A set of guidelines and suggestions regarding the treatment of individual areas was then prepared, and topics were assigned to a number of communication research, each of whom was requested to write a paper dealing with a designated area. Authors of individual papers were free to follow or ignore the guidelines and accept or reject any suggestions made by the editors. Each, therefore, followed a slightly different approach, conditioned by individual interests. In general, however, all the prepared papers deal with two broad questions. What is the current state of knowledge with respect to the area in question? And what might be the most fruitful directions for future research?