Tourism and Conservation-based Development in the Periphery

This study analyzes and classifies the content of organizational advocacy (OA) messages using a thematic content analysis. Data was collected by capturing the Twitter statements made by the top 100 American brands in response to the murder of George Floyd in May 2020. Findings revealed that the statements contained two main themes: framing and acting. Corporations framed their support of racial justice by naming the issue, expressing solidarity, and establishing the shot. Corporations indicated taking specific actions including self-facing (e.g., diversity training), other-facing (e.g., donations), and brand-promoting (e.g., incorporating brand values/slogans/logos). This study adds to OA research as a separate paradigm in public relations (PR) and corporate social responsibility (CSR) and as a framework to evaluate the effectiveness of OA statements.

Television drama series have the potential to create awareness about sexual health problems and solutions. This study deployed a qualitative analysis of framing to understand how the Netflix show Sex Education framed sexual health concerns. Findings indicate that some sexual health concerns were depicted in the context of teaching sexual responsibility and destigmatizing processes such as seeking information or coming out as LGBTQ+. The show also portrayed the negative consequences of sexual violence and how people might choose to seek help related to sexual trauma. Overall, this study discusses how Sex Education frames sexual health issues in both expected and novel ways compared to those previously explored in public interest communications research.

This study examines the one-way information diffusion and two-way dialogic engagement present in public health Twitter chats. Network analysis assessed whether Twitter chats adhere to one of the key principles for online dialogic communication, the dialogic loop (Kent & Taylor, 1998) for four public health-related chats hosted by CDC Twitter accounts. The features of the most retweeted accounts and the most retweeted tweets also were examined. The results indicate that very little dialogic engagement took place. Moreover, the chats seemed to function as pseudoevents primarily used by organizations as opportunities for creating content. However, events such as #PublicHealthChat may serve as important opportunities for gaining attention for issues on social media. Implications for using social media in public interest communications are discussed.

Care is not a word generally associated with political crises. However, following the mosques massacre in New Zealand, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern was found to have used care and a feminist approach to political communication that served to unite rather than divide her country following this racially motivated terrorist attack. There is much literature on corporate crises, but this paper adds to the dearth of literature on political crises in a public interest context. Grounded in a consideration of care and agenda building theories, it reveals that a caring approach to political communication (both verbal and nonverbal) following an act of terrorism can influence the media agenda and by extension public opinion.

A core principle of policy advocacy is that to engage decision makers in the urgency, complexity, and controversy of problems, advocates must effectively tell the story of those issues. Policy stories, or narratives, paint mental pictures of what a problem is, who is affected, and how it came to be. Yet, the persuasive effects of narratives on one key group, state legislators, remain understudied. Drawing from the Narrative Policy Framework (NPF), media advocacy, and public interest communications, we sought to inform advocacy strategy by illuminating state legislators’ responses to messages about public investments in quality childcare for all. Contrary to expectations, we found that narratives can have unintended effects challenging or even diminishing legislator support. We discuss implications for advocacy strategy.

The Larry Nassar case is one of many abuse stories within and beyond sports. Although conventional strategies of image repair such as identifying one “bad apple” are considered effective within an ethics of justice perspective, we argue that crisis responses must adopt an ethics of care when physical and emotional harm has occurred. Using a case study approach, we qualitatively analyzed organizational responses from Michigan State University (MSU), U.S.A. Gymnastics (USAG), and the U.S. Olympic Committee (USOC), as well as media coverage of Nassar’s sentencing hearing, through Fraustino and Kennedy’s (2018) Applied Model of Care Considerations (AMCC) framework. We theorize how the media landscape creates a space of resistance for survivors that facilitates ethics of care in a collective crisis.

Restorative narratives are stories that highlight how people recover from adversity. Researchers have proposed that this storytelling approach may provide a way to share negative news without emotionally overwhelming audiences. Instead, restorative narratives may decrease the need for emotion regulation processes and as a result, increase the willingness to help those in need. In Study 1, a restorative narrative elicited more positive emotions and an increased willingness to volunteer compared to a negative and control version of the same story. In Study 2, the restorative narrative again evoked more positive emotions and higher hypothetical donations to a relevant charity. Study 2 also varied the narrative ending and found that restorative narratives may need to end positively to maintain their effects.

This phenomenological qualitative study explores the meaning of global engagement among former students who participated in a Backpack Journalism course from 2010 through 2016. Through semi-structured interviews, the researcher explored the meaning of global engagement as it relates to global education, experiential/project-based learning, and public interest communications. The resulting participant themes (community, unexpected/eye opening, discomfort, making a difference, and reflection/discernment) will further inform classroom instruction for upcoming Backpack Journalism courses and may serve as a guide for global educational experiences and public interest communications in other settings. Future research also is explored.

