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Encroachment in nonprofits has been primarily defined as a structural outcome where a senior fundraiser manages the public relations function rather than a CEO. However, few studies actually explore the critical relationship between the public relations and fundraising functions’ corresponding departments. These relationships are important to understand because they can have an impact that goes beyond the bounds of reporting relationships. As a result, the purpose of this study is to build on the foundation of encroachment research by examining the interdepartmental relationship between public relations and fundraising in higher education through the lens of work group autonomy. Results indicate that senior public relations officers at colleges and universities that raise the most gift dollars have positive working relationships with their fundraising counterparts. However, “everything is not Pleasantville.” In fact, the findings demonstrate that this interdepartmental relationship needs to be constantly cultivated to ensure that public relations departments have sufficient autonomy to contribute to fundraising efforts as well as meet the broader communication needs of the institution.

A study of the views of the chief communications officers (CCOs) at large organizations revealed views about “high performance” of the communication function is considered more in terms of the entire organization than evaluation only of the communications or public relations function. Depth interviews followed by a survey showed that top CCOs see high performance most important in IT and finance, but that high performance in communications is more vital to organizational success than it is in marketing, legal and the human resources function. Key drivers and impediments to high-performance of corporate communications were identified. The study matters to the profession by going beyond other research on communications and public relations evaluation that is focused more within the function than in the broader organizational context. It also extends recent research on public relations and leadership. Finally, the study shows a distinction in viewpoint between top communications executives and other professionals, and indicates a mindset necessary to be successful as a function as well as to gain respect across the enterprise.

Organizations spend more on public communication today than ever before in history. Yet, in the past few years developed Western countries where investment in public communication is greatest have seen a collapse of trust in government, business and major institutions and landmark uprisings of citizens against the persuasion and promotional campaigns of governments, political parties and big business. Industrialized democratic societies cannot ignore events such as Brexit, the election of Donald Trump, ‘hung parliaments’ in several countries, and increasing challenges to businesses’ social licence to operate. This paradox – declining public trust, support, and stability at a time when investment in public communication has never been higher – indicates that there is something wrong in the way organizations seek to engage with their stakeholders and publics today and shows that change is required. This paper presents a reflective critical analysis of public communication approaches today drawing on a body of recent research rather than a single study, particularly focussing on theories and practices in public relations and ‘strategic communication’, and compares them with contemporary concepts such as design thinking, emergent strategy, and Theory U to present an argument and a direction for transformation to address the paradox in public communication.

This research provides insights into the Canadian arm of a global initiative to identify capabilities in public relations and communication management. The Global Capabilities project, is dedicated to surfacing the core capabilities required by and reflected in the public relations discipline. This paper articulates the findings from Canada, in phase one of this project. Results indicate that academics, practitioners and employers appear to have agreement around the central nature of two capabilities: planning communication to be in alignment with strategic purpose and the ability to apply critical thinking and problem solving to organizational issues.

In recent years, significant advancement has been made in establishing standards for measuring external public relations efforts. Little has been done, however, to standardize measurement for those responsible for internal communication. Employees are critical to the success of any organization, and the effectiveness of communication with them is of paramount importance. Seeking to rectify this gap, the Institute for Public Relations and the Commission on Research, Measurement, and Evaluation created an international 11-member task force comprising academics and practitioners in 2015 to develop internal communication measurement standards. The task force identified and tentatively defined possible standards for internal communication. The researchers of this study extended the global task force’s initial work by conducting a Delphi study in 2016 with a purposive sample of 22 internal communication thought leaders to determine if a wider audience of internal communication practitioners agreed with the task force’s recommended standards and definitions. This research describes the findings of the Delphi study and introduces and defines measurement standards that internal communication practitioners can use to create more effective communication plans and measure the value communication bring to their organizations. The proposed standards also supersede the current "engagement" catchall goal that tends to be amorphous and difficult to address. In the future, the researchers plan to test the reliability and validity of the internal communication standards developed in this study, so that practitioners can measure in a consistent and comparable manner—the ultimate goal of standardization.

This study aims to examine how corporate online communication messages can enhance audience’s attitude and trust toward a corporation. A 2x3 experimental study was conducted, simulating the types of relationship and the perceived level of interactivity on corporate Twitter messages. The data suggest that the type of relationship is an essential predictor of audience's attitude and trust toward the corporation, and an interaction effect of the two independent variables was also found on the perceived attitude toward the corporation. The effects remained when medium credibility and familiarity were controlled. The potential of Twitter as a persuasive tool in business communication was discussed.

