PRovoke Media examined the key challenges facing China’s PR industry.Interviews with 125 marketers and 70 senior PR agency professionals were conducted.Key findings include:1.) In 2022, 46% of planned marketing campaigns had to stop and shift to online platforms, as compared to 29% in 2020.2.) 57% of departments experienced integration in 2022— an almost 20% spike from just two years ago.3.) Almost 30% of firms have merged PR and marketing departments.4.) The report found two key takeaways for PR agencies to stay competitive and deliver relevant value to clients:— Corporate social responsibility demands a greater ability in high-level strategic thinking and planning.— PR agencies can differentiate themselves by highlighting service capabilities, and competitiveness through innovation, as well as resource acquisition.Find the original report here. ...

There weren’t many dominant themes during the Institute for Public Relations’ Bridge Conference 2023, which occurred during two temperate days in Washington, D.C., in late March. This was purposeful.Instead, the agenda provided a wide swath of knowledge, from AI and PR crisis to the importance of communication measurement and behavioral science.Yet there was some trend spotting, during Day 2, when IPR President & CEO Dr. Tina McCorkindale held a fireside chat with Eleanor Hawkins, editor of the Axios Communicators newsletter.A former professional communicator, Hawkins’s top trends included PR’s use of AI, the increase in multi-platform tactics and the rise in internal communication, as the nature of work changes post-pandemic. Internal communicators, she said, are emphasizing “employee branding” and experience, creating a visible corporate culture that places a premium on how staff are treated.As a result, Hawkins noted a rise in the number of corporate retreats and all-staff meetings, where employee concerns are heard. In addition, with employers adopting WFH and hybrid regimes, internal communicators are playing a central role in ensuring companies are intentional in the in-person activities. As such, Hawkins is optimistic that internal communication will retain the importance it gained during COVID. “There’s tremendous potential…for companies that use communication as a strategic weapon,” she said.Turning to AI trends, Hawkins acknowledged she uses AI tools when preparing for interviews. “I expect sources I interview do the same,” she said.In addition, Hawkins mentioned an interesting example of Microsoft using AI in its messaging. Since corporate messages sometimes get diluted after multiple iterations, Microsoft tasks AI with spotting key points. If AI is unable to find them, chances are humans won’t either, Microsoft believes.Similarly, during a panel about health communication lessons from the pandemic, Mike Kuczkowski, CEO & Founder of Orangefiery, Dr. Cassandra Hayes, Assistant Professor at Stephen F. Austin State University, and Dr. Victoria McDermott, Assistant Professor at University of Alaska Fairbanks, emphasized the importance of easily understood messages.For instance, “people act on emotion” during a crisis, such as COVID, so facts alone don’t always break through the noise, Dr. Hayes said. On the other hand, facts couched in clearly told stories can raise peoples’ comfort level during crises, she added.Indeed, panelists agreed certain anti-vaccination stories were well crafted, though sometimes “facts didn’t get in the way,” Dr. Hayes said.Yet Dr. Hayes decried crafting healthcare narratives that play on emotion only. Instead, communicators should structure stories around problems and solutions.Another pandemic-related lesson, the panelists agreed, is using visuals for clear communication. Again, the anti-vax community did this well, Dr. McDermott said, noting graphics played on the public’s “uncertainty.”Part of that uncertainty, Kuczkowski added, was the changing nature of scientific knowledge, especially when dealing with a new virus, as COVID was initially. The public discovered science “isn’t static…it evolves,” he said, which resulted in inconsistent messages over time.Likewise, the concept of time was critical in the data analytics presentation of Dr. Julie O’Neil, IPR Measurement Commission Director and Associate Dean for Graduate Studies and Administration at Texas Christian University. Dr. O’Neil argued creating a measurement culture requires having useful platforms, proper procedures and inquisitive people. Yet, she insisted time is critical, too. “You can’t crank out” useful insights from data “quickly…it requires time.”Similarly, inserting behavioral science into your PR strategy means adding time and effort, panelists said during a session about behavioral science. Yet understanding what motivates human behavior gives PR pros an edge and it “makes money,” said Dave Scholz, IPR Behavioral Insights Research Center Director and Chief Strategy Officer at Leger. And it doesn’t necessarily cost money. “There’s a lot of free research” available from academia. “Use it,” he said.Panelist Stacey Smith, senior counsel and partner, Jackson Jackson & Wagner, offered a novel approach to teaching PR students about behavioral science. “Have them take a theater class,” she said. “It will teach them about why a character does something…they’ll learn and it will be fun.”For PR pros wanting to create a behavioral science culture, she urged “focusing on one behavior you’re trying to change,” she said. “Then look at the barriers to change” and research what data says can help effect change.  Seth Arenstein is a freelance writer and former editor of PRNEWS. ...

