Beyond reputational and financial damage: Examining emotional and religious harm in a post-crisis case study of Hillsong Church

Religious organizations have largely been overlooked in public relations scholarship, particularly in the crisis communication literature. Additionally, research in crisis communication primarily focuses on the reputational, material, and financial damage caused by crises. This study addresses theoretical and topical gaps in public relations scholarship by advancing Spaulding’s (2018) emotional and religious harm categories for moral crises within religious organizations. Results of a qualitative case study of Hillsong Church’s Carl Lentz crisis suggest an emotional harm continuum exists for moral crises, and religious harm emerges as distancing as a religious protective measure. Findings advance crisis communication theory regarding the use of religious and renewal rhetoric and types of harm inflicted from crises, and assists practitioners in crafting post-crisis messages that prioritize stakeholder healing and the organization’s recovery.     

Getting emotional: An emotion-cognition dual-factor model of crisis communication

The effect of emotional experience on cognitive processes is an under-explored phenomenon in crisis communication research, despite indications of the increasing importance of emotion-based communication in the digital era. Emerging evidence indicates that the emotional experiences of publics play a critical role during organizational crises and determine the degree to which organizations are able to successfully devise communications that help them deal with such crises. Yet no comprehensive, theoretically sound model exists for analyzing how emotions influence the cognitive processing of crisis information. Our study proposes just such a model, capable of describing how cognition and emotion, separately or interactively, influence the publics’ processing of crisis information and consequently their attitudes and behaviors. Our model describes how emotional variables determine whether the publics take a cognition-oriented approach or an emotion-oriented approach to information processing and subsequent formation of interpretations, evaluations, and judgments directed toward organizations. Moreover, our model explains how an emotion-to-cognition assessment of publics’ attitudes is possible and makes a case for how it is critical for predicting and influencing the publics’ behavior during organizational crises. The hope is that this model will aid practitioners and academics in understanding why the publics’ emotions matter during crisis communication as well as how to craft more effective communication strategies as a result. Finally, several avenues for future research are suggested in order to test the validity of our conceptual model in different contexts.     

Developing a multi-level organization-public dialogic communication framework to assess social media-mediated disaster communication and engagement outcomes

Dialogic communication has long been viewed as vital for effective organization-public relations. Yet, it is under-theorized whether and how organizations’ disaster communication messages may embody dialogic communication principles, and how various dialogic features are associated with different public engagement outcomes on social media. Extending the Organization-Public Dialogic Communication (OPDC) framework to the context of social media-mediated disaster communication, we propose a multi-level framework to assess the dialogic capacity of Facebook messages sent by disaster management organizations during a natural disaster. Three levels of dialogic communication characteristics (i.e., message structure-level, topic-level, and linguistic level) are examined using content analysis and Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC). Results identified media richness, correcting, and confirming topics as three consistent predictors of public engagement of all types. Meanwhile, there exhibit greater variations regarding how other topical features and linguistic characteristics are related to public’s cognitive, emotional, and behavioral engagement during a disaster.     

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.     

Strategizing for social change in nonprofit contexts: A typology of communication approaches in public communication campaigns

Public communication campaigns aim to create social change by influencing audiences’ behaviors and thus help nonprofit organizations fulfill their mission. These campaigns, however, often fail to deliver their anticipated impact. Using public relations research as a theoretical lens, this paper's contribution is twofold: first, we develop a typology that classifies the different communication approaches used in public communication campaigns. Based on one of the most prominent public relations theories, the Four Models of Public Relations, we differentiate communication approaches along the dimensions of communication purpose and communication style. Combining these two dimensions in a typology, we identify the following communication approaches: directing, platforming, mobilizing, and involving. We provide numerous real‐life examples of public campaigns for each one. Second, we formulate propositions about these communication approaches’ effectiveness relying on a key concept of public relations research: namely, audience segmentation. Using the transtheoretical model, we show that audiences can be segmented along five “stages of readiness to adopt a promoted behavior.” Conceptualizing behavior change as an iterative, dynamic process that entails stage progresses as well as backdrops, we derive how audiences’ “stage of readiness” relates to the effectiveness of the identified communication approaches.     

Key issue operatives in an issue-driven network: Public relations as a “pocket of strength” in campus sexual assault awareness and prevention

Within public relations, little research has been conducted on the relationship between networks and social issues management, particularly issues that are gendered and emotional. Through a social network analysis and in-depth interviews with individuals involved in a public university’s sexual assault prevention and awareness work, this study demonstrates a missed opportunity for public relations experts to serve as key issue operatives in an issue-driven network. Specifically, public relations issue operatives can bridge network structural holes in the development and dissemination of comprehensive sexual assault awareness and prevention communication at universities.     

