The Good,the Bad,and the Ugly: Perceptions of Public Relations Practitioners

This study contributes to relationship management research by introducing a new construct—authenticity—as the mediating variable between symmetrical communication and relationship quality, and investigating the behavioral outcomes of perceived organization–public relationship quality. We propose a structural model of symmetrical communication, authentic organizational behavior, organization–public relationships, and two behavioral outcomes—positive and negative messaging. The results support all the hypothesized linkages, and shed new light on the process of relationship management.     

Generating Conflict for Greater Good: Utilizing Contingency Theory to Assess Black and Mainstream Newspapers as Public Relations Vehicles to Promote Better Health among African Americans

The potential use of strategic conflict management ( Wilcox and Cameron, 2006; Cameron, Wilcox, Reber and Shin ( in press) as a health advocacy tool in US African-American and mainstream newspapers, arguing that escalation of conflict can increase effectiveness of health-related news releases. For health communicators focusing on at-risk populations with poor health outcomes, such goals would include increased awareness of health problems and solutions, along with increased motivation arising from indignation over health disparities. Content analysis of 1,197 stories in 24 Black and 12 mainstream newspapers showed that more conflict factors were present in Black vs. mainstream newspapers, suggesting a way to strategically place health messages in news releases disseminated to newspapers that motivate at-risk publics to better health. The findings suggest that conflict factors such as racial disparity data regarding health issues may enhance media advocacy.     

An Analysis of the Relationships Among Structure,Influence, and Gender: Helping to Build a Feminist Theory of Public Relations

Feminist public relations scholars have suggested that the organizational context may be to blame for the powerlessness of some female public relations practitioners. This study assessed this claim by using feminist theory and a structural framework. This study tested whether the perceived organizational influence of men and women in corporate public relations was related to formal structural power, relationship power, or gender. Women had less formal structural power than men, but there were no gender differences in relationship power or influence. Consistent with feminist hypothesizing as well as the structural framework, practitioners' influence was related to both their formal structural power and relationship power-but not gender.     

Environmental Harm and “the Good Farmer”: Conceptualizing Discourses of Environmental Sustainability in the Beef Industry

Maintaining sustainability discourses in the face of evidence to the contrary is a topic of considerable interest in sociology. We approach this topic with a focus on the beef industry in Alberta, Canada. By studying the discourses of cow and calf producers this article addresses the following questions: (1) What are the discourses that producers draw on to support their self‐perceptions as stewards of the land, (2) how are these discourses used by producers to negotiate and reconcile their involvement in a system that contributes to environmental degradation, and (3) what are key elements to interpreting these discourses of sustainability? Methods include semistructured interviews with attention to the potential of genomics for enhanced cattle breeding to ameliorate harmful methane emissions. Our findings indicate that producers draw on narratives of balance between economic and environmental concerns, focus on epistemic nearness, and fragment their understanding of the beef industry to maintain discourses of sustainability. These findings offer insights into the impacts that embodied, material forms of knowledge have on farmers’ perceptions of the land, and demonstrate that these narratives and ways of knowing predicate farmers’ understandings of sustainable development.     

ON THE SEARCH FOR TALENT IN ACADEMIC LABOR MARKETS: EASILY OBSERVABLE LATER‐GRADUATE STUDY OUTCOMES AS PREDICTORS OF EARLY‐CAREER PUBLISHING,PLACEMENT, AND TENURE

Three easily observed later‐graduate study outcomes, working with a prominent advisor, publishing while in graduate school, and coauthoring with the advisor are demonstrated to be significant determinants of early‐career publishing success for a sample of nearly 3,000 Ph.D. recipients from more than 100 domestic programs between 1990 and 1993. Out‐of‐sample predictions for 681 Ph.D. recipients from the class of 1994 indicate that these easily observed later‐graduate study signals dramatically improve our ability to forecast which students become prolific and which students fail to publish more than one article. Analyzing initial domestic tenure‐track economics placements indicates that hiring departments placed far more emphasis on Ph.D. program pedigree, leading to an initial tenure rate of less than 50% but eventually nearly three‐fourths currently hold tenured positions in the United States. (JEL J24, J44)     