This summary is provided by the IPR Digital Media Research Center.Researchers examined how a $9 million voting campaign by a left-leaning organization in 2020 impacted voter turnout.A study with 754 participants was conducted in the 8 months leading up to 2020 US Presidential Election.Key findings include:1. When exposed to the campaign on social media, voting increased among people who had been identified as leaning towards Biden by 0.4 percentage points.— When exposed to the campaign on social media, voting decreased among those leaning toward Trump by 0.3 percentage points.2.) This effect could also apply for other similar campaigns.— The results suggest that mass, sustained digital political persuasion campaigns don’t have major impacts on voting in national elections (even among politically moderate voters) — and so are unlikely to alter the results — while also being very costly to run.Find the original journal article here. ...

This summary is provided by the IPR Digital Media Research Center.Researchers examined how how consumers and other audiences respond to both AI and human agents in live chats online with organizations.Two studies were conducted with sample sizes of 172 and 375 respectively where participants identified whether they were chatting with a human or machine from company websites. A second study was A literature review was also conducted.Key findings include:1.) Over a third of participants incorrectly reported the artificial agent with whom they communicated was a human or that a human agent was a machine.2.) When participants perceived the chat agents as machines, they were less likely to trust the chat agent.— When participants perceived the chat agents as humans, they associated it with higher levels of trust in an organization through perceived investment.3.) The findings of this study showed the importance of human-like qualities in online agents for organizations to build trust with consumers.Find the original journal article here. ...

The Academic Society for Management & Communication identified five trends destined to influence communication practice in the near future.A literature review of numerous publications and contributions from science and practice was conducted throughout 2022.The most relevant trends found for corporate communication in 2023 were:1.) Augmented Workflows— Quickly advancing AI-based technologies will be used augment the work of communicators.2.) Scarcity Management— Be it in raw materials, energy, talents, or products – shortages are omnipresent. This is an opportunity for communicators to develop new, more efficient solutions.3.) The Unimaginable— Events previously considered unthinkable are suddenly moving into the realm of possibility. This calls for new business strategies to strengthen companies’ resilience and flexibility with the overarching goal of retaining the ability to act even in times of fundamental change.4.) State Revival— Governments, public authorities, political parties, and politicians have acquired new stature, becoming powerful partners of enterprises. Society expects companies to take a stand in political debates – or to remain deliberately silent5.) Parallel Worlds— Immersive technologies have changed our perceptions and created parallel worlds where reality and fiction become blurred. Communicators are learning to incorporate immersive technologies in their practice.Find the original report here. ...

IPR is featuring some of the many female pioneers who have had an impact on the field of public relations in celebration of Women’s History Month.Born in South Carolina in 1875, Mary McLeod Bethune grew up post-Civil War with parents who were formerly enslaved. She went to school at Dwight Moody’s Institute for Home and Foreign Missions in Chicago, then became a teacher in South Carolina.She opened the Daytona Beach Literary and Industrial School for Training Negro Girls, which was a boarding school in 1904. In the span of two years, the school grew from five students to over 250. The school eventually merged with the Cookman Institute of Jacksonville, Florida in 1923 and became Bethune-Cookman College.Bethune was a leader for gender and racial equality, and as such started and was heavily involved in other organizations. She noticed the health disparities Black people faced in Daytona Beach, so she opened the Mary McLeod Hospital and Training School for Nurses. She became the founding president of the National Council of Negro Women.As the leader Bethune was, she was appointed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to the National Youth Administration in 1936, the only female member of Roosevelt’s influential “Black Cabinet.” In 1939 she became the Director of Negro Affairs, which oversaw the training of tens of thousands of black youth. She worked closely with Eleanor Roosevelt to bring pilot training programs to historically Black colleges and universities, which led to the first Black pilots to enter the industry.In 1940, she became vice president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored Persons (NAACP). She was part of the advisory board that created the Women’s Army Corps. In her long list of accomplishments, she also served on President Harry Truman’s Committee of Twelve for National Defense.Bethune died in 1955 and is buried on the campus of the school she opened. Her life was honored with the creation of a statue in Washington D.C. in 1974.In 2022, Bethune became the first African-American to be represented at the National Statuary Hall Collection at the U.S. Capitol.ReferencesMary McLeod BethuneNational Women’s History MuseumDr. Mary McLeod BethuneBethune-Cookman UniversityMary McLeod BethuneNational Park Service ...

