Communication Theses and Dissertations
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Item The Literary Journalism as Illuminator of Subjectivity(1990) Belgrade, Paul S.; Gillespie, Patti P.; Communication; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md)Research into objectivity in the news media abounds. Much of it indicates that objectivity is a flawed concept, one most difficult to incorporate into traditional journalistic practice. This study, departing from the customary line of inquiry, concentrates instead on the ability of journalism to illuminate subjectivity. The literary journalism is selected as the focus of this study because it both adheres to the journalistic contract to sustain factualism and intentionally creates individual versions of reality. Examples of literary journalism are analyzed to determine how they illuminate subjectivity and how they deal with the tension between objectivity and subjectivity. Examples of the life history and fiction, two contiguous forms of writing that also emphasize subjectivity, are investigated to determine how they meet these same challenges. Choosing for the examples works on a similar subject, the lives of mildly retarded men, facilitates the comparison of the three forms. In a final experimental exercise, the author creates an original example of literary journalism on the same subject, Although authors of all three forms exhibited difficulty in dealing with the tension between objectivity and subjectivity, the willingness of authors of literary journalism to reveal this conflict served to help resolve it. After comparing the three forms' techniques for illuminating subjectivity, the author combined techniques of literary journalism with techniques borrowed from both the life history and fiction to illustrate major ways by which literary journalism can achieve the illumination of subjectivity. Literary journalism was proficient both at illuminating its authors' subjective realities and the subjective realities of the works' main actors. In a comparison of the three forms, literary journalism proved to be more powerful than the life history but less powerful than fiction at revealing authors' subjective realities. Conversely, literary journalism proved to be more powerful than fiction but less powerful than the life history at illuminating actors' subjective realities. The strong narrative voice within works of literary journalism proved to be the most effective of the literary techniques at illuminating subjectivity, although the controlling presence of authors within works of literary journalism sometimes overwhelmed other important elements.Item THE BATTLE OF IDEOLOGIES: A STRUGGLE FOR OWNERSHIP IN THE DEAF COMMUNITY(1992) Jankowski, Katherine Anne; Klumpp, James F.; Communication; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md)This dissertation examines the rhetorical process of the Deaf social movement as it evolved from the beginnings of community conception in America to the early 1990s. Specifically, this study employs a Foucaultian approach to address how rhetoric shapes the empowerment of the cultural identity of the Deaf social movement. Such a study contributes not only to our understanding of social movements, but also how members of a movement empower themselves through language. Although rhetorical analyses traditionally place communication as the means, the study of the Deaf social movement further contributes to our understanding of the phenomenon of communication because for the Deaf community, communication is the central issue of their struggles with the dominant society. The rhetorical strategies of the Deaf social movement suggest a theory for community building, especially within a multicultural vision of society, which require three necessary attributes: creating a sense of self-worth, strengthening the internal foundation of community building, and accessing the public sphere.Item THE EMPLOYEE-PUBLIC-ORGANIZATION CHAIN IN RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT: A CASE STUDY OF A GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATION(2004-04-30) Rhee, Yunna; Grunig, James E; CommunicationThis dissertation examined the critical roles that employees play in an organization's relationship-building process with its publics. By conducting an in-depth case study of a government organization's exemplary community relations programs, the researcher explored links among three focal concepts: employee-organization relationships, employee-public relationships, and organization-public relationships. Field research was conducted over the course of seven weeks. Data were collected through long interviews, participant observations, and document analysis. Based on the findings of this study, a normative public relations theory of integrative internal and external organizational relationship management was proposed. The findings suggest that employees who have positive employee-organization relationships (i.e. employees who have high level of commitment) and those who are capable of using symmetrical cultivation strategies contribute significantly to the development of positive organization-public relationships. The study also found that when the external publics have positive interactions and develop trusting individual relationships with employees, they tend to evaluate the overall organization positively. In other words, when employees have positive employee-organization relationships and employee-public relationships, external publics who interact with those employees tended to develop positive organization-public relationships. The study also found that employee empowerment can occur through employees' participation in public relations programs for external publics. Employees in this study believed they were acting as "the ears" of the organization and that they were contributing to the betterment of the organization and the community at the same time. Employees also developed personal networks with other employees through participating in public relations programs, which contributed to the building of an internal community. The study showed that public relations programs that tap into the intersection of