Public Relations Review最新文献

Discussions on social media during major disasters are robust and often have multiple frames of reference. Temporal perspectives, however, are still lacking in current understandings of social-mediated discussions during disasters and crises, but incorporating temporal perspectives can significantly enhance environmental scanning efforts as prescribed in the issues management framework. The purpose of the current research is twofold: to apply and validate the SIR (Susceptible-Infectious-Recovered) model to examine topics’ growth over time on social media and to understand how future orientation of social media users (an indicator of temporal distance) affects their construal of a disaster through supervised machine learning. We based our analysis on Twitter discussions during the Texas winter storm in 2021. Results of the study show great fit of the SIR model for topic growth, and that temporal distance affects users’ construal of the event in line with core predictions of construal level theory. Theoretical, methodological, and practical implications on social-mediated discussions related to climate change-induced and -intensified disasters and issues management are discussed.

The COVID-19 pandemic received considerable attention from public relations scholars and research publications after the pandemic exploded. This study provides an overview of the status of COVID-19 public relations research in terms of topics, regional focuses, organization-public relationships, public relations approaches and themes, stages of the pandemic, and theoretical and methodological frameworks. This study also investigated how public relations research has described the characteristics of the COVID-19 pandemic. We reviewed 126 articles published in peer-reviewed journals using quantitative and qualitative content analyses. We expect that this review provides new insights based on the current literature to advance public relations research in today’s fast-changing society.

Publics’ reactions to corporate social advocacy (CSA) initiatives can be influenced not only by their agreement with companies’ issue stances but also by their pre-existing perceptions of the companies involved. With the purpose of providing a more comprehensive understanding of CSA outcomes, this study draws on social identity theory and examines how consumer-company stance congruence in CSA interacts with consumer publics’ pre-existing corporate attitude to influence their boycott and buycott intentions. Using real companies, two experiments were conducted with CSA on two socio-political issues: abortion laws (N = 258) and gun laws (N = 257). The results from Experiment 2 showed a buffering effect of positive pre-existing corporate attitude on publics’ boycott intentions, when they have incongruent issue stances with companies. In Experiment 1, publics’ perceived like-minded opinions opposing CSA were also found to boost their boycott intention. This study adds a nuanced understanding of the triadic consumer-issue-company dynamics in CSA from the social identity and public opinion perspectives, providing useful guidelines for CSA practices.

A spillover crisis arises when an external organization’s events create worry, ambiguity, or unfavorable perceptions for another organization. The study shows that organizational response strategies for spillover crises are influenced by an anchoring effect, where competitors’ level of accommodation in their crisis response serves as an anchor point. The difference between accommodative and advocative crisis responses becomes more pronounced when the anchor response has a lower level of accommodation. Additionally, stakeholders’ confidence in an organization’s ability to manage crises can predict its reputation during spillover crises. If an organization chooses to respond with advocacy, it may experience a decline in reputation compared to adopting a competitor's accommodative anchor response due to decreased stakeholder confidence. Conversely, using an accommodative response can result in a higher organizational reputation than following a competitor’s advocative anchor response since it boosts stakeholder confidence. The study highlights the importance of considering situational factors such as competitor responses in the contingency theory of accommodation. Additionally, this study provides evidence that a continuum of public response confidence could be another valuable tool for understanding how crises impact reputation.

Situated within the context of online firestorms on Chinese social media platforms, this study combines crisis communication literature and connective action logic, to examine what factors contribute to public engagement in negative word-of-mouth (n-WoM) behaviors in online firestorms. In doing so, this study uses a computational method to leverage large-scale longitudinal data of social media users’ digital traces on Sina Weibo and conceptualizes two dimensions of collective legitimacy sources of online firestorms—message and information network legitimacy, revealing their multilayered functional roles in escalating n-WoM engagement. Specifically, our findings suggest that the negativity of social media posts functions as an intensifier of collective message legitimacy escalating publics’ n-WoM engagement, while the observation of a greater cumulative number of negative comments functions as a downtoner for n-WoM engagement. In addition, collective legitimacy is contributed by authority and endorsement sources of information networks. Posts from authoritative sources (KOL, media, and corporation) tend to trigger more subsequent public engagement in n-WoM than posts from endorsement sources (ordinary users). Ability-related online firestorms are more likely to have more n-WoM commenting from netizens than social responsibility-related ones. Distinct differences are found between ability- and social responsibility-related firestorms in terms of the impacts of collective legitimacy sources on eliciting n-WoM engagement.

