Australian public relations: status at the turn of the 21st century

Since its inception, public relations in Australia has grown in professional stature, status, education, research, and practice. As these trends progress, visibility of the profession is becoming steadily more pronounced in the industry, education, and public domain. Over the last two decades the Public Relations Institute of Australia together with its strategic alliances have made many changes, structurally, strategically, and academically towards the professional growth of public relations. This article briefly discusses the views of the Public Relations Institute of Australia and offers a snapshot of two surveys[1] on professional practice and related issues. Although direct comparisons are not meant to be made from these studies, both surveys offer insights into aspects of Australian public relations. Whereas mixed findings and scenarios are evident, and the surveys highlight areas for further development, the profession, with close attention to existing threats, is poised to grow in Australia.Raveena Singh is program director and senior lecturer at the University of Canberra (Australian Capital Territory) and Rosaleen Smyth is senior lecturer and public relations coordinator at Deakin University (Victoria). Both authors are coeditors of the Asia Pacific Public Relations Journal.     

网络危机公关探析

网络危机公关是指对由网络虚拟世界里形成的网络危机事件所引发的、对现实世界产生实际影响的公关危机(网络公关危机)的预防、识别和处理。通过对网络危机事件、网络公关危机和网络危机公关的分析,探讨了网络公关危机管理之道。     

Integrating public relations and legal responses during a crisis: The case of Odwalla, Inc.

Crisis management is a form of issues management in which crisis managers attempt to control the terms used to describe corporate actions. In this sense, a crisis can be seen as an opportunity to demonstrate the organization's commitment to responsible behavior and to outline the steps being taken to eliminate the problem. The organization's decision-making process is evident in its communication response (public relations versus legal) strategies.This study examines the crisis communication strategies employed by Odwalla, Inc. during its juice contamination crisis, a crisis whose impact on public health and safety gave it the potential for developing into an issue that required public policy relief. An analysis of the content of published responses made by Odwalla officials showed that public relations response strategies dominated legal response strategies throughout the crisis, followed by mixed public relations and legal strategies. This case provides a clear example of the collaborative approach to crisis management in terms of legal versus public relations strategies. In addition, Odwalla exerted control over the crisis through its recall, the development of a process to eliminate the problem, and raising the issue of pasteurization.     

The Blog-Mediated Crisis Communication Model: Recommendations for Responding to Influential External Blogs

Practitioners and academics are buzzing about the impact of the blogosphere on public relations practices. Emerging evidence indicates that strategically managing blog-mediated public relations may be especially critical for crisis managers. Yet, no known research provides a comprehensive, theoretically sound approach indicating how crisis managers should engage with the blogosphere. Therefore, this study proposes a new conceptual model to help public relations professionals navigate the evolving blogosphere: the blog-mediated crisis communication model. This model helps crisis managers monitor the blogosphere and respond, when appropriate, to influential bloggers. Future research will test the model in applied contexts, working with corporate, government, and nonprofit organizations.     

Institutionalizing public relations: A case study of Chinese government crisis communication on the 2008 Sichuan earthquake

Research is needed on the “institutionalization” of public relations as a strategic-management function. How and why public relations ought to be institutionalized certainly remains highly debatable. This study, thus, engages the current debate on the necessity and advantages of the institutionalization of public relation by taking on Chinese government crisis communication in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake as a test case.This study employs both qualitative and quantitative methods, consisting largely of online and textual research, convenient and confidential telephone interviews, content analysis of government communication materials, and intercept surveys in Beijing (China's capital city) and Chengdu (the provincial capital of the Sichuan Province where the earthquake hits).The study finds that the institutionalization of government public relations in China has visible results, especially, in the areas of crisis communication and management, as well as stakeholder-relationship building. Within the Chinese context, it suggests, “institutionalization” of the government public relations tends to render legitimacy to public relations practice and empower the practitioners by according PR practice a strategic function toward the achievement of public-institution effectiveness. Although a preliminary analysis, this study supports the argument on the necessity and advantages for PR practice becoming institutionalized.     

Understanding conspiratorial thinking (CT) within public relations research: Dynamics of organization-public relationship quality,CT, and negative megaphoning

Research on conspiracy theories in the fields of social and political psychology has identified dispositional and situational factors that lead to belief in conspiracy theories. However, there is still a lack of research on how and why individuals engage in conspiratorial thinking (CT) within the area of public relations. This study views CT as individuals’ propensity to consider malicious events and circumstances as secret plots initiated by a powerful organization for its self-serving purposes and applies CT to a government-public relationship context. Using a survey dataset collected from a nationally representative sample of Australia citizens (n = 542), this study examines CT about the Australian government using five survey items that measure CT. CT was found to be significant in fully mediating the relationship between organization-public relationship quality and negative megaphoning.     

