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Archive for January, 2012

Asking the Right (or Left) Questions

By: Kara Capelli on Tuesday, January 24th, 2012 at 8:20 am

Economist Daniel Klein recently wrote a piece in the Atlantic that shows just how important it is to ask the right questions in research.  A colleague of Klein designed a survey to explore whether ideological differences stem more from people’s beliefs about how the world works or from differences in their basic values.  Klein and the colleague then isolated a few of the questions to test a respondent’s objective knowledge about economic matters. An analysis of the responses led the pair to conclude in 2010 that left-leaning people are less enlightened about economic matters than right-leaning people. They published their ...

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PRDepiction – Media Representations of Public Relations

By: Tom Watson on Wednesday, January 18th, 2012 at 10:12 am

If you have ever wondered what the best, worst, funniest, happiest, most dramatic or insightful presentation of public relations is, PRDepiction can help answer your questions. PRDepiction, a blog devoted to the depiction of public relations in film, TV, radio and books, across all media, has just been launched. In addition to recent productions and books, it lists many of the earliest films and novels that incorporate PR characters. Although not the first movie about publicity, Bing Crosby’s starring role as the PR man for Hawaii in the 1937 Waikiki Wedding gave the business a glamorous, musical, fun perspective. In fiction, J. Ward ...

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Research for Public Relations: Communicating in an Environment of Risk

By: Linda Locke on Wednesday, January 18th, 2012 at 9:44 am

Does academic research matter to public relations practitioners? Be not afraid. Come into the light with me, a non-PhD practitioner who finds value in academic research. In this series of posts, I will seek out quality academic and other research, drawing insights for communications practitioners. Communicating in an environment of risk is one of the more difficult roles for senior communications strategists. In larger organizations risk assessment often is managed by Enterprise Risk Management (ERM), which sets the risk agenda based on its discipline-specific quantitative tools and processes.  But communicators may find that ERM tools rarely predict reputation risk and often ...

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Research Finds that Investing in CSR Doesn’t Always Pay Off

By: Elliot Schreiber on Thursday, January 5th, 2012 at 2:07 pm

A new book called Leveraging Corporate Responsibility: The Stakeholder Route to Maximizing Business and Social Value by Bhattacharya, Sen and Korshun, is a must read for communication professionals.  It shines new light on corporate social responsibility (CSR) and documents what I have been saying about CSR for years, namely that it can be money well spent, or that it can be a waste of investment.  The book offers guidance to managers making CSR decisions. The authors already have experienced consternation and “push back” from those who advocate CSR in any and all circumstances.  Many of these critics are from the communication ...

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