Public Relations Review最新文献

The spillover effect of crises has become an emerging research topic in the field of crisis communication, however to our knowledge a cross-disciplinary review of the literature on the topic has not been conducted yet. Also, the complexities associated with crisis spillover and their management call for a synthesis of existing findings which can provide future research directions. This review focuses on empirical studies about crisis spillover and incorporates articles from different disciplines examining this topic. We identified 56 articles about crisis spillover that were published in 35 different journals between 1985 and 2021, and examined the conceptualization of crisis spillover across disciplines, crisis types, industries, stakeholder groups, spillover types, risk factors, and response strategies discussed in these articles. Our suggestions for future research based on the literature review will help guide researchers to explore areas that will help us gain a better understanding of the spillover effect phenomena, and how organizations can respond to spillover crises.

Recent crisis spillover research expands our understanding of the effects of crisis spillover on reputation, legitimacy, consumer attitudes and behaviours, as well as how organisations can respond to these types of crisis spillover events. However, there remains scant exploration of the impact of crisis spillover on trust and limited if any consideration of distrust as a separate and distinct concept from trust. In a crisis, trust is an important relationship outcome, and the present lack of empirical understanding of it in crisis spillover can limit future research and practice. Consequently, this study’s examination of message strategies that address both trust and distrust concerns, and in turn repair these key relational concepts, can address the current void in public relations theory. In addition, the research record provides limited insights into the strategies employed by multiple organisations with varied responsibility for crisis spillovers. To address these gaps in our understanding about complex crisis spillover, this study adopts associative network theory and extends its application via a case study approach focussing on the Australian banking industry. The findings contribute new knowledge to the crisis communication, trust repair and crisis spillover literature.

The process of spillover occurs when a crisis in one organization affects the entire industry. It has been documented that the effects a spillover can seriously affect organizational performance and damage relationships with various stakeholder groups. Yet, little research has examined the notion of spillover in crisis communication. Research has coined the term crisis contagion to denote a special type of spillover that goes beyond industry as a risk factor. This paper proposes that country of origin and consumer nationalism could create a unique type of spillover, namely revenge by proxy. We provide several extended examples of revenge by proxy as well as an overview of possible crisis response strategies available to managers when dealing with revenge by proxy.

Various professional organizations in the public relations field have created opportunities for formal professional achievement. Among participating professional organizations, there is the Certificate in Principles of Public Relations for students near graduation time, and professionals may pursue Accreditation in Public Relations (APR) or Accreditation in Public Relations + Military Communication (APR+M). For advanced professionals, the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) offers the College of Fellows to its members. However, perceptions of and participation in these achievement opportunities are varied. This study uses the lens of the Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT) to explore why people do or do not seek to attain these professional milestones. Mean responses on intrinsic social cognitive response variables (confidence, self-efficacy, goal-setting) did not show a significant relationship to motivation, but the extrinsic value expectation was significant. In addition, awareness and perception of these professional achievements among human resources and hiring managers were studied. Results show students and professionals who have earned career achievements have higher mean responses on social cognitive responses than those who do not. Hiring managers value professional development indicators as positive to have but not necessary if candidates have proven experience. Qualitative responses further indicated many respondents were not familiar with the Certificate in Principles of Public Relations, APR, or College of Fellows. Those who had earned these achievements were generally positive. Few students, professionals, or educators reported reaping no benefit once achieved. Those who chose not to pursue or who provided negative responses cited lack of necessity, lacks value, requires too much (e.g. time, money), or process as reasons why.

Major sporting events bring a range of social, economic, and reputational benefits for hosting nations and serve as a vehicle to showcase the nation brand. Social media engagement during sport events provides opportunities for community members to cocreate, curate and communicate their nation brand’s attributes. While research in nation branding and community engagement has examined the ways place-based communities contribute to nation branding, little is known about how and in what ways virtual communities contribute to their nation brand. This study addresses this gap by examining the virtual brand community (VBC) surrounding the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics. Using social network analysis and content analysis, the findings suggest that VBC contributions is dependent on the composition, participation, and cultivation of conversations focusing on the personality traits of a nation brand. Theoretically, the outcomes from this study advance understanding of leveraging the properties of VBCs in making contribution to the production and maintenance of an authentic nation brand, that values community perspectives facilitated through community engagement. For public relations, it extends the current research in digital social-level engagement in virtual settings and outlines future research in participatory approaches to nation branding. The growing use of major sporting events in supporting nation branding goals, particularly in Asian and African continents, suggests the outcome of this study has implications at regional and international levels to guide public relations managers in major events to facilitate sustainable VBCs for authentic place branding outcomes.

