Men of the Flesh: The Evaluation and Treatment of Sexually Abusing Priests

The Roman Catholic Church in the United States is experiencing a financial, psychological, public relations, theological, and spiritual crisis over priests who sexually abused minors or acted out sexually in a variety of ways and members of the church hierarchy who covered up their crimes in order to prevent scandal. In this chapter I discuss the problems of sexuality among errant clergy through my work at The Institute of Living, Hartford Hospital's Mental Health Network.

I argue that if change is to take place in the Roman Catholic Church, it must be systemic and Catholic moral theology needs to develop a more developmentally and scientifically sound narrative of human sexuality for parishioners and clergy.     

A social capital approach to improving public relations’ efficacy: Diagnosing internal constraints on external communication

This article extends Heath's (2006) concept of fully functioning society theory (FFS) and argues that public relations can be used as a force to enhance collective social capital in communities. To serve this purpose, however, the effectiveness of an organization to serve its external publics is often dependent on the status and relationships the public relations function has developed within the organization. This paper provides a network analysis of a government agency in Jordan that illustrates the relationship between internal organizational social capital and the potential problems for establishing external relationships with publics. Implications for public relations research methods and theory are also discussed.     

The effects of organizational Twitter interactivity on organization–public relationships

Social media sites such as Twitter provide organizations with the ability to interact directly with publics. Previous research has suggested that web-based relationship building is dependent on the level of organizational interactivity with web technology, or how the organization uses the technology to engage with its publics. This study tested if levels of organizational Twitter interactivity affected the quality of organization–public relationships. Findings suggest that an organization's level of Twitter interactivity influences relationship quality.     

Going Public: Networking Globally and Locally*

Abstract Rural sociologists figure prominently in the move towards public sociology. The paper takes up Michael Burawoy's call for public sociology and discusses what rural sociologists have to offer to publics and how we stand to gain as a discipline in working with publics. The paper argues that rural sociologists' ability to adopt a cosmopolitan view while negotiating the complexities of global/local processes provides a useful theoretical stance for doing public sociology. Methodologically, both feminist methods and various approaches to networks can guide us as we do public sociology. Then, the paper provides two examples of recent efforts to do public sociology with a women's community group in Sri Lanka in response to the tsunami and with the Pennsylvania Women's Agricultural Network to illustrate the possibilities and limitations of working with networks. In conclusion, the paper addresses opportunities for doing public sociology, the challenges we face as we go public, and future work that is needed to develop theoretically and methodologically strong public rural sociology.     

When giving means taking: Public relations,sponsorship, and morally marginal donors

It is generally considered a positive social action to form relationships of support between organizations and publics. In public relations terms, such connections can lead to beneficial outcomes for both the organization, in terms of reputation and attributions of social responsibility, and publics, in terms of the ability to meet their own goals through financial contributions. It is less easy to understand what happens when these relationships detract from society holistically. In this paper the Tattersall's organization, Australia's “largest” privately owned company, is used as an example. Tattersall's has a history of community involvement, sponsorship, and benevolence. However, its sole business is gambling, and hence vulnerable gamblers fund its charitable donations. This article uses the writings of Pierre Bourdieu to discuss ethical practice and professionalism as well as the dynamics of sponsorship dependence of vulnerable groups. It suggests that although an underused theorist on the edges of mainstream public relations theory, Bourdieu's ideas have much to contribute to our understanding of professional practice.     

Identifying and Responding to Activist Publics: A Case Study

Activist groups are strategic publics because they constrain an organization's ability to accomplish its goals and mission. Activists create issues; they appeal to government, the courts, or media for litigation, regulation, or other forms of pressure. As a result, research on activism has become one of the most important domains of public relations research. I begin this article with the premise that public relations practitioners must develop sensitivity to activists, he able to identify activist publics before they become active, and develop communication strategies to foster mutual understanding with them. The results are reported of a case study of environmental activism against a multinational company working in the Central American country of Belize. The organization failed to identify activist publics at the beginning of its Belize project and made no attempt to communicate with them. The activists then went elsewhere for information and escalated overt pressure on the organization. Media coverage, however, had little effect on the activists because they had their own specialized communication networks and newsletter. The organization then used press agentry and public information models of public relations to counteract the activists; as a result, the pressure escalated. I also found evidence that the organization became more successful with activists when it used a symmetrical model of public relations during a radio debate.     