internal and external publics contribute to the simultaneous development of positive relationships within and between both arenas. Visible leadership, continued dialogue, listening, face-to-face communication, and educational communication were newly identified as significant strategies effecting the development of positive organization-public relationships. In conclusion, this dissertation proposes that in order for public relations to enact its role as an integrated relationship management function for both the internal and external publics, it should be organized according to the principles outlined by the excellence theory and practice symmetrical communication.Item RESEARCHING LISTENING FROM THE INSIDE OUT: THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CONVERSATIONAL LISTENING SPAN AND PERCEIVED COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE(2004-04-30) Janusik, Laura Ann; Wolvin, Andrew D.; CommunicationListening research has been a challenge, as there is lack of agreement as to what constitutes listening (Glenn, 1989; Witkin, 1990). This lack of agreement has spawned over 50 definitions and models for listening, but not one testable theory. Most models and definitions were developed in the early 1970s, and listening researchers grounded their work in the popular attention and memory theorists of the day including Broadbent, Treisman, and Kahneman. Attention and memory models of this time period were linear in nature and popularized with the notion of short-term memory/long-term memory (Driver, 2001). The Working Memory theory (WM) was introduced by Baddeley and Hitch in 1974, and by 1980 it had become the dominant theoretical perspective. WM is a fixed-capacity system accounting for both processing and storage functions. However, a close inspection of past and present listening definitions and models reveal that they all are built, implicitly or explicitly, on the unsupported linear attention and memory research. This study first provides a comprehensive chronological overview of both listening models and attention and memory models. A cognitive listening capacity instrument, the Conversational Listening Span (CLS), is proposed, tested, and validated. The CLS is grounded in WM and acts as a proxy measure for the biological construct of conversational listening capacity. Conversational listening capacity is defined as the number of cognitive meanings that one can hold active and respond to within the course of a conversation. Communibiologists assert that communication behaviors are a function of biological systems (Beatty & McCroskey, 2001). Thus, the CLS, a biological measure, is used to predict perceived communicative competence. Thus, this study (N=467) investigates the role of CLS on perceived communicative competence. Four hypotheses are advanced and ultimately supported: H1: Conversational Listening Span will have a direct relationship with the reading span, the listening span, and the speaking span. H2: Conversational Listening Span will have a direct relationship with perceived interpersonal competence as well as communicative competence. H3: Listening Span and Conversational Listening Span will predict one's communicative competence. H4: Those with greater interest (high) in their conversational topic area will score higher on the CLS than those with lower interest in their topic area.Item First Ladies as Political Women: Press Framing of Presidential Wives, 1900-2001(2004-11-15) Burns, Lisa M.; Parry-Giles, Shawn J; Communication; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This project contends that press framing of the U.S. first lady institution throughout the twentieth century positioned presidential wives as important public women who were presented as models of American womanhood. An analysis of the print news coverage reveals that the first lady institution serves as a site of ideological contestation over women's public and political roles, reflecting the intersection of gender, publicity, and power at particular historical moments. The press practice of gendered framing draws on often competing ideologies of American womanhood, and in doing so shapes the content of news narratives. The subjects of the stories often become representatives of social gender norms. I call this practice personification framing, which is the positioning of a well-known individual as the embodiment of a particular ideology. A personification frame serves as an ideological short cut used by journalists to simplify, in the case of first ladies, the complexities of gender role performance, making such discussions easier to insert into the limited space of a single news story. An outgrowth of personification framing is the emergence of first ladies as public women, gendered celebrities, political activists, and political interlopers, positioning that reflects press representations of women's public and political roles at various points in U.S. history. The publicity and scrutiny surrounding gendered performances of the first lady position construct boundaries of empowerment and containment that help to normalize women's public activity and domestic empowerment while challenging women's public and private political influence. Press frames, thus, serve as important boundary markers that help to define "proper" performances of both gender and the first lady position. While first ladies' status as public women and gendered celebrities results in both access to and influence within U.S. political culture, they remain on the fringes, with their power largely limited to domestic matters and women's issues. When their influence is suspected of trespassing too far into the male political reserve, press coverage exhibits a rhetoric of containment that suggests the political activities of first ladies violate the gendered boundaries of institutional performance. Such framing accentuates the contestation that surrounds first ladies as political women.Item The cognitive dynamics of beliefs: The role of discrepancy, credibility, and involvement on microprocesses of judgment(2004-11-30) Chung, Sungeun; Fink, Edward L; Communication; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation investigates the