This study intends to explore the process of interpersonal accounts that Japanese and American college students experience in their everyday lives, with special emphases on the associations among the severity of offense, the nature of reproach, the preference for accounting tactics, and the relational consequences. Questionnaires were distributed to a total of 478 (260 Japanese and 218 American) students, who were asked about their own experiences of interpersonal accounts in terms of their perceived causes of account-making, nature of reproaches, the damages caused by the account-requiring incidents, and the accounting tactics from the perspectives of the account-receiver (the victim's role) and the account-giver (the offender's role). The results indicated that the causes of offense affect the relational consequences between offenders and victims. In addition, the relational consequences were found to be influenced by the choice of accounting tactics and the nature of reproach. The most interesting finding was that most hypotheses were supported by the victim's data only. The implications of the findings are discussed in terms of the self-serving attributional tendency and cultural differences.

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The American Dream is a powerful narrative that defines what it means to be American and shapes the American national identity. In this article, I analyze how this narrative has been discussed in the academic field of Communication Studies. A critical review of the relevant literature reveals that Communication Studies scholarship has discussed the American Dream in five major ways: 1) American Dream as material and moral myths, 2) American Dream as a myth that preserves the status quo, 3) American Dream as an opportunity to overturn the status quo, 4) American Dream as a narrative that facilitates geographical mobility, and 5) American Dream as a narrative that facilitates social mobility. By examining these five interpretations of the American Dream in detail, I delineate the scope of this broad concept.

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On September 9, 2009, President Barack Obama delivered a speech on his health care reform to a Joint Session of the U.S. Congress. This is arguably the most significant speech by the President on health care, one of the most controversial issues in U.S. politics. Given the fact that the nation is still fiercely divided on this issue, his speech seems to have produced little visible political effects. Yet, Obama's major attempt to persuade the lawmakers and the American citizens to embrace his view on ideal health care deserves scholarly attention. In this article, I analyze how Obama tried to situate his health care reform within his rhetorical vision and invited the audience into reasoned public discussions.

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