"Walking the Walk" of Public Service Motivation: Public Employees and Charitable Gifts of Time, Blood, and Money

Research generally indicates that public employees "talk thetalk," but do they also "walk the walk" of the public servicemotive (PSM)? Are public service employees more likely thanothers to engage in public service activities? The behavioralimplications of PSM are addressed by studying the involvementin charitable activities of public, nonprofit, and private workers.Using data from the 2002 General Social Survey, multivariatelogistic regression models are estimated to examine self-reportedgifts of time, blood, and money to charitable organizations.It is found that government employees are more likely to volunteerfor charity and to donate blood than for-profit employees are.Additionally, nonprofit workers are also more likely than theirfor-profit counterparts to volunteer. However, no differenceis found among public service and private employees in termsof individual philanthropy. These findings generally lend supportfor the hypothesis that PSM is more prominent in public servicethan in private organizations, especially as it pertains togovernment personnel.     

THE ROLE OF LEADERSHIP AND STRATEGY IN NAVIGATING POLITICAL INCORPORATION: Defining a Niche for Human Relations in Orange County, California, 1971–2000

Political incorporation represents an important and complex trajectory for social movements. Whether that trajectory leads to favorable substantive outcomes or merely to formalistic representation within the polity depends in part on the strategic decisions made by leaders. We have few frameworks, however, for understanding their role in navigating incorporation. This research presents a "niche definition" framework emphasizing strategic differentiation and articulation across political actors in distinct institutional locations sharing common goals. It focuses attention on leaders' efforts to identify and exploit unique resources and leverage made available through incorporation. Overall, the framework emphasizes the potential for collective strategy and cooperative interorganizational dynamics, thereby expanding possibilities for favorable outcomes of political incorporation. The framework is illustrated through a case study of the Orange County (California) Human Relations Commission from its creation in 1971 to 2001. I trace the long-term challenges and consequences of incorporation through leaders' definition of successive niches.     

From the “strategy of truth” to the “weapon of truth”: The Government Information Manual for the Motion Picture Industry, 1942

The aim of this article is to advance in a hidden part of public relations history: the Archibald MacLeish's ‘strategy of truth’ and its implementation to film industry to influence American public opinion. The attempts during the Second World War to fight the enemy through factual propaganda also found, in the film industry, the ideal medium to offset the enemy's propagandising audiovisual products, particularly Nazi propaganda. For this reason, the government drew up the Government Information Manual for the Motion Picture Industry (1942) following the line established by the Office of Facts and Figures and Archibald MacLeish's ‘strategy of truth’. Thus, the Manual for the Motion Picture Industry became a good example of the use of ethical propaganda.     

Behind the Screen: The Role of State‐TV Relationships in Russia, 1990–2000*

Les systèmes de régulation de la production des programmes télévisuels sont aussi importants dans les études des médias que l'analyse du corps d'un texte. l'économie politique rend possible l'étude des programmes télévisuels et des systèmes de régulation de la production télévisuelle dans un seul modèle de même que leurs interconnections. Deux systèmes régulateurs de télévision sont décrits, et les dynamiques de leur transformation sont présentées. Les résultats des entrevues avec les fonctionnaires de l'industrie télévisuelle sont utilisés pour examiner l'influence des relations entre l'État et les entreprises de télévision sur le contenu des programmes produits par la télévision russe entre 1990 et 2000. This paper argues that the content of television programs is influenced by how their production is organized and regulated. The political‐economic approach provides a useful framework to link television programs and the regulation of TV production within a single model, and to investigate their interrelationship. Two systems of TV regulation are described in this paper and their evolution is discussed. Data from in‐depth qualitative interviews with Russian television industry insiders are used to examine the impact of changes in the regulation of television on the types and content of programs produced between 1990 and 2000.     

