Search

Social media has become an indispensable component of everyday life and had a transformative impact on strategic communication. This study reflects on the influence of social media in scholarship and examines social media research to identify strengths, gaps, and assumptions in this body of literature. Using structural topic modeling and network analysis, this research models every word published in six leading journals studying public relations from 2012 to 2022 in two separate studies. First, a census of the 2,675 articles, totaling 15926,460 words, is analyzed to establish the percentage of scholarship related to social media, methodologies used to study social media, and how social media interacts with other topics within public relations. Second, a subset of 666 articles that heavily emphasize social media are examined in order to identify the key social media topics within public relations scholarship. This research finds that social media is a major connecting topic within public relations scholarship; however, few social-media specific topics are being studied in public relations scholarship. Even research focused on social media is more heavily emphasizing existing public relations theory than social media-specific topics. We conclude with three propositions that detail a path forward for scholarship regarding social media. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Perceptions of a crisis communicator's sincerity drive reactions to an organization's response amidst a scandal. However, a spokesperson can nonverbally appear sincere while deceptively evading questions and can appear insincere while actually speaking sincere truths. Applying truth-default theory to crisis communication, we assess people's reactions to a spokesperson varying in sincerity through demeanor and language. In an experiment (N = 801), adults from across the United States were randomly assigned to view one of four versions of a news interview. The stimuli present the spokesperson replying to questions with sincere or insincere demeanor and sincere language (conveying relevance and clarity) or insincere language (evasion and obfuscation). Results indicate that sincerity in demeanor and language interact to affect (a) account acceptance, (b) negative word-of-mouth intention, and (c) attribution of responsibility. But sincerity in language largely overrides behavioral impressions. Discussion concerns considering evasion and obfuscation as demeanor cues, when violations of relevance and clarity in language undercut a spokesperson's believability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In response to calls for more public relations historical research in sectors outside business and before the 20th century, this research examines the communication efforts of American peace societies from the early to mid-1800s. It finds that peace societies demonstrated strategic intent, honored human agency, and employed full-time public relations practitioners. In addition, this research documents a nondenominational reform movement applying the strategic communication systems developed by American evangelical Christianity. Moreover, it pushes back the boundaries of the earliest known use of a religious public relations strategy by a social reform movement by 65 years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]