PATTERNS OF COMMUNICATION IN OCCUPATIONAL PROFESSIONAL PUBLICATIONS

This article concerns the initial phase of the authors' research on occupational publications as sources of on-going socialization. Four occupational publications were studied. The ABA Banking Journal, The Journal of Family Practice, Guitar Player, and The Secretary. Findings indicate that journals communicate both simple and more complex occupational information, the former in advertisements and the latter in written discourse. The relationships between the nature of occupational messages and how they are presented hold despite substantial differences in overall journal formats. The authors demonstrate that the journals emphasize problematic issues related to work activity, how operating environments are changing occupational activity, and the promise that particular occupational tools will make the outcomes of complex, unpredictable work activity more certain. The authors conclude by deriving several working hypotheses to be systematically tested in future research.