Privileging an activist vs. a corporate view of public relations history in the U.S.

This article elaborates on the argument that the history of U.S. public relations has been distorted by the emphasis on corporate functions of public relations. The dominant corporate-centric view of U.S. public relations history often claim that public relations developed as a response to activists who attempted to interfere with business operations. That myopic, corporate-centric view has perpetuated a negative view of public relations as merely a tool of “big business”. In the past as well as the present, corporations have been learning from and co-opting activists’ innovative public relations techniques. By alternatively grounding U.S. public relations history in the works of activists, we open possibilities for re-imagining the field and legitimizing activists’ works as a positive, central component in public relations theory and research. We end by providing resources educators can utilize to teach a more balanced view of public relations history in the U.S.     

Violent children and structural violence: Re-signaling ‘RAD Kids’ to inform the social work professions

This article critically examines representations of children diagnosed with Reactive Attachment Disorder, or “RAD Kids”, and their construction as dangerous subjects. Based on ethnographic research within attachment therapy clinics, and among adoptive families, social workers, and medical professionals in the U.S. and Russia, the author suggests that notions of danger associated with “RAD Kids” actually reflect a social anxiety about the contexts of structural violence in which we are attempting to build families and raise children at the turn of the 21st century. The author culturally and historically contextualizes the signaling of “RAD Kids” as violent within literature on moral panics over children and youth. She explores how these representations function as an attempt to “resignal” public anxieties about the difficulties associated with building families through adoption, and especially, the adoption of formerly institutionalized children. The article provides a model for thinking about complex relationships between children, pathology, and power to inform the social work professions, and particularly practice with children diagnosed with RAD.     

Shifting journalistic paradigms of American correspondents on contemporary China: The case of Orville Schell

This study examined the change and continuity in the journalistic paradigm of Orville Schell, a prominent China expert and journalist who exemplifies tumultuous cycles of idealism and discontent U.S. journalism has experienced toward China. The tilts in his prisms were shown to have conformed to the rise and fall of governing frames in American press and public cynicism in and after the Vietnam War and the Cold War. Despite the undisputed “end” of the China policy, the question of the “means” offered such individual correspondent as Schell much leeway to anchor his liberal predisposition characteristic of the Vietnam War generation.     

Le travail enseignant en lycée professionnel et ses paradoxes

The paradoxes in the work of teaching in French vocational education stem from the “symbolic closure” of these secondary schools. The latter, given the mass enrollment in general secondary schools, receive students marked by their failure in middle school. This has created a distance with the students' social and family environment and with firms, even though the latter are supposed to be the destination where these students are bound. The work of these teachers is strongly marked by “subjective ordeals” related to their subordinate position in the school system, to a concern for keeping peace in the schools and to doubts about integrating students in the world of work. Might the work of these teachers not lead paradoxically to reasserting the “weight of the educational form” by including therein actions that are supposed to help students “mature” and develop an “appropriate school identity”? In this case, the purpose of this work is the academic socialization and rehabilitation of young people as much as their vocational training as such.     

The situated self and the negotiation of a “bad” identity in therapeutic foster care

This article presents one of the three main findings from twenty-three observations over four months. The study critically analyzed the naturally occurring discourse used in two foster homes between caregiver and youth to negotiate the self. Three main discourse genres included, “you're bad,” “boys to men,” and “learn the hard way.” This article focuses on the “you're bad” genre and the linguistic tools used to impose and refute the “bad” identity. The findings elicit theoretical considerations, such as addressing aspects of selfhood (e.g., behavioral demonstrations) apart from the naturally occurring day-to-day context within which the self developed (e.g., the pre-placement living environment). It is recommended that future discourse analytic research examines the ongoing development of self upon the return to the pre-placement living environment or other permanent environment.     

Digital natives and social media

Digital natives (also known as “Generation Y” and “Millennials”), a generation born during of after introduction of digital technologies, 1980s and after, have mixed preferences for media use in personal and professional lives. A study by Friedl and Tkalac Ver?i? (2011) showed that even though digital natives prefer digital media in their personal lives, this is not necessarily reflected in their business lives. This study addressing preferences of “traditional” vs. “the new media” in a university setting found an opposite result.     

Telling the American story to the world: The purpose of U.S. public diplomacy in historical perspective

This paper seeks to provide an historical reflection on the central purpose of U.S. public diplomacy through an examination of the manifest mandate of the three major institutional settings for such international communication programs, i.e., the Committee on Public Information, the Office of War Information, and the United States Information Agency, and to shed light on the current public diplomacy endeavor spearheaded by the Department of State. The review demonstrates that U.S. public diplomacy has been principally an ad hoc instrument of American foreign policy to meet wartime exigencies and has been underscored by the promotion of American values of democracy and freedom. Over the years, it has expanded to encompass multiple modes of engagement, while at the same time there has been constant tension concerning the role of public diplomacy as a strategic, policy function versus merely as a “mouthpiece” within the foreign affairs apparatus. All of these themes continue to reverberate in the contemporary practice of public diplomacy.     