process of belief change by examining the time course of beliefs. The time course of belief change during judgment provides information about dynamic aspects of the cognitive system, cognitive responses during judgment, and the effect of distal variables on belief change. Several previous studies obtained individual belief trajectories using a computer mouse technique to observe the time course of belief change. Based on characteristics of belief trajectories, this study developed a new framework for their analysis. This framework allows analyses not only of overall but also of micro aspects of belief change during judgment. Hypotheses about the time course of belief changes were developed and tested with four data sets from three previous studies. Total N = 267. This study found the following: (1) Belief change during message receipt reflects the structure and properties of the message; (2) belief change during the post-message phase shows some oscillatory and some damping dynamics; (3) message discrepancy and source credibility have dynamic effects on belief change during judgment. This study generally supports dynamic models of belief change. Methodologically, this study suggests that belief trajectories can provide on-line information about cognitive responses and micro belief changes during judgment.Item TOWARD A MODEL OF STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT OF PUBLIC RELATIONS: SCENARIO BUILDING FROM A PUBLIC RELATIONS PERSPECTIVE(2004-12-03) Sung, MinJung; Grunig, Larissa A; Communication; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation explores how public relations can employ scenario building as part of strategic management. It examines the scenario-building process from a public relations' perspective and proposes a new model of scenario building. Scenario building is a strategic-planning technique that projects multiple future environmental situations for an organization to improve its understanding of the environment and to develop strategies based on alternative outlooks. Strategic management, scenario planning, issues management, environmental scanning, and the situational theory of publics serve as context for this study. After building the conceptual framework of scenario building, I apply the model to selected case issues of a large corporation and build possible scenarios. I conducted a case study based on two issues: insurers' use of credit scoring and insurance regulatory reform. The study first examines how the organization manages public relations through interviews with its public relations practitioners and document review. As an initial step of the model, I identified the organization's issues and environmental factors through individual interviews, a group interview, and extensive environmental scanning. I conducted interviews with members of activist publics using J. Grunig's (1997) situational theory of publics, which provided critical components of scenarios. After building multiple scenarios, I revised them based on the comments from the organization's public relations practitioners and discussed further development as well as future usage. The findings suggest that public relations theories provide useful insights into scenario building. Publics' behaviors and attitudes, which are often overlooked in scenario-building processes, are critical environmental factors that structure scenarios. Scenario building can also be incorporated with issues management and initiate cross-functional strategic conversation. Furthermore, public relations practitioners will benefit from this model not only as a strategy-development tool, but as a device for internal educational and organizational learning. Consequently, scenario building can help public relations practitioners maximize their contribution to strategic management. It can empower communicators as it allows them to find novel and valuable ways to be involved in strategic decision-making. Thus the study extends the understanding of how practically, as well as theoretically, public relations can participate in strategic decision-making.Item The Status of Public Relations In Latvia(2004-12-06) Petersone, Baiba; Grunig, Larissa A.; Communication; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This thesis explores the status of public relations in post-communist Latvia. The study reviews: whether public relations practitioners in Latvia practice J. Grunig and Hunt's (1984) press agentry, public information, two-way asymmetrical, and two-way symmetrical models of public relations; how former communist propaganda has affected contemporary public relations; and how public relations has contributed to political and economic transformation. Long-interviews were conducted with ten Latvian public relations practitioners. The findings revealed that the four models of public relations were practiced in Latvia. Communist propaganda affected contemporary public relations. The field of public relations contributed to the political and economic transformation. This study adds a Latvian perspective to the global theory of public relations. The study also provides practical implications for public relations practitioners by describing the ways political and economic contexts influence the practice of public relations in Latvia.Item Strategic Decision-making, Group Behavior, and Public Relations Strategies(2005-04-15) Philbin, John Patrick; Grunig, James E; Communication; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)As a boundary spanning function in organizations, public relations can enhance strategic decision-making by introducing relevant information that addresses decision-making consequences on stakeholders to the process. The premise for the study was that effective communication that attends to certain communication aspects of decision-making through organizational strategic decision-making initiatives can enhance the likelihood of more effective decisions. The method of investigation was active interviews. This method was considered most appropriate to acquire an understanding of senior executives' interpretation and description of four strategic decision-making events that were conducted in the U.S. Coast Guard