An Intercultural Competence Model of Strategic Public Relations Management in the Peru Mining Industry Context

This study develops and tests an intercultural competence model of strategic public relations management in the Peruvian mining industry. The model proposes that public relations practitioners' trait-level intercultural competence (empathy, open-mindedness, and flexibility) affect their perceptual-level competence (anxiety and uncertainty management), which in turn influence their behavioral-level competence (public relations practices) and the consequent relational quality with the publics. Structural equal modeling was used to analyze the data from 90 practitioners with rich intercultural public relations experiences. Results indicated that trait competence components worked differently in reducing practitioners' uncertainty and anxiety. Such distress reduction enhanced the use of symmetrical and two-way public relations. Finally, symmetrical public relations and lowered anxiety increased practitioners' perceptions of trust and control mutuality in the relationships their organizations had with the publics. The model's theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

When Do People Speak Out? Integrating the Spiral of Silence and the Situational Theory of Problem Solving

Combining spiral of silence theory with the situational theory of problem solving, this study explores the extent to which publics differ in their willingness to express their opinions in hostile social situations. Based on analysis of a survey among 369 college students about their willingness to express opinions on 2 controversial topics (gun possession and climate change), 3 key findings emerge: (a) Fear of isolation suppresses people's willingness to express their opinions in public; (b) active publics are more likely than other types of publics to express their opinions; and (c) there is no interaction effect between fear of isolation and types of publics. In addition to several theoretical contributions, the findings provide public relations practitioners with a model for predicting which types of publics would be more or less likely to express their opinion.     

Social gerontology as public sociology in action

Burawoy (2005) argues that sociology needs to re-establish a public sociology oriented toward society’s problems and the practice of its unique knowledge if it is to again be taken seriously by the public, policymakers, and others. Yet, it is unclear how best to achieve these goals. We argue that the relatively young field of social gerontology provides a useful model of successful public sociology in action. As a multidisciplinary field engaged in basic and applied research and practice, social gerontology’s major aim is to improve the lives of older people and to ameliorate problems associated with age and aging. Thus social gerontology has routinely reached beyond the academy to engage with its publics. We review the field’s historical and theoretical development and present four examples of public sociology in action. Several factors have contributed to social gerontology's success in achieving the goals of public sociology: (1) Working in multidisciplinary teams which promote collaboration and respect for diverse perspectives. (2) Its ability to advocate “professionally” for its publics without favoring one group at the expense of another. (3) The unique affinity of its theories and practices with its disciplinary values. (4) The constructive effects of its ongoing questioning of values and ethics. Working in a multidisciplinary field with multiple publics, social gerontologists have been able to blend professional, critical, policy, and public sociologies to a considerable degree while contributing toward improvements in well-being.     

Imperializing spin cycles: A postcolonial look at public relations,greenwashing, and the separation of publics

This article draws on postcolonial theory to critique ongoing neocolonial aspects of public relations theory and practice and especially the field's recent appropriation of terms such as “corporate social responsibility” and “sustainable development.” It positions such appropriation as a continuation of the old colonial strategy of reputation management among elite publics at the expense of marginalized publics. The article makes the case that public relations can only begin to be ethical and socially responsible if it acknowledges the diversity of publics, breaks down the hierarchy of publics, and takes into account the resistance of peripheral publics.     

Situational Theory of Publics: Exploring a Cultural Ethnocentric Bias

The situational theory of publics demonstrates that stakeholders are best segmented into active publics, given their high problem recognition, low constraint recognition, and high level of involvement in an issue. This study further demonstrates that low identification with an issue is significant as the public's situational drivers are increased by a high ethnocentric bias. This argument is investigated with regard to a specific type of public: journalists. The results confirmed previous discussions of how a specific public's situational behavior might be influenced by a referent criterion representing a biased mindset of that public toward the topic.     

Public engagement with nonprofit organizations on Facebook

Explicating Facebook's engagement features, this study explored whether organizational message strategies based on the four models of public relations have an impact on the different levels of public engagement. The study found that publics demonstrate high levels of engagement with organizational messages when two-way symmetrical communication is used, compared to public information or two-way asymmetrical models. The study also provided practical implications for nonprofit practitioners to engage with publics via social media.     

The Missing Link: The Public Relations Manager Role as Mediator of Organizational Environments and Power Consequences for the Function

We argue that the public relations manager role provides the "missing link" between environmental challenges and the consequences for the public relations function. Conceptualizing the manager role in terms of organizational power, the concept provides linkages between the environmental-imperative and the power-control perspectives. The model posits that environmental challenges to the organization, in part, determine the role enacted by the top public relations practitioner. This role enactment, in turn, increases the function's capacity to maintain the integrity of its domain. Using a sample of 262 public relations practitioners in the United States, we tested the relationships just stated. Findings indicate that the range of publics and changeability of publics (environmental variables) are positively related to the manager role. The manager role is negatively related to marketing involvement in public relations activities and to the assignment of individuals from outside public relations to head the public relations unit.     

