrepancies across five journals, said it was investigating concerns. So did the American Association for Cancer Research, which published 10 articles under question from Dr. Yoon’s lab across four journals.

It is difficult to know who is responsible for errors in articles. Eleven of the scientists’ co-authors, including researchers at Harvard, Duke and Georgetown, did not answer emailed inquiries.

The articles under question examined why certain stomach and soft-tissue cancers withstood treatment, and how that resistance could be overcome.

The two independent image specialists said the volume of copied data, along with signs that some images had been rotated or similarly manipulated, suggested considerable sloppiness or worse.

“There are examples in this set that raise pretty serious red flags for the possibility of misconduct,” said Dr. Matthew Schrag, a Vanderbilt University neurologist who commented as part of his outside work on research integrity.

One set of 10 articles identified by Dr. David showed repeated reuse of identical or overlapping black-and-white images of cancer cells supposedly under different experimental conditions, he said.

“There’s no reason to have done that unless you weren’t doing the work,” Dr. David said.

One of those papers , published in 2012, was formally tagged with corrections. Unlike later studies, which were largely overseen by Dr. Yoon in New York, this paper was written by South Korea-based scientists, including Changhwan Yoon, who then worked in Seoul.

An immunologist in Norway randomly selected the paper as part of a screening of copied data in cancer journals. That led the paper’s publisher, the medical journal Oncogene, to add corrections in 2016.

But the journal did not catch all of the duplicated data , Dr. David said. And, he said, images from the study later turned up in identical form in another paper that remains uncorrected.

Copied cancer data kept recurring, Dr. David said. A picture of a small red tumor from a 2017 study reappeared in papers in 2020 and 2021 under different descriptions, he said. A ruler included in the pictures for scale wound up in two different positions.

The 2020 study included another tumor image that Dr. David said appeared to be a mirror image of one previously published by Dr. Yoon’s lab. And the 2021 study featured a color version of a tumor that had appeared in an earlier paper atop a different section of ruler, Dr. David said.

“This is another example where this looks intentionally done,” Dr. Bik said.

The researchers were faced with more serious action when the publisher Elsevier withdrew the stomach cancer study that had been published online in 2021. “The editors determined that the article violated journal publishing ethics guidelines,” Elsevier said.

Roland Herzog, the editor of Molecular Therapy, the journal where the article appeared, said that “image duplications were noticed” as part of a process of screening for discrepancies that the journal has since continued to beef up.

Because the problems were detected before the study was ever published in the print journal, Elsevier’s policy dictated that the article be taken down and no explanation posted online.

But that decision appeared to conflict with industry guidelines from the Committee on Publication Ethics . Posting articles online “usually constitutes publication,” those guidelines state. And when publishers pull such articles, the guidelines say, they should keep the work online for the sake of transparency and post “a clear notice of retraction.”

Dr. Herzog said he personally hoped that such an explanation could still be posted for the stomach cancer study. The journal editors and Elsevier, he said, are examining possible options.

The editors notified Dr. Yoon and Changhwan Yoon of the article’s removal, but neither scientist alerted Memorial Sloan Kettering, the hospital said. Columbia did not say whether it had been told.

Experts said the handling of the article was symptomatic of a tendency on the part of scientific publishers to obscure reports of lapses .

“This is typical, sweeping-things-under-the-rug kind of nonsense,” said Dr. Ivan Oransky, co-founder of Retraction Watch, which keeps a database of 47,000-plus retracted papers. “This is not good for the scientific record, to put it mildly.”

Susan C. Beachy contributed research.

Benjamin Mueller reports on health and medicine. He was previously a U.K. correspondent in London and a police reporter in New York. More about Benjamin Mueller

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JPMorgan Chase, TD draw AI talent through research labs

Outdoor shots of JPMorgan Chase and TD Bank Group buildings

JPMorgan Chase's artificial intelligence research team has published more than 400 papers, far more than any other large bank, according to research conducted by Evident. The group produced 45% of all AI research in banking last year. 

"Jamie Dimon went out and said, we're going to be an AI-first bank and we're going to actually be a tech company," said Alexandra Mousavizadeh, founder and CEO of Evident, in an interview. Recognizing that one of the things tech companies have is AI research labs, he hired Manuela Veloso, who had been a Carnegie Mellon University professor since 1992 and who is a "leading brain on AI," to run it.

There are two reasons why AI research labs are important, and why the number of banks doing AI research has jumped from 10 to 40 of the top 50 last year, according to Mousavizadeh. 

One is that doing research in-house helps companies develop artificial intelligence that works at scale, she said. The other is that banks with AI research labs can more easily attract top AI talent. 

AI research labs at JPMorgan Chase, TD Bank Group, RBC and other banks are not ivory towers. They work directly with business units to solve specific business problems and to bring their ideas into production. 