Many Americans with serious illness receive health care that is mismatched with their goals and priorities. This gap between an individual’s priorities and the medical treatment they receive, stands at the center of a network of problems with far-reaching consequences that involve the patient, the patient’s family and caregivers, health care providers, health care systems, and national spending on health care.For many people, serious illness and dying may seem to be an intrinsically and unavoidably terrible and terrifying experience. However, for patients with serious illness, in many cases the process of illness and death is one that they expect, can accept, and are willing to prepare and discuss in depth. Patients often experience the most suffering and anguish because their preferences for care are never elicited, documented, or honored; their families and caregivers struggle with decisions that leave them with regret and post-traumatic distress; clinicians experience moral distress and burnout; and healthcare systems face increasing utilization with suboptimal outcomes. Nationally, this results in health care expenses in the United States that surpass every other country in the world as a proportion of gross national product (GDP), even as our nation lags in quality measures.Clinicians and patients are not having enough serious illness conversations.To improve medical care to make it more concordant with patient goals requires multiple interventions. A key component is the ability of physicians, nurses, and other clinicians to communicate effectively about values and goals, and then to translate those values into clinical care plans.Patients want to be heard, feel cared for, and share with their clinicians what is most important when faced with serious illness. Healthcare professionals agree: 99 percent of clinicians studied nationally say they should be having serious illness conversations with patients (Fulmer et al., 2018). However, only 14 percent of clinicians have these conversations and 46 percent of clinicians reported they were uncertain of what to say (Fulmer et al., 2018).Most practicing clinicians have never received effective communication training, and as a result, data shows that clinicians often fail to elicit values from patients, miss empathic cues that are critical for establishing patient trust, and are unable to connect patient values to a medical action plan. Inadequate clinician communication skills impact not only patients from intake to discharge but the entire health ecosystem.Many clinicians do not receive adequate training in serious illness conversations.Reasons clinicians cite for this “conversation gap” include lack of time, worry about provoking emotions, fear of prognostication, uncertainty about what to say, and lack of formal training. In fact, only 29 percent of clinicians reported having formal training conducting these conversations (Fulmer et al., 2018).Communication skills training improves clinicians’ likelihood and ability to have serious illness conversations.Serious illness conversations improve goal-concordance, care experience, and patient quality of life and outcomes. When goals of care and advanced care planning conversations happen, studies report higher patient-rated quality of life, longer survival, fewer depressive symptoms, and improved spiritual wellbeing (Temel et al., 2010; Bakitas, Lyons & Hegel, 2009; Rogers et al., 2017). Serious illness communication interventions positively impact health care systems as well, including shorter lengths of stay, lower rates of 30-day readmissions, reduced acute care utilization, and earlier hospice enrollment (Norton et al., 2017; Temel et al., 2010; Sharma, Freeman, Zhang & Goodwin, 2009). Communication training has a positive effect on clinician burnout as well. 60 percent of physicians who report having specific training in end-of-life discussions say they rarely feel unsure about what to say when having conversations about end-of-life care and 46 percent of physicians are more likely (than those who have not) to find those conversations rewarding (Fulmer et al., 2018).Effective, empathic and honest conversations between a clinician, patient and their family are the cornerstones of patient-centered care. Just as performing surgery is a learned skill, the same is true for communicating with patients and their families experiencing serious illness. Communication skills training programs can and do bridge the costly gaps between patients, their families, and their healthcare teams. With better communication there is a future in which every seriously ill patient will be surrounded by clinicians who can speak about what matters most and match care to values.References1.     Fulmer T, Escobedo M, Berman A, Koren MJ, Hernández S, Hult A. Physicians’ Views on Advance Care Planning and End-of-Life Care Conversations. J Am Geriatr Soc. 2018;66(6):1201-1205. https://doi.org/10.1111/jgs.153742.     Temel JS, Greer JA, Muzikansky A, et al. Early palliative care for patients with metastatic nonsmall-cell lung cancer. The New England Journal of Medicine. 2010;363:733-742. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMoa10006783.     Bakitas M, Lyons KD, Hegel MT, et al. Effects of a Palliative Care Intervention on Clinical Outcomes in Patients With Advanced Cancer: The Project ENABLE II Randomized Controlled Trial. JAMA. 2009;302(7):741–749. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2009.11984.     Rogers JG, Patel CB, Mentz RJ, et al. Palliative Care in Heart Failure: The PAL-HF Randomized, Controlled Clinical Trial. J Am Coll Cardiol. 2017;70(3):331-341. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jacc.2017.05.0305.     Norton SA, Hogan LA, Holloway RG, Temkin-Greener H, Buckley MJ, Quill TE. Proactive palliative care in the medical intensive care unit: effects on length of stay for selected high-risk patients. Critical Care Medicine. 2007;35:1530-5. https://doi.org/10.1097/01.CCM.0000266533.06543.0C6.     Temel JS, Greer JA, Muzikansky A, et al. Early palliative care for patients with metastatic nonsmall-cell lung cancer. The New England Journal of Medicine. 2010;363:733-42. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMoa10006787.     Sharma G, Freeman J, Zhang D, Goodwin JS. Continuity of care and intensive care unit use at the end of life. JAMA. 2009;169:81-6. https://doi.org/10.1001/archinternmed.2008.514For more research regarding the effects of communication skills training in healthcare, please visit: https://www.vitaltalk.org/evidence/ Tessie October, M.D., M.P.H., is a board-certified physician in pediatrics, pediatric critical care and palliative and hospice medicine. She blends expertise from these three areas to transform the communication healthcare experience for patients with serious illness and their families. Dr. October currently serves as a board member for VitalTalk. ...