Sugar, Technology, and Colonial Encounters: Refashioning the Industry in the Netherlands Indies, 1800–1942

The argument begins with the widely accepted proposition that science and technology had a crucial part to play in the legitimisation of Western colonialisms in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It then sets out to examine the implications of this in terms of the interaction of science, technology and the commodity production of cane sugar in Asia's largest and best-known sugar colony — the Netherlands Indies (Indonesian) island of Java. It demonstrates that cane sugar in Java was indeed the site of technological revolution and of a scientific approach to production which Western contemporaries saw as asserting their superiority over, and justifying their domination of, the East. From a broadly postcolonial perspective, the colonial binaries inherent in discourse of this kind were a good deal more ambiguous than its contemporary practitioners were inclined to allow. Indeed, a discourse which seems otherwise to have been Manichaean in the severity of its social distinctions, was significantly subverted by the collateral existence of fissures within the apparent monolith of an industrial structure based on Western technology and science. That structure was not self-sustaining, and although it was possible to marginalise the once-dominant Asian element in the industry, Java sugar nonetheless had to accommodate within its managerial and technical structure large numbers of people of part-European, part-Asian ethnic background. It did this by accepting a colonial construction of the European which was particular to Java, and which embraced large numbers of Eurasians as well as Dutch expatriates. The language of difference, inherent in the notion of a Manichaean divide, rested, in short, on a kind of discursive counterfeit, which was an indispensable condition for the persistence of scientific and technological production.     

Power,Gender, and Public Relations: Sexual Harassment as a Threat to the Practice

As women increasingly take their place as public relations managers, their ability to work successfully in a harassment-free environment will have an impact on the overall stature and practice of the field. We used data from a national survey and 6 focus groups to explore the effects of sexual harassment.     

Feminist Politics in Contemporary Turkey: Neoliberal Attacks,Feminist Claims to the Public

This article aims to offer a critical reading of the feminist claims to the public sphere in Turkey in the 2000s when there was transformation in the way public and private spheres are defined. We try to link the feminist claims to the public with the shifts in the patriarchal regime of the country in the decade. The main argument of the article is that feminist politics of the 2000s had the potential for an alternative imagination of the public and that they also faced the risk of assimilation into the de-/re-publicization process of the same period. The article starts with a brief outline of the post-1980 period, which hosted both the emergence of independent feminist organizing and the neoliberal restructuration of Turkey’s politics. It continues with the analysis of the Justice and Development Party’s terms in government, as the consolidation of neoliberal restructuration process. We conclude with the (possible) feminist interventions to the new mode of patriarchy that emerges out of this process.     

EMPLOYMENT SECTOR AND VOLUNTEERING: The Contribution of Nonprofit and Public Sector Workers to the Volunteer Labor Force

In capitalist societies, jobs are sorted not only by occupational status, but also by the employment sector in which they are situated. Research has demonstrated that public- and nonprofit-sector workers have more prosocial values than private-sector workers. We used recent data from the Current Population Survey (CPS) Special Supplement on Volunteering to examine sector differences in the likelihood of doing volunteer work and the number of hours volunteered. Regardless of occupation or education, nonprofit-sector employees are the most likely to volunteer and with the most hours, followed by public-sector workers and the self-employed. This finding is robust across most types of volunteer work.     

Single and the City: State Influences on Intimate Relationships of Young,Single, Well‐Educated Women in Singapore

Low fertility rates and an aging population challenge the city‐state of Singapore. The Singaporean government therefore encourages singles to marry and have children. Using ethnographic data and interviews (N = 28), collected between August and December 2012, this explorative study examined the relationship between government interference and the love lives of young, well‐educated, single women in Singapore. Getting married is expected not only by the state, friends, and family members but also by singles themselves. The author examined how young women view and experience these social ideals in their daily lives. Foucault's (1982, 1984) idea of governmentality and Budgeon's (2008) idea of couple culture were used to investigate how government policies intervene in the romantic relationships of individuals through various channels, such as the housing policy, matchmaking initiatives, and social norms. The government may effectively affect individuals in certain ways, whereas at other times individuals may act in a manner that is opposite to what the government expects.