BackgroundCurrent concerns about vaccination resistance often cite the Internet as a source of vaccine controversy. Most academic studies of vaccine resistance online use quantitative methods to describe misinformation on vaccine-skeptical websites. Findings from these studies are useful for categorizing the generic features of these websites, but they do not provide insights into why these websites successfully persuade their viewers. To date, there have been few attempts to understand, qualitatively, the persuasive features of provaccine or vaccine-skeptical websites.ObjectiveThe purpose of this research was to examine the persuasive features of provaccine and vaccine-skeptical websites. The qualitative analysis was conducted to generate hypotheses concerning what features of these websites are persuasive to people seeking information about vaccination and vaccine-related practices.MethodsThis study employed a fully qualitative case study methodology that used the anthropological method of thick description to detail and carefully review the rhetorical features of 1 provaccine government website, 1 provaccine hospital website, 1 vaccine-skeptical information website focused on general vaccine safety, and 1 vaccine-skeptical website focused on a specific vaccine. The data gathered were organized into 5 domains: website ownership, visual and textual content, user experience, hyperlinking, and social interactivity.ResultsThe study found that the 2 provaccine websites analyzed functioned as encyclopedias of vaccine information. Both of the websites had relatively small digital ecologies because they only linked to government websites or websites that endorsed vaccination and evidence-based medicine. Neither of these websites offered visitors interactive features or made extensive use of the affordances of Web 2.0. The study also found that the 2 vaccine-skeptical websites had larger digital ecologies because they linked to a variety of vaccine-related websites, including government websites. They leveraged the affordances of Web 2.0 with their interactive features and digital media.ConclusionsBy employing a rhetorical framework, this study found that the provaccine websites analyzed concentrate on the accurate transmission of evidence-based scientific research about vaccines and government-endorsed vaccination-related practices, whereas the vaccine-skeptical websites focus on creating communities of people affected by vaccines and vaccine-related practices. From this personal framework, these websites then challenge the information presented in scientific literature and government documents. At the same time, the vaccine-skeptical websites in this study are repositories of vaccine information and vaccination-related resources. Future studies on vaccination and the Internet should take into consideration the rhetorical features of provaccine and vaccine-skeptical websites and further investigate the influence of Web 2.0 community-building features on people seeking information about vaccine-related practices.

Frank Pietrucha's Supercommunicator inaugurates the title term as an indispensable characteristic of contemporary professional, technical, and business communicators. After working as a communications professional for 25 years, Pietrucha has witnessed the ways that poor communication can undermine knowledge sharing and innovation. To stave off costly future blunders, he shares the fruits of his experience in a single well-organized volume. The book's target audience is communicators, broadly defined as anyone with ideas or information to share, both in the academy and in industry, who struggle to tell others about increasingly complicated technological developments. This book works as a how-to guide for technical specialists with large stakes in communicating technical content to nontechnical audiences and also offers a "big-picture" perspective of the field of business and technical communication.The principles of effective communication outlined in this book are grounded in Pietrucha's broader vision of how digital communication is fundamentally changing the ways that information is created, distributed, and consumed. To this end, he offers real-world examples to illustrate his points, ranging from his own frustrations at not understanding the significance of physicists' official reports of the Higgs boson particle, to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos's decision to outlaw PowerPoint presentations in favor of narratives to circulate new ideas within the company. Supercommunicator becomes increasingly helpful as the reader approaches the text with an awareness of what deficiencies in communication he or she wishes to remedy.The book is divided into 9 parts and 31 chapters, but it is not a tome. Each part covers a broad topic in effective communication, such as audience, subject, and simplicity, with individual chapters offering more focused instruction on topics including when and how often a communicator should use technical jargon. Each section contains anywhere from 2 to 6 individual chapters, with most offering specific examples illustrating instances of when the points made were handled successfully and poorly.

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Engaging radically with society or, in other words, connecting with society presents the idea that the private sector should build and grow relationships with outside entities and stakeholders-from the surrounding environment to community members. From a radical standpoint, this connection requires an entirely new outlook and attitude on the side of business-one which places societal concerns at the core of a company's focus and purpose.This concept is foundational to the dynamic elements, discussion, and recommendation of corporate-societal engagement, presented and advocated for by John Browne in his latest book Connect: How Companies Succeed by Engaging Radically with Society. As the former CEO of a multinational oil and gas company, Browne uses his nearly 40 years of success and experience to propose how companies can prosper by connecting with the world outside their walls. Straying away from the terms "philanthropy" and "corporate social responsibility" (CSR), Browne advocates for the business-society connection to leverage a competitive advantage. His argument advances a new view of business-one that shifts perceptions of businesses as entities that provoke societal anger and suspicion and toward a view that companies can and should become respected and successful by growing "in harmony with society" (p. 12)-thus emphasizing the need for connecting through the creating and sustaining of a reciprocal relationship. Therefore, communication professionals and scholars alike can benefit from both the practical and theoretical considerations for the broader impact the corporate world can have.In partnership with his collaborators, Robin Nuttall and Tommy Stadlen, two experts from McKinsey and Company, Browne interviewed 80 corporate leaders worldwide and surveyed more than 2,000 executives in order to highlight attitudes surrounding the contributions of business on society and humankind-both fitting methodological approaches for understanding the perceptions and experiences of industry professionals in making the case for organizational-community engagement. As a result, 89% reported that businesses "have a moral responsibility to address societal and environmental issues that go beyond legal requirements" (p. 31), thus supporting Browne's 74013B CQXXX10.