Tornado warning: Understanding the National Weather Service’s communication strategies

This study explores the National Weather Service’s communication through a multi-sited rapid ethnography that extends the fully functioning society theory. National Weather Service field offices do not employ public information officers. Instead, forecasters predict the weather, craft messages, and build relationships with their publics. Scholars have called for public relations research that examines messages, including how crisis communication can help publics cope. Additionally, scholars have noted that all organizations need public relations, even if they do not employ formal public relations personnel. In our study, forecasters emphasized the need to build their publics’ tornado threat awareness and provided strategies to make weather science accessible. Forecasters discussed a variety of message strategies including avoiding fear appeals, humanizing the organization, and visualizing risks. Forecasters also built relationships with active publics through soliciting weather spotters and empowering them to prepare others for severe weather. Overall, findings expand knowledge about how organizations can employ strategic public relations to benefit society, thereby extending fully functioning society theory.     

Harnessing civil society's knowledge for development policy: Potential and challenges for the Republic of Yemen

This exploratory case study investigated Yemeni civil society actors’ actual and potential contribution to policy‐making, implementation, monitoring and evaluation, in the sectors prioritized in Yemen's national development strategy. Semi‐structured interviews were conducted in Sana'a between January and July 2015 with policy‐makers, researchers from academic institutions and civil society organizations. More specifically, this article discusses the role that YPRIs play in the public policy landscape of Yemen; the challenges they face in their interaction with policy‐makers; the opportunities they represent for policy actors in Yemen; and the factors enabling and limiting their influence, communication, inclusiveness and capacity. The authors conclude by contextualizing their findings within the ongoing conflict and drawing lessons for post‐war policy‐making in Yemen.     

Fostering social capital in an international multi-stakeholder issue network

Scholars have theorized that public relations contributes to societies and communities by bringing attention to pressing public issues and fostering social capital in civil society networks. However, the extant research has studied civil society networks of NGOs, donors, and the media in transitional countries. This study extends the public relations model of civil society in two ways. First, it broadens the scope to an international context. Second, it draws from the multi-stakeholder issue network perspective to conceptualize a civil society network as a space where stakeholders of an issue mix their interests as they collectively address a pressing public issue. The literature on international and multi-stakeholder networks suggest that the international scope and the mixing of interests across sectors may restrict the production of social capital. The results from the social network analysis suggests that the mixing of interests across sectoral and geopolitical boundaries did not restrict the production of social capital. Rather, the patterns of the relationships among those on the core and those on the periphery of the network restricted the production of social capital. Such finding demonstrates how public relations’ functions like relationship building can have profound influences on social capital and civil society networks. The implications for public relations theorizing and research are discussed.     

后迟滞型风险沟通及其精准治理

随着“外部风险”被“人为风险”替代和主导，西方发达国家积极推动传统风险沟通向现代风险沟通转变。后发国家在全球化风险和本地化风险双重冲击下，呈现出迟滞型风险沟通。我国互联网新媒体浪涌式发展，催化了风险沟通主体与互联网新媒体手段产生“粘合”及“轮推作用”，迟滞型风险沟通由此向后迟滞型风险沟通嬗变。透过转基因食品风险辩论案例交互机制，发现后迟滞型风险沟通存在“局部性突破”和“局部性落差”双重不确定性效果。为此，可通过主动预防型理念、“共同体”结构、“多速整合”机制、“互联网+”手段、政府职能的“五位一体”再造，实现对后迟滞型风险沟通不良后果的精准治理。     