during the 1990s. The results of this study revealed several patterns or themes associated with more effective strategic decision-making. First, organizations that view decision-making as more continuous and connected to other important goals find their efforts to be more effective. Second, transparency is an important quality in strategic decision-making because it leads to higher levels of trust among participants. Greater participation by stakeholders also enhances the likelihood of more effective decision-making. Robust alternatives resulting from an inquiry-based approach rather than an advocacy-based approach can contribute to more effective decisions. Relationships between organizations and stakeholders that possess higher degrees of trust, familiarity, commitment, loyalty, cooperation, transparency persistence, and dispersed power contribute to more effective decision-making. Finally, organizations that seek to minimize affective conflict and maximize cognitive conflict among all decision-making participants during the process can improve the likelihood of better decision-making.Item ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE AND INTERNAL COMMUNICATION AS ANTECEDENTS OF EMPLOYEE-ORGANIZATION RELATIONSHIPS IN THE CONTEXT OF ORGANIZATIONAL JUSTICE: A MULTILEVEL ANALYSIS(2005-04-19) Kim, Hyo Sook; Grunig, James E.; Communication; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)One research direction that is needed but has not been fully exploited in studies of organization-public relationships is research on the antecedents of relationships. The antecedents of relationships are the first stage of the relationship framework, for they are what cause specific relationships between an organization and its publics to develop. The purpose of this study was to explore possible antecedents of internal relationships in organizations. I examined the direct and indirect influences of organizational structure and internal communication on employee-organization relationships using organizational justice as a mediating factor. Organizational justice is a relatively recently developed but widely used concept in organizational studies that refers to the extent to which people perceive organizational events as being fair. This study was a typical example of multilevel research in that it gathered and summarized individual-level data to operationalize organizational-level constructs such as organizational structure and internal communication. The multilevel nature of the main constructs of this study was addressed by using the multilevel analysis method. Data were collected by conducting a survey of about 1,200 employees in 31 Korean organizations. I used hierarchical linear modeling (HLM), which is a type of random coefficient model and is specifically designed to accommodate nested or multilevel data structure, to test the cross-level hypotheses of this study. The findings suggested that organizational structure and the system of internal communication were associated with employee-organization relationships, playing the role of antecedents of internal relationships. More specifically, asymmetrical communication was negatively related to employees' commitment, trust, and satisfaction. Also it was shown that symmetrical communication was associated positively with communal relationships. Lastly, organic structure was negatively related to exchange relationships and positively related to trust and control mutuality. On the other hand, organizational justice was associated with organizational structure and internal communication as well as with employee-organization relationships. Organizational justice also mediated the effects of symmetrical communication and organizational structure on communal relationships and four relationship outcomes (control mutuality, trust, commitment, and satisfaction), implying that symmetrical communication and organic structure can contribute to building quality relationships when they are combined with fair behavior by management.Item The Effects of Organization-Public Relationships on Organizational Reputation From the Perspective of Publics(2005-05-13) Yang, Sungun; Grunig, James E; Communication; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)In recent years, organizations have demanded evidence that public relations is effective. Consequently, professionals and scholars alike have looked for the key concepts to establish the value of public relations. The terms "relationships" and "reputation" have emerged as the focal concepts in explaining the purpose and value of public relations. The concepts of organization-public relationships and organizational reputation can be integrated within a theoretical framework of public relations effectiveness. When those concepts are integrated in a model, the role of public relations can be captured more clearly than when there is a separate focus on each of the concepts. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate the link between organization-public relationships and organizational reputation. In particular, the dissertation examined how organization-public relationships affect organizational reputations in a causal model. Survey research was used to collect data, and structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to empirically test the causal effects of organization-public relationships on organizational reputation for four South Korean-based organizations. In the causal model, organization-public relationship outcomes and types of relationships (communal and exchange relationships) predicted organizational reputation, taking into account the exogenous influences of communication behaviors of publics, experience, and familiarity with the organizations studied. The hypothesized structural equation model had tenable data-model fits for all organizations studied, supporting the hypotheses proposed in the study. More specifically, the research produced the following important results. First, this study found a significant positive effect of organization-public relationship outcomes on organizational reputation for all organizations studied. Secondly, this study found significant effects of types of organization-public