The influence of perceived shared risk in crisis communication: Elaborating the situational theory of publics

The study explored whether perceived shared experience with a media portrayal could influence various cognitions—such as concern, sense of personal involvement, and desire to learn more—that are important for behavior change. This research used the situational theory of publics in order to evaluate whether perceived shared risk is an antecedent to the factors leading to communication behavior. In general, the findings from this experiment supported the idea that shared risk experience with portrayals in news coverage has the potential to influence problem recognition, involvement recognition, and a new variable that combines information seeking and processing: that of information gaining.     

Who becomes an online activist and why: Understanding the publics in politicized consumer activism

This study draws attention to the emerging phenomenon of politicized consumer activism and uses public segmentation to identify the publics involved. The unique characteristics of politicized consumer activism (i.e., consumers acting for political rather than economic reasons and being driven by a political stance rather than morality or identity) render it distinct from other frameworks, such as self-interest-motivated consumer activism, political consumer activism, and consumer nationalism. To shed light on the participants involved in politicized consumer activism, the present study includes a public segmentation analysis of a case in a Chinese context. Building on the situational theory of publics (STP), this study incorporates three objective resources—economic, social, and cultural capital—as segmenting criteria. Data were collected by sending out self-administered questionnaires, resulting in 450 valid and complete questionnaires. A two-step cluster analysis identified three segments: the inactive unprivileged group (cluster 1), the moderate elites (cluster 2), and the active middle class (cluster 3). The degree of activism was lowest in cluster 1 and highest in cluster 3. The sociological significance of segmenting publics and the manifestation of the characteristics of politicized consumer activism through the segments are discussed.     

Public's Responses to an oil spill accident: A test of the attribution theory and situational crisis communication theory

Situational communication crisis communication theory (SCCT) and Weiner's attribution theory are used in this research to explain the public's responses to a corporation that caused an oil spill accident. Consistent with SCCT, people made higher internal attributions and lower external attributions about the oil spill accident when low distinctiveness information was provided, compared to when high distinctiveness information or no information was provided. Higher internal attributions and lower external attributions, in turn, resulted in greater punitive opinions and punitive behavior.     

How publics react to situational and renewing organizational responses across crises: Examining SCCT and DOR in social-mediated crises

The prevalence of social media among networked publics calls for more research regarding how organizations can conduct effective crisis communication on social networking sites. Based on the situational crisis communication theory (SCCT) and the discourse of renewal (DOR) theory, this study examined how social media publics’ sentiments were affected by situational and renewing organizational responses in various clusters of crises. Twitter data of six crises representing three crisis clusters varying in the responsibility attribution (i.e., ambiguous, accidental, and preventable) were collected. We conducted a content analysis on organizations’ official tweets during crises (N = 59) and sentiment analysis on publics’ replies on Twitter (N = 4,340). The results showed that publics’ positive sentiments toward organizations were affected by organizational crisis responses that included instructing information, sympathy, systemic organizational learning, and effective organizational rhetoric. We recommend that crisis managers express sympathy toward publics as well as organizational learning that prevents a crisis from happening again.     

Warranted inferences of mediation and possibility of a threshold effect: Verifying the mediating effects of anger in situational crisis communication theory

Scholars have called for communication research to verify the causal claims of mediation models from a research design perspective, instead of only proving mediation statistically. This study validates whether and how anger mediates the causal effects of crisis types on publics’ responses in Situational Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT), including reputation, negative word-of-mouth intention, and purchase intention in China. Two experiments were conducted based on the experimental-causal-chain design. Results in Study 1 demonstrate that the causal relationships between three crisis types and publics’ emotional and other responses in China are consistent with findings in Western contexts. In Study 2, the results of a 2 (anger: low, high) x 3 (crisis types: victim crisis, accidental crisis, preventable crisis) factorial experiment reveal significant mediating effects of anger on publics’ responses in the victim and accidental crisis conditions, but not for preventable crises. This novel finding suggests the possibility of a threshold effect of anger in the mediating process. Specifically, anger has a mediating effect on publics’ responses when it is below the high-anger threshold. However, anger may no longer be the mediator when it exceeds this threshold. This finding empirically challenges the common assumption that emotions have a linear relationship with publics’ responses, thus offering a new research avenue and deeper understanding of how emotions function in crises. Therefore, this research serves as a pioneer, calling for future studies to validate other theories involving mediation to yield fruitful insights.     

Crisis perceptions,relationship, and communicative behaviors of employees: Internal public segmentation approach

This study examines when and why employees engage in external communicative behaviors during the periods of a corporate crisis. Combining a cross-situational factor (i.e., pre-crisis relationship quality) and a situational factor (i.e., crisis-specific perceptions), this study segments internal publics to understand employees’ motivations of becoming advocates for or adversaries of their organization. The results of an online survey demonstrated that employees’ pre-crisis relationship to their organization plays a critical role in encouraging them to advocate for their company; meanwhile, their crisis-perception—whether they feel fewer constraints in solving a crisis—is more likely to make them share negative information externally. Segmented groups of employees with high levels of both relationship and activeness are most likely to engage in both positive and negative external communication behaviors. Theoretical and practical implications for public relations and internal crisis communication are suggested.     

