Activist practitioner perspectives of website public relations: Why aren’t activist websites fulfilling the dialogic promise?

Kent and Taylor proposed five dialogic principles for mediated public relations in 1998 and numerous studies of activist groups, corporations, and educational institutions have shown that most websites fail to meet their dialogic potential. This study explores some of the reasons why activist organizations do not integrate dialogic features into their websites. Thirteen activist public relations practitioners were interviewed to determine their perceptions of websites as tools for information dissemination and resource mobilization. Three consistent themes emerged from the interviews: (1) website communication is perceived to be most effective when tied to issue-specific events and issue currency, (2) websites cater to existing and highly involved publics, and (3) websites are viewed as passive communication tools that must be supplemented with traditional public relations practices.     

Activist e-mail action alerts and identification: Rhetorical relationship building strategies in collective action

This study analyzed 111 e-mail action alerts from three activist groups on opposing ends of the political and religious ideological continuum for examples of Burke's three identification strategies. Findings show the organizations employed identification by antithesis with the greatest frequency, indicating that activist groups most often take a reactionary or confrontational approach to establishing identification with publics.     

Organizing community: Activist public relations as place-making

This conceptual essay develops a renewed concept of community in public relations scholarship and practice—one re-centering activism and physical place. To do so, it delves into the writing and advocacy of two trailblazing women who dedicated their lives and work to empowering and protecting their communities: Grace Lee Boggs and Jane Jacobs. By connecting their approaches with existing public relations scholarship around community, activism, and place, the authors present a set of place-making communicative approaches for community activist practice in addition to theoretical development around what Boggs (2000) refers to as “place-based civic activism” (p. 19)—the work of finding and harnessing a shared neighborhood identity to connect and empower local residents as citizens. Seeing community and activism through this lens points toward the complex, living, and evolving ecology of communities (Jacobs, 1961, 2000), and positions public relations and activist communication as crucial tools for place-making.     

Carnivalesque activism as a public relations genre: A case study of the New Zealand group Mothers Against Genetic Engineering

This paper argues that carnivalesque protest comprises a particular genre of activist public relations which articulates conflict with, and resistance to, dominant discourses on controversial issues. A case study of the New Zealand group Mothers Against Genetic Engineering illustrates how the carnivalesque, by promoting community relationships and influencing public opinion through values of affect, can open up new spaces for public dialogue about social issues. It is argued that carnivalesque protest challenges the notion that collaboration should be a core professional value of public relations practice.     

Interdisciplinary bar for the public interest: What CSR and NGO frameworks contribute to the public relations of British and European activists

This paper outlines the ways in which various literatures and exemplary organizations (Business for Social Responsibility, the Global Alliance for Public Relations and Communication Management, and the Global Compact) define, set principles, and provide frameworks for corporate social responsibility (CSR). It also explores British broadcasters’ accountability mechanisms and the extent to which U.K. broadcasting activist NGOs view them as adequate CSR. The activists studied were six British broadcasting-centered and Scottish cultural NGOs that lobby in the EU and at home. The data suggested that these activists’ public relations has pro-social, pro-democratic effects and that the CSR/NGO literatures and organizational frameworks provided may enable broadcasting activists and targets to more effectively pursue CSR.     

Web presence of universities: Is higher education sending the right message online?

Web sites of the 3738 U.S.-based colleges and universities were sampled and analyzed to determine how higher education employs the internet to communicate to key publics overall and students in particular. Analyses revealed prospective donors are the most often-targeted public followed by faculty/staff. Prospective and current students followed. In better news to students, the five items students most often seek on the Web were the five most common items linked from university home pages.     

How organizations want to be viewed: Public relations photographs in online wire services

The study explored the characteristics of photos in online news wire services. Nearly 70% of the photos represented product, CEO and events when examining photo content. The most distinguished purpose of the public relations photos were publicity and public announcements, followed by image building. Almost all of the publicity photographs were provided by business/industry organizations. Supporting arguments for the independence of public relations do not seem to be voiced by public relations practitioners in the analysis of photos.     

Goffman's sociology: An inspiring resource for developing public relations theory

This article introduces key concepts in Erving Goffman's sociology, which are advocated to be important to our understanding of social interaction and the study of interpersonal relationships with internal and external publics. The concepts of impression management, framing, footing and face have bearing upon essential notions in public relations: relationships, identification and image. Thus, it is predicted that development of these concepts in public relations research will deepen our understanding of communication processes that have important implications for the relation of publics in public relations.     