The American craft beer industry has seen tremendous growth in the last two decades and exemplifies the growing artisanal and locavore movements which are shaping a variety of industries and reflect shifts in stakeholder motivations, particularly Millennials. Through a series of interviews with craft beer professionals, this study explores the role of public relations in the craft beer industry, what is unique about public relations within industry, and the strategies breweries use to build relationships with one another and other stakeholders. Findings do not only apply to craft beer, but other industries influenced by the locavore and artisanal movements.

The measurement of communication impact has become a long-standing discussion in the public relations research community. While discussions about standardized measurement date back decades (Lindenmann, 2005, pp. 3-4), the current debates about standardized measurement became prominent with the work of Michaelson and Stacks (Michaelson & Stacks, 2011). In their 2011 article, they argued that public relations measurement needed to be standardized to demonstrate communication activity impact on absolute levels of impact as well as on relative measures. The question this paper explored is “What is the root cause for the lack of adoption of standardized measurement by the public relations profession?” In so doing, this paper proposes a revised approach to standardized measurement that is based on message delivery based on a revision of an analytic approach originally proposed by Michaelson and Griffin (2005) that is steeped in message level content analysis. It expands this approach by creating a unified message delivery-scoring model that provides for the inclusion of intended messages, the omission of intended messages, and the presence of negative messages in media. The research includes rigorous testing that demonstrates the validity and statistical reliability of the proposed model and its relationship to sentiment analysis. The analysis also examines the statistical impact of negative messages in media and concludes that the presence of negative messages effectively detracts from the overall sentiment of an article just as the presence of positive messages increases overall sentiment.

Reputation management is essential to associations, particularly after a crisis. As an example, a corruption crisis happened after Swiss authorities arrested some Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) officials and issued criminal charges regarding bids for the 2018 and 2022 World Cup. There is considerable scrutiny of how profit and nonprofit corporations manage their reputations after crises, with less attention focused on international associations. This case study examines how FIFA used the media and communication strategies to protect its reputation after the corruption scandal of May 2015. We analyze FIFA news releases, examine press conferences, and investigate its website, including how this crisis affected relationships with stakeholders (largely sponsors and partners).It is understood that reputation management and open communication channels help rebuild trust. This study shows that FIFA depended on a “Deny strategy” to avoid responsibility, as there was no benefit in using the mass media. They organized a press conference to make a few statements via their official website, with little media use.

This paper reports on the results of a twelve-year longitudinal analysis trend study involving more than 5,500 public relations practitioners. Findings have found that the use of social and other digital communication media in public relations practice has continued to increase each year. This has provided unique opportunities not only for those who practice public relations but also for a wide variety of strategic publics who have been given dynamic new communication vehicles many are using effectively with a variety of internal and external strategic audiences. Results of this 2017 study include benchmark comparisons reflecting the opinions of those who practice public relations – and an analysis of how these opinions have changed during the past twelve years. During the past five years results have highlighted the increasing use of Facebook and Twitter in public relations practice. That’s the case once again in 2017 with Facebook increasing its lead over Twitter as the most used social medium in the public relations industry. The paper also reports on the monitoring and managing of social and digital media in organizations, how much time public relations practitioners spend working with social and digital media and how social and digital media use in public relations is being measured.

Experimental methods were used to examine the influence of public relations strategies disseminated via Facebook on attitude. Public relations strategies were derived from Hazleton and Long’s (1988) public relations process model. Results indicated that undesirable messages posted on Facebook had the most significant effect on participant attitude, and that using Facebook as a medium did not significantly affect attitude. These findings indicate that message content is important especially with unfamiliar content since the platform itself does not impact attitude.

This paper brings together findings from five different role-enactment surveys. The data combination gives a sharper picture of what religion communicators do and how their roles compare to secular practitioners. Religion communicators see themselves primarily as technicians. That role was most prominent in a 2006 survey of Religion Communicators Council (RCC) members. Nevertheless, results from 2011 and 2016 surveys of RCC members showed that expert-prescriber, a manager category on the Broom (1982) scale, was their most prominent role. Manager on the Dozier (1992) scale had the highest overall mean as well in the 2016 RCC survey. Religion communicators who do not belong to RCC worked more clearly as technicians in a 2013 survey than did RCC members in 2011 or 2016. But RCC members and nonmembers both did manager tasks significantly less than Public Relations Society of America members and nonmembers in another 2013 survey.