relationships on organization-public relationship outcomes and organizational reputation. Third, it showed the relevance of key antecedents of organization-public relationship outcomes and organizational reputation. Fourth, the study found a stronger effect of communication behaviors on the quality of relationship outcomes than the effect of familiarity. Finally, it found a different distribution of cognitive representations for profit and nonprofit organizations. The final causal models for all organizations studied showed three distinct routes to organizational reputation, based on significant causal relationships in the models: a communication-based route, a communitarian route, and a familiarity-based route. An unexpected result was a differential effect of types of organization-public relationships on organizational reputation for profit and nonprofit organizations: Exchange relationships had more of a negative effect for nonprofit than for profit organizations. Finally, the results for one of the organizations showed that familiarity can have a negative effect on organization-public relationship outcomes. Overall, the results of this study show that public relations has value to an organization and to society in general when it cultivates quality relationships with publics and that favorable reputation can be obtained through the development of quality organization-public relationships.Item TOWARD A THEORY OF JUST COMMUNICATION: A CASE STUDY OF NATO, MULTINATIONAL PUBLIC RELATIONS, AND ETHICAL MANAGEMENT OF INTERNATIONAL CONFLICT(2005-07-27) Van Dyke, Mark A.; Grunig, James E.; Communication; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation used a qualitative, case study to explore how the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) applied strategic public relations management during peace operations in post-war Bosnia-Herzegovina, 1995 to 1996. The purpose of this research was to propose a model of ethical communication that extended the excellence theory in public relations and contributed to a global public relations theory. This proposed model relies on an ethical framework for moral reasoning that helps justify public relations decisions. The model incorporates interdisciplinary concepts drawn from the situational theory of publics, the excellence theory, an activist theory of communication, a moral theory of just war, and game theory. Fourteen long interviews, four elite interviews, and three focus group interviews explained how NATO applied principles of the excellence theory and global theory in public relations, how organizational culture and conflict influenced NATO communication management, and how NATO leaders made communication decisions. It had been assumed that NATO's political-military, authoritarian nature would lead the alliance to reject symmetrical communication and to adopt asymmetrical communication strategies. The study found that NATO mixed symmetrical communication - and other principles of the excellence theory and global public relations - with asymmetrical strategies like coercion to manage conflict. The study also identified a constellation of divided cultures among NATO's 26 member nations that influenced alliance public relations. Furthermore, senior NATO leaders relied heavily on intuitive knowledge when making decisions, leaving communication choices vulnerable to ethical relativism. In conclusion, this study has significant implications for theory and practice. The integrated, coercive-collaborative model of ethical communication developed through this study offers normative and positive value for managing asymmetrical conflict situations in which one or more parties demonstrate no willingness to cooperate. This model retains the value of excellence in public relations, which produces strategic, long-term, symmetrical relationships. Demonstrating how symmetrical outcomes can be achieved through ethical application of short-term coercive as well as collaborative communication tactics represents a major leap forward for the excellence theory. Practical implications of this study extend to any organization that relies on communication to manage conflict, build strategic relationships, and reduce costs - especially in a global, multinational context.Item An Exploration of the Generic Principles of Public Relations Excellence in Australia, Italy, Mauritius, and Uganda(2005-08-02) Grammer, Eric Matthew; Grunig, Larissa A.; Communication; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)A topic of much recent debate among the public relations discipline is the lack of research on how public relations should be practiced internationally. A mixed-mode survey utilizing e-mail, surface mail, and online questionnaires, this study examines the Excellence Theory in public relations in four culturally, geographically, and economically diverse countries. Data collected from 285 participants in Australia, Italy, Mauritius, and Uganda suggests the Global Excellence Theory of generic principles and specific applications is applicable worldwide. Specifically, this study illustrates the importance of public relations' involvement in organizational strategic management through two-way, research-based contributions. Results from this cross-national survey also provide further support for the theoretical dimensions of public relations models and has theoretical implications on the use of the Internet as a research tool for public relations scholars and professionals.Item Toward Theory Building for Comparative Public Diplomacy from the Perspectives of Public Relations and International Relations: A Macro-Comparative Study of Embassies in Washington, D.C.