Existing research in crisis communication and public relations focuses on relationship quality or outcomes, along with their causes and effects, mainly using cross-sectional survey data. This research expands the COPR theoretical framework by employing big data and deep learning to analyze the dynamics and intricacies of corporate and public stances during a long-term organizational crisis. Focusing on Monsanto/Bayer’s Roundup crisis from 2012 to 2022, the study analyzed 232,694 tweets and 334 articles to examine corporate stances, public stances, and various relationship modes formed from both party’s standpoints throughout the crisis. The results show the evolving and interdependent interactions between corporations and their publics, as well as the longitudinal impacts of public stances on stock prices. Our findings highlight the application of computational methods for enhancing strategic decision-making in managing organization-public relationships, particularly during prolonged and complex crisis scenarios.

For decades, scholars in the United States have lamented public policies and government actions that seem to affect, intentionally or unintentionally, already marginalized Black populations. Urban renewal policies and initiatives are examples of government actions that receive such criticism. Arts promotion as a strategic public relations tactic, used to attract middle- to -upper class residents and visitors to cities, is one communicative approach cities take to sell their attractiveness and viability. Yet, cities, urban renewal, and urban tourism research has not received much attention from Public Relations researchers. Critical public relations scholars, however, can help to expose key issues such as displacement and marginalization of Black citizens that are associated with city public relations activities such as promotional culture, arts/city marketing, and urban tourism. Using racial neoliberalism as a theoretical, analytical framework, we examine urban renewal in Cincinnati, Ohio USA, to demonstrate the power of boosterish, government-sponsored urban renewal efforts and the ways such paradoxically positive discourse makes it difficult for the often Black, inner-city communities to challenge advancement that might marginalize them further.

This research aims to address gaps in the knowledge and practice of engaging underrepresented communities in public communication and policymaking on environmental justice issues. Through a quasi-field experiment conducted in Madison, Wisconsin, we investigate how Black and Latinx communities perceive environmental justice issues and how these perceptions are associated with intersectional identities such as education level, income, and gender. Additionally, we explore the impact of different information material designs on fostering inclusive and diverse discussions. Our results highlight the nuances of environmental justice perspectives within communities and underscore the importance of tailored approaches in community engagement and public relations. Furthermore, the study reveals the effectiveness of visual information materials in stimulating diverse discussions, emphasizing the significance of audience accessibility and comprehension in communication design. These findings provide both theoretical implications for the field of public relations and practical applications for science communicators, public relations professionals, and community-engaged scholars to promote more inclusive and personalized strategies in community engagement.

Governments use public relations to promote their interests in international venues like the United Nations. To understand how governments market their value in environments of elite competition, I compare Canadian, Irish, and Norwegian narratives while campaigning for seats on the Security Council. Results of a strategic narrative analysis suggest Ireland told the strongest stories, creating an authenticity as the ‘nation of storytellers’ that maximized its valuation. Norway failed to substantively articulate the motivation behind its foreign policy, likely impacting brand loyalty among stakeholders. Canada had the weakest storytelling, with self-referential narratives lacking a sense of care that discredited, and at times even contradicted, the mutuality of it serving on the council. I posit these varying storytelling approaches contribute to understanding the campaigns’ disparate ROIs. Contextualizing strategic narratives as value propositions expands the interdisciplinarity of government public relations scholarship at the nexus of international relations, public diplomacy, and nation branding. I conclude by operationalizing system, identity, and issue narratives to highlight how practitioners can maximize organizational value through wholistic storytelling.

Arab public relations research (APRR) has reached many milestones since its inception; however, no study has investigated extant literature to map the trends and patterns within the subject area. As a result, this study aims to aggregate the landscape of APRR from 1979 to date. To achieve this, this current study adopts a multi-method approach of content analysis and text mining of 106 peer-reviewed APRR articles. Findings show an inconsistent trend of APRR. Findings also illustrate the status of APRR methods, analytical methods, media genres, media platforms, organizations, industries, most used words and dominant perspectives within the subject area. This study concludes that despite the irregularities in the progression, APRR is an emergent sub-area with the potential to gain prominence concerning interest and output.