Diversity in Public Relations: The Implications of a Broad Definition for PR Practice
Caitlin M. Wills, Ph.D., University of North Georgia
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In this research study, Dr. Caitlin Wills conducted a content analysis of the websites of the 50 top global PR firms to determine how they are defining diversity (and the similarities to the PRSA definition), how they have been communicating these definitions to the public, and how they are implementing initiatives in their organizations.
Some of the recommendations Wills suggest include:
- Firms should adopt a definition of diversity with specific criteria that includes both traditional and broad characteristics of diversity.
- Firms should show their commitment to diversity by communicating their definition and associated activities to clients, employees and the public across organizational communication.
- If the field is moving toward broad definitions of diversity, initiatives need to be expanded to address career-related differences and to align to the criteria identified in the definition, which will allow assessment to determine effectiveness.
Read more about the research findings and how the top 50 public relations firms defined diversity within their organizations and how to better address diversity in the workplace.
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Confronting Whiteness in Public Relations Campaigns and Research with Women
Jennifer Vardeman-Winter, Ph.D., University of Houston
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This abstract is summarized by IPR from the
original journal article
published in the Journal of Public Relations Research.
Dr. Jennifer Vardeman-Winter at the University of Houston applies the theory of
Whiteness (defined as "a location of structural advantage, of race privilege … [and] refers to a set of cultural practices that are usually unmarked and unnamed") to better understand how public relations professionals can identify the relationship between the public relations practice and race.
Utilizing this concept of
Whiteness, Dr. Vardeman-Winter analyzed 82 women's perceptions of race portrayals in public health messages and analyzed how researchers problematize
Whiteness in research with publics. The major themes surrounding the women's problematizing of race in health campaigns included the disembodiment of race, reductionist assumptions, and the fetishization of racial diversity, while agency issues, vulnerability issues, and performance issues were all themes that arose when researching how scholars problematize
Whiteness in research with publics.
The authors concluded:
"The nature of public relations comes into conflict with its practice when publics express that they feel distanced from the media representations sent to them in campaign messages. A more dire consequence public relations practitioners face is when publics reject messages and organizations because they feel messages 'are speaking to another group of people already.”
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The "Spiral of Advocacy:" How State-Based LGBT Advocacy Organizations Use Ground-Up Public Communication Strategies in Their Campaigns for the “Equality Agenda”
Dean Mundy, Ph.D., University of Oregon
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Dr. Dean Mundy at the University of Oregon conducted in-depth interviews with leaders of statewide LGBT advocacy organizations in Massachusetts, Ohio, North Carolina, Georgia, Texas, Iowa, and Washington, as well as the executive director of the Equality Federation, to examine the various communication strategies used in political campaigns and to provide insights into how social advocacy could influence the democratic process at local, state, and national levels.
The interviews aimed to answer the question:
"How do state-based LGBT advocacy organizations establish legitimacy and create collective understanding for movement issues and goals among diverse stakeholders?"
Some key findings include:
- LGBT community-based spokespersons conveying personal stories are more important than the use of statistics.
- The perfect messenger often is more important than the perfect message.
- Change occurs from the ground up through a “spiral of advocacy"; real change requires a critical mass of support locally.
- These findings reinforce public relations’ role as managing organizational legitimacy.
- PR can be used as a tool for democracy and social change.
Read more to learn about the communication and outreach strategies used by state-based LGBT advocacy organizations.
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What Are the Personality Traits Most Strongly Associated with Being Environmentally Conscious
Alistair Raymond Bryce Soutter, Ph.D.; Timothy C. Bates, Ph.D.; and Rene Mottus, Ph.D., University of Edinburgh
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Alistair Raymond Bryce Soutter, Ph.D., and colleagues at the University of Edinburgh conducted a meta-analysis and examined the data from 38 papers, comprising 44,993 participants from 19 countries across four continents, to discover if there is a correlation between particular personality traits and pro-environmental attitudes and behaviors.
The papers included in the meta-analysis used either the Big Five (extraversion, neuroticism, agreeableness, conscientiousness and openness) personality test or a test based on the HEXACO model (which includes those five domains, plus a measure of honesty-humility) to evaluate the participants' personality traits.
Some of the key findings include:
- The personality trait of "openness" had the strongest association with pro-environmental attitudes and behaviour.
- People high in openness are also more willing to adopt new ideas — so they may be more likely to buy an electric car, say, or install solar panels.
