Journal of Public Relations Research

Browning, Nicholas; Yang, Sung-Un

2022 Journal of Public Relations Research

doi: 10.1080/1062726X.2022.2125152

Dong, Chuqing; Morehouse, Jordan

2022 Journal of Public Relations Research

doi: 10.1080/1062726X.2022.2119978

In this study, we explore the potential contribution of care ethics to government-public relationship (GPR) management. Drawing on the ethics of care and relationship management theory, this study examined government communicators’ conceptualizations of care and care-based relationship cultivation strategies by interviewing 32 public relations practitioners working at county government agencies in the United States. Findings suggest that care is a complex, multidimensional construct that involves relational, emotional, humanistic, and personal components in the context of government public relations. The study advances public relations scholarship by proposing a Care-Based Relationship Cultivation Model and suggests measures for seven care-based relationship cultivation strategies highlighting care ethics. Our findings are useful for local government practitioners across countries to infuse care into their public relations efforts.

Atwell Seate, Anita; Liu, Brooke Fisher; Stanley, Samantha; Yan, Yumin; Chatham, Allison

2022 Journal of Public Relations Research

doi: 10.1080/1062726X.2022.2093203

Relationships are essential for a fully functioning society. Through a multi-sited rapid ethnography, we show how the U.S. National Weather Service achieves its mission through a relational constellation of organizational partners (i.e., emergency managers and broadcast media) and active publics in the context of disasters. The findings provide insights into relational tensions that occur in organization-public relationships (OPRs) and how communication can address those relational tensions. In doing so, we answer calls for broadening the methodologies to examine OPRs and to examine multiparty, rather than just dyadic, OPRs.

Woods, Chelsea

2022 Journal of Public Relations Research

doi: 10.1080/1062726X.2022.2101459

Activists and the organizations established to pursue their goals have been influential in shaping public relations theory and practice, including issues management. However, scholars only recently increased efforts to develop a more robust understanding of activist organizations and their communication efforts, including how they can serve as issue managers to incite change at multiple levels. As activist organizations shift a portion of their pursuits away from public policy and into the private sector, this study details how these strategic communicators enact their roles as issue managers within a corporate campaign context. Specifically, this study explores the intersection of activism and issues management, thereby advancing our understanding of issues management from the activist perspective and proposing the issue campaign model, which outlines the process employed by activist organizations to identify, develop, and press their issues toward resolution.