Strategic communication applied to nation building in Spain: The experience of the Catalan Region

This article analyzes how strategic communication is being used in the case of regions, “imagined communities,” or the so-called “stateless nations,” for nation-building purposes. It focuses on the case of Spain's Catalonia region in the years since the devolution of power and approval of the Second Statute of Autonomy in 1979. The different successive Catalan governments have made intensive use of mass media campaigns and other soft power methods to enhance Catalan identity. Main efforts have focused on the promotion of the Catalan language, culture, sports, and symbols through public relations, mass media campaigns, the implementation of laws, and the deployment of public diplomacy tactics with the dual purpose of reaching internal audiences. Although a significant part of the Catalan population is alienated from politics, the overall outcome has been positive for Catalan nationalism: identification with Spain has decreased while dual Catalan/Spanish and Catalan-only identification has grown during this period.     

What we value: A Delphi study to identify key values that guide ethical decision-making in public relations

This study recommends that the Public Relations Society of America expand its professional values list to include respect and trustworthiness. This addition also shows the value this study's public relations participants place on mutually beneficial relationships with their clients/employers, customers, communities, and society as a whole. The findings contribute to the growing attention to and value of relationship management theory for effective public relations.     

The role of ethical leadership in building influence: Perspectives from female public relations professionals

Practices of ethical leadership in public relations can be context-specific and they can influence organizational effectiveness. By conducting a national survey, this study examines female public relations professionals’ perspectives on ethical leadership. The results suggest that the majority of female professionals feel ready and confident in providing ethics counseling as needed. Most importantly, the highest ranked public relations leaders’ ethical conduct help reinforce female professionals’ ethical practice. Female professionals indicate it is necessary to use multiple strategies to build and enact influence as an ethical leader in public relations. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

The role of corporate social responsibility in online identity construction: An analysis of Turkey's banking sector

This study focuses on Turkey's banking sector and investigates the role of public relations and corporate social responsibility practices in constructing organizational identities through a thematic content analysis of banks’ corporate websites. Based on social identity theory, the research reveals that regardless of its core business function, an organization must communicate non-economic social concerns to construct a public identity and gain legitimacy.     

Exploring online opinion leadership in the network paradigm: An analysis of influential users on Twitter shaping conversations around anthem protests by prominent athletes

The current study seeks to extend the network paradigm in public relations research by exploring the role of online opinion leaders in Twitter conversations around anthem protests by prominent athletes. The aim of the study is twofold: (1) identify opinion leaders involved in Twitter conversations related to anthem protests by Colin Kaepernick and Megan Rapinoe, and (2) further understand how and why social media users participate in conversations online about controversial subjects. The study combines social network analysis with in-depth interviews to adopt a more holistic framework for studying online opinion leadership in the context of public relations research. Ultimately, results from this study extend the network paradigm in public relations by examining the role of individual users in the construction of the discursive landscape around issue networks. Additionally, findings suggest that online opinion leaders should be differentiated from social media influencers in public relations scholarship as they reflect the movement away from Homo Economicus toward Homo Dialogicus (Kent & Taylor, 2016) and their capacity to facilitate the formation of publics and counterpublics around particular issues.     

Relationship building and the use of Web sites: How Fortune 500 corporations use their Web sites to build relationships

This study examines the dialogic features of corporate Web sites in order to determine the Web site practices of the corporations for building relationships with their publics. Content analysis of 100 Fortune 500 companies’ Web sites revealed that the corporations designed their Web sites to serve important publics and foster dialogic communication. The corporate Web sites appear to promote control mutuality, trust, satisfaction, openness, and intimacy. However, the corporations need to maintain repetitive interactions with their publics to enhance trust, commitment, and exchange relationship.     

Timeliness,responsiveness and the human voice: The effects of dialogic strategies and the mediating role of perceived communication ethicality on social media relationship building

This study investigates how social media can be better managed to cultivate positive organization-public relationships. It advances an expanded and integrated conceptual model to test how the communication features of corporate pages on social networking sites may influence publics’ perception of the organization’s communication ethicality, which further predicts organization-public relationships as a compound index of trust, commitment, and satisfaction. The results, based on structural equation modeling, showed that three important communication strategies are success factors that could shape perceptions of communication ethicality: timeliness, responsiveness, and the use of human voice in a dialogic framework. In particular, publics’ perception of the organization’s communication ethicality emerged as a key mediator driving communication effects to foster positive relationships with stakeholders in an online environment.