Beyond excellence: Extending the generic approach to international public relations: The case of Bosnia

This article extends the generic approach to international public relations research. The current generic approach, based on the Excellence theory of public relations, suggests a normative framework to study and evaluate international public relations practices. This generic approach has great potential for focusing international research and clarifying infrastructure, geopolitical, legal, cultural, media, and other important variables. Unfortunately, this generic approach has been mainly used to confirm the Excellence model of public relations. Thus, it falls short of providing scholars and practitioners the tools they need to conduct and study global public relations. This paper seeks to clarify international public relations research by explicating rhetorical generic theory (RGT).     

Reasons for low levels of interactivity: (Non-) interactive CSR communication in twitter

The interactivity levels of online CSR communication are typically low. This study explores the reasons for the low levels of interactivity in the popular social media tool Twitter. An analysis of 41,864 Twitter messages (tweets) from the thirty most central corporate accounts in a CSR Twitter network is conducted. Comparisons (t-test) between CSR tweets and general tweets and between specialized CSR Twitter accounts and general accounts reveal that the low levels of interactivity are due to a reactive interaction approach and a lack of specialization.     

The state of internal communication in Latin America: An international Delphi study

The amount of internal communication research has flourished during the past decade, and scholars have examined the role of internal communication in affecting employee and organizational outcomes. Despite the increasing literature, knowledge, and research of internal communication in Latin America is largely missing. Given this reality, this study explored the status of internal communication in Latin America through the lens of 20 experienced internal communication professionals from nine Latin American countries. Taking a multi-iteration consensus-building approach, this Delphi study enabled the expert panel to individually elaborate and collectively evaluate shared observations regarding the definition, characteristics, importance, and current reality of the field. Specifically, this study examined how practitioners define and understand internal communication, the skills and knowledge needed to perform internal communication, the value of internal communication, and the state of internal communication practice in Latin America. The findings of the current study enriched and diversified the extant body of knowledge that is U.S. and European-centered.     

European Communication Monitor: Current developments,issues and tendencies of the professional practice of public relations in Europe

The European Communication Monitor (ECM) research explores the current developments for communications disciplines, practices and instruments. It is an extensive research project to monitor trends in communication management, analyse the changing framework for the profession driven by European integration and evaluate specific topics of relevance to public relations practice. Specifically, the 2008 ECM edition is focused on aspects such as: strategy and control, interactive channels, corporate social responsibility, intercultural challenges, influence on management decision making, cooperation with agencies, and future budgets.     

The evolution of the World Bank's urban lending in Latin America: from sites and services to municipal reform and beyond

This paper traces the evolution of urban policies promoted by the World Bank in Latin America over the past three decades. The retrospective starts with an overview of the changing perspectives on development during the 1950s and 1960s, which eventually led to the onset of urban lending programs in the 1970s. It then analyzes the policies toward the urban sector promoted by the World Bank during the 1980s and 1990s in the context of the overall development paradigm that prevailed in the institution at the time. It concludes by outlining the generation of urban policies that is currently emerging. The analysis indicates that the evolution of the World Bank's policies has not been the result of a carefully master-minded strategy but, instead, of a myriad of factors, including conceptual shifts in the prevailing economic models, learning by doing, the influence of individuals such as McNamara, and internal and external criticisms.     

Political discontent in new democracies: the case of Brazil and Latin America

Political changes related to globalization apparently produce similar effects on old and new democracies. All over the world, comparative research on democratization has showed that political distrust is a common variable affecting the whole of the State and the relationship between citizens and democracy. Nevertheless, political discontent in old democracies has stimulated citizens to adopt new attitudes and modes of political participation, while in newly democratized countries citizens tend to withdraw from politics as a consequence of institutional distrust. In fact, in many new democracies, although adhering to the normative meaning of the democratic regime, distrust of democratic institutions is associated to citizens’ negative feeling about political efficacy, low levels of political interest and political participation, and also preference for democratic models which exclude political parties and/or parliaments. This paper evaluates the meanings and consequences of the contemporary phenomenon of political discontent in Brazil and Latin America and discusses its implications for democratic theory.     

The challenge of new gatekeepers for public relations. A comparative analysis of the role of social media influencers for European and Latin American professionals

Social media influencers (SMIs) have become a primary stakeholder group for communication professionals. However, this phenomenon still lacks a coherent body of theory and significant gaps exist in knowledge of how organisations perceive and identify them in the context of public relations, specially through empirical and cross-cultural studies. This comparative research includes European (n = 2710) and Latin American (n = 914) professionals working on different hierarchical levels, both in communication departments and agencies. Despite the massive implementation of social media channels, only a minority of Latin American and European professionals use specific strategies to identify and engage with SMIs. Practitioners prefer traditional identification indicators: personal reputation, the relevance of topics covered, and the quality of the content shared online.     

