Bryan H. Reber

How Activist Groups Use Websites in Media Relations: Evaluating Online Press Rooms

Content analysis of activist organization Websites determined how activists use online resources in media relations. Seventy-four activist Websites were analyzed. About one-third (32.4%) included organized online press rooms. The most common media relations materials were organizational history (70.3%), organizational mission statement (54.1%), organizational publications (47.3%), press releases (33.8%), and policy papers (31.1%). Activist Websites did not provide strong dialogic features for journalists, but dialogic features were more available for the general public. Theoretical implications are examined and 6 recommendations are made for improving online activist press relations.

Finding influence: examining the role of influence in public relations practice

Purpose – To examine how public relations practitioners define influence and where they find influence.Design/methodology/approach – Depth interviews with 162 public relations practitioners.Findings – Public relations professionals defined influence in terms of shaping decisions, having access, and being heard. They said they were most influential in crisis situations and when preparing communication messages or plans. They are least influential in strategic decision making, when they are perceived as technicians, and in interactions with senior executives. The most common influence tactic used by these professionals was rational influence.Practical implications – The authors suggest eight tenets regarding influence for public relations practitioners.Originality/value – Practitioners have long noted the need for increased influence across the organization. But, there is little scholarship that examines just how public relations pracitioners should increase their influence and ascent to organizational deci...

You Can't Homogenize Success in Communication Management: PR Leaders Take Diverse Paths to Top

Interviews were conducted with 97 high-level U.S. communications managers to assess factors related to professional success in public relations. The executives most commonly defined success in managerial and strategic terms and indicated that excellent communication skills and a proactive nature were crucial to success in the field. However, the results suggested that success follows diverse pathways, which appear to be linked by 10 patterns or themes. These include the power of performance, varied experiences, dense networks of relationships, complex communication skill sets, and passion for work and the profession. Some modest gender differences were noted. The study captures perceptions about success among top public relations leaders, a group little represented in the literature on this topic. The research also bears implications for education, practice, and organizations that seek to hire and develop successful communications professionals.

The New Dynamic in Corporate Media Relations: How Fortune 500 Companies Are Using Virtual Press Rooms to Engage the Press

This study examines the use of dialogic components of Fortune 500 company Web site press rooms. A content analysis of all Fortune 500 company press sites examined site content. Results showed that corporations have increased their Web presence, and that dialogic components on the Web are improving for journalists’ use. This study also suggests that operationalized elements of dialogic theory as it applies to the Web should be continually revisited as technology develops.

Impossible Odds: Contributions of Legal Counsel and Public Relations Practitioners in a Hostile bid for Conrail Inc. by Norfolk Southern Corporation

The contingency theory of accommodation in public relations advances the role of public relations beyond its publicity and media relations roots to a crucial place in conflict management. In advancing the theory, Cameron and his colleagues have identified a matrix of variables that might affect an organizations stance toward an individual public. Contingency theory offers a more complex and realistic portrayal of changing public relations activity along a continuum from pure advocacy to pure accommodation of a given public at a given time. Further, proscriptive variables (e.g., legal factors, regulatory agencies) add parsimony to the theory by establishing ground rules that affect a stance toward a public at a given time. The following case study, an in-depth analysis of Norfolk Southerns hostile takeover of Conrail, illustrates the dynamism of conflict management in public relations as well as the proscriptions on how an organization handles conflicts.

Mythic Battles: Examining the Lawyer-Public Relations Counselor Dynamic

Long considered adversarial, relationships between public relations practitioners and lawyers were analyzed via Q methodology and depth interviews. Subjective attitudes were measured regarding strategies in dealing with the public in times of organizational crisis and how the individuals viewed their professional counterparts. Analysis employed concepts central to coorientation theory. Lawyers more accurately projected the public relations response than vice versa. Relationships seem to be all-important, and the proverbial law-public relations conflict may have taken on nearly mythic proportions.

The Internet and Litigation Public Relations

The Internet is an emerging new tool in litigation public relations. This article explores this new phenomenon of personal litigation Web sites by content analyzing the Web sites of 3 celebrities who were involved in high-profile litigation at the time: Martha Stewart, Richard Scrushy, and Michael Jackson. The analysis revealed that traditional litigation public relations standards transfer well to the Internet and suggests that such Web sites are a promising means for disseminating and controlling a clients message. Implications for public relations theory, particularly the role of asymmetrical communication in public relations, are discussed. Suggestions for litigation public relations Web sites are proposed.

Roles of interpersonal and media socialization agents in adolescent self-reported health literacy: a health socialization perspective

This study proposes a health socialization model and applies it to examine direct, relative and mediating roles of interpersonal and media health socialization agents in predicting adolescent self-reported health literacy. We conducted a paper-and-pencil survey among 452 seventh graders in rural and urban school districts. Our regression analysis results show that both interpersonal and media socialization agents are significantly and positively related to adolescent health literacy. Media socialization agents seem to play a strong role in health literacy orientation, not much weaker than those of interpersonal socialization agents. The proposed health socialization model could contribute to the literature on how adolescents acquire health-related information and channels through which they are most receptive.

Tweeting as Health Communication: Health Organizations’ Use of Twitter for Health Promotion and Public Engagement

This study examined how major health organizations use Twitter for disseminating health information, building relationships, and encouraging actions to improve health. The sampled organizations were the American Heart Association, American Cancer Society, and American Diabetes Association. A content analysis was conducted on 1,583 tweets to examine these organizations’ use of Twitters interactive features and to understand the message functions and topics of their tweets. The numbers of retweets and favorites were also measured as engagement indicators and compared by different message functions. The results revealed that all of the organizations posted original tweets most, but they differed in the degree to which they used the retweet and reply functions. Hashtags and hyperlinks were the most frequently used interactive tools. The majority of the tweets were about organization-related topics, whereas personal health–related tweets represented a relatively small portion of the sample. Followers were most likely to like and retweet personal health action-based messages.

Managing from the middle

Purpose – This paper aims to analyze the opinions of newsletter editors in the Sierra Club in an effort to understand the roles an editor and newsletter content play in building relationships in an activist setting. There are two goals: to examine editorial decision making in an activist organization; and to examine the role of interpersonal interaction as part of an organizational‐public relationship (OPR).Design/methodology/approach – In‐depth interviews with 14 Sierra Club newsletter editors examined issues related to newsletter content choice, issue frames, sources, and mission.Findings – The findings illustrate normative practices for grassroots gatekeepers. Editors saw their role as facilitating relationship building and activism among members. This has theoretical implications for OPR theory by suggesting a new facilitative relationship type.Research limitations/implications – As all qualitative research, the findings of this study are not generalizable. This study is further limited because it foc...