The role of leadership in shared value creation from the public’s perspective: A multi-continental study

Porter and Kramer’s concept of creating shared value (CSV) has been welcomed as an approach to corporate social responsibility (CSR) among corporations that also provides a practical opportunity for dialogue in public relations, but it has been little examined from the general population’s (i.e., the public’s) perspective. Such scrutiny is important because its findings enable public relations to contribute to the debate and development of CSV from both the public’s and the organization’s viewpoints. Additionally, if public relations professionals understand how the public perceives CSV, they can give a strategic perspective to top management for maximizing moral capabilities of the business and formulate effective communication to promote CSV initiatives. This study investigates whether the public prefers corporations to practice CSV as opposed to intrinsic CSR as a separate pursuit from business interests. It also explores the role of leadership as an influential and ethical construct in implementing effective CSV as perceived by the public. The public’s preference for CSV over intrinsic CSR was revealed in a survey of 1784 participants in the United States (US), Germany, and China. Factor analysis results further suggested that effective CSV competencies of CEOs were construed as a unidimensional concept in the US, but German and Chinese participants viewed it as two-dimensional. The public perceived that leaders’ moral character played a more important, core role in effective CSV than did altruistic and behavioral attributes, across nations. Network analysis of the perceived effective CSV-characteristics provides further implications for CSV communication.     

The never changing story: Eight decades of the government public relations department of Thailand

The Government Public Relations Department (GPRD) of Thailand has existed in various forms since the country’s governing system changed from an absolute monarchy to a constitutional one in 1932. This study reflects on how the GPRD’s practices have been affected by the country’s governing and political environments over time. It has periodized the eighty-four-years of development of the GPRD into sequential phases based on a continuum approach. The GPRD’s roles and duties are detailed based on four periods: Beginning Period, Growth Period, Full Expansion Period, and Weak Period. The GPRD was firstly positioned to be the primary government tool for introducing the concept of democracy to the Thai populace and disseminating information about government policies, activities and propagandistic campaigns. Through Thailand’s periods of political instability, World War II, the Cold War and rise of communism in Indochina, globalization, and the current digital age, the GPRD has expanded in its role within the government as the center of communication for a wide variety of governmental organizations. However, even as it has expanded and undergone re-organization, it has been criticized for being a government mouthpiece rather that a reliable source of factual information. Working under the direct oversight of the various governments led by the military, as well as both appointed and elected politicians, the GPRD has struggled to maintain a balanced public relations role at the juncture of Thai politics and public interest.     

Effective Public Relations Leadership in Organizational Change: A Study of Multinationals in Mainland China

This study explored the role of public relations leadership during organizational change in 3 multinationals in mainland China. Based on 40 in-depth interviews, the findings suggested that the leadership of public relations unit or function during organizational change was shown through coaching middle management to manage employee emotions, providing communication training to middle management, communicating and reinforcing shared visions for change, and managing the conflicts between middle management and top management regarding change rationales, planning, and procedures. The leadership role of public relations managers was enacted through consulting CEOs' communication styles, exerting upward influence in change management, and acting as the different voice when decision making for change was questionable. Results of the study extended existing public relations leadership scholarship and shed light on some tentative dimensions of public relations leadership during organizational change: (a) coaching emotion management, (b) educating communication knowledge and skills, (c) reinforcing shared visions, (d) resolving conflicts, (e) exerting upward influence, and (f) acting as a different voice. Limitations of this study and suggestions for future research are also discussed.     

Revisiting the relationship between public relations and marketing: Encroachment and social media

Although public relations and marketing trade presses regularly discuss the conflict between the functions (e.g., Ecker, 2013; Havartin, 2013), academic researchers focused on the issue primarily in the 1980s and 1990s. The drop in public relations and marketing encroachment research does not parallel a drop in encroachment in practice, especially in light of today’s social media environment. In fact, historic tension between public relations and marketing intensified with the incorporation of social media into communication efforts. This paper updates the study of encroachment by reviewing the historical views of the topic, proposes ways that social media use has intensified issues related to role encroachment between public relations and marketing professionals, and outlines questions to guide future study of these topics.     

Metamorphosis: From ‘Nice Girls’ to ‘Nice Bitches’: Resisting Patriarchal Articulations of Professional Identity

This article explores the random strategies women adopt in resisting patriarchal articulations of their professional identity and the kind of organizational discourses women’s resistance brings about. The focus is on describing the context, dynamics of contradictory tensions and ambivalence inherent in situations of resisting. The article draws upon the authors’ own experiences in academia. In addition to participatory observation, the authors are using themselves as research instruments that enable them to highlight the emotions and ambivalent dynamics in the construction of gendered identities and power relations in organizations. The study indicates that there are several sets of rules in motion in one and the same social situation, such as the rules of organizational behaviour, rules of friendship and the rules of gender relations in public places. By describing two overtly sexualized discourses that women’s resistance brought about, the article highlights that organizational sexuality does not necessarily differ in kind or in degree from ‘street sexuality’ or sexuality in semi‐public places. The study’s findings argue that it is important to extend research to both informal and semi‐formal organizational gatherings. These liminal spaces are important sites of communicative struggles over organizational meanings and identities.     

