Building a health communication brand for University of Texas System tobacco control

Objective: Despite declining cigarette smoking rates in the US, there is a continued need for tobacco prevention education campaigns to reach young adults. Recognizing the need for improved tobacco control messaging, the University of Texas (UT) System engaged The University of Texas at Austin Center for Health Communication to develop a brand and message that would strengthen tobacco control efforts at its 14 institutions. Methods: This article describes the iterative process involved in creating a brand for tobacco control, including an environmental scan, identifying potential message themes, and creating and refining logos. Results: This article highlights the process of developing a system-wide tobacco control brand. Specifically, the process included coordinating an interdisciplinary team with content and design experts, and presenting ideas to stakeholders for serial feedback and refinement, among others. Conclusions: Ultimately, this project offers a model for other systems of higher education interested in pursuing similar initiatives.     

Underlying processes of SCCT: Mediating roles of preventability,blame, and trust

Despite the prevalence of the situational crisis communication theory (SCCT; Coombs, 2007) in crisis communication research, few SCCT-based studies have examined how different crisis types affect post-crisis reputation. This study, therefore, attempts to uncover the underlying processes of SCCT. Specifically, this study examined preventability, blame, and trust as potential mediators of crisis type and organizational post-crisis reputation. A between-subjects experimental study (crisis type: victim vs. accidental vs. preventable) was conducted with 329 college students. The results revealed that crisis type had no direct effects on reputation, but it did affect preventability, blame, and trust. More significantly, the results showed that crisis type indirectly affected reputation in two distinct ways: (1) via a sequence of preventability and blame and (2) via trust. The study includes a discussion of theoretical and practical implications.     

Crisis perceptions,relationship, and communicative behaviors of employees: Internal public segmentation approach

This study examines when and why employees engage in external communicative behaviors during the periods of a corporate crisis. Combining a cross-situational factor (i.e., pre-crisis relationship quality) and a situational factor (i.e., crisis-specific perceptions), this study segments internal publics to understand employees’ motivations of becoming advocates for or adversaries of their organization. The results of an online survey demonstrated that employees’ pre-crisis relationship to their organization plays a critical role in encouraging them to advocate for their company; meanwhile, their crisis-perception—whether they feel fewer constraints in solving a crisis—is more likely to make them share negative information externally. Segmented groups of employees with high levels of both relationship and activeness are most likely to engage in both positive and negative external communication behaviors. Theoretical and practical implications for public relations and internal crisis communication are suggested.     

Armchair detectives and the social construction of falsehoods: an actor–network approach

ABSTRACT

This paper examines two large-scale cases ? the 2013 Boston bombing and the 2015 Bangkok bombing, each of which spurred an online investigation conducted by concerned citizens to find the bombers. While both bombing cases had different cultural discourses, the processes and outcomes of the online investigation were similar: there were rampant speculation and rumor-mongering, as well as false accusations and harassment of innocent suspects. The aim of the paper is to understand how such acts of mob justice happened. Using actor–network theory, a theoretical and methodological tool for mapping out the networks human and non-human interactions, I discuss two types of networks found in both investigations. The two network types demonstrate how a claim can be construed as fact or fiction through such networks of interaction. In light of debates on the proliferation of fake news and alternative facts, the findings have implications for the current and precarious state of truth in today’s society.     

Blood,Sweat, and Tears: Navigating Creepy versus Cool in Wearable Biotech

ABSTRACT

This paper considers how personal data protections figure into the design process of wearable technology. The data question is becoming especially important in the face of recent innovations in biotechnology that capitalize on the new fungibility of biology and electronics, in which new biotech wearables capitalize on the ability to analyze and track changes in blood, sweat, and tears. Interviews and participant observation with wearable tech designers, data scientists, fashion tech entrepreneurs, and select experts in cybersecurity and intellectual property law, reveal a range of approaches to data protection in design within the culture where wearables are beginning to merge with biotech. While a few respondents were extremely vigilant about protecting consumer’s privacy, the majority felt that when consumers ‘opt in’ to data sharing, they should be cognizant of the risks. From their perspective, it is not necessarily the producer’s responsibility to protect user's personal data. These attitudes present a problematic logic, which leaves users vulnerable to data exploitation. The paper concludes by arguing that this laissez-faire culture is the environment in which wearable biotech is being developed and will be deployed. This emerging technology raises issues about bodies, data, and ownership in crucial need of analysis and critique to push its move into the mainstream toward more equitable and inclusive ends.     