This study advances a framework of concepts based on the Barcelona Principles (AMEC, 2010) to assess the extent public relations practitioners, in award-winning campaigns, place greater emphasis on outcomes than outputs in evaluations of their campaigns, as the Barcelona Principles advocate. The study employs content analysis of the evaluation sections of campaigns recognized for excellence by the Public Relations Society of America Silver Anvil awards from 2010, when the Barcelona Principles were adopted, to 2014. The findings show mixed results. Many cases do measure outcomes, yet the most predominant evaluation described is outputs, which are nearly universally present in campaigns. Awards in certain categories of PR practices are more likely to measure outputs only, with no measurable outcomes. Advertising Value Equivalencies (AVEs), though measured only in a small percent of cases, are still making their way into some evaluation sections. The findings, and recommendations based on the results, provide direction for professional and pedagogical approaches to PR measurement and evaluation.

Examining McLuhan’s (1964) classic adage that the “medium is the message,” this experimental design presented participants with the three versions of the same message content. Manipulating medium as an online press release, blog post, or online video, the research here found that medium does play a role in shaping the receiver’s perceived relationship with an organization. Conversely, medium does not impact one’s assessment of credibility. Set in a digital political public relations context, this study attempts to connect public relations’ most heuristic theory in the examination in the state of ever-evolving digital media.

This article is a content analysis of the use of the top three social media platforms, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube by 100 of the 627 top nonprofit organizations in the United States listed by Charitywatch.org. The purpose of this research is to generate much-needed knowledge in this field by providing empirical data to the nonprofit sector on the use of social media in the nonprofit sector. Previously, such analysis did not exist for organizations operating within the United States, and, thus, many organizational leaders may be hesitant to allocate resources and funding to such efforts. The 100 websites were coded with an inter-coder reliability rate of 93%. Results demonstrate that there is a statistically significant, positive correlation between the number of social media websites linked to and the number of individual site subscribers. Websites were also coded for social media link ‘viewability,’ and this was measured against social media site popularity to test if link placement could influence social media following. Results indicate that the more clicks a user must perform to reach a social media page, the lower the site following would likely be. Results also revealed that the type of organization did not have a significant effect on whether audience members would be more involved with social media efforts or not. These trends can be used as evidence that the time spent in managing social media sites, even at the nonprofit level, can have a positive impact on an organization’s ability to reach its target population.

Practicing ethical public relations means keeping client confidences. However, when organizations face litigation this promise can be hard to keep. Having a working knowledge of the litigation process has become extremely important as public relations becomes an increasingly multifaceted practice in organizations that face a variety of issues and crises. One of the most important and relevant legal issues that is likely to affect public relations work is ediscovery. This paper examines e-discovery issues, and how this litigation process potentially affects the public relations profession. An overview of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and the Federal Rules of Evidence are provided along with an in-depth analysis of cost, access, confidentiality, and international issues that affect the e-discovery process. The paper concludes with five issues with discovery law that PR practitioners should know and be prepared to work within during the next decade.

We investigated whether providing social information, recommended contribution level, statement about gift impact, mission, and financial disclosure information influences unaware or not-so-involved college students’ online charitable-giving. An experiment was conducted with 224 college students. The findings suggested that providing information on gift-impact and organization’s mission statement had the most significant impact on latent publics’ willingness to donate online.

Internal communication is increasingly vital to organizational success due to the influence of social media, yet it remains understudied within public relations research. Using a qualitative content analysis of 181 websites, this study examines how leading public relations agency websites frame the value of internal communication and its connection to social media. Findings reveal internal communication is largely missing from the frame. When explicitly referenced, it is mostly framed as synonymous with employee communication as a means for management to communicate to employees, though some portrayals are more robust. Websites frame internal communication’s value as enhancing financial outcomes by improving workplace culture, employee engagement, and workers’ willingness to support management’s preferred organization brand or reputation. Social media are disconnected from internal communication and are mostly framed as tools that require additional employee training to use in order to reach external audiences. A handful of agencies urge organizations to include social media and internal stakeholders within the internal communication function. Recommendations are made for future internal communication research and practice.