How publics use social media to respond to blame games in crisis communication: The Love Parade tragedy in Duisburg 2010

Crisis communication scholarship has been criticized for its “managerial bias” and for its tendency to marginalize the perspective of publics and audiences. However, the understanding of how publics cope with and interpret crises is crucial for developing the body of knowledge in crisis communication, from both critical and managerial/functionalist perspectives. This case study of the Love Parade crisis in Germany 2010 aimed at exploring how publics perceived the crisis response of the festival organizers and how they used social media to communicate about it shortly after the outbreak of the crisis. A content analysis of 1847 postings at two relevant message boards produced support for the assumption that attributions of cause and responsibility are important predictors of publics’ evaluations of organizations in crisis situations. Findings also revealed that stakeholders actively engage in such attributional inferences spontaneously without being prompted by researchers. The analysis of responsibility perceptions as well as evaluative judgments over time supported the situational crisis communication theory. Blaming others and denying responsibility in the context of a crisis that was perceived as human error accident triggered negative reputational outcomes for the organizations involved in the Love Parade.     

The reputational benefits of instructing information: The first test of the revised model of reputation repair

Situational Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT) prescribes crisis response strategies for organizations facing crisis. A meta-analysis of SCCT suggests using the prescribed responses has, at most, a small effect on reputation, while a few studies have shown that the base crisis responses (instructing information and adjusting information) may have a larger effect on reputation. This experiment compares the effects of SCCT’s prescribed responses, instructing information, and adjusting information on reputation in an experiment with 989 participants recruited from mTurk. It finds that instructing information has a very large effect on reputation, while adjusting information has a small but significant effect on reputation. In this sample, SCCT’s prescribed response strategies have no significant effect on reputation. The experiment proposes the revised model of reputation repair (REMREP) as a tool for understanding how crisis influences reputation. The model incorporates virtuousness and offensiveness, which demonstrates the importance of organizational virtuousness in handling a crisis. Implications for theory and practitioners are discussed.     

Occam's Razor in the contingency theory: A national survey on 86 contingent variables

The purpose of this study is to quantify 86 contingent variables and modify the construct of the contingency theory. A nationwide survey among public relations practitioners first enabled quantitative analysis of the 86 contingent variables affecting public relations practice, divided into 12 factors on two dimensions. This test gave parsimony to the matrix of 86 contingent variables initially offered in the matrix, provided validity to the contingency theory, and suggested its theoretical evolution measured against Occam's Razor, which holds that the simplest explanation is generally the most precise and thus the best approach to follow in building theories.     

Public diplomacy as symbolic interactions: A case study of Asian tsunami relief campaigns

This case study conceptualizes public diplomacy as a symbolic interactionist process, in which nations actively participate in constructing and negotiating meanings of symbols and performing actions based on the meanings. The international relief efforts for the Asian tsunami are used as a case to examine the conceptualization.     

A cross-cultural test of the situational bias hypothesis : The israeli scene

The major aim of this study was to test the commonly held assumption, within the Israeli educational context, that the relatively poor mean performance of disadvantaged students on conventional ability tests is due, in part, to extraneous situational factors, systematically disadvantageous to their test performance. To that end, two controlled field experiments were conducted on independent samples of N = 288 and N = 48 elementary school pupils, respectively. The first experiment centered on the interaction between sociocultural group characteristics and each of two situational factors, namely, test atmosphere and examiner status, in affecting ability test performance. The second experiment explored the effects of test atmosphere per se on the nonverbal ability test scores of disadvantaged pupils. On the whole, this research provides evidence inconsistent with the situational bias hypothesis and does not support the assumption that disadvantaged children's ability test scores can be substantially improved by manipulating test atmosphere conditions. In view of the evidence showing that situational variables do not significantly bias testing results in favor of one group over another, it follows that current educational evaluation policies in Israel, relying heavily on the standardized ability tests results of disadvantaged groups, need not be changed.     