(2005-09-15) Yun, Seong-Hun; Grunig, James E; Communication; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Despite a century of history, public diplomacy research has lacked defining conceptual frameworks for two focal constructs, public diplomacy behavior and excellence in public diplomacy management. Without such frameworks, the discipline has focused on historical, ideological, and descriptive research on public diplomacy practices and management. At the same time, research has been instrumental, serving the policy concerns of government by studying what effects public diplomacy programs have, can have, and should have from the paradigm of communication effects. Consequently, public diplomacy seldom has been studied as a set of dependent variables. Scholars have rarely asked theoretical questions about what factors affect public diplomacy behavior and management. The lack of conceptual frameworks has further discouraged comparative questions about whether and why governments are different or similar in their practices and management of public diplomacy. Even when comparative questions were asked, they lacked methodological frameworks for comparative study on a large scale--of a large number and different types of governments. To overcome the limitations, this dissertation proposed a conceptual framework for the two focal constructs based on an application of the Excellence study (L. Grunig, J. Grunig, & Dozier, 2002), a program of public relations research. From the perspective of international relations, this study constructed and tested a theory of comparative public diplomacy on how a government's contextual variables-- culture, political system, interest-group system, and interstate dependence-- are associated with her public diplomacy behavior and management. Lastly, this study employed an innovative methodological framework of using embassies as "matching samples" as well as "surrogate governments." Out of 169 embassies in Washington, D.C., 113 embassies participated in a survey that measured their policy communication behavior in the form of press relations and overall management of the public diplomacy function. This study found that uncertainty avoidance, one of Hofstede's (2001) four dimensions of culture, was the most salient in explaining excellence in public diplomacy. Countries with a low uncertainty avoidance culture were most excellent in public diplomacy management. It also found no significant empirical evidence for linkages between culture and public diplomacy behavior. Of the contextual variables investigated, only the political system had significant associations with public diplomacy behavior. The findings also suggested that electoral and non-democracies have more excellent public diplomacy overall than liberal democracies. In addition, the findings showed that interstate dependence is empirically associated with the outsourcing practices of foreign governments for their public diplomacy through local public relations and lobbying firms. The findings also indicated that the outsourcing practices, in turn, increased the excellence of the clients' (i.e., embassies) public diplomacy behavior. Moreover, the findings confirmed an empirical convergence between public relations and public diplomacy not only at the level of communication behavior but also at the level of communication management. This dissertation, a macro-replication study having governments as the units of analysis, replicated the normative theory of global public relations (Vercic, J. Grunig, & L. Grunig, 1996). Among other things, this study pioneered the macro-comparative research strategy of studying embassies throughout the world capitals. This methodological framework for comparative public diplomacy should offer a myriad of opportunities for advanced theory building from various theoretical perspectives and research methods.Item Effective government affairs in an era of marketization: Strategic issues management, business lobbying, and relationship management by multinational corporations in China(2005-12-07) Chen, Yi-Ru Regina; Grunig, Larissa A.; Communication; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Little public relations research on government affairs has been conducted. Even less research of this kind has yet been conducted in a non-western context. The purposes of this study were to explore how public relations professionals in multinational corporations (MNCs) in China practice government affairs activities at different levels of Chinese government and to develop a normative theory of strategic government affairs. Government affairs in this dissertation refers to the organizational function that encompasses issues management, policy formation, and relationship management. I applied the perspectives of public relations and political economy to examine the MNCs' management of government affairs. I conducted 27 long interviews with executives or managers responsible for government affairs from the China offices of 25 MNCs. The MNCs cover several industries and three business entry modes. I also conducted a two-phase document review and informal interviews with Chinese journalists and public relations scholars and practitioners. My data suggested that with China's socialist market economy and authoritarian political system, MNCs must interact with the government to strategically manage opportunities and threats in their environments. I found that government affairs performs six functions. Government affairs contributes to organizational effectiveness by participating in the MNCs' strategic management processes through four roles, managing issues, and cultivating the MNCs' relationships with key stakeholders through communication and corporate behaviors. My data showed common political strategies and consistent patterns of political involvement of the MNCs. MNCs selected their political strategies based on factors such as economic conditions and organizational characteristics. Only a few MNCs evaluated their government affairs practices based on goal achievement. Drawing on the results, I developed three models that construct my theory of strategic government affairs. These models apply general public relations theories to the context of government affairs. The model of strategic management of government affairs identifies government affairs' participation in an organization's strategic management and the strategic nature of government affairs programs. The situational theory for government affairs allows professionals to separate active publics from stakeholders. The model of effective government affairs provides a framework for the development of government affairs programs that reflect long-term strategic management.Item