This study explored the current state of performance evaluation and talent management in corporate communication from the perspective of senior communication leaders including the members of the Arthur W. Page society. The findings of a national survey underscore several opportunities for communication leaders to elevate performance and importance of their function. In addition to actionable insights, key trends and best practices in measuring communication effectiveness, the study also concludes with recommendations on developing high performing teams that also deliver higher value.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of social media and emotional support on consumers’ crisis appraisal. This study uses 2 (medium: Twitter vs. news release) × 2 (emotional support: yes vs. no) factorial experiment. Two hundred and forty-five Twitter users recruited from the Amazon Mechanical Turk system participated in this study. The result demonstrates significant interaction between emotional support and a media channel; messages with sympathy delivered through Twitter help to lower perceived crisis responsibility and retain positive organizational reputation, in comparison with messages conveyed in news releases. Using Twitter significantly lessens people’s sadness and anger. Respondents reading Twitter pages attribute less crisis responsibility to the company, and withhold higher perceptions on organizational reputation and purchase intention. Moreover, expressing sympathy significantly alleviates sadness and anger; respondents reading messages with emotional support report lower scores on crisis responsibility. This study is one of the few empirically-based studies in public relations research using an experiment to extrapolate the effects of social media use and emotional support on consumers’ crisis appraisal. This investigation reinforces the need to consider social media not just at the individual level, but also as a form of communication that can have broader consequences at the organizational level.

Through two online surveys, this study found support for seven distinct social media roles assumed by public relations practitioners. Principle components analysis using varimax rotation resulted in the following roles: social media technician, social listening and analytics, online media relations, policy maker, employee recruiter, internal social media manager, and policing. The study provided evidence of gender differences in roles. Although there were no gender differences in enactment of social media management roles, women enacted the social media technician role more often than men. The traditional manager role in public relations correlated with five of the social media roles. In contrast, the traditional communication technician role was found to correlate with three of the social media roles: social media technician, policing and policy maker. The study found evidence that social media are offering opportunities for more power and influence for public relations practitioners at all levels in the organization.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has increased significantly in academic research and professional practice since the 1970s, expanding from the business realm to the public relations field. Nevertheless, the perceptions of PR professionals and their relationship with CSR programs remain largely unstudied. Through in-depth interviews with 11 communications professionals in nine diverse companies with active corporate responsibility programs, this study examines the role of public relations in successful CSR programs. Overwhelmingly, interviewed professionals expressed positive perceptions of CSR initiatives but adamantly opposed public relations’ ownership of the programs. Rather, these practitioners advocated a cross-functional approach with public relations in a supportive or complementary function.

This study explores one of the worst industrial accidents in U.S. history from the perspective of stakeholders’ narratives within zones of meaning with the goal of advancing scholarship and providing practitioners with a better understanding of residents’ dialogue and constructed community identity following a crisis. This study follows a qualitative, narrative analysis approach by conducting in-depth interviews (N=18) with residents surrounding the crisis event. The study identified narratives that constructed group identities in a community affected by crisis and offers a frame to better understand contextual complexities of the risk-bearing communities, their communicative expectations from an organization, and sense-making process during an industrial crisis. The analysis reveals three distinct community groups (1) not disturbed, (2) directly traumatized, and (3) indirectly troubled. Each group’s narrative makes sense of the TVA and the crisis differently. These findings are discussed as narrative disruption, control, trust, and familiarity of a risk. In addition, over time, community narratives change and a clear expert and lay public emerge that shape the longer-term discourse surrounding the crisis event. Practical applications based on the analysis are provided.

This research explores how unique situational factors, particularly challenges and opportunities within local governments and their operating environments, affect crisis management. Survey data was collected from local government officials (n=307) who manage communication functions in municipalities across the U.S. Results indicate partnerships with outside agencies were extremely important in successfully managing crisis. Also, organizational resources, crisis nature, audience culture, and nature of public response emerge as important domains for future crisis research. These findings broadly inform crisis management, as they may enable communities with scarce resources to utilize them more efficiently to reduce disparities in public safety. This study is a first step for crisis research with more diversity in crisis types sensitive to unique organization-centered crisis management challenges.