The Rise of China: Implications for Latin American Development

This article analyses the implications of the rapid economic rise of China for the development prospects of Latin America. Based on an analysis of the changing trade relations between China and 15 Latin American countries over the period 2000–6, it argues that these relations have significantly exacerbated the subcontinent's dilemma of being caught in the middle‐income trap. At the same time, some of the key drivers behind China's economic success point to a possible solution, first and foremost the lessons provided by its proactive development strategy which has focused on developing domestic technological capabilities and diversifying the productive structure with a move up the value chain.     

Cyberbullying and subjective health: A large-scale study of students in Stockholm,Sweden

The increase in the use of mobile phones and the Internet has given rise to new opportunities for people to meet and communicate. However, there are also dark sides to these new forms of communication. One of these is cyberbullying, i.e. bullying via mobile phone and the Internet. Given that cyberbullying is a relatively new phenomenon, empirical knowledge is still limited and particularly so in Sweden, which in international comparison has reported low rates of bullying in general. The aim of the study is to investigate: 1) the prevalence of cyberbullying among students in Stockholm, Sweden; 2) the overlap between cyberbullying and traditional forms of school bullying, and 3) the association between the experience of cyberbullying and subjective health. The study uses the Stockholm School Survey of 2008 which is a total population survey of students in grade 9 of compulsory school (i.e. aged 15–16) and in the second year of upper secondary school (i.e. aged 17–18) in Stockholm and eighteen of its surrounding municipalities (N = 22,544). About 5 % of the students are victims of cyberbullying, 4% are perpetrators, and 2% are both victims and perpetrators. There is some overlap between cyberbullying and traditional bullying: those who are victims of traditional bullying are at increased risk of also being victims of cyberbullying; while being a traditional bully is strongly associated with the likelihood of also being a cyberbully. However, many students who are involved in cyberbullying are not involved in traditional bullying. OLS regression analyses show that being a victim of cyberbullying remains associated with worse subjective health when being the victim of traditional bullying and socioeconomic factors are taken into account. In addition, perpetrators of cyberbullying as well as students who are both victims and bullies, have worse subjective health than those who are not involved in cyberbullying.     

Toward managed flexibility: The revival of labour inspection in the Latin world

Examining the role of labour inspection in the context of the revival of labour market regulation, the authors distinguish between the Latin model, where inspectors have authority to tailor enforcement to firms' exigencies, and the less flexible United States approach. The Latin model can reconcile regulation with economic flexibility and transform inspectors into the shock troops of a campaign for decent work. But its vulnerability to arbitrary behaviour on their part needs to be addressed through: management of organizational cultures; exposure and sys‐tematization of the tacit knowledge underpinning inspectors' judgements; and research into the relationship between labour standards and business practices.     

The fallacy of the lump of labour theory: Evidence for Latin America

In a context of population ageing, this article analyses the “lump of labour” theory using empirical evidence from Latin America. Instead of finding a crowding-out effect, estimations using a fixed effects model on a panel of annual data drawn from household surveys in 11 countries between 2002 and 2019 suggest a positive correlation between the employment rates of older adults and young people. Additionally, results show a positive association between the labour incomes of older and young workers. These findings could indicate that an expansion in the employment of older adults maintains economic growth and, therefore, a greater demand for labour, which could be supplied by young people.     

U.S. public relations educators' identification and perception of the discipline

In this study of U.S. public relations educators, previous research was confirmed that calling and identification influence work meaningfulness. The research highlights the discipline's division about importance of practical experience and research. Participants with an orientation to practical experience had significant positive correlations with calling, not to identification or meaningfulness. Those with a theory/research orientation had a significant positive correlation with organizational identification and meaningfulness, not with calling. This suggests that a practice orientation leads to a stronger public relations calling but not a calling to academia. Those with theory/research identification have less calling to the public relations profession.     

Influentials,novelty, and social contagion : The viral power of average friends,close communities,and old news

What is the effect of (1) popular individuals, and (2) community structures on the retransmission of socially contagious behavior? We examine a community of Twitter users over a five month period, operationalizing social contagion as ‘retweeting’, and social structure as the count of subgraphs (small patterns of ties and nodes) between users in the follower/following network.     