Car accidents are the leading cause of death among U.S. 10- to 24-year-olds (CDC, 2018). Motivating youth to drive less by choosing car-free mobility may reduce fatalities and contribute to positive environmental impact. Yet, little is known about how youth perceive car-free transportation or what may motivate them to choose it more often. Results from focus groups analyzed through the lens of the theory of planned behavior explore youth perceptions and experiences about car-free transportation. Perceived effectiveness of car-free messages also is presented. This study contributes to understandings of the theoretical underpinnings of an understudied area of public interest communications. Practical recommendations for strategic communication with youth about car-free transportation include appealing to their agency and autonomy and reinforcing their safety.

The February 2018 Parkland school shooting quickly initiated passionate social media response on Twitter and Instagram. Research on the effect of large-scale mass shootings, particularly on social media dialogue, is lacking, at a time when emerging research suggests potential for both driving mass contagion and enhancing risk perceptions for public interest communications. This study examines response to the shooting through a content analysis of Instagram and Twitter. Findings revealed that gun violence advocacy and risk perception variables were present more frequently on Instagram, while Social Ecological Model policy-level factors were observed more frequently on Twitter. Advocacy drove engagement on both platforms; however, anger was associated with higher Instagram engagement. Details of gun violence, associated with potential for mass contagion, drove engagement on both platforms.

Facebook holds vast amounts of data that provide artificial intelligence about attitudes and behaviors of 1.6 billon users throughout the world. The current study analyzes Facebook’s public communication regarding data collection and privacy to better understand how the company frames its message strategy, which affects user understanding. As calls for oversight and legislation of data privacy continue to surface, this study explores how Facebook defines data and how it frames its data policy through public communication. Results show Facebook addresses what data the company collects but fails to provide sufficient clarity explaining how data is stored or used. It frames its privacy policy in terms that benefit users without explanation of its business model.

Through a nationally representative U.S. survey of 1,214 participants, this study examined attitudes toward the role of corporations in public interest communications and response to a series of recent high-profile corporate social advocacy cases. Findings provide preliminary evidence for what types of public interests are most appropriate for organizations to address, based on perceived motivations, commitment to advocacy, and dimension of corporations as actors for social change. Results from this study suggest demographic differences by political viewpoints, age, income, education, and gender. However, an overall level of agreement across all respondents indicates that corporations should engage in addressing important social issues, which is particularly noteworthy given that the U.S. population skews conservative.

To illustrate the interdisciplinary breadth of public interest communications (PIC), this study explores the societal importance, engagement strategies, and public impact of La Peña Cultural Center in Berkeley, CA, an internationally known nonprofit organization founded in 1975. It responds to Downes’ (2017) advice on approaching PIC investigation and his call for “research readily informed by those ‘in the field,’” (p. 34), or those engaged in actual social/cultural changes resulting from PIC consciousness. Drawing from past scholarship on practices in community-based social justice organizations and public interest communications, interviews with La Peña’s leaders, the author’s own experiences as one of its founders, and source materials from its documentarian, this study encapsulates La Peña’s 44-year history of serving as a change agent through amplifying marginal voices.

This paper investigates unusually high spikes in Twitter engagement in Australia in February 2017 invoking the 2014 Peabody Energy global public relations campaign Advanced Energy for Life (AEFL) trope clean coal. Focusing on peak Twitter events, it asks: What caused the spike, what was amplified and signified by the dominant tweeters, and what was the content and tenor of discussion generated? Applying discourse analysis to an archive of Australian-based Twitter activity, the research argues that despite widespread ridicule of clean coal as oxymoronic by contemporary publics, the increased engagement provided unintended impetus for the PR campaign objectives. The research contributes to greater understanding of the reach, influence, and limitations of Twitter-based public debate.

The emerging intergroup perspective-taking narrative has become a mainstream representational strategy in the rise of transgender media visibility. Taking an experimental design approach, this study investigates how narrative perspective (Ingroup Perspective vs. Outgroup Perspective) interacts with intergroup interaction depiction (Positive vs. Negative) in transgender-related media content to redirect people’s attitudes toward transgender people, transportation, and elevation responses. The findings reveal that the outgroup perspective is more likely to elicit 1) positive attitudes toward the featured transgender character and the transgender outgroup; 2) transportation; and 3) meaningful affect, mixed affect, and motivational responses. However, the positive depiction of transgender-cisgender intergroup interaction only prompts positive attitudes toward the transgender character, meaningful affect, and physical responses. Implications of such intergroup communication strategies in public interest communications are discussed.