A narrative analysis of Compassion International’s blogger engagement program reveals lessons for nonprofits seeking to partner with bloggers. Compassion went beyond just reaching new sponsors through blogger engagement, but also sought to retain and educate existing sponsors, equipping them as ambassadors for the organization. Compassion’s blogger engagement program demonstrates the social capital to be garnered for nonprofit organizations when they partner with likeminded bloggers who can help tell their story.

There seems to be an intrinsic linkage between the concepts of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and that of public relations (PR). In large organizations it is the public relations function that is predominantly responsible for CSR and related concepts. Literature suggests a high and rising importance of corporate social responsibility for public relations with positive organizational and social impact. However, longitudinal results of an empirical study among communication managers across Europe disagree. Since 2007, the European Communication Monitor annually surveys over 2,000 professionals from more than 40 countries on the importance of strategic issues in European organizations. Since 2008 it has included a standard question about which issues respondents perceive will be the most important for public relations within the next three years. One of the offered items in this question is Dealing with sustainable development and corporate social responsibility. Understanding relative weight of corporate social responsibility in relation to other major issues public relations practitioners face may reveal its importance and any changes through time. If corporate social responsibility is gaining in importance this item should be climbing towards the top of the list. But, on the contrary, it fell from the second position in 2008 to the ninth in 2014 (of eleven offered). There is a rising trend of importance for the item Building and maintaining trust, while Dealing with sustainable development and corporate social responsibility and Dealing with the demand for more transparency and active audiences are falling.

Through open-ended, structured interviews, 25 students evaluated a campus gunman threat. Themes revealed that the university’s crisis communication response was evaluated positively by students who received word from a university-affiliated source first and were usually off campus. Students who received messages from non-university sources, and were usually on campus, evaluated the response negatively. Social media played a large role as information source, increasing the number of voices in the crisis. The paper concludes by integrating the findings into CERC and other crisis models, supports the importance of stakeholder emotions during crisis, and discusses the threat as a form of paracrisis.

Public Relations professionals are taking an increasingly important role as part of the “C-suite” team. Millennials (born 1982-2000) will need to be ready to assume leadership positions earlier in their careers than any generation before them. The study presented here uses the results of nine focus groups and two depth interviews conducted during the summer of 2014. It explores how current public relations professionals who manage Millennials evaluate them for promotion and the concerns and issues they face as they do so. Many of the qualities of a good leader identified in the leadership literature are inherent in how Millennials have been raised and educated. However, the focus group findings point to several key areas of concern about Millennials engaged in public relations work: personal qualities, communication skills, business acumen, and work ethic. Additionally, there are some concerns about collaboration and social media. Suggestions for future research are presented in the conclusion.

There is not an organization today that can afford to ignore the power of social media. Public relations professionals have recognized that it is essential to leverage social media to build and maintain relationships with increasingly interactive publics in a credible way that will foster strong relationships. The purpose of this national study is to re-conceptualize our understanding of credibility in the context of social media by analyzing how organizations employ social media to build credibility. The findings of the study not only extend source and medium credibility research into a timely context, but also contribute to theoretical development and practice in the public relations field. Findings indicate that trustworthiness, expertise, personable interaction and invitational rhetoric are critical dimensions for the credibility of an organization interacting through social media.

There is limited understanding of how publics attribute responsibility for public relations crises through social media. Public involvement in social media has emerged as an area of interest in conflict management because involvement impacts negative emotion and attribution of responsibility to an organization. The researchers measured involvement, as related to emotional reaction and responsibility attribution, using a content analysis of Facebook consumer comments (N= 236) made after Nike Running issued an apology and statement of corrective action about the technical problems with the Nike Plus Sports Kit. The frameworks of Contingency Theory of Accommodation and the Situational Crisis Communication Theory illuminated the findings. The results revealed that effortful involvement in commenting was positively associated with crisis responsibility attribution. However, involvement was not associated with emotional venting. This suggests that corrective action may quell emotional reaction, but responsibility attribution may be of concern when using social media as a two-way communication tool.