In July of 2021, Simone Biles shocked the world with her withdrawal from the 2020 Tokyo Olympics citing “mental health” as her rationale. Mental health remains a taboo subject within the realm of professional sports, and is often devalued, in stark contrast to the value placed on physical health. The present study explored Biles’s framing of her withdrawal and publics’ reactions to the withdrawal across two distinct social media platforms. Critical rhetorical analysis was used to analyze the Instagram posts made by Biles and a press conference transcript announcing and reifying her withdrawal, as well as 100 TikTok videos and 1000 comments illustrating publics’ reactions. Findings demonstrate that Biles’s framed her messages through genuineness, responsibility, resistance, and consistency. As a result of the frames used in the withdrawal messages, and the modality allowances afforded on TikTok (e.g., video, text, text and video, stitching), the space for dissent, as well as the ability to critique current power structures was created. From these findings, theoretically I argue that (1) framing theory can be used to create the space for resisting power, reclaiming agency, and challenging attacks of morality, and (2) theorize the ability of public relations to shape broader societal discourse. Practically, this research adds to the public relations literature (1) the value of new frames for image cultivation and the new role of publics for engaging in the acceptance, rejection, or co-creation of frames put forth by organizations and (2) the role of message modality for cultivating discourse and dissent.

Image Restoration Theory (IRT) examines the strategies that people, especially public figures, and organizations use when they face image and reputational threats. Past scholarship has not fully accounted for the impact of identity on an individual or group’s ability to invoke image repair strategies. We examine the 2022 Supreme Court confirmation hearings of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson through an intersectional lens to spotlight the constraints that minoritized populations, generally, and Black women, specifically, encounter when responding to reputational threats. Given the legacies of patriarchy and whiteness that operate in the West, Black women often lack the standing in the eyes of the public to defend themselves against attacks and accusations, an experience we describe as nonpersonhood. This point suggests that image repair strategies are not neutral, but embedded within socio-political and historical contexts. Via our analysis, we introduce Marginalized Image Navigation and Expression (MINE) principles as a conceptual framework that is useful for understanding the nuanced ways that images are navigated, negotiated, and expressed, especially for marginalized persons. Finally, we examine the implications of our arguments in the context of reputational threats against minoritized people and organizations.

The most disrespected person in America is the Black woman. The most unprotected person in America is the Black woman. The most neglected person in America is the Black woman.

Malcolm X

Morality is an integral part of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). However, the academic debate so far has mostly stated the importance of morality from a purely theoretical perspective, without empirically assessing it. We, therefore, draw on the moral foundations dictionary to conduct an automated content analysis of corporations’ (N = 277) annual CSR reports (N = 5010) over a period of 22 years. Looking into Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States, we investigated morality salience, differences across sectors, countries, and over time as well as the association of morality with different stakeholder groups. Results inform the broader debate on CSR and morality and highlight avenues for future research.

Advocacy organizations increasingly leverage social media and visuals to communicate complex climate issues. By examining an extensive dataset of visual posts collected from five organization accounts on two multimodal social media platforms, Twitter and Instagram, we conducted a cross-platform comparison of visual content categories and visual features related to climate change. Through deep-learning-based unsupervised image clustering, we discovered that visual content on both platforms could be broadly classified into five categories: infographics/captioned images, nature landscape/wildlife, climate activism, technology, and data visualization. However, these categories were not equally represented on each platform. Instagram featured more nature landscape/wildlife content, while Twitter showed more infographics/captioned images and data visualization. Through computational visual analysis, we found that the two platforms also presented significant differences in overall warm and cool colors, brightness, colorfulness, visual complexity, and presence of faces. Additionally, we identified platform-specific patterns of engagement associated with these categories and features. With the urgency to address climate change, these findings can guide climate advocacy organizations in developing strategies tailored to each platform’s specific characteristics for maximum effectiveness. This study highlights the significance of using computational methods in efficiently uncovering meaningful themes from extensive visual data and quantifying aesthetic features in strategic communication.

Organizational political ideology has recently received research attention, as more organizations engage in political activities to influence public policy and political regulation. However, there lacks a focus on interorganizational relationships as part of an organization’s political agenda. This study investigates political ideology as a mechanism of interorganizational relationship-building through politically active organizations’ agenda-building efforts. The study measures organizational political ideology through political donations, and investigates how it affects organizational relationship-building through press releases. We adopt a social network approach to examine interorganizational relationships predicted by the political ideology of the organization and the CEO at both the nodal and structural levels. After a computational analysis of 174,118 press releases by top political organizational donors, the findings show that an organization’s political ideology affected the mentions it received (i.e., in-degree), whereas its CEO’s political ideology affected its mentions of other organizations (i.e., out-degree). Value homophily did not significantly influence interorganizational representational networks, but mutuality and transitivity affected distinct patterns of connections among politically active organizations.