Sports fans as crisis communicators on social media websites

Previous research has analyzed how organizations publicly respond in crisis situations. This study addresses a sports crisis, the University of Miami NCAA investigation, as an avenue for exploring how fans become surrogates for organizational crisis responses via the social media entity, Twitter. Using Coombs's (2007) strategy for reputation repair, analysis of 75 highly identified Miami fans with over 42,000 Twitter followers shows that fans were most likely to engage in (a) ingratiation, (b) reminder, (c) attack the accuser, and (d) divert attention as primary methods of coping with the scandal. New methods for reputation repair were also found within the analysis and implications for organizations, academic institutions, sports research, and crisis communication theory are articulated.     

Beyond liking or following: Understanding public engagement on social networking sites in China

Corporate pages on social networking sites (SNSs) have become the key platform where publics interact with companies and organizations around the world. Focusing on one of the most important world economies, China, this study explored the types of public engagement with corporate pages on leading Chinese SNSs as well as the motivations and antecedents that drive such engagement. Given the participatory and communal nature of SNSs, this study proposed a conceptual model incorporating social media dependency and several social relationship factors, including parasocial interaction, perceived source credibility, and community identification, that influenced Chinese publics’ engagement with companies on SNSs. We conducted a web survey with a random sample of 245 Chinese SNS users to test the proposed model. The results confirm that with the exception of perceived credibility, social media usage and relationship-oriented factors played a significant role in inducing public engagement in China.     

Three Korean perspectives on U.S. internet public diplomacy

This study identifies perspectives of relationships publics have about countries other than their own and examines whether publics engaged through social media-based public diplomacy programs demonstrate different relationship perspectives. Q methodology and survey research were used to investigate these issues. Data come from South Korean adult internet users, including members of Café USA, an online community run by the U.S. Embassy in Seoul. Three relationship perspectives were identified: outcome-based, sincerity-based, and access-based. Compared with other groups, Café USA members put more emphasis on sincerity in their relationships with the United States. The results of this study indicate that individuals’ subjectivity should be considered as far more contextualized and nuanced than has been the case in previous research on national image or country reputation.     

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.     

Comparing Acquisition of Exchange-Based and Signed Mands With Children With Autism

Therapists and educators frequently teach alternative-communication systems, such as picture exchanges or manual signs, to individuals with developmental disabilities who present with expressive language deficits. Michael (1985) recommended a taxonomy for alternative communication systems that differentiated between selection-based systems in which each response is topographically identical (e.g., card selection and exchange systems) and topography-based systems in which each response is topographically distinct (e.g., signed language). We compared the efficiency of training picture exchanges and signs with 3 participants who presented with severe language deficits; all participants acquired the picture-exchange responses more readily.     

The Politics and Poetics of Spaces and Places: Mapping the Multiple Geographies of Identity in a Cultural Posthuman Era

As transcendent technologies, information communication technologies (ICTs) exist beyond the divergent equivalence of human categories of difference such as race, gender, and class, as well as operating outside traditional binary oppositions such as good/bad, love/hate, and rational/irrational. While a material grounding in earlier forms of embodied social experience remains a necessary prerequisite of interaction with virtual systems, a vast collection of technological applications now exhibit some degree of agency as they interact with humans and their environment. This development has enormous consequences for human life, human flourishing, and social organisation, raising significant ethical concerns relevant to public and policy debates. It is, therefore, pertinent to explore key epistemological questions relating to the radical and accelerated remapping of the limits of what it now means to be human. While this article does not purport to offer a pragmatic solution, it constitutes an interdisciplinary conceptual platform from which to consider the nature of the evolving human-nonhuman-machine relationship and the possible implications for humanity, civilisation, and other forms of social organisation in the modern hypermediated world. It is suggested that, by reflecting on the various representations of contemporary technoculture and biotechnology from the perspective of the arts and humanities, it may be possible to isolate those important questions which relate to subjectivity, ethics, community, and social transformation in order to prepare the groundwork for a comprehensive and critical theory of technology.     

依托优势坚持特色错位竞争——以北京化工大学物流管理新专业建设为例

物流管理专业是我国高等教育中的新兴专业,目前很多高校都在进行物流管理专业建设方面的探索研究。本文以北京化工大学的物流管理专业建设为背景,创新培养理念,提出物流管理专业应以“依托优势、坚持特色、错位竞争”为指导原则,并对培养目标、专业方向和课程体系设置等方面进行了深入的探讨。希冀对物流管理专业的建设提供一定的借鉴。     

新媒体环境中的公民参与现状分析

新媒体的发展为公民参与提供了新的平台,分析了新媒体的特点及其对公民参与的积极意义,探析了新媒体环境中公民参与存在的主体局限、公民责任缺失、公民非理性参与以及政民互动中政府回应力不足等困境,进一步提出消解参与壁垒、建立平衡监管机制、增强政府回应力、引导"意见领袖"等途径,力求改善新媒体环境中公民参与的现状,从而更好地汇聚民智、集中民力。     

公益广告传播与和谐社会建设

公益广告是为社会公众服务的公益性广告,具有公益性、观念性、社会性、教育性和广泛性等主要特征。公益广告内容丰富,主题涵盖提倡建立人与人、人与社会、人与自然、国家与国家之间的和谐关系等方面。公益广告的广泛传播,对于建设和谐国家、和谐世界具有重要的推动作用。     

跨文化交际中的沉默行为

沉默是非语言交际的一种重要形式,它和语言一样传递着非常丰富的信息。但沉默的使用因文化而异。在东方,沉默是一种积极的交际策略;在西方,沉默行为则被视为一种消极、被动的反应。沉默行为在东西方文化中的差异主要体现在工作、学习、政治、商务谈判和日常交际中。之所以有如此大的差异是因为东西方有着截然不同的语言观、价值观和语境交际类型。为了减少跨文化交际的失误,我们必须克服自己的文化定势,增强对东西方文化中沉默行为差异的敏感度。