WOMEN'S MEANING MAKING OF CERVICAL CANCER CAMPAIGNS: USING A CULTURAL APPROACH TO REDEFINE WOMEN'S INVOLVEMENT WITH THEIR HEALTH(2005-12-16) Vardeman, Jennifer Eileen; Aldoory, Linda; Communication; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The purpose of this study was to understand how women from different racial and ethnic backgrounds make meaning of cervical cancer communication. In this exploratory cultural study, the situational theory of publics provided the theoretical framework to investigate to what extent women consider cervical cancer a problem, how they feel connected to it, and what factors constrain them from seeking information. The study used qualitative focus groups and one-on-one, in-depth interviews with African American, Hispanic, and White women. Findings suggest that women feel differentially involved to cervical cancer, and the distinctions are primarily based on age. Furthermore, women tend to group reproductive health issues together rather than separating them. This study expanded the situational theory of publics as well as a public relations theory for women's health. Practical implications include cues to action and suggested factors communicators can employ to improve culturally competent communication campaigns and messages.Item Exploring the Value of Public Relations in Strategy Implementation: Employee Relations in the Globalization Process(2006-04-25) Ni, Lan; Grunig, James E; Communication; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The purpose of this dissertation is to explore the value of public relations in strategy implementation as demonstrated through the cultivation of employee-organization relationships in the context of globalization strategies and cultural influences. The key theoretical constructs included organization-public relationships, organizational strategies, resources, and strategy implementation. Incorporating the resource-based view from the management literature, this study explored organization-public relationships as organizational resources and examined their contributions to strategy implementation. This overall framework was examined through globalization strategies, employee-organization relationships (EOR), and the influence of societal and organizational cultures. I conducted 69 qualitative interviews with managers and employees in companies in China. Among them, 60 participants came from 14 case organizations (11 multinational companies, 2 mainland companies, and 1 Taiwanese company) and included 17 public relations managers, 10 strategy managers, and 33 employees. The 11 multinational companies followed different globalization strategies, 3 with high global integration and low local responsiveness, 5 with high global integration and high local responsiveness, and 3 with low global integration and high local responsiveness. Another 9 interviewees from separate organizations provided supplemental information. The findings suggested that relationships were recognized as a resource that could contribute to competitive advantage. Both public relations managers and strategy managers recognized that characteristics of relationships overlapped with those of organizational resources. They also acknowledged the contribution of relationships to the implementation of strategies. Consistent with the concept of fit in the literature, participants pointed out the strategic use of relationships that corresponded to organizational strategies. When applying this to EOR in the globalization context, I found that the cultivation strategies of EOR, types of EOR, and outcomes of EOR reflected the demands of globalization strategies. Companies following different strategies, although they used similar relationship cultivation strategies, focused on different dimensions of them. Finally, data suggested that both societal and organizational cultures influenced EOR. The interaction between societal and organizational cultures was influenced by other factors, the most important one being different orientations in globalization strategies. Overall, this study showed that 1) the value of public relations can be demonstrated through its linkages to organizational strategies, which facilitated its participation in strategic management; 2) EOR cultivation that corresponded with globalization strategies contributed to the implementation of these strategies; and 3) refined understanding and cultivation of EOR can benefit from an examination of perspectives from both managers and employees. The study also provided practitioners in multinational companies with practical guidance in cultivating relationships with local employees.Item Factors Affecting Entrapment Bias: Justification Needs, Face Concerns and Personal Networks(2006-04-27) Karavanov, Anna; Cai, Deborah A.; Communication; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This study explores the link between the entrapment bias and the concept of face (self- and other-positive) and internal and external justification processes. It examines how face-saving concerns and justification needs moderate the entrapment bias in accountability condition (i.e., presence of constituencies and reporting requirements). In addition, this research examines whether the size and influence of personal networks is associated with face-saving behaviors that, in turn, affect entrapment. The research also explores whether overall face concerns have an effect on internal and external self-justification. Finally, the study explored messages used by individuals in a scenario potentially leading to entrapment. Respondents in the study were 236 undergraduate students majoring in communication enrolled in a large East Coast university. Study participants were assigned to one of the four conditions: (1) constituency, reporting; (2) constituency, no reporting; (3) no constituency; reporting; (4) no constituency; no reporting. The current investigation did not support the findings from previous studies that suggest that justification processes and face concerns lead to entrapment. This study found that only internal self-justification and other-positive face concerns are related to entrapment, but instead of contributing to