Research

This study investigates how the emotional tone of food safety risk communication messages predicts message virality on social media. Through a professional Internet content tracking service, we gathered news articles written about the 2018 romaine lettuce recall published online between October 30 and November 29, 2018. We retrieved the number of times each article was shared on Twitter and Pinterest, and the number of engagements (shares, likes, and comments) for each article on Facebook and Reddit. We randomly selected 10% of the articles (n = 377) and characterized the emotional tone of each article using machine learning, including emotional characteristics such as discrete emotions, emotional valence, arousal, and dominance. Conveying negative valence, low arousal, and high dominance, as well as anger and sadness emotions were associated with greater virality of articles on social media. Implications of these findings for risk communication in the age of social media are discussed.

Pick-up artists (PUAs) apply strategies from evolutionary psychology to exploit women emotionally, sexually, and financially. In China, PUA issues have been garnering attention from journalists and news media. However, scholars have yet to explore how such issues have been portrayed in Chinese online news media, in particular the attribution of responsibility. The current study content-analyzed 115 Chinese online news articles related to PUA issues to explore whom the responsibility for causing and solving the issue is attributed, and investigated the influence of journalist gender, geographical location, and publication range on the attribution of responsibility. The results indicated that (a) the responsibility for both causing and solving the issue was attributed to perpetrators and the society frequently and to victims sporadically and (b) the attribution of responsibility differs across geographical locations or when the news websites are national as opposed to provincial. Directions for future studies were discussed.

Public interest relations (PIR) is an approach to public relations scholarship and practice that contributes to the social good by integrating the concept of public interest into organizational goals and values. The need for PIR was emphasized during the COVID-19 pandemic as publics looked to organizations for information about a variety of topics (e.g., symptoms, vaccines). AARP created a series of tele-town halls to communicate with its publics, who are considered to be members of a “vulnerable population” during the pandemic. In order to understand how AARP’s Coronavirus Tele-Town Halls reflected the practices of PIR, I completed a critical thematic analysis of 28 virtual sessions that were hosted in 2020–2021. The analysis, which was guided by the tenets of PIR, found that AARP’s communication (1) highlighted common life course milestones of its publics, (2) emphasized the quality of the information, and (3) provided avenues to engage with the organization and its experts. Based on these findings, I developed theoretical implications that reflect a critical perspective on PIR and suggest future research avenues that seek to build this ethical and socially meaningful approach to public relations.

The pandemic and economic catastrophes of 2020 and the forms of resistance that surged against racist systemic and physical violence indicate, we contend, that studying public address in the present moment requires attention to the mutual contingency of rhetoric and digitality. Relying on interdisciplinary literatures and a global perspective, we direct such attention along three vectors: platforms, commons, and methods. We indicate how theorizing rhetoric and digitality transforms critical and historical traditions. In expanding the purview of the public address tradition while retaining the tradition's hermeneutic potential, we emphasize the need to challenge disciplinary terms and the desirability of expanded analytical methods. We submit that by not attending sufficiently to the advent and diffusion of digital media technologies, public address scholarship misses opportunities to shape ongoing conversations about how rhetoric mediates public affairs; and that insofar as struggles for racial justice are bound up with, not just mediated by, digitality, the prospects of diversifying rhetoric's professoriate increase when research on this topic is central rather than peripheral.

Higher education has been commodified as neoliberal ideology is reflected in and perpetuated through social discourses, such as memorable messages. These discourses socialize young adults to college and shape their understanding about the purpose of higher education. Through in-depth interviews with 20 first-year college students, Ashby-King and Anderson found that the memorable messages students received from their family, peers, and high school teachers reinforce the dominant neoliberal, job-centered understanding of college’s purpose. In turn, they suggest critical communication pedagogy as a form of resistance instructors and institutions can use to promote a more expansive view of higher education and teaching/learning.