This paper expands stakeholder management practice by incorporating concepts from the issues management process model. Based on Jones and Chase’s issuesprocess model, this study provides a comprehensive three-step stakeholder management process: (1) stakeholder identification and analysis, (2) development and implementation of stakeholder management strategies, and (3) stakeholder management evaluation. From a practical point of view, the stakeholder identification step helps organizations picture what types of reactions or attacks will occur in the near future. In addition, stakeholder analysis allows organizations to enlist salient stakeholders and offers a practical initiation into stakeholder management. The criteria for stakeholder identification and analysis in this model can provide practical guidelines for ongoing brainstorming drills within organizations to determine which stakeholders should be engaged. Furthermore, an organization’s stakeholder management strategies are created and selected according to stakeholder categories on the basis of types and priorities. This cyclical process can motivate organizations to continue their implementation and evaluation, which will lead to an effective and efficient issues management process that can result in the construction of a better society.

The development of social media has drawn growing attention from public relations scholars. The current study examined the status, critical issues, and needed directions of social media-related public relations research through a critical review and synthesis of the research topics, theoretical applications, research methods, and samples of previous studies. Findings suggested an increasing trend in research topics, a lack of theoretical frameworks, and a dominance of quantitative method in this field. This study could advance scholars’ understanding about the research trend of social media-related public relations research and provide insights for prospective directions of future research.

This study advances the development of a transparency model for government communicators. Previous research conducted by Fairbanks et al. (2007) used in-depth interviews of federal public information officers to develop a three-dimensional model composed of “valuing transparency,” “organizational support,” “communication practices” and “provision of resources.” This study develops a quantitative instrument to confirm the dimensions of the model and to predict which of the dimensions best predicts perceived governmental transparency at the city level. All three parts of the model were supported by the finding. This study also shows that valuing transparency has very little effect on predicting whether an organization is going to be perceived as being transparent. Organizational support was also evident and that the communicator has a place at the decision-making table. Although having sufficient resources to practice transparency was not as strong a predictor of perceptions of organizational transparency, it appeared to be the biggest obstacle.

Stewardship has been called the critical fifth step in the public relations process nonprofit organizations employ to develop relationships with various publics (Kelly, 2001). The purposes of this study are to explicate the meanings of the four stewardship strategies (responsibility, reporting, reciprocity and relationship nurturing) and, using a quantitative content analysis of nonprofit websites, to further understand how top nonprofits deploy these strategies online. Findings indicate differences based on organization type and web page; implications for practitioners and scholars are discussed.

Few academic studies have examined how Pinterest can be best used to connect, engage, and build relationships with target publics. The current study aims to explore how most followed brands on Pinterest build relationships through the dialogical communication framework. Broadly, through the two research questions advanced, the study contributes to the stream of research that explores the dialogic features present on social media sites. A content analysis of organizations’ Pinterest profile pages and individual pins was conducted to determine the extent to which dialogic principles were present as an attempt to build relationships with their publics. The findings indicate social media do have the potential to foster relationships with organizational publics. More specifically, the study identifies Pinterest as an up-and-coming social media tool with which practitioners can utilize to cultivate relationships among their publics in a visually stimulating way. The current study can offer guidelines to those organizations that want to utilize Pinterest to better foster their relationship with target audiences, filling a gap of literature that is needed to bridge the gap between academic literature and the public relations practice.

A nationwide survey of U.S. college and university students (n=786), who are members of Public Relations Society of America student chapters (PRSSA) found mixed attitudes toward and conflicting perceptions of the public relations industry. A large majority of students believed that their college degrees had prepared them well for a career in public relations, however many were concerned about finding a job upon graduation. A third-person effect was detected in that students believed that the negative media portrayals of the PR industry had more affect on others than it did on them. Potential levels of cognitive dissonance among the students about their chosen profession also were found. Suggestions for PR education are presented in the context of the findings.

This study examined Information and communication technologies (ICT) use by public relations practitioners and its influence on work-life conflict, income, and professional outlook through a random national survey (n = 820) of Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) members. We found that practitioners primarily use direct media more than network-building media and visual media. ICT use (direct and visual media use) was a significant predictor of time-based work-life conflict. Some types of ICT use significantly enhance practitioners’ income and influence their professional outlook.

This article reports on a ten-year longitudinal analysis studying how social and other emerging media technologies are bringing dramatic changes to how public relations is practiced. The major finding in the 2015 study involves a very close race between Facebook and Twitter as the social or emerging media used the most in public relations practice. Although Twitter narrowly replacing Facebook for the first time in 2014 as the most frequently accessed new medium for public relations activities, Facebook narrowly regained the lead in 2015. LinkedIn and You Tube were the next most frequently used sites. Findings show those who practice public relations continue to agree strongly that social and other emerging media are changing the way public relations is practiced. This impact continues to be much more pronounced for external than internal audiences.