Creating a model to measure relationships: U.S. Army strategic communication

Strategic Communication is receiving much credence for public relations planning in the U.S. Army, (Quadrennial Defense Review Report, 2010. The Office of the Chief of Public Affairs for the U.S. Army, has a Strategic Communication Division and it is home to the last vestiges of former Secretary of, Defense Donald Rumsfeld's ill-fated attempt to create such an office at the Department of Defense, (DoD) level. In 2009, Major General Mari K. Eder, deputy director of the U.S. Army Reserve, wrote of, the tragic lack of a comprehensive strategic communication focus across DoD levels, let alone at the, Army level. A “Deep Dive” Conference sponsored by the Army during the summer of 2006 focused on, measuring outcomes of its public affairs programs. In spite of the conference objectives, the Army was, not able to define strategic communication completely nor was it able to come up with adequate, operational measurement tools for measuring relationships with key publics or stakeholders within, strategic communication. It was able to produce some measurable and motivational objectives as well, as measurable process tools for media relations, but it still lacked the ability to measure quantitative or, qualitative relationships with key stakeholders.     

On Being a White Person of Color: Using Autoethnography to Understand Puerto Ricans' Racialization

This article uses autoethnography to make larger conceptual/theoretical points about racial/ethnic identity categories for Puerto Ricans in the United States. I utilize Puerto Rican-ness to illustrate the limitations of U.S. race and ethnic constructs by furthering racialization analyses with seemingly contradictory categories such as white and people of color. I contrast personal experiences to those of racial/ethnic classificatory systems, the American imagery of Puerto Ricans, and simplistic, political identifications. Travel, colonial relations, intra-ethnic coalitional possibilities, and second-class citizenship are all aspects that expand on the notion of racialization as classically utilized in sociology and the social sciences. Although this is not a comparative study, I present differences between racial formation systems in Puerto Rico and the U.S. in order to make these points.     

Apps4Africa: A new State Department public diplomacy initiative

In 2010 the U.S. State Department funded an “Apps4Africa” contest to encourage development of socially conscious mobile applications for Africa. The initiative marked a significant departure from traditional public diplomacy efforts to expand diplomatic outreach beyond traditional government-to-government relationships. This case study analyses Apps4Africa to reveal its appropriateness as a model for future efforts and concludes Apps4Africa succeeded primarily because it responded to the changing dynamics of the 21st Century.     

The Paradoxes of Modernity: Scientific Advances,Environmental Problems,and Risks to the Social Fabric?

Recent reviews have contrasted U.S. sociologists' empirical work on technological risks with the theoretical risk work of Giddens and Beck, but the reality is more complex. Most U.S. sociologists are less likely than Giddens or Beck to see risks as transcending socioeconomic and other divisions, but the United States–based work tends to interpret the trustworthiness of scientific–technical expertise in ways that lie between the arguments of Beck and Giddens. An examination of early nuclear technologies indicates that the United States–based perspectives provide a better fit, for theoretical as well as empirical reasons. The development of nuclear technologies was mixed, rather than high or low, in its competence and trustworthiness, and it created social and environmental risks that did not so much transcend social divisions as to reinforce them.     

Destins professionnels des femmes ingénieures. Des retournements inattendus

In the late 1970s, a major change in techniques and a modification of the job structure opened the way for women to become engineers in the computer sciences. At the time, working conditions and policies for managing careers allowed them to benefit from ascending mobility, while still investing in family life. Given its strong growth, information technology soon became the main branch of the French economy with openings for women engineers. The downturn in employment during the 1990s and its management through “psychology-based” training arrangements restored the sexual division of labor, as women were forced out of “noble” positions in engineering and design or even out of the branch itself. These two recent trends — a feminization and then “defeminization” of reputedly “masculine” jobs — are analyzed.     

Qualified privilege: A defense for the public relations function

Technology continues to challenge the public relations practitioner to find ways to inform key constituents. The new technology has given rise to the “new journalism” that includes a declining traditional media and exploding internet media filled with websites and bloggers. The question posed by this research asks: Does the public relations practitioner inherit the same protection offered by “qualified privilege” that is most often associated with the traditional “press” or “reporter?” The research lays a foundation with an examination of defamation and the defense of qualified privilege. The research concludes that if information gathered by the public relations practitioner meets the “intent” and “content” tests, the information qualifies as news. Passing the “news” test, the defense of “qualified privilege” also attaches to the public relations practitioner.     