The rise of the Latin American far-right explained: dependency theory meets uneven and combined development

ABSTRACT

Latin America is once again passing through a crisis. The so-called ‘pink tide’ of progressive governments gave place to a brown wave of peripheral-fascism. Short-range explanations for the ‘ebbing’ of the pink tide abound in the literature. They focus on the shortcomings of moderate-left administrations, failing to account for the cyclical nature of capitalist crises and for the authoritarian character of the administrations now coming to power. In search of a comprehensive, long-range explanation, this paper goes back to the core question posed by dependency theory half a century ago: is capitalist development even possible in Latin America? The key to answer this question – a concept of development that captures non-converging transformation – was not available to seminal dependency writers such as Frank, Marini, Bambirra and Dos Santos. In this paper, I suggest that the concept of uneven and combined development (UCD) allows for a renewed engagement with dependency's core problem. Conversely, the dependency literature can enrich the analysis of UCD with valuable mid-range concepts, such as ‘super-exploitation’, ‘dominated-dominant’ classes and ‘peripheral fascism’. After establishing the theoretical basis for a political economy of UCD, the paper illustrates the potentialities of this comprehensive theoretical perspective by providing and alternative narrative of the end of the pink tide and the rise of the brown wave in Latin America.     

The role of urban indicators in city management: a proposal for Croatian cities

Cities are dynamic economic and social structures that play a dominant role in both national and international economies. They are centers of population, production, consumption, and development. Cities utilize all advantages of economy of scale, proximity, and concentration. On the other hand, they produce high environmental pressures and diminish thereby the quality of life for urban residents. Indicators (environmental, economic, and governance and management) are seen as a tool that would help policy-makers in formulating urban policy that would lead cities towards sustainability and provide assistance for monitoring their development and municipal performance. The aim of this paper is to consider the role that urban indicators can play in city management. We present basic features of urban indicators that will determine their usefulness in urban management. This paper provides the framework to include environmental and economic indicators, as well as governance and management indicators, in successful urban management.     

Instruments for research on transition: Applied methods and approaches for exploring the transition of young care leavers to adulthood

Young people who have been in care show relatively poor outcomes in comparison to young people who have not been in care, and run a high risk of social exclusion. Therefore, the transition to adulthood of young people leaving care is an important topic for research. However, there is still little knowledge about the different research approaches and research instruments that are being used in studying this topic. The aim of the present study is to review the approaches and instruments that are used in empirical studies that focus on young care leavers' transitions to adulthood. The results show that the studies apply a diversity of topics and instruments, but that there is also considerable overlap. To make better comparisons on the transition from out-of-home care to adulthood between different countries, a common research framework and one or more research instruments should be developed that can assess this transition and the situation of young care leavers in diverse social contexts.     

Resourcing the next stages in PR history research: The case for historiography

Since the start of the 21st century, significant work has been done in expanding not just the content, but the geographical, methodological, and social range of public relations scholarship. The expansion has parallels – a few of which we acknowledge below – in the body of historical work in the discipline. In this article, we contend that future research on PR pasts should seek to be relevant to three clusters of contemporary themes that feature strongly in mainstream history. Cluster one is the environmental context of globalization and associated geographical and social diversifications. Cluster two concerns the scale, methods, and ecological inclusiveness to engage with these changes; and, the third covers nation-centric mindsets, archival assumptions, and the impact of changing media. We also argue for PR historians resourcing the next stages of PR history from advances in historiography and history writing practices with particular attention to the point of view of the historian and awareness of the traditions and limitations, within which he, she, or they write. We suggest that this resourcing process will involve questioning assumptions of authority embedded in archive-centered PR research, decentering nation-bound narratives, re-evaluating notions of objectivity, and extending the field's temporal and spatial boundaries.     

Bilingual-intercultural education for indigenous children: the case of Mexico in an era of globalization and uprisings

The past 25 years have brought upheaval to the indigenous people of Mexico due to two opposing forces: modernization and globalization, on the one hand, and indigenous uprisings on the other. Suddenly, the topic of indigenous languages and education was brought into official discussions at the national level. This paper examines the tensions that emerge between the political discourses which emanate from within the indigenous communities and from the national government, and the actual implementation of educational policy models. The political–educational discourse shifted from Spanishization [castellanización], assimilation, and integration to bilingualism, interculturalism, and participation. We demonstrate that this shift was not a smooth transition, but rather an abrupt change that occurred in the early 1990s. Further, despite the shift to new discourses that respected indigenous languages and cultures, institutional factors have not been altered sufficiently to improve the conditions of indigenous education or their well-being in Mexico. Thus, ultimately, the new discourse of bilingualism and interculturalism in education serves to obfuscate the socio-political-economic work that must be done to truly allow the indigenous people to participate in the nation’s political life.