IPR is featuring some of the many female pioneers who have had an impact on the field of public relations in celebration of Women’s History Month.Zelda Popkin, an early 20th century female public relations pioneer, was as unconventional as she was gifted. Her contributions to public relations were, until recently, eclipsed by her “second” career as an author.Popkin began her public relations career in New York’s non-profit world in 1918. In 1919, and newly wed, Zelda and Louis Popkin, opened Planned Publicity Service. This was prior to other notable women’s entry into the profession. Her many overlapping roles—journalist, ghostwriter, women’s justice advocate, opponent of fascism, proponent of international refugees’ rights, political campaign manager, and publicist for many causes—gave her access to an array of prestigious contacts and opportunities to expand her knowledge and skill base. In each role, she invested her PR savvy and experience, gleaned from years of reporting, media relations, and non-profit work.When Louis passed in 1943, and Popkin’s truly equal partnership ended, this remarkable woman’s “second act” began. In her writing and her life, Zelda Popkin was ahead of her times. She refused to let herself be pigeonholed as a woman and encouraged other women to fully explore new horizons, professionally and personally.Resources:Popkin, J. D. (2023).  Zelda Popkin: The life and times of an American Jewish woman writer. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers.Popkin, Z. (1956). Open every door. New York: E. P. Dutton. A Woman Of Substance From Age 16, Zelda Feinberg Popkin Was A Role Model For Women (Times Leader)  ...