Internet and the Political Public Sphere

The article addresses the main theory of the political public sphere generally, and the role of the Internet and Internet‐based media in the theory specifically. It first reviews briefly the initial social research on the Internet in the 1990s concerning political participation. After a presentation of Jürgen Habermas' theory of the contemporary public sphere, it proceeds to discuss the main problems concerning the Internet as a platform or infrastructure for public debate: segmentation and concentration. It argues that a general conclusion is that the public sphere differentiates and become more complex. A key task for future research, it argues, is to investigate the complex connections between Internet publics and mass media publics.     

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.     

The Medium Is the Mass: Marshall McLuhan's Catholicism and catholicism

Conflicting assumptions have been proffered about Marshall McLuhan's Roman Catholic beliefs: (a) that he was a "compartmentalized Catholic" who kept his Sunday beliefs separate from his Monday-to-Saturday academic thinking; (b) that his Catholicism was ubiquitous, and thus the "global village" is a longing for one world body as camouflaged Teilhard de Chardin; (c) that McLuhan was an academic who addressed all topics, including religious ones, orally and in writing but not with a proselytizing perspective; (d) that as a convert to Catholicism (in the spirit of Chesterton and Lewis) he was a clever and subtle evangelical who infused academe with adapted theology; and (e) that some mixture of these assumptions is likely to be true, although McLuhan kept his articles of faith largely off the record. Based on interviews with McLuhan and with some of his closest colleagues and friends, as well as on research about the religious vein within McLuhan's writing, I report aspects of the "Marist McLuhan," that is, the McLuhan moved by Mary, and by her church, as well as aspects of McLuhan's theological subtext within his writing and thinking.     

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.     

A Human Nature Approach to Image and Ethics in International Public Relations

This article addresses the role of the concept of image in the ethics of international public relations. It argues that the right to construct mental images is fundamental to the human experience and that ethical international public relations can enhance this right. The article identifies two diametrically opposed approaches to image in public relations. The first view uses instrumental or "i images" in an attempt to manage publics by managing the organization's communication with them. This instrumental approach is essentially one-way and monological, which is inviting for many practitioners and clients. I images are usually unethical, however, because they reduce the public's chance to use symbols and images rationally and to make informed choices. The second approach uses "h images" for the humanitarian view of images. With this approach, practitioners and their clients use two-way dialogical communication and accept the ethical responsibility to enhance, not degrade, the humanity of all parties involved in public relationships. Dialogical communicators assume that their publics have as varied and valid interpretations of the world as do their clients. They assume that the goal of public relations is not reducing publics to the service of clients but joining with publics in the process of interpreting the world together. The h image approach is especially important in international public relations, which can be understood as the attempt of one culturally bound community to deal with the interpretations of another. Based on the humanitarian approach, the article proposes five tests that international public relations practice should pass to be ethical.     

Catholic NGOs following the 1995 referendum on divorce in the Republic of Ireland

This article examines patterns of political, social, and economic change within the Republic of Ireland that led to passage of the 1995 Referendum of Divorce. It also looks at this policy's impact on public and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that provide court‐related services. Because the passing of the referendum is in many ways a reflection of the changing role of the Catholic church in public life, considerable attention is granted to the evolving nature of this institution, from policymaker to service provider. Implications include how Catholic NGOs partner with public institutions in providing services to families experiencing divorce.     

Memory for Investor Relations Messages: An Information-Processing Study of Grunig's Situational Theory

Marketing managers have used segmentation techniques to divide mass markets into specialized markets for some time, and many public relations practitioners have adopted the same techniques for their practices. Most marketing techniques segment markets more effectively than publics, however, and thus have limited value in public relations. Few public relations scholars have developed segmentation techniques for publics that are comparable to those used to segment markets in marketing. Grunig and Childers (1988) developed a situational theory of publics that has been tested and used widely by academic researchers. The theory segments publics by the activeness and passiveness of their communication behaviors and the extent to which their behavior affects organizations. Grunig maintained that active publics are more likely to process information actively and to remember it than are passive publics. This study uses the context of investor relations to test the cognitive effects of Grunig's theory. In doing so, it applies cognitive psychological methods of experimentation rarely used in public relations research and tests the effects of involvement, problem recognition, and constraint recognition on two types of memory performance. Differences were found in cued recall and recognition memory; the implications of these differences are discussed.