Communication

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End date: 2009Subject: search.filters.subject.public relations

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    How teen girls and parents make meaning of a cervical cancer vaccine campaign: Toward a feminist, multicultural critique of health communication
    (2008-12-17) 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 teen girls and parents of teen girls make meaning of an HPV/cervical cancer vaccine communication campaign. Factors that were considered in investigating meaning-making were personal, familial, educational, sociopolitical, and technological and media factors. Other cultural concepts explored were identity, difference, communication preferences, and medicalization. Using a cultural study approach and feminist, qualitative methods, 40 teens between the ages of 13- and 18-years old and 14 parents of teen girls were interviewed using focus groups, dyad interviews, and individual interviews. The study employed the grounded theory approach to data analysis. Overall, parents and teens hold resolute beliefs about the Gardasil vaccine and media about it, and participants are divided as to their favorability toward the vaccine and its promotion to them. More specifically, the data suggest that teen girls largely make meaning of the HPV/cervical cancer vaccine campaign through the sociopolitical and mediated relationships in their lives, and in particular, how the girls perceive and act around difference in their lives largely contribute to the ways they view communication about sexual health topics like HPV, cervical cancer, and the vaccine. Differently, parents largely make meaning of the campaign through the personal, familial, and educational aspects of their lives, for how they understand their roles as parents reflects a contradiction between their sexual lives growing up compared to their perceptions of how the media represent sexuality and health threats to their daughters. Overall, the data suggest that this campaign provides some empowering ideas and opportunities for teen girls and parents. However, the data also largely suggest that campaigns as such complicate not only decisions teen girls and parents must make about teen girls' health, but such campaigns also obscure how teen girls and parents know themselves individually, in relationship to one another, and in relationship with social and authoritative bodies outside their comfort zones. These data confirm previous studies findings in public relations, feminist media, and cervical cancer intervention research. The data also extend and combine extant research about culture, women's health topics, and communication campaigns in ways that suggest a feminist, cultural-centered health communication critique that encourages communicators to wholly reconsider traditional approaches to the origination, development, deployment, and involvement of communication campaigns involving women and teen girls and important health topics to them. Implications for health communication practice as well as feminist methodology are considered for similar future projects.
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    When the Organization-Public Relationship is More Than Just Calculation: What We Can Learn from the Case Study of an Exemplar Community-based Intervention
    (2008-05-09) Austin, Lucinda; Aldoory, Linda; Communication; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    Working with publics and organizations at the community level has become increasingly important for government and non-governmental organizations, although, little is known about how to foster development of these relationships. Through the case study of an exemplar relationship between a national organization and a community-based organization, organization-public relationship theory is used to explore relationship type, antecedents, cultivation strategies, and relationship outcomes. Methods within the case study include in-depth interviews with organizational members, participant observation, and documentation. Strong support is found for the covenantal relationship type; capacity, readiness, and climate antecedents; cultivation strategies of networking, sharing of tasks, and access; and all relationship outcomes. Admiration, received support as an additional outcome and as a relational antecedent. Additionally, themes of customer service and researching and understanding publics emerged as cultivation strategies. This study has implications for forming relationships with publics and organizations at the community level, especially in health and social contexts.
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    The Roles of Internal Public Relations, Leadership Style, and Workplace Spirituality in Building Leader-Employee Relationships and Facilitating Relational Outcomes
    (2008-04-25) McCown, Nancy; Aldoory, Linda; Communication; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    Through a qualitative case study, this dissertation's purpose was to explore the confluence of internal public relations, leadership styles, and organizational culture--specifically in a spiritually based workplace--in order to better understand their influence on leader-employee relationship management. The organization researched was a bank with approximately 110 employees including several branch locations. Data collection triangulation included in-depth interviews, participant observation, and document analysis of relevant internal publications and communications. Analysis employed grounded theory strategies using the constant comparison method. Results indicated that this confluence, driven by the founder/top leader's faith and vision, enacted authentic/transformational/principle-centered/servant leadership style, spiritually based organizational culture, and open, two-way symmetrical communication to foster intentional, positive, people-driven cultural maintenance, interpersonal communication, and employee empowerment/growth strategies. In turn, this hybrid environment fostered strong relationship building between employees and organizational leaders as well as between employees across the organization. The confluence also promoted organizational unity as well as intentional leadership development among employees through both specific career goal planning and opportunities for honing individual employees' leadership skills. These outcomes feed back into the leadership, culture, and communication processes to perpetuate a cycle of organizational success. This study extended previous research in internal public relations, leadership styles, and organizational culture by examining their confluence and resulting outcomes to produce a model for internal public relationship building. Ultimately, this model and the understanding enhanced by it offers value to organizational leaders and public relations practitioners as they seek to build more successful leader-employee relationships as well as relationships between employees across the organization through heightened trust, control mutuality, job satisfaction, and commitment. The research also offers value by describing a model that encourages greater empowerment and leadership development among employees at various organizational levels, potentially serving to increase productivity and reach organizational goals.