农村互助型社会养老:中国特色与发展路径

农村互助型社会养老是具有中国特色的社会养老的发展形式，是对农村传统家庭养老的重要补充。它扎根于农村传统的亲邻互助网络，其本质在于经济互助，表现为有组织地发动邻里、志愿等社会力量，充分利用以老年人为主的各类人力资源的闲置时间、资源低成本地相互帮助和服务。社会各界应将其作为重要实施方略，纳入积极应对人口老龄化战略和乡村振兴战略之中。其发展路径可以概括为：以资金互助为基础，以组织动员为抓手，以服务互助为重点，以社区居家养老为主要阵地，创新各类互助养老模式，着力形成稳定多元的资金来源，培育互助队伍，增加互助内容，从无偿到无偿、低偿相结合，探索建立标准规范的服务管理评估制度，机构养老与社区居家养老互联互通，最终尝试建立圈层化、整合化、网络化、制度化的农村互助型社会养老体系。     

Developing ethical approaches to data and civil society: from availability to accessibility

This research note reflects on the gaps and limitations confronting the development of ethical principles regarding the accessibility of large-scale data for civil society organizations (CSOs). Drawing upon a systematic scoping study on the use of data in the United Kingdom (UK) civil society, it finds that there are twin needs to conceptualize accessibility as more than mere availability of data, as well as examine the use of data among CSOs more generally. In order to deal with the apparent “digital divide” in UK civil society – where, despite extensive government rhetoric about data openness, organizations face not only the barriers of limited time, funds, and expertise to harness data but also the lack of representation within existing data – we present a working model in which ethical concerns accompanying data utilization by civil society may be better accounted. This suggests there is a need for further research into the nexus of civil society and data upon which interdisciplinary discussion about the ethical dimensions of engagement with data, particularly informed by insight from the social sciences, can be predicated.     

富裕社会中贫困的消除：加尔布雷思的探究及启示

贫困表现为人的基本需要得不到满足，“富裕社会”中的贫困表现为私人生产、物质生产的过剩和公共生产、精神生产的不足。加尔布雷思认为，美国“富裕社会”中贫困的原因是不平衡的“二元经济体系”，只要实行“新社会主义”，实现“计划体系”和“市场体系”的平衡，就能解决“富裕”背后的贫困问题。由于这一设想是以不改变资本主义的经济基础为前提的，所以，只能是一种治标不治本的改良。只有扬弃经济学的“传统智慧”，建构以促进“每个人的自由发展”为目标的“全面生产”经济学，才能从根本上消除“富裕社会”中的贫困问题。     

社会发展内涵探析

作为马克思主义哲学研究的社会发展，不是对具体的社会发展问题进行实证研究，而主要是运用逻辑手段，对复杂的社会发展现象进行抽象、概括，揭示出社会整体发展的普遍本质和一般规律。为了对社会发展有一个较为全面的理解，从社会、社会革命、社会变迁、社会转型与社会发展之间的关系入手进行了探讨。     

社会多元化转型期隐私权与知情权关系研究

当代中国，社会的思维方式、行为方式、评价模式发生着深刻变化，并具体对隐私权与知情权的发展扩展产生重要影响。今天，隐私权与知情权冲突问题日益突出，冲突本质在于两者在价值与利益问题上的紧张关系，并具体展现为公法领域冲突与私法领域冲突两大方面。为化解权利冲突，应明确人格尊严与自由、社会政治与公共利益的基本冲突协调原则，构建包括认定、确立、调整、评价四个层次的完整冲突协调体系。     

大数据与微时代： 虚拟社会公共服务体系的双重建构

大数据与微时代引发了虚拟社会的多重变革，新的服务理念和服务模式呼之欲出，虚拟社会公共服务的走向、模式、内涵正在发生深刻变化。但是受到推送途径、参与机制、数据基础、保障措施等因素的制约，虚拟社会公共服务的质量和效率相对有限，其体系面临着解构与重构。大数据与微时代是当前虚拟社会公共服务体系建构中不可或缺的重要因素，通过培育公共服务精神、推进虚拟社会公共服务均等化发展、强化多元参与主体间的良性互动、完善虚拟社会公共服务体系建构秩序等途径，科学、合理地对其加以运用，将会有效助推虚拟社会公众服务的不断创新和发展。