Click on the following links. Please note these will open in a new window.

Journal Article 11.1: Ngai, C. S. B., & Jin, Y. (2016). The effectiveness of crisis communication strategies on Sina Weibo in relation to Chinese publics’ acceptance of these strategies. Journal of Business and Technical Communication, 30(4), 451-494.

Abstract: With their timely, interactive nature and wide public access, social media have provided a new platform that empowers stakeholders and corporations to interact in crisis communication. This study investigates crisis communication strategies and stakeholders’ emotions in response to a real corporate crisis-the crash of Asiana Airlines Flight 214-in order to enhance our understanding of socially mediated crisis communication. The authors examine 8,530 responses from Chinese stakeholders to crisis communication on the Chinese microblogging Web site Sina Weibo. Their findings suggest that the integrated use of accommodative and defensive communication strategies in the early stage of postcrisis communication prevented escalation of the crisis.

Journal Article 11.2: Ledford, C. J. W. (2012). A theory-based guide to selecting traditional, new, and social media in strategic social marketing. Social Marketing Quarterly, 18(3), 175-186.

Abstract: Many health promotion campaigns are designed to communicate complex, potentially ambiguous messages. The strategic communication stages of formative research, strategy, tactics, and evaluation provide campaign guidance for communicating messages, but less direction is available for the specific tactics of channel selection and message delivery. The research question explored here is what channel characteristics should campaign designers consider and assess when selecting the most effective channels for disseminating their messages. A review of extant literature of channel selection theory informed the application of media richness theory and the concept of medium control. Synthesizing this theory and concept provides a typology of channels from which to select channels for communicators as they negotiate the media landscape. Often with limited resources and budgets, health communicators must make critical choices about what channels to use in disseminating their messages. While new and social media offer exciting opportunities, communicators must consider the media’s ability to transmit potentially ambiguous messages.

Journal Article 11.3: Toledano, M., (2016). Advocating for reconciliation: Public relations, activism, advocacy and dialogue. Public Relations Inquiry, 5(3), 277-294.

Abstract: Traditionally, the public relations (PR) literature on activism tended to focus on organisational perspectives and organisational responses to activist group pressure. More recent studies looked also at PR practitioners as activists within their organisations or at their role in the service of activist groups. Ihlen and Verhoeven (2009) admitted that they “would like to see studies of this practice [activist PR] also become a “natural” part of public relations” (p. 334). This article responds to them by researching the complex and diverse practice of activist PR. Using narrative inquiry to study a professional case, it demonstrates how, even when performed by the same practitioner, advocacy, persuasive strategy and facilitation of genuine dialogues may be used at the same time and ethically to achieve organisational goals and to seek social change. Through a case study, it foregrounds specific features of activist practice, practitioners’ motivation and their willingness to pay high costs for promoting a social cause. Although based on a PR activist experience in the context of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, the article suggests that the conclusions would be relevant to activist PR in many parts of the world.