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20 June 2024
Media Commentary on Topics of Interest to the Public: The Benefits of Writing a Newspaper Column as a Scholar

By Daniel Laufer PhD, MBA
Associate Professor at Victoria University of Wellington

 

Between 2019-2023 I wrote a monthly column on Crisis Management for leading newspapers in New Zealand, including the New Zealand Herald, The Post, National Business Review (“NBR”), and the most widely read news website in New Zealand, “Stuff”. My column appeared over twenty-five times. I felt that writing a newspaper column would be an excellent way to engage with the public on topics related to my area of expertise. In terms of my background, I have conducted research on topics related to Crisis Management for over 20 years (https://euprera.org/2023/01/13/euprerapeople-interview-with-dan-laufer/), and I have also taught courses on Crisis Management on both undergraduate and MBA levels (https://www.aacsb.edu/insights/articles/2022/05/teaching-communication-in-an-age-of-disruption). I believe that writing a newspaper column is an excellent way to engage with the Public, and it may be of interest to EUPRERA members as well.

The topics that I wrote about in my column on Crisis Management were inspired by high profile crises that occurred in New Zealand and overseas, and several were related to the Public Relations Industry in New Zealand and the New Zealand Government. For example, back in May 2021 I wrote an article “When PR firms become the news, it’s a different kind of crisis” (https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/opinion-analysis/300300049/when-pr-firms-become-the-news-its-a-different-kind-of-crisis). The idea for the article came about because of media reports of inappropriate behaviour of a person described as a Public Relations consultant. This individual was reported to have participated in a meeting at a hotel in Australia where the victim of sexual assault was pressured to withdraw his complaint against a prominent businessman, the client of the Public Relations consultant. For my article I interviewed the President of the Public Relations Institute of New Zealand, and I examined how the PR Industry Group handled ethics complaints in the past filed against their members. After gathering information for the article, I concluded that the issue was not related to problems with the PR Industry Group’s code of ethics, but a matter of people engaging in Public Relations work that are not subject to the code of ethics because they are not members of the PR Industry group.

Another topic that I covered in my column involved a controversy surrounding the creation of a memorial for victims of a crisis (https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/opinion-analysis/300333159/the-challenges-in-creating-a-memorial-in-the-aftermath-of-a-crisis). The location for the memorial was proposed by the New Zealand government to commemorate the victims of the worst plane crash in New Zealand’s history. In 1979, an Air New Zealand flight to Antarctica crashed into Mt Erebus, killing all 257 passengers and crew.

The New Zealand government decided to create a national memorial in a park in Auckland to honour the victims of the crisis. However, the choice of the site of the memorial was controversial and generated opposition from the local community. In my article I discussed the importance of not only consulting with the victims’ families before creating a memorial, but also the people that live in the communities that house the memorials.

Writing my newspaper column was an excellent experience, and I encourage other scholars to consider becoming columnists as a way to engage with the public in their areas of expertise. I wrote an article in Public Relations Review on the topic that also may be of interest to EUPRERA members in writing a newspaper column (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S036381112030059X).

 

 

3 June 2024
New book in the EUPRERA book series: Communication in Uncertain Times

Let’s talk about the latest book coming out of the EUPRERA annual congress 

Technological developments and globalization have not only propelled societal progress, but they have also ushered in significant challenges and risks that continually demand responses and adaptability from today’s dynamic and complex societies. In this context, organizations find themselves grappling with the need to navigate and manage these challenges effectively. For public relations scholars and practitioners, this reality poses crucial questions concerning communication strategies and their impact in today’s risk societies.

Communication in Uncertain Times explores how different organizations, from private to governmental and non-profit, deal with issues, risks, and crisis situations through communication. Questions include how to address risks and issues to decrease uncertainty, how to negotiate conflicts, and what types of roles professionals and non-professional communicators assume in times of risk, uncertainty, and crises. The chapters comprise selected contributions to the 2022 Annual Congress of the European Public Relations Education and Research Association (EUPRERA) hosted in Vienna, Austria, by the University of Vienna and the Vienna University of Economics and Business.

Advances in Public Relations and Communication Management (APCRM) is a publication of the European Public Relations Education and Research Association (EUPRERA). Each volume includes contributions from EUPRERA’s annual congress and follow the theme of each event.

Get to know more clicking here.

Einwiller, S., Seiffert-Brockmann, J., Romenti, S. and Valentini, C. (Ed.) (2024) Communication in Uncertain Times (Advances in Public Relations and Communication Management, Vol. 7), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds.

Publisher: Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2024 Sabine Einwiller, Jens Seiffert-Brockmann, Stefania Romenti and Chiara Valentini. Published under exclusive licence by Emerald Publishing Limited

 

11 March 2024
The Art of Communication: Decoding the Future of PR in a World of Accelerated Changes

by Prof. habil. dr. Alexandra Crăciun
University of Bucharest

 

Let’s talk about the XXVth EUPRERA Congress, 11-14th September 2024, University of Bucharest, Romania

 

2024 is coming with a highlight. After 15 years, the EUPRERA Congress comes back to Bucharest, one of the largest cities in Europe, founded – according to the legend – by a shepherd named Bucur, whose name literally means “joy”.

The theme of the congress, “The Art of Communication. Bridging the Future and Past of Strategic Communication in a New Technological Ecosystem”, questions the status quo of public relations in a post-pandemic world, undergoing accelerated changes.