Irresponsible Engagement and the Citizen Investor

The study investigates how shareholders are constructed and engaged with through public relations in the Australian financial sector. The web sites and annual and sustainability reports of major Australian companies and investment funds were examined through qualitative content analysis. Findings indicate that a hierarchical distinction exists within the discrete but amorphous stakeholder group known as shareholders, where privilege and disadvantage exist alongside disparate levels of power and agency. This is perpetuated by and through irresponsible public relations, which constructs a discourse of ownership that excludes citizens as legitimate stakeholders limiting their capacity to influence more ethical corporate decisions and practices. Recommendations are offered for how public relations might engage shareholders more responsibly.     

Exploring public relations challenges in compounding crises: The pariah effect of toxic trailers

This study examined the distinct exigency of a compounding crisis, a crisis that occurs in close succession to another (potentially unrelated) crisis before an organization has had the opportunity to rebuild legitimacy. Specifically, we identified the public relations challenges faced by the US Federal Emergency Management Agency during the formaldehyde travel trailer crisis and examined how the Hurricane Katrina crisis encumbered the agency’s response efforts. We offer a theoretical frame for understanding the public relations challenges inherent in compounding crises and propose that, in a compounding crisis, organizational legitimacy and social capital decrease while stakeholder risk perceptions and attribution of crisis responsibility increase. A new phenomenon termed the pariah effect is offered to explain when an organization experiencing a compounding crisis is ostracized by other organizations that could assist with the crisis response to avoid negative spillover effects that could result from associating with the offending organization. This study also demonstrates how attribution of responsibility in a compounding crisis can create an exigency in which an organization must take actions beyond the scope and original mission of the organization.     

Spinning out the asbestos agenda: How big business uses public relations in Australia

Although health warnings associated with asbestos were first documented in 1898, by 2020 there are expected to be 60,000 deaths associated with asbestos in Australia. This paper examines how Australia's dominant asbestos producer's used public relations to limit media coverage and influence government policy related to its asbestos liabilities. It then traces the company's failures to manage the resulting crisis when external stakeholders and media interests became alerted to the corporation's agenda.     

Professionalisation and public relations education: Industry accreditation of Australian university courses in the early 1990s

This paper investigates the Public Relations Institute of Australia's introduction in 1991 of a national accreditation programme for university courses. Drawing on an analysis of previously unstudied industry archives, it identifies four themes significant for industry perspectives of education: public relations knowledge; industry expectations and experience; public relations curricula; and academic legitimacy. While university education was perceived by institute members to demonstrate the professional standing of public relations, the findings reveal divergent understandings of its role and content and identify considerable resistance to the institutionalisation of public relations knowledge. At the same time, the expansion and marketisation of higher education led to the introduction of new, vocational courses such as public relations. The significance of this study is it offers new insights into the development of Australian public relations education and the role of the professional association.     

Social media dialogues in a crisis: A mixed-methods approach to identifying publics on social media

Despite the promise of social media to engender dialogue, the common approach to studying social media may prioritize monologue, whereby research considers the strategies organizations use in targeting publics, particularly in a crisis. This study uses a mixed-method approach to analyze dialogue in a crisis—semantic network analysis and content analysis. Specifically, this study examines the emotional expression and crisis coping behaviors on social media during two separate terror attacks: the Paris terror attacks in 2015 and the Barcelona terror attacks in 2017. Results demonstrate how publics may be identified and understood through semantic network analysis and content analysis. This study also shows the connection between emotions and coping, expanding the crisis communication literature in public relations, and suggests the need to consider agenda-setting and resilience in crisis communication research. Finally, we discuss this study’s implications for assuming a dialogic orientation in public relations.     

Crisis communication plans: Poor predictors of excellent crisis public relations

Public relations is an important element in almost all successful crisis mana ment efforts. Newly developed theory in crisis public relations, though, suggests a shift is necessary in the way practitioners view crises. The well-accepted tactics and techniques advocated by practitioners need to be replaced with strategies and beliefs from a new perspective—a perspective or paradigm that defines excellent crisis public relations practice very differently from the literature of the past 20 years.     