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    Relationship Management and Member Retention: A Case Study of an Advocacy Organization
    (2007-12-05) Derville, Tiffany Lynn; Aldoory, Linda; Communication; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    A case study of a grassroots advocacy organization was conducted to test and expand relationship theory and to explore perceptions about the relationship between members and the organization. The case study included interviews with 39 staff members at national, state, and affiliate levels; 58 members; and 5 former members, for a total of 102 participants. Additional methods included 49 hours of participant observation and an examination of both internal and external documents. The primary relationship type between the organization and its members was communal, and strategies were presented to cultivate communal relationships. This study empirically justified the critic's perspective for classifying relationship types due to one case in which three relationship types emerged, depending on whether the former member's, affiliate staff member's, or my interpretation was used, which also resulted in a new relationship type. Due to these differences in perceptions, this study used the terms intended and perceived when identifying relationship types, which is a clarification for future studies to use. Cultivation strategies were organized in a new way by classifying them as either organizational management strategies or as interpersonal strategies. This study also discussed cultivation strategies by characterizing some as particularly important to either the early stage of the relationship or to the mature stage of it. Several new cultivation strategies were presented, such as priming, problem parking, and insulation. This study also opened a new area for relationship theory through a conceptualization and exploration of relationship stresses. This category is organized by stresses that are internal to the organization and those that are external to it. Examples of relationship stresses include the emotion tax, relationship speeding, and relationship stalling. Cultivation strategies are suggested for mitigating relationship stresses. In addition, this study produced significant insights outside of the research questions by identifying new relationship outcomes, such as co-production, and by claiming capacity to be a higher goal than survival for systems theory. Furthermore, this study clarified the difference between an advocacy and an activist organization. This study also provided rich insights for public relations practitioners, such as presenting strategies to diversify an organization's membership.
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    Identity, power, and difference: The management of roles and self among public relations practitioners
    (2007-10-09) Tindall, Natalie T.J.; Aldoory, Linda; Communication; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    Public relations is important to organizations because this function has boundary spanning roles and responsibilities. Public relations practitioners work between the organization and various publics to communicate messages in an effort to inform and influence the organization's leadership and dominant coalition and to inform and effect change among the organization's stakeholders. According to public relations theory, the communicators in the public relations department must match the diversity in the internal and external populations the organizations serve (e.g., L. A. Grunig, J. E. Grunig, & Dozier, 2000; Sha & Ford, 2007). However, public relations has been called a "lily-white profession" (Layton, 1981) and has been classified as "gay industry" (Woods & Lucas, 1993). Recent surveys about the field have indicated modest changes in the profession's demographic makeup (cf. 2005 PR Week Diversity Survey). The aim of this dissertation research is to examine and explore how power and identity merge and diverge in the everyday, professional lives of minority public relations practitioners. This research identified how these practitioners navigate through organizational networks, how they manage identity in their organizations, and how these practitioners interpret the concept of power. To recognize how practitioners interpret their experiences in organizations and to examine the meaning-making of practitioners, I needed the resulting product to be descriptive data that could be unraveled and clarified, then bracketed back to the Excellence Theory of public relations. Therefore, I utilized qualitative methodology. I conducted in-depth interviews with 51 public relations practitioners of various backgrounds--African American and Hispanic heterosexual practitioners; white lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) practitioners; and African American and Hispanic gay male practitioners. The findings revealed some particularly distinct themes. Black and Hispanic public relations practitioners and lesbian, gay male, and bisexual (LGB) public relations practitioners encountered heterosexism, racism, sexism, and occasionally all of these prejudices at the same time. As research participants encountered these barriers, they said they simultaneously resisted and enacted countermeasures to avoid those pitfalls. Power was perceived as having access to knowledge; access and control of financial resources; holding a seat in the dominant coalition; and having a high-ranking position in the organization. Participants achieved power and empowerment in their organizational roles through various avenues--avenues such as mentoring, seeking social support, and reaching out.