Black women and Black feminist scholars have always pointed out the hypocrisy of advocating for civil rights and freedoms that do not extend to them. However, with the rise of digital culture and tools as the primary space and mechanism whereby Black feminists crafted arguments, a new urgency has emerged within Black feminist writing online, advocating for a dialectic of self and community interests. Black feminist writers have created a new rhetorical principle central to the #BlackLiveMatter movement, which began in the blogosphere with longform writing and enclaved communities. Before the hashtag or activism on Twitter or Instagram, the blogosphere provided a space for Black women to craft new arguments that centralized Black cis and trans women in the fight for justice. Black feminist writers insist that caring for themselves is integral to Black feminist praxis and social justice. Retracing this work from the blogosphere to social media reminds us of the importance of centralizing Black women in our discussion of digital culture and activism and the lessons this may provide in crafting a more just future.

Professor Linda Aldoory and Professor Emerita Elizabeth Toth present a socio-ecological model for understanding and building a feminist future for public relations. Their approach acknowledges previous gaps in scholarship and practice caused by ideological, societal, mediated, and organizational factors constructing norms and expectations for gender and race. The book, entitled The Future of Feminism in Public Relations and Strategic Communication: A Socio-Ecological Model of Influences, was recently published by Rowman & Littlefield.

"Two of the field’s top feminist scholars have provided us with an ambitious and comprehensive assessment of gender in public relations. They have taken a wide lens, showing the interplay across levels of context. The volume provides a starting point for those new to the topic and a jumping off point for those eager to press forward."--Lana F. Rakow, University of North Dakota, Ph.D., professor emerita, Communication

"This book moves away from traditional liberal feminist inquiry into the pay gap and the glass ceiling and introduces a socio-ecological framework into PR scholarship. Drawing from sociology, cultural studies and environmental science, as well as international scholarship, the authors create a compelling case for studying women in PR and provide a thoughtful and reflective account of decades of scholarship and activism for equality of women in the PR industry."--Dr. Martina Topić, Leeds Business School, Leeds Beckett University, United Kingdom

Focusing on debunking misinformation about genetically modified (GM) food safety in a social media context, this study examines whether source cues and social endorsement cues interact with individuals’ preexisting beliefs about GM food safety in influencing misinformation correction effectiveness. Using an experimental design, this study finds that providing corrective messages can effectively counteract the influence of misinformation, especially when the message is from an expert source and receives high social endorsements. Participants evaluate misinformation and corrective messages in a biased way that confirms their preexisting beliefs about GM food safety. However, their initial misperceptions can be reduced when receiving corrective messages.

This commentary sheds light on some of the most creative online campaigns which have been launched to counter Islamophobia and overcome the negative stereotypes and skewed (mis)representations of Islam and Muslims, especially in the West. It provides a number of scholarly definitions of Islamophobia and explains why, and how, social media could act as a double-edged sword, which may fuel Islamophobia, on the one hand, while providing effective tools to counter it, on the other hand. It highlights several examples illustrating both effects of the social media, while focusing on the factors behind the success of some online countering Islamophobia campaigns, such as the amplification of Muslims’ voices, including gendered voices; the deployment of humor; and the selection of suitable strategies, tactics, and tools. It concludes with a few thoughts on what needs to be done to ensure the success and continuation of countering Islamophobia efforts, moving forward.

After Senator Wendy Davis’s epic filibuster of Texas’s House Bill 2 in 2013, she was vilified in the media as “Abortion Barbie.” As a term, “Abortion Barbie” was circulated in conservative and liberal press, from blogs to traditional media outlets. This essay examines the media frames that helped characterize Davis as Abortion Barbie to chart how they functioned during and after the Texas HB2 debate. By making female bodies inert, sexualizing them, and describing women as criminal, we argue that the visual rhetoric of Abortion Barbie damaged Davis’s political career and circulated this negative image to the public as a rationale for sexist policies that undermine access to reproductive health care.