The influences of relationship quality with external partners and required levels of approval of messaging on crisis preparedness

As funding for public health promotion is increasingly limited in the U.S., public relations research informing management of crises that threaten public health is especially critical. Crisis planning models such as Reynolds and Seeger’s (2005, 2014) crisis and emergency risk communication model offer comprehensive directives for crisis managers and present opportunities to extend the utility of best practice recommendations. A survey of public information officers (PIOs) (n=208) at local public health departments across the U.S. examines the quality of their relationships with partners in public health crisis management, including first responders, media, law enforcement, and hospitals, and reveals that relationships with key publics in crisis management are lacking. Further, PIOs at state governed health departments may face critical delays in releasing crisis messages, as their messages are required to clear more levels of approval than locally (city/county) governed departments. Implications and future research for these key variables extending public relations crisis communication research with a focus on inter-organizational relationships are discussed.     

Determinants of consistent,timely, and active responses in corporate crises

This paper investigates the individual and combined factors affecting the extent to which corporations respond to crisis events consistently, in a timely manner, and actively. The determinants examined include public relations autonomy, legal dominance, strategic orientation, and organizational factors. A survey was conducted of communications mangers, public affairs personnel, and public relations personnel, drawn from the top 500 companies operating in Taiwan. Results indicate that the relative effect of individual sources of influence on crisis response is greatest for situations in which public relations departments have the most autonomy, followed by those where crisis management is handled with a strategic orientation, those where the legal departments dominate, and those where organizational factors provide the main avenue of address. The results emphasize the intriguing role of public relations autonomy by demonstrating its significant impact on providing a consistent, timely, and active crisis response. The strategic orientation of situation analysis also predicts a consistent response, whereas legal dominance predicts strategic ambiguity or inconsistent communication.     

Hybrid happening: Organizational reputations in corporate crises

Public relations professionals strive to develop mutually beneficial relationships among key publics that will result in favorable organizational reputations, but crises typically threaten those reputations. Much of public relations crisis research focuses on how to respond after a crisis, but drawing on Expectation Violation Theory (EVT), this research focuses on the expectations of stakeholders before a crisis and how they process information during a crisis. Drawing from reputation management research in marketing, it conceptualizes corporate reputations as encompassing associations related to corporate ability (CA) and corporate social responsibility (CSR). Reputation management research generally has investigated reputations as strong on either CA or CSR, but this research examines the effects of a “hybrid” reputation, which is strong in terms of both CA and CSR associations. The results of an experiment reveal that stakeholders’ responses during a crisis vary based on their expectations, how they perceive a hybrid reputation, and the crisis type. The study has theoretical implications regarding stakeholders’ information processing during a crisis, and it provides public relations professionals insights regarding how to cultivate and protect an organizational reputation.     

Measuring success: Explications and measurement scales of instructing information and adjusting information

Substantial research exists to study reputation management messages but far less research exists to consider instructing information and adjusting information during and after a crisis. This research seeks to build tools that assist in the study of base crisis responses. Using a literature review, 18 interviews with people with expertise in public relations, and an experiment with 286 participants recruited from mTurk, this research builds scales that assess the quality of instructing information and adjusting information given during a crisis. The resulting scales are found to be reliable and predict significant change in post-crisis reputation in an initial test. Potential uses of these scales for crisis communication scholars and public relations practitioners are discussed.     

Predictors of organizations’ crisis communication approaches: Full versus limited disclosure

This study investigates predictors of the public relations (full disclosure) versus legal (limited disclosure) approaches that may be used by organizations during a preventable crisis. Both tangible and intangible aspects of an organization were explored. The results reveal that degree of crisis preparation, public relations influences, and the perception of crisis as an opportunity were significant predictors that determine full versus limited disclosure selection.     

A strategic approach to managing crises

This article encorporates the management literature on crisis to create a model that can be used to assess the seriousness of crisis. In addition, the model is extended for use by public relations managers. The article concludes with suggestions that will modify approaches employed and improve the effectiveness of public relations professionals in their role as crisis managers.     

Public opinion towards gambling and gambling regulation in Australia

In recent years, public opinion towards gambling has become a more important factor in shaping public policy. Using a national public opinion survey conducted in Australia in 2011, this paper examines public opinion towards gambling in general and towards the government regulation of gambling in particular. Australia is an important case study because of the internationally high prevalence of gambling among the public, combined with a strong regulatory framework. Public opinion is measured by a reduced form of a scale first developed in Britain. The results confirm the generally negative views that the public holds towards gambling, which have been found internationally. In addition, the Australian public is open to the introduction of further restrictions on gambling. Overall, the public views the liberalization of gambling as having moved as far as most citizens find acceptable; to meet public expectations, future policies need to address more adequately the negative social consequences associated with problem gambling.