- "Agreeableness" and "conscientiousness" were also associated with environmentalism, though to a lesser extent.
- Agreeable people tend to show more empathy and compassion.
- Conscientious people, meanwhile, might be expected to more closely follow socially appropriate norms such as recycling. However, people who are driven to follow social norms may in some cases be discouraged from pro-environmental behaviours.
- To reach people who are less open to new experiences, it might be helpful to highlight environmentally friendly practices which are already established, rather than new.
- While factors such as age, social norms, childhood experiences with nature, political ideology are linked to variations in environmental attitudes and behaviours, this new study confirms that personality factors can be important as well.
Read more to learn how personality type influences pro-environmental attitudes and behaviours.
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How Hong Kong Avoided a Complete Lockdown During COVID-19
Benjamin J Cowling, Ph.D.; Sheikh Taslim Ali, Ph.D.; Tiffany W Y Ng, Ph.D.; et al. WHO Collaborating Centre for Infectious Disease Epidemiology and Control School of Public Health, Hong Kong
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Dr. Benjamin Cowling and researchers at the WHO Collaborating Centre for Infectious Disease Epidemiology and Control School of Public Health examined the effect of various public health measures implemented in Hong Kong that aimed to suppress local transmission of COVID-19.
Researchers analyzed data from laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 cases, influenza surveillance data in non-hospitalized patients, and influenza hospitalizations of children to estimate the reproduction rate of COVID-19 and influenza AH1N1 to determine an approximate transmissibility rate over time. They then analyzed people's attitudes toward COVID-19 along with population behavior changes using telephone surveys conducted between January 20 - March 13, 2020.
Some key findings include:
- Influenza transmission declined substantially after the implementation of social distancing measures and changes in population behaviours in late January, with a 44% reduction in transmissibility in the community.
- Similarly, a 33% reduction in transmissibility was seen based on pediatric hospitalization rates before the start of the school closures and after.
- Based on the telephone interviews, researchers learned that 85% of those surveyed reported avoiding crowded places while almost all (99%) reported wearing face masks when leaving home by the third survey period in March.
The authors concluded:
“Our study shows that non-pharmaceutical interventions (including border restrictions, quarantine and isolation, distancing, and changes in population behaviour) were associated with reduced transmission of COVID-19 in Hong Kong, and are also likely to have substantially reduced influenza transmission in early February, 2020. By quickly implementing public health measures, Hong Kong has demonstrated that COVID-19 transmission can be effectively contained without resorting to the highly disruptive complete lock-down adopted by China, the USA, and Western European countries."
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COVID-19 Communication Management in Spain: Exploring the Effect of Information-Seeking Behavior and Message Reception in Public’s Evaluation
Ángeles Moreno, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Ph.D.; Cristina Fuentes-Lara, Ph.D., Universidad Francisco de Vitoria; and Cristina Navarro, Ph.D., Gulf University for Science and Technology
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The researchers assessed how information channels and sources influence the public’s information-seeking behaviors, and the perception of government’s crisis response strategies in Spain during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Using a snowball sampling technique, the authors conducted an online survey between March 14 and April 14, 2020, which corresponded to the first four weeks after a State of Alarm was issued in Spain. The questionnaire focused on respondents' information-seeking behavior, trust in different sources and channels, perception of government communication management, and message retention.
Some key findings include:
- Respondents received most of their information regarding the pandemic from television (86.2%), WhatsApp (77.6%), online newspapers (75%), and radio (42.6%). Magazines (7.4%), Telegram (5.7%), and web/blogs specialized in alternative therapies (4.6%) were the least used.
- People under the age of 29 got more information than the rest of the age groups from Twitter (63%) and websites/blogs from public institutions (48%). Older participants reported a highly significant use of television (90%) and a very limited consumption of information from social media and online media channels.
- People who were mainly informed through Twitter (53.4%) and Facebook (52.5%) strongly believed that the government’s communication caused social alarm, and confused the population (50.7 and 49.5%, respectively). However, most audiences for all media agree with the statement, “The government has not revealed the whole truth,” especially Twitter users (57.1%) and print press readers (56.7%).
- 56% of women surveyed believe that the government has not revealed the "whole truth" and that it has generated social alarm, compared to 39.6% of men.
Read more to learn how different media consumption channels impact information-seeking behaviors, retention of governmental messages, and more.
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