This research addresses the phenomenon of paid news in China. The study reviewed the English- and Chinese-language literature on the subject of media non-transparency and cultural traditions of gift giving and guanxi in the Chinese media to explore whether discussions of media bribery are appropriate in the context of the Chinese media environment. The results of an exploratory survey of Chinese media professionals showed that the phenomenon of paid news exists in China, but the ethics of this practice are under scrutiny. The study discusses reasons why this practice exists in China and why some media professionals consider this practice acceptable.

This study examines the contribution of ethical leadership to internal communication effectiveness by examining the influences of ethical leader behaviors, such as fair treatment, role clarification, power sharing, people orientation, integrity, ethical guidance, and concern for sustainability, on symmetrical internal communication, perceived leader credibility, and employee engagement. Results showed that ethical leadership as an antecedent factor plays a critical role in nurturing the symmetrical communication system of an organization, which in turn engages employees. Ethical leader behaviors also help establish leader credibility (i.e., trustworthiness and expertise) as perceived by employees. Symmetrical communication mediates the influences of power sharing and people orientation on employee engagement. Significant theoretical and practical implications of the study findings are discussed.

Through 28 elite interviews with CEOs (6) and CCOs (22), this study examined the role of leadership and internal communication in building an ethical communication climate and ethical organizational culture. Internal communications is viewed as central to creating organizational culture that creates positive engagement for internal stakeholder or employees. Based upon a review of the literature and these research findings, results indicated that CEOs should use authentic leadership style. Importantly, CCOs can enhance the role of ethics in the organization by enacting a conscience counselor role on ethics for the dominant coalition, creating ethical discussion around the core values of the organization, and creating stakeholder engagement in internal relations around ethics through discussion, modeling exemplar behavior, and reward or incentive systems. Attention to these activities helps to foster an organizational culture that is ethically engaged and optimally strategic and proactive, rather than simply equating ethics with matters of legal compliance.

This study, based on findings from a survey distributed to PRSA members, explores the role diversity plays in public relations practice today and the extent to which an organization’s diversity values contribute to ethical stakeholder engagement. A 2005 report issued by the PR Coalition called on public relations to take a leadership role in strengthening the importance of diversity in American life. These findings suggest that practitioners still support that role, but there remains a steep disconnect between the importance of diversity in public relations and what that means in everyday practice. Diversity as a core organizational value—as evidenced through policies and programs—is crucial to organizational success; conveying those values to stakeholders is also an important part of public relations’ ethical responsibility. The communication strategies and tactics used to do so, however, are limited and indicate missed opportunities for public relations practice generally.

The purpose of this study was to explore ethics that are unique to public health/health care (PH/HC) public relations, as the field is an increasingly politicized, collaborative, regulated, and socially mediated communication environment. Eighteen practitioners from the PH/HC industry were interviewed about ethical dilemmas and resolutions in their jobs. Traditional ethics were confirmed, and unique ethics like sustainability, cultural accountability, and compliance emerged. As many of the ethics blur together in how they address practitioners’ concerns today, the ethics were categorized according to ethics of knowledge, ethics of protection, and ethics of engagement. Theoretical implications are suggested, particularly around how the health context provides deeper meaning for theories of stakeholder engagement, issues management, and postmodernism. Practical and pedagogical implications are also addressed.

Given the importance of and challenges in stakeholder engagement in the global context, this study examines the perceptions of local community members on the stakeholder engagement strategies of multinational corporations (MNCs) operating in Peru as well as the relationship outcomes of such engagement. A survey with 300 local community members in Cajamarca, Peru was conducted. Results indicated that among the different engagement strategies, symmetrical/ethical communication is the most critical whereas mediated communication is the least effective in increasing the effectiveness of stakeholder engagement for both stakeholders and organizations. In the process of stakeholder engagement, uncertainty reduction plays a more important role than anxiety reduction in increasing perceived control mutuality and trust. Appropriate stakeholder engagement strategies and stakeholders’ anxiety and uncertainty management significantly predicted organization-stakeholder relational outcomes.