Banks that don't have these in-house groups have to rely on vendors and focus on vendor selection, due diligence and testing, Mousavizadeh said.

Building an AI lab

When Manuela Veloso joined JPMorgan Chase in 2018, it was something of a culture shock.

"It was a big change, after 30-plus years of being in academia," Veloso said. "But on the other hand, it's very exciting. I am a type of personality that loves complex problems and loves thinking about contributing to the success of the place where I am. I feel excited every day about solving more problems."

Of Veloso's team of 110 researchers, 75% have Ph.D.s in computer science, statistics, math or engineering; the rest have master's degrees. All are familiar with writing scientific publications and eager to share their work with the academic community and the rest of the world.

"Nobody asks them to write papers," Veloso said. "They basically have it in their blood like I do."

One recent paper studied how well large language models like GPT-4 can read and understand financial documents, compared to older models specifically tuned to these types of documents.

The papers do not mention JPMorgan Chase data; they use public data. 

"That's why we contribute so much to the advancement of AI in finance, because the research community can start understanding the problems that the finance industry faces, independently from the specifics," Veloso said.

TD Bank Group, which is headquartered in Toronto, acquired AI tech company Layer 6 in 2018 and it's become the bank's AI research lab. Last year, Layer 6 published 14 research papers that were presented at AI conferences. One recent paper on tabular data understanding and generation won an award at the 2023 Neural Information Processing Systems Conference. Layer 6 has also filed more than 60 patent applications. 

electronic health records with the University of Toronto and tech company Signal 1. The paper proposed a deep learning model that analyzes electronic health records to predict future events that could occur to a patient during a hospital stay, so doctors can optimize their care. 

"We're now exploring how this research could be applicable in a banking setting," said Maks Volkovs, senior vice president and chief AI scientist at Layer 6.

Bringing AI products to life

Such AI research teams work closely with other parts of their banks, their leaders say.

At TD, Layer 6 has created machine learning models that have improved predictive capabilities and introduced AI in every line of business, Volkovs said. The team has developed more than 67 AI use cases across the bank. 

"We are closely embedded with business teams and work together to create solutions that are focused on our colleagues and customers," Volkovs said. "Our researchers, who are also involved in applied work, actively participate in all stages from ideation and model development to deployment and ongoing monitoring."

Conformal Prediction Sets Improve Human Decision Making . The paper shows that humans can make more accurate decisions when they interact with machine learning models that provide predictions with high rates of estimated confidence (e.g., the model is 95% confident that a given image is of a book). 

"Our research was used to create a model that applies a similar approach that underwriters use in the residential mortgage pre-approval process," Volkovs said. "We use AI to provide a smooth pre-approval process for our customers and get them credit decisions in only a few minutes." 

At JPMorgan Chase, Veloso's group has monthly meetings with business leaders about the problems they need help solving.

"They don't ask us to do dashboards," Veloso said. In a recent meeting, Veloso's team heard that some salespeople had completed 30,000 client meetings. She offered to summarize and analyze those meetings. 

Veloso always hopes the business people will listen to her team and "have the wisdom and knowledge to decide when to change," she said. 

"That's the role of AI research – for them to be exposed to what can be done," Veloso said. "The more I show them things that they probably have not thought about before, the more success we bring to the firm. It's the level of 'aha,' the level of novelty that we may bring to their thinking." 

Getting models into production can take time, Veloso acknowledged. But for certain very practical projects, like using large language models to read enterprise documents, the process gets speeded up because it's something almost everyone in the bank can use.

"You can cut your time to production down a heck of a lot by having those research capabilities," Mousavizadeh said. "So you're much more nimble. All of the banks are looking at time to production right now because it affects how quickly you can ideate, how quickly you can get things into production."

Attracting tech and AI talent

When AI researchers, data scientists and developers are considering a job at a bank, they still want to be able to publish research, get cited in papers and present at AI conferences.

"It's super important for the banks that they have people [at conferences] because it's also a pipeline of talent," Mousavizadeh said. 

When Layer 6 joined TD, there were 15 people in the group. Today, there are 200 people in TD's AI and machine learning team. They've come from big tech companies, universities and other financial institutions.

A new model rates large banks on their efforts to develop and deploy artificial intelligence technology. 

JPMORGANCHASE-CITI-RBC

Team members have won top honors at a machine learning conference on recommender systems three times, making TD the only bank to have ever done this, Volkovs said. 

"These kinds of accomplishments help us build our brand globally and position us as a destination of choice for top talent," he said.

Mousavizadeh said she has seen an overall shift in banks' interest in AI research.