Juvenile or adult? Negotiating and contesting childhood in the courtroom

Legislative changes during the 1980s and 1990s made it easier to treat juveniles as adults in the U.S. justice system. Research on the sentencing outcomes of juveniles in the criminal court has been somewhat mixed, with some studies showing that they receive severe or long sentences and others showing that many young people receive probation or relatively short jail or prison sentences. Less attention has been placed on the process through which these cases move through the criminal court and the ways in which the labels of “juvenile” and “adult” are negotiated and contested by legal actors. Using both qualitative and quantitative data, this article examines the negotiation of these labels. While it finds that legal rules are important in establishing the potential outcomes in a case, the power of specific actors and the context of specific courtrooms are also important in shaping the negotiations and contestations over these labels. The article provides a framework to understand outcomes and presents ways that advocates can become involved in helping to shape the outcomes of these cases.     

Critical phenomena in complex contagions

Why do some contagions “go viral” and others do not? Research on “small world” networks (Watts and Strogatz, 1998) shows how a very small number of long-range ties that bridge between clusters can allow contagions to spread almost as rapidly as on a random network of equal density. Recent research shows how long-range ties that accelerate the spread of information and disease can impede the spread of complex contagions—behaviors, beliefs and preferences that diffuse via contact with multiple adopters ( Centola and Macy, 2007). In confirming this result analytically and extending the analysis from small world to power law networks, we discovered that complex contagions require a critical mass of infected nodes that corresponds to a phase transition in the ability of the contagion to take advantage of the “shortcuts” created by long-range ties. We demonstrate how this critical mass is related to the dynamics of the contagion process and identify implications for modeling behaviors that spread via social influence, such as viral marketing and social movements.     

Negative impact induced by foreign workers: Evidence in Malaysian construction sector

Though foreign workers served to overcome the labor shortage in the Malaysian construction market, over-dependence on foreign workers and the negative impacts induced have become a serious social problem. The aims of this research are to identify those negative impacts induced by foreign workers in the Malaysian construction market and to determine strategies in minimizing these negative impacts. Data were collected through a structured interview and survey. The questionnaires were delegated to professionals in construction projects who have direct contacts with foreign workers. Only respondents from those companies registered under the CIDB grade G7 were chosen for this survey. There were 117 sets of questionnaires completed and analyzed through the structured interviews. The three principal factors attracting foreign workers to the Malaysian construction market are “Preference of the employers”, “Lifestyle and working conditions”, and “Unattractiveness of the career pathway”. The main negative impacts induced by foreign workers are “Over-dependence on foreign workers”, “Increment in criminal activities or social problems”, and “Existence of illegal workers”. This research proposes that strategies such as “Attract local workers into the construction industry”, “Industrialized Building Systems”, “Eliminate illegal migration”, and “Improve governance structure” would be successful in minimizing negative impacts induced by foreign workers.     

Observer,consigner, tracer. Les usages d’un cahier électronique controversé en établissement pénitentiaire pour mineurs

This contribution, based on research conducted within a Prison for Minors, provides an analysis of the guards’ use of a software application: the “electronic observation logbook”, designed to record and disseminate various day-to-day “observations” about prisoners. The analysis of the use of this system — which simultaneously attempts to “profile” prisoners and “track” surveillance activity — not only helps conceptually identify the type of surveillance employed in a Prison for Minors, it also reveals the growing complexity of the work of prison guards, previously studied primarily in terms of the informality of the interactional frameworks in prison.     

Tracking public relations scholarship trends: Using semantic network analysis on PR Journals from 1975 to 2011

A semantic network analysis of keywords in titles of studies published in Public Relations Review and the Journal of Public Relations Research was conducted to determine the salient keywords in public relations scholarship from 1975 to 2011. “Communication,” “PR,” “public,” “practitioner,” and “corporation” have been the most prominent keywords, and the association of “PR-practitioner” was the most salient keyword association in public relations scholarship consistently.     

A content analysis of the newspaper coverage of the three major hurricanes in 2005

As the primary means of communication between government agencies and the general population, the media play an important role in shaping how the public perceives a potential risk. Risk communicators should carefully consider media coverage of disaster to successfully communicate with the public in the future. This paper examines the content of Hurricane news stories and the framing patterns (e.g., emotional vs. logical) used by local newspapers 1 week before the occurrences of three major hurricanes in 2005. “Actions to take to prevent the risk” was the most frequently covered content, followed by “anticipated damages.” The majority of the risk content was presented using logical framing patterns.     

Nez à nez avec des nuisances odorantes. L'apprentissage de la cohabitation spatiale

By setting up “nose networks”, inhabitants were able to do more than merely criticize the nuisance of odors coming from a nearby paper mill. This case study conducted in France seeks to understand the process that, through a negotiated limitation of nuisances, ended up making industrial development compatible with life in the local area. This is radically different from the NIMBYist attitude, since inhabitants, instead of saying “no” to the installation of a new annoyance in their backyard, were trying to live with a problem “already there”. Neighbors of the mill thus became “nose experts” who had the right to bring evidence not in a lawsuit but through a shared know-how that made each party's rights and obligations compatible in the effort to live (at least temporarily) together in the same place.