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    Black women's meaning-making of HIV/AIDS campaigns: A Black feminist approach to the impact of race on the reception of targeted health communication
    (2007-05-09) Curry, Tiphane' Patrice; Aldoory, Linda; Communication; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    The purpose of this exploratory study was to understand how Black women make meaning of HIV/AIDS communication. This study combines Black feminist epistemology with the situational theory of publics in an examination of Black females' meaning making of HIV/AIDS communication. Twenty in-depth interviews were conducted with Black women under the age of 35. Findings suggest targeted publics may choose not to process messages because they feel the messages inaccurately represent their identity, or not to seek information because they do not want to face judgment from others who associate their identity with a health problem because of targeted messages. This study added to the situational theory of publics by proposing an emerging model describing the relationship between identity and the variables of the situational theory.
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    "There is nothing so practical as a good theory," or is there?: Public relations practitioners' perspectives on public relations scholarship and its usefulness
    (2007-04-29) Becker, Lindsay Ellen; Toth, Elizabeth L.; Communication; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    The purpose of this study was to better understand the disconnect between public relations scholars and practitioners from the practitioner point-of-view using qualitative in-depth interviews with 20 public relations practitioners. The study examines the extent to which they make meaning of public relations scholarship and its usefulness. Findings suggest that practitioners are largely unaware of public relations scholarship and generally do not find academic research useful. However, practitioners did consider academic research important for solving problems and thought it could become more useful if scholars translate it. This study identifies the importance of forging relationships between public relations scholars and practitioners. Practical implications include making academic research user-friendly and having public relations scholars provide outreach to practitioners.
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    Public Relations in a "Jolted" Political Environment: An Exploratory Study of Boundary-Spanning Government Relations Professionals in Maryland
    (2006-05-30) Tuite, Leah Simone; Grunig, Larissa A; Communication; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    This qualitative study examined government relations, an academically underexplored specialized form of public relations. It explored the individual lived experiences of boundary-spanning government relations professionals (GRPs), those organizational members who manage organizational interdependence with political stakeholders, in organizations enduring a major "jolt" (A.D. Meyer, 1982) in the political environment. The jolt in question is the election of Robert L. Ehrlich, Jr., in November 2002, as Maryland's first Republican governor in nearly four decades. The study then explained the implications of this jolt for GRPs, their work, and their organizations. Further, the study considered those experiences and implications in light of whether the jolt was perceived as a boon or a bane to an informant's organization. From the conceptual framework built from public relations and organizational theories, the study specifically looked at GRPs' perceptions of the jolt and the political environment, organizational worldviews, communication practices, their work activities and responsibilities, and organizational political legitimacy. Active interviews were conducted with forty "informants" who functioned as either in-house or for-contract GRPs for IRS-designated 501c nonprofit organizations in Maryland. Among other findings, the analysis demonstrated the ways in which partisan conflict among political stakeholders, a polarized political environment, and changes in organizations' political legitimacy affected in the work-lives of informants. Of greatest concern to them were the jolt's effects on their networks of social and professional contacts ¾ their social circles (Kadushin, 1968). Social circles were found to be the ultimate linchpins to GRPs' effectiveness and success. The analysis also revealed that dialogue, used in the course of jointly implementing the personal influence and cultural interpreter models of public relations, best described both the positive and normative practices of government relations. This study made significant contributions to the body of knowledge on public relations and government relations. It advanced a positive-normative theory of government relations, resolved speculation about why government relations is an anomaly to the Excellence theory of public relations (J.E. Grunig, 1992), filled gaps in the scholarly literature, and suggested organizational justice (Thibaut & Walker, 1975) as a conceptual framework for understanding symmetry and dialogic processes in government relations.
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    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.
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    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.