Integrating psychometric and cultural theory approaches to formulate an alternative measure of risk perception

Psychometric and cultural theory are key approaches used to explain risk perceptions. However, both approaches explain only 20 and 5–10% of the variance of risk perceptions, respectively. Through advances in social psychology, terror management theory revealed that certain survey questions used in the psychometric approach primed thoughts of death. Such unintentional priming evoked defense mechanisms that would subconsciously activate participants’ cultural biases and values when answering some questions but not others. There are two implications: one, psychometric theorists need to modify their questionnaires to reduce the incidence of priming thoughts of death; and two, integrating the psychometric and cultural theory approaches may potentially explain a higher amount of variance in risk perceptions. Specifically, attitudes (psychometric approach), demographics, affect and past behavior collectively influence cultural biases, which in turn exert an effect on risk perception. However, such a model calls for an appropriate measure of the dynamic nature of cultural biases that current attitudinal measures fall short of. Drawing from methodology within industrial/organizational psychology, the Situational Judgment Test (SJT) is proposed as an alternative measure for risk perception. Steps to designing an SJT are outlined and followed through to culminate in a 10-item SJT that measures cultural biases.     

Strategic communication of hope and anger: A case of Duke University's conflict management with multiple publics

This study analyzes, from a conflict perspective, 139 conflict-focused newspaper stories about the 2006 Duke University lacrosse team crisis case. Findings show that media coverage emphasized the University's expression of hope, while highlighting the various publics’ expressions of anger. Duke University employed concession as its primary litigation strategy and adjustment as its primary conflict strategy to communicate with multiple publics. Duke's conflict stances were more accommodative toward internal publics than they were toward external publics.     

Identifying the norms of professional practice: Reviewing PRSA's Silver Anvil award-winning campaigns

This study uses content analysis of 420 Public Relations Society of America Silver Anvil award-winning campaigns to assess how well the ROPES process of campaign management has been institutionalized into the public relations industry. By analyzing 42 years of award-winning campaigns, the research found notable trends in relation to the research practices, goal and objective planning, strategy design and implementation, campaign evaluation, and on-going efforts to cultivate relationships with stakeholders. These trends are discussed in relation to the continued struggles of public relations educators to professionalize the industry and move away from stereotypes as publicity seekers and special event planners.     

A metahistorical information theory of social change: the theory

Abstract

A new yin-yang metahistorical approach that we call sociohistory is created to explore the possibilities of tracking and explaining social change. For this purpose, a frame of reference is created using Social Viable Systems theory to harness Sorokin's sociocultural dynamics. Epistemological content is enhanced by Frieden's new constructivist information theory called Extreme Physical Information. Its aim is to provide a scientific framework for the metahistory. The coupling of these theories has the potential for explaining and possibly predicting long-term, large-scale or short-term, small-scale sociocultural events. This new theory should be seen as emerging from the convergence of the approaches by Sorokin, Yolles and Frieden.     

When publics collide: Developing the dual orientation conflict model in inter-public conflict

Inter-public conflict has largely been neglected in PR research. When left to fester, such conflict may perpetuate prejudice, injustice, inequality, and other societal ills. From a PR standpoint, organizations may find it increasingly difficult to operate in the resulting climate of hostility. This piece aims to shift focus from managing direct, organization-public conflict to navigating indirect, inter-public conflict, thus broadening conflict management perspectives. Based on contingency and social identity theories, we test the dual orientation conflict model (DOCM) in the field of government public relations. The model posits two dimensions (embracing/excluding and in-group/out-group) and categorizes four types of conflict orientation (adaptation, in-group adoption, out-group adoption, and avoidance). The proposed four-factor model, comprised of 16 items, was found to be reliable and valid in an online survey of 2498 South Korean citizens across different conflictual problems. Theoretical and strategic implications are discussed.     

Effects of attributed responsibility and response strategies on organizational reputation: A meta-analysis of situational crisis communication theory research

Scholars utilizing situational crisis communication theory (SCCT) mainly examine how attributed responsibility affects organizational reputation and how response strategies matched with the amount of attributed responsibility protect reputation. The findings on these 2 important questions have been mixed. A meta-analysis of 35 investigations from 24 studies published between January 1990 and March 2015 was conducted to explain the mixed findings and reveal average correlations. Attributed responsibility was strongly associated with reputation at –.54, and response strategies were only weakly associated with reputation at .23. Equally important, crisis vignette choice moderated the responsibility-reputation association. Crisis clusters, reputation measurements, sample choice, and crisis vignette choice moderated the match-reputation association. Theoretical, methodological, and practical implications were discussed.     

Coorientation theory in international relations: The case of Slovenia and Croatia

In this paper, we question the possibility of applying the coorientational theory in researching the communication behavior between the ‘general’ publics of two nations, Slovenia and Croatia. We use these findings to offer practical advice on solving the potential communication problems.     

Measuring student outcomes: An assessment of service-learning in the public relations campaigns course

This study assesses the effectiveness of service-learning in the public relations capstone course by measuring perceived student learning outcomes. An assessment instrument is proposed and tested via a longitudinal survey of students (n = 210) enrolled in the public relations capstone course at a large southeastern university. Results support a general service-learning assessment instrument for public relations education that includes measures of practical skills, interpersonal skills, personal responsibility, and citizenship, as well as discipline-specific functional, creative, and research skills.