Improving citizens’ online engagement via community managers: an explanatory study

The role of community manager is gaining importance as the proper usage of social media becomes a key factor for achieving more active involvement of citizens in social and political issues. Focused on Spanish local governments and in line with the literature of Excellence Theory, this paper aims to analyze whether some characteristics of the community manager function are determinant in their fostering of citizens’ online engagement via social media. In particular ‘independence’, ‘having access to the dominant coalition’, ‘gender diversity’, ‘continuous training’ and ‘culture of the organization’ are the characteristics considered in this paper. As to the main findings, this study confirms that community managers have not as yet achieved their goal of embedding the use of social media by citizens as a means of establishing more direct contact with their local governments. Moreover, in line with Excellence Theory, community managers of local governments should be aware of the importance of having direct access to key managers of the organization in order to better achieve the objectives of the organization and, more specifically, to increase citizens’ engagement. Furthermore, continuous training in issues related to social media truly helps develop the skills and potential of community managers. Likewise, an excellent communication department should rely on good professionals no matter their gender, and, in this sense, the gender of community managers is not a significant factor in their performance. However, the results of this study also reveal that in the case of public sector community managers, an authoritarian culture seems to be a determining factor for obtaining better results in enhancing citizens’ engagement.     

Do rich teens get richer? Facebook use and the link between offline and online social capital among Palestinian youth in Israel

Studies have shown that using social networking sites contributes to social capital. This study investigated the association between specific features of Facebook and online social capital. Two contrasting hypothesis were tested. The first posits that the rich get richer, meaning that the creation of social capital online reflects the stock of offline resources already available. In contrast, the compensation hypothesis argues that disadvantaged ethnic minorities are more likely to use social media to compensate for their lack of social capital offline. We tested these two theories among a representative sample of Palestinian teenagers (N?=?567). While we found no gender differences in the use of Facebook’s features, our results highlight the positive correlation between the use of active and passive communication features and perceived social capital online. Moreover, the results support the rich-get-richer model; in that, even among this socially disadvantaged group, the youngsters who already had a store of social capital offline benefitted more from using Facebook.     

When the Lord builds the house: An autoethnographic account of working in an evangelical for-profit organizational culture

Religion is often perceived as a private topic, thus belonging outside the traditional conceptualization of a work environment. However, religion is a pervasive organizing framework and an understanding of its role in the workplace is needed from a communicative perspective. In the following autoethnography, I describe my experience working for a Christian for-profit homebuilder – starting with new employee orientation and moving through my final day at Local Homes. I focus on instances where tension emerges between expectations and reality as I learn about and interact within the overtly evangelical Christian organizational culture. The tension is illustrated through four vignettes that correspond to the traditional phases of socialization. Through writing this autoethnographic account, I attempt to move beyond my personal experience and situate my story within larger disciplinary and societal conversations about the socialization process in a religious organization. With this goal in mind, I conclude with methodological and theoretical implications.     

从跨文化交际语境看日本人的交际模式

从跨文化交际语境出发,根据语境文化对交际模式的影响,探讨日本高语境文化形成的原因,分析在高语境文化影响下日本人以和为贵、集团主义意识强、以心传心的体察式的交际模式,对于提高人文素养,减少跨文化交际中的误解,促进交流都将有着重要的意义。     

The sustainability of Egan’s Skilled Helper Model in students’ social work practice

This paper investigates the nature of students’ learning of the Egan Skilled Helper model in enabling them to develop collaborative communication skills which place service-users at the centre of decision making. The paper is a follow-up to an earlier paper which found that the Egan model was helpful to students as a communication and problem management tool and that they had transferred their learning into practice. The current study involves seven students from the first study and examines whether their knowledge and skills from learning the model in year one have been sustained two years later during their third year practice placement. A key finding is that participants were continuing to use most stages of the model (with the exception of challenging skills) with service-users in a variety of settings. Further findings are that the model is still useful in situations where goals are set by social workers rather than by service-users; and that it is the utilisation of role-play when learning the model which most embeds skills. The implications of these findings for skills training are discussed together with suggestions for further focus.