"You're suddenly seeing HSBC and BBVA leaning into this and doing more research, hiring more researchers, having it in house, being able to distribute it," she said. "It changes the mindset. They're also now able to hire that talent that they couldn't hire before. They're putting a stake in the ground: We're serious. Research is becoming essential." 

The same will soon be true of quantum computing, she predicts. 

An FDIC enforcement action against Lineage Bank is part of a wave of cases involving banks that have partnered with fintechs in recent years.

Tennessee welcome sign

After his aggressive cost-cutting raised profits above analysts' expectations, Block's CEO aims to retool several features of Square and Cash App to enable them to operate like a "social bank."

Jack Dorsey

The Department of Justice appoints Jonathan Mayer as its first chief AI officer, HTLF's CEO Bruce Lee plans to retire, Wilmington Trust's Doris Meister will step down in May, and more in the weekly banking news roundup.

A boat passes in front of the San Francisco skyline as seen from the Port of Oakland.

The USDA forecasted farm profits will plunge 26% this year, potentially creating credit quality challenges for lenders.

AB-FARM DATA-FLOURISH CHART -022124

The two companies in the largest bank merger since the 2008 financial crisis released details of their agreement. It leaves the door open for Discover to field better offers, though the payments company would pay a break-up fee of 4% if it accepts one.

Discover

In the wake of the largest U.S. bank deal in more than 15 years, industry executives offered mixed views about the prospects for more big acquisitions. They also spoke about the deal's impact on competition in the credit card business.

Capital One To Buy Discover For $35 Billion In Top 2024 Deal

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  19. Communication Research

    Browse all issues of Communication Research. Skip to main content. Intended for healthcare professionals. Search this journal; ... SUBMIT PAPER. Communication Research. Impact Factor: 6.2 / 5-Year Impact Factor: 5.5 . JOURNAL HOMEPAGE. ... Communication Research ISSN: 0093-6502; Online ISSN: 1552-3810; About Sage;

  20. 178 Communication Research Topics To Impress The Professor

    Writing a thesis statement When writing communication papers in these different scenarios, students can develop the following aspects: Understand the various communication phenomena Ability to direct communication messages towards accomplishing individual and organizational goals

  21. How Do Gain-Loss Frames and Cultural Arguments Persuade? Designing

    Framing effects are defined as "findings that decision-makers respond differently to different but objectively equivalent descriptions of the same problem" (Kühberger, 1998, p. 150). Message-framin...

  22. Visual Communication Quarterly

    Visual Communication Quarterly Special Issue Call for Papers: The State of Visual Evidence Abstract submission deadline:March 5, 2024Notification on submitted abstracts:March 15, 2024 Full manuscript submission deadline:May 1, 2024 "Pictures provide a point around which other pieces of evidence collect." ... His research is informed by his ...

  23. Does Couples' Communication Predict Marital Satisfaction, or Does

    Brief Review of Research: Communication and Marital Satisfaction. Guided by social exchange theory, early approaches argued that happy marriages could be distinguished from unhappy marriages by the ratio of positive to negative behavior in the relationship (Jacobson & Margolin, 1979).Since then, cross-sectional studies have consistently indicated that distressed couples display more negative ...

  24. (PDF) Communication Challenges in Agile Teams from The Communication

    ... En [32] los autores analizaron los problemas de comunicación en los equipos considerando la interacción entre sus miembros. Este artículo presenta una descripción general de los obstáculos para...

  25. 8 facts about Black Americans and the news

    (FG Trade/Getty Images) Black Americans have long had a complex relationship with the news media.In 1967, the Kerner Commission - a panel established by President Lyndon Johnson to investigate the causes of more than 150 urban riots in the United States - sharply criticized the media's treatment of Black Americans.. More than 50 years later, there is ongoing discussion of many of the ...

  26. A once-ignored community of science sleuths now has the research

    A community of sleuths hunting for errors in scientific research have sent shockwaves through some of the most prestigious research institutions in the world — and the science community at large.

  27. Virtual homesteaders built an internet of 'little autocracies.' Is

    The roots of this problem lie in the basic design of the internet. "Whoever owns the server, and can plug it in and take it out, has all the power," Schneider said. But the problem is also cultural: "This is not only a configuration issue with the internet, but a matter of what we, the users, accept.

  28. A Columbia Surgeon's Study Was Pulled. He Kept Publishing Flawed Data

    Problems with the study were severe enough that its publisher, after finding that the paper violated ethics guidelines, formally withdrew it within a few months of its publication in 2021.

  29. JPMorgan Chase, TD draw AI talent through research labs

    JPMorgan Chase's AI research group has published 400 papers. TD Bank Group's AI group, Layer 6, published 14 in 2023. JPMorgan Chase's artificial intelligence research team has published more than 400 papers, far more than any other large bank, according to research conducted by Evident. The group ...