Public Communication and Behavior, Volume 2, is devoted to the study of communicatory behavior that has a public or social character. More concretely, it encompasses research and theory designated as ""within a range of disciplines and fields—advertising, child development, education, journalism, political science, sociology, and wherever else such scholarly activity occurs including, of course, social psychology"". The book opens with a chapter on television exposure as a potential cause of aggression. This is followed by separate chapters on barriers to information flow and the manner in which news audiences make use of TV news; various television forms and their impact on children; and the characterization and formalization of some elements of the evolving paradigm of communications research. The final chapter discusses the research findings concerning the public impact of the 1983 television movie about the aftermath of nuclear war, The Day After.