ChatGPT has created awe and concern in the communication industry since its introduction in November 2022.  Part of the professional worry is that generative artificial intelligence (AI), such as ChatGPT, can lead to a diminishment of human writing, an automation of content, and, perhaps most concerning, an elimination of professionals.  The awe of this new reality is that applications such as ChatGPT are smart….well, smart enough to cause a real impact on the PR profession. Jobs may be eliminated or modified permanently to embrace this new technological reality.Despite the operational and philosophical implications of generative AI, the issues surrounding this new technology present some real questions, particularly legal questions.  This blog addresses three major areas PR practitioners need to be aware of in using generative AI:  privacy, intellectual property, and bias. From this analysis, this article attempts to anticipate the evolving future of non-human content production in the always-prescient field of public relations.Does AI create privacy risks? Yes, especially when users disclose proprietary information.Generative AI applications like ChatGPT utilize user inquiries to help with crafting content.  There is a growing concern over the privacy of users who are providing large quantities of data to facilitate a better user experience.  This has implications for the user and the user’s employer.  There is a potential for a user to disclose proprietary information to a generative AI application, which could include intellectually protected information, such as trade secrets.  Because generative AI can review content as well as create it, there is the opportunity for professionals to input large amounts of proprietary content that get saved into the AI application.  As such, client confidence may be breached and proprietary content may suddenly be available to the public, free of charge.What are the IP issues of AI-generated content?  Potentially…a lot.Content generated by generative AI is culled from innumerable sources that are input into the AI system.  That poses two scenarios of potential infringement.  The first is an unintentional infringement of other owner’s content that is used to generate the new AI-produced text.  The second is infringement created by separate duplicative requests to the language generation model.  This issue is compounded with other generative AI applications that can produce artistic content and images.  While lack of intent may mitigate damages in a copyright claim, it does not absolve the infringer from legal responsibility. Because of that, unintentional infringement may proliferate in industries that widely use AI for content creation.A more complex issue concerns the copyright protection afforded to AI.  Because AI-produced content is not human-generated, it arguably does not have protection under U.S. copyright law.  For copyright in the U.S., there are two basic requirements 1) originality of the work and 2) fixation in a tangible medium.  Because AI produces the work without human input, the basic requirement of copyright is absent making AI content either unprotected public domain work or a derivative work of protected copyrighted content.  This is complicated by the issue of citation, or lack of citations, in AI-generated content.  While proper citation is an issue in the arena of plagiarism, the lack of citations can actually create scenarios where otherwise conscientious practitioners unwittingly engage in copyright infringement.The U.S. Copyright Office (USCO) is reluctant to award copyright protection to AI-generated content.  However, there is the potential for AI-created content to receive copyright protection if the level of human input reaches a certain threshold.  That issue is a matter for the USCO and the courts to continue to examine over the coming years, and its answer may lie in a case-by-case analysis.  What is certain is the USCO has made great strides in 2022 toward streamlining the copyright claims process with the Copyright Claims Board, a voluntary board that hears copyright infringement claims that are less than $30,000.  2023 promises to be a year where the USCO may develop more specific approaches to AI-generated content and the threshold of human productivity that results in legal protection.Can AI be biased?  In short, yes, but it depends on how you use it.The algorithm that ChatGPT uses is based on a massive quantity of data input into the system.  Ultimately the content that is input into the system is subject to the potential biases of those who are inputting the data.  The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has concerns about bias in employment practices generated by AI releasing an agency-wide initiative promoting “algorithmic fairness” in 2021.  In January 2023, the EEOC held a panel presentation on AI and discrimination calling the use of AI and automated systems a “new civil rights frontier.”  Outside of employment bias, there is also the concern of what bias can occur unintentionally in content.  Those using tools like ChatGPT should verify and proofread content carefully to ensure that the material is congruent with ethical and legal regulations with regard to discrimination and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.How will legal AI issues affect PR practice?  It depends on the courts and PR practitioners.As AI continues to evolve and the use of generative AI continues, there are more novel legal questions that may arise.  For instance, if AI creates two identical texts, can one user sue the other for copyright infringement?  Could AI-produced content contain defamatory statements, and, if so, who would be held legally responsible, the AI or the individual who utilized it?  Right now the answers to those questions are murky at best, and are the types of questions courts may be grappling with for the next few years.For public relations practitioners, generative AI applications provide a lot of promise because they can improve communication content and serve as a personal editor, proofreader, and sounding board.  However, these applications present novel challenges not seen before in the communication and legal sphere.  Because of the uniqueness of this new technology, PR practitioners should be more deliberate and reflective in their use of AI.  There are so many potential pitfalls that are unintentional, particularly around IP infringement, that PR practitioners need to make informed decisions rooted in verifying content ownership and accuracy.  Because this is an evolving legal landscape for AI, practitioners should also be more vigilant in keeping up with legal trends in this quickly evolving field.One thing that is fairly certain in the uncertain world AI creates is that generative AI is here to stay.  Just try logging on to ChatGPT and you may get a notice to come back later because it’s at capacity.  Technological innovation doesn’t go backward, and public relations practice has already acknowledged that ChatGPT and other AI programs like it can be transformative to the industry.  Cayce Myers, Ph.D., LL.M., J.D., APR is the Legal Research Editor for the Institute for Public Relations.  He is the Director of Graduate Studies and Associate Professor at the Virginia Tech School of Communication. ...

Scoop explored how companies are approaching and implementing flexible work.A survey of over 4,000 companies was conducted Oct. 2022 – Jan. 2023.Key findings include:1.) 51% of U.S. companies said they offer work location flexibility.— Nearly 1-in-3 companies said they were fully flexible, allowing employees the freedom to choose whether and when to work from the office.2.) Nearly 80% of Technology companies identified as fully flexible, the highest of any industry surveyed.— Professional Services, Media & Entertainment, Financial Services, and Insurance round out the top five most flexible industries.3.) The most popular combination of required in-office days was Tuesday through Thursday.4.) Companies under 500 employees were more than twice as likely to be fully flexible compared to companies with more than 1,000 employees.Find the original report here. ...