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Journal Article 12.1: Waller, R. L., & Conaway, R. N. (2011). Framing and counter framing the issue of corporate social responsibility: The communication strategies of nikebiz.com. Journal of Business Communication, 48(1), 83-106.

Abstract: This article reports on the communication strategies that sports shoe giant Nike used to successfully protect its corporate social responsibility (CSR) reputation during the late 1990s. The article opens with a brief discussion of CSR and its critical importance to transnationals such as Nike. The opening also includes four research questions guiding this study. The article then discusses why frame analysis offers such a potentially rich approach to analyzing public relations controversies like this one. The Analysis section of the article examines how an anti-Nike coalition initially succeeded in imposing negative frames on two CSR issues and how this framing generated highly negative media coverage. The remainder of this section provides a detailed commentary on eight web texts from Nikebiz.com and how the framing strategy behind these texts enabled the company ultimately to defend, even to enhance its CSR reputation.

Journal Article 12.2: Hayes, R. A., Waddell, J. C., & Smudde, P. M. (2017). Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims: Explicating the public tragedy as a public relations tragedy. Public Relations Inquiry, 6(3), 253-274.

Abstract: A tragedy is substantively different than an organizational crisis. Tragedies, whether man-made or natural disasters, have a considerably greater and singular impact than a traditional industry crisis, and current typologies of crises fail to account for organizations being impacted by and being obligated to respond to events of which they are neither the victim nor the perpetrator. Thus, tragedies require explication and, possibly, a different paradigm for public relations and crisis communication, both in industry response and in academic scholarship. The goals of this article are threefold: First, use interdisciplinary scholarship to introduce and define the concept of public tragedy within the scope of public relations and crisis communication. Second, to discuss the motivations for and role of organizational involvement in the conversation surrounding a public tragedy, particularly for third-party organizations not directly impacted by an event, including the consequences and affordances of social media in tragedy response. Finally, the goal is to present recommendations for third-party public relations involvement in a tragedy.

Journal Article 12.3: Kleinnijenhuis, J., Schultz, F., Utz, S., & Oegema, D. (2013). The mediating role of the news in the BP oil spill crisis 2010: How U.S. news is influenced by public relations and in turn influences public awareness, foreign news, and the share price. Communication Research, 42(3), 408-428.

Abstract: The paper explains antecedents and consequences of news during the BP oil spill crisis by analyzing newspaper and internet coverage as well as financial indicators. The study establishes the roles of routines in financial journalism and of BP’s public relations efforts in building the U.S. media agenda. The U.S. media agenda in turn bears a classic agenda-setting effect on public awareness, an intermedia agenda-setting effect on foreign media, and a stakeholder agenda-setting effect on financial markets. A second-level attribute agenda-setting post-hoc study reveals that these first-order agenda setting effects depend on the resonance of specific problems and solutions with specific interests and a specific frame of mind. Financial stakeholders, for example, reacted negatively to news about judicial accountability, but positively to press releases about BP’s skills in implementing solutions. The findings contradict research which states that the news in classic media merely mirrors share prices.