What do we know about government public relations (GPR)? A systematic review of GPR in public relations literature

Despite the importance of public relations within local, national, and international government organizations, government public relations (GPR) is still an understudied field in public relations research when compared to its corporate and nonprofit counterparts and has been critiqued for lacking theoretical development (Liu & Horsley, 2007). To present the accumulated knowledge about GPR, this study used content analysis and bibliometric network analysis to systematically review 155 articles published in key public relations journals from 1976 to 2021. Our findings illustrate the status of GPR scholarship in terms of publication trends, authorship, research contexts, research topics, theoretical knowledge structure, methodological approaches, and ethical considerations. Findings suggest that GPR is a fast-growing field attracting international and multidisciplinary scholarly interests; yet has not been clearly defined and theorized. With strong theoretical roots in relationship management, GPR has the potential to develop context-relevant theories capturing the distinctive relational dynamics in various government communication situations. This study proposes a work-in-progress definition of GPR, identifies critical research gaps, and suggests future research directions to assist GPR in developing into a distinct and promising subfield of public relations research.     

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.     

Does transformational leadership predict group emotional intelligence in work settings? / ¿Es el liderazgo transformacional un predictor de la inteligencia emocional grupal en los contextos laborales?

Contagion of emotions is a widely accepted characteristic of transformational leaders. However, the impact they may have on the Emotional Intelligence of their subordinates is an open question. In this paper, we analyse whether Transformational Leadership (LTF) perceptions influence the Emotional Intelligence of their groups (GEI). This is a novel approach within the actual interest on emotional intelligence and its role in group results. The participants were 272 subordinates from 52 groups that belonged to different private and public organizations in Spain. They completed a questionnaire including the variables of interest. Our study helps to clarify the relations between TFL perceptions and GEI, showing that TFL and GEI relate at the group level and that TFL is one of the predictors of the perception of GEI in work settings. Thus, the development of emotionally competent transformational leaders will produce emotionally competent groups that might increase their performance, efficiency and other processes (i.e., engagement).     

Internal public relations’ role with workplace,spirituality, and religion

This article argues that public relations ought to lead the integration of spirituality and religion in an organization’s workplace. Because no model of this opportunity exists for internal public relations (a.k.a. employee relations or internal communication), this article looks at scholarship about spirituality and religion in the workplace to show links among organizational performance, employee engagement, and public relations operations, particularly that focused on employees. From this research-based approach, guiding principles for public relations’ lead role in integrating spirituality and religion in an organization’s workplace and an operational framework for internal public relations are given so public relations professionals can make the integration reality and effective for all.     

Toward excellence in public relations: identifying practices and barriers in Kuwaiti corporate,governmental and non-profit organizations

ABSTRACT

This study aimed to examine the applicability of the Excellence principles in Kuwait, generating insights into factors that affect the practice of strategic public relations management across corporate, governmental and nonprofit organizations. The findings, based on 21 semi-structured in-depth interviews with Kuwaiti public relations practitioners, revealed that the public relations profession demonstrates low levels of adherence to the generic principles of excellence. Public relations practitioners are less involved in strategic management and less empowered in the dominant coalition. Practitioners have provided various barriers including higher management’s lack of understanding of public relations, and lack of qualified practitioners, which have created disparities in understanding symmetrical communication. The sector of the organizations and the employment system in the country have also contributed to the situation.     

Seeking sincerity,finding forgiveness: YouTube apologies as image repair

Social media have become important communication tools for organizations and public figures, particularly in times of crisis. Public figures are frequently advised to use social media platforms to apologize to publics, and their apologies are often posted by news outlets or individual social media users. However, evidence suggests social media may function on an interpersonal level, yet traditional image repair strategies are based on a mass media model. Using image repair strategies based in theoretical frameworks from mass mediated and interpersonal communication, this research examined the verbal behaviors and emotions displayed by public figures apologizing on YouTube and the relationships these had to audience perceptions of sincerity and forgiveness as expressed via YouTube comments. Two studies analyzed 335 segments of video from 32 public apologies on YouTube spanning from 2009 to 2014, and 1971 posted responses. The interpersonal strategies and expression of emotions were largely unrelated to the perceptions of sincerity and forgiveness; and the image repair strategies were limited in their relatedness. However, the content of the comments, a majority of which focused on the reputation of the public figure, was associated with perceptions of sincerity. Reducing offensiveness was associated with perceptions of insincerity, as was the combination of reducing offensiveness, denial and evasion. Negative comments regarding the offender’s reputation were also associated with perceptions of insincerity. Audiences were non-forgiving if the apology was perceived as insincere, but forgiving if they perceived the apology as sincere. Implications of these results in relation to the practice and scholarship of public relations are discussed.     

Embodied Heterosexual Masculinities,Part 2: Foregrounding Men’s Health and Emotions

This paper extends our previous discussion on embodied heterosexual masculinities, men’s emotional lives and health ( Monaghan and Robertson 2012 ). First, we foreground writings on men’s health within and outside of heterosexual relationships given the interrelations between masculinities and other structures (e.g. the political economy). Second, we critically consider writings on masculinities, male bodies and emotions in a relational context. In conclusion, we underscore the need for future research. Such research would foreground men’s corporeal meanings, practices and relations while also critiquing global neoliberalisation, a pernicious process that impacts everyday lives within and beyond heterosexual configurations of body‐reflexive practice.