entrapment, these aspects prevent individuals from becoming entrapped. Personal networks were demonstrated to have positive effect on both self- and other-positive face concerns, providing empirical support for the value of using personal networks as a predictor of face goals. However, personal networks did not contribute to entrapment. Finally, the study examined messages used by individuals in a situation leading to entrapment, suggesting that when individuals try to explain their behavior, they tend to use causal accounts. Overall, this study has made a contribution to the field of communication by identifying processes and conditions (e.g., concern for other-positive face, internal self-justification, reporting requirement, no direct observation by constituency, keeping clear record of performance success or failure) that may prevent entrapment bias from occurring. These processes and conditions could potentially improve the outcomes of negotiation with the use of effective communication strategies.Item Public Relations and Branding in Health Communication Programs: A Case Study of a Successful Campaign(2006-05-07) Long, Kristen H; Aldoory, Linda; Communication; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The purpose of the current study is to better understand how public relations health campaign programs can successfully incorporate branding strategies to improve program effectiveness. In this case study of the Heart Truth campaign, the excellence theory of public relations and social marketing theory provided a framework for integrating concepts from the literature on branding, marketing, and public health campaigns into current knowledge of public relations perspectives. The research questions were examined through a content analysis of internal materials and interviews with the campaign managers. The findings of this study contribute to our current understanding of how public relations theory, social marketing theory, and branding principles impact the effectiveness of health campaigns. The practical implications of this study suggest that brands should be viewed as an asset and key tool in health campaigns; brands help achieve campaign goals when they are strategically planned and consistently implemented through a process that involves formative research in creating and managing brand identity, positioning, and awareness.Item Communicant Activeness, Cognitive Entrepreneurship, and A Situational Theory of Problem Solving(2006-05-26) Kim, Jeong-Nam; Grunig, James E; Communication; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation presents a situational theory of problem solving that highlights distinctive communicative and cognitive features in human problem solving. Its purpose is to provide a simple and useful, but not atheoretical, account of communication behavior and the cognitive approaches that we adopt during problematic situations. In the conceptualization, I introduce a new concept, communicant activeness in problem solving (CAPS), which has three domains in communicant activeness to explain not only when people voluntarily learn and share information but also how they choose certain information as more relevant than other information. The three domains are information selection (information forefending and information permitting), information transmission (information forwarding and information sharing), and information acquisition (information seeking and information processing). I then use the focal construct, communicant activeness in problem solving, as a dependent variable in the new situational theory of problem solving. I also propose another new concept, cognitive entrepreneurship in problem solving (CEPS). It describes cognitive strategies that we take to reason about a solution in some problematic situations. Depending on the situation, we adopt a more or less entrepreneurial mindset. This construct contains four distinct but correlated dimensions: cognitive retrogression, cognitive multilateralism, cognitive commitment, and cognitive suspension. For conceptual convenience, I named the more entrepreneurial approach the cognitive alpha strategy and the less entrepreneurial approach the cognitive omega strategy. The construct of cognitive entrepreneurship becomes another dependent variable to be accounted for by the independent variables in the situational theory. To explain the cognitive and communicative dependent variables in problem solving, I use four situational antecedent conditions from the situational theory of publics: problem recognition, constraint recognition, level of involvement, and referent criterion (J. Grunig, 1968, 1997). I refine these antecedent concepts to accommodate several conceptual issues found from the past research of the situational theory of publics (e.g., the multicollinearity issue among independent variables). I also introduce the concept of situational motivation in problem solving that explains motivational effects on subsequent cognitive approaches and communicative behaviors. These revised situational antecedent variables jointly explain 1) how and why people communicate and 2) how people use unique cognitive strategies when they approach problem resolution. I called this emerging theory the situational theory of problem solving (STOPS). This dissertation elaborates 1) a conceptual model of communicant activeness in problem solving; 2) another conceptual model of cognitive entrepreneurship in problem solving; 3) a situational and motivational account for when, why, and how people communicate and are cognitively unique in a problematic situation. It then empirically tests a set of hypotheses and propositions that pertain to new concepts and the situational theory of problem solving. This dissertation advances conceptual understanding about how communication behavior and cognitive approaches affect our problem-solving efforts (descriptive theory building). It also contributes to finding a way to improve our adaptability in dealing with life problems (normative theory building). The new concepts and theory, CAPS, CEPS, and STOPS, offer some solutions for theoretical and practical problems in communication and several communication subfields.