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Against the backdrop of the rapid growth of the Internet, this research study investigates the intersection between corporate World Wide Web pages and the publics they serue. Content analysis revealed that, while the typical corporate Web page is used to service news media, customers, and thefinancial community, it is not being used to its fullest potential to communicatesimultaneously with otheraudiences. Through a cluster analysis procedure, the researchers found about one-third of corporate Web sites are assertively used to communicate with a multiplicity of audiences in a variety of information formats.The ultimate impact of developing computer-mediated communication technology is not easily forecasted, given a complicated series of technical, political, and economic factors that must still play out to a conclusion.' Despite optimistic proclamations that these innovations will empower individuals,' and equally extreme projections that they may create dire social and economic hazards: the actual impact of new communication technologies usually falls somewhere between these predicted extremes4 As well, predictions about the future are often wrong because of the consistent unintended consequences, both good and bad, of social and technological innovation^.^ But while no one can accurately predict the impact of information technologies, no one can deny their rapid expansion and diffusion throughout society. One recent study suggests 56 million adults, or 27 percent of the U.S. population aged 16 or older, are now "on-line" with an annual growth rate of about 40 percent.h The developing Internet and the associated World Wide Web (WWW) embody the expansion of information technology and how individuals have embraced the concept of an information era.Another way this trend manifests itself is in how organizations have hopped onto the Internet bandwagon. A corporate Web page is no longer an anomaly. In fact, among the nation's largest corporations, the organization that does not have a Web page is in a dwindling m i n~r i t y .~ Web pages have several attractive features for corporations. They tend to serve more active, information-seeking audiences than the more passive publics who are reached via traditional mass media. Accordingly, an organization can assume that visitors to its Web site have some kind of active interest in the entity. Web pages can also employ interactive features to collect information, monitor public opinion on issues, and proactively engage citiStuart L. Esrock is an assistant professor and Greg B. Leichty is an associate professor in the Department ofCominunication at the University oflouisville.

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William Stephenson came to the University of Missouri School of Journalism as a distinguished professor in 1958. But at first glance, some mass communication researchers might have asked, why?Physicist and psychologist, methodologist and theorist, Stephenson was a brilliant researcher with incredible energy that drove him onward to new endeavors. His academic interests were as varied as his scholarly activity and the homes for his work. Yet, although Stephenson's early body of work clearly reflects the intellectual perspectives and disciplines that he embraced, the connections to mass communication are not so readily apparent.Indeed, Stephenson was not trained in communication, and his early work largely ignored our field of study. Still, this brief biographical sketch suggests that a researcher trained in classical sciences was relevant in journalism some 50 years ago and, further, that his work warrants a reexamination today. Why exactly did Stephenson attract the attention of the Missouri School of Journalism, and what can we today, as mass communication researchers, take from his work? Connecting Quantum Physics and Mass CommunicationWilliam Stephenson was born in England in 1902(Brown, 1991. His initial academic interests focused on the field of physics. Stephenson received an M.A. from