AI takeovers, neural interfaces, wearable computers, genetic engineering and body (re)construction are currently promising an alternative “afterlife”. The so called “technological singularity” – the moment when human and computer intelligence will merge, generating uncontrollable and irreversible transformations, is “scheduled” for 2045 according to the futurologist Ray Kurzwei, while in 2029 it seems that AI will surpass human intelligence (Kurzweil, 2005). While NFTs, VR, AR are now recurrent notions used in the field of strategic communication, metaverse, blended identities and hybrid spaces create alternative playfields for organizations.

Are public relations professionals and researchers ready now to reconsider their tools, practices and approaches fast enough to cope with all these changes?

Is the “art of communication” still able to provide an appropriate ecosystem for stakeholders facing new types of interactions?

Is there still a place for creativity, feelings and empathy while talking about technological takeover?

Recently, an article titled “Better than real men: Young Chinese women turn to AI boyfriends” published by The Japan Times featured an app called “Glow”, created by a Shanghai start-up, that provides “friendly — even romantic — human-robot relations”. The AI boyfriend has everything one could ask for: “he’s kind, empathetic, and sometimes can talk for hours” – a young woman confesses, proving a clear preference for the machine against a human partner.

“Aitana, 25, a pink-haired woman from Barcelona, receives weekly private messages from celebrities asking her out. But this model is not real.” writes Euronews. Earning up to €10,000 per month, she has more than 121,000 followers on Instagram, but only extremely few of them realize that she is only a fake.

Pygmanlion’s story seems to be more current than ever.

While the deepfake market is estimated to reach 30.5 billion by 2030, “Not Just A Cadbury Ad” is an award winning campaign that encourages people to support local Indian businesses, allowing entrepreneurs to manipulate a fake image of the Indian actor Shah Rukh Khan, to promote their own small businesses. Similarly, for a social campaign developed in the UK, a deepfake David Beckham speaks nine languages to support the fight against malaria.

The use of deepfakes for rescaling campaigns at lower costs is only the bright side of a transhuman paradigm in which identity has to be validated through blockchains.

Creating images, like Pygmalion, we are heading towards an unexplored territory that reminds us of Plato’s cave, a world of shadows and simulacra. A territory where art has no place because, through mimesis, art provides only a second-hand copy that deepens the counterfeit of the truth.

Can there be a better place than Romania, the country of the founder of modern art, Constantin Brâncuși, the sculptor that refutes mimesis to question the “art of communication” in an age where Artificial Generative Intelligence seems to expel man from the centre of the universe?

Can there be a better moment then 2024, when we are talking about “decelerating hype-cycles” and “Luddite modes” promoting life-styles based on self-liberation from social media and technology, to strive against anxiety, stress and deception?

Is the “art of communication” the way out of a saturated ecosystem where people believe stress, depression, and pollution are the top three challenges for human health” (Future 100, 2024)?

As Brâncuși said: “Simplicity is complexity resolved”.

So, let’s meet in Bucharest to answer complex questions, to decode the future of public relations in a world of accelerated changes, to find out how “art and communication” can provide new forms of “resilience” in a world that experienced lockdown and war.

So, mind the dates! We are looking forward to receiving your proposals for the XXVth EUPRERA Congress by March 15th and to meeting you in the joyful city of Bucharest, from 11th to 14th of September!

 

21 January 2024
Juan Meng Receives the 2023 IPR Pathfinder Award

We are happy to celebrate achievements in the EUPRERA community! Dr. Juan Meng, the Head of the Department of Advertising and Public Relations of the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Georgia (USA), was honoured with the prestigious 2023 IPR Pathfinder Award. This award is presented annually by the Institute for Public Relations to an individual whose published work serves as a bridge between the public relations profession and the research community. The IPR Pathfinder Award Committee, comprised of the IPR Board of Trustees, past winners, and academic leaders in the field, recognized Dr. Meng’s remarkable achievements and outstanding contributions to the field of public relations through research, education, and leadership.

Juan Meng’s dedication to public relations is marked by significant and sustained contributions, resulting in a significant corpus of articles, chapters, books, and other research endeavours that have advanced the profession, earning international attention. Her teaching areas include public relations campaigns, research, management, and global PR, while her research focuses on leadership in public relations, measurement, trust, employee engagement, and reputation management.

She has been substantially involved in the EUPRERA community: editing special issues, contributing to research projects, taking part in webinars, and delivering interviews showcase her commitment to fostering knowledge-sharing and collaboration within the EUPRERA public relations community. Here are a few examples:

As an IPR Pathfinder Award recipient, she joins the ranks of other EUPRERA members who received this distinction: Ansgar Zerfass (2014), Anne Gregory (2015), Dejan Verčič (2016), and Juan-Carlos Molleda (2022).

Acceptance speech │Complete list of IPR Pathfinder Award recipients
3 October 2023
What the past can tell us about the future of digitalized PR

by Peter Winkler and Jannik Kretschmer
Paris-Lodron-University Salzburg

Digitalization is usually regarded as a phenomenon of late modernity. Accordingly, it has gained traction in public relations (PR) since the beginning of the 21st century (Duhé, 2015). However, the roots of digitalization go back more than a century and a half (Plesner and Husted, 2020). Yet, little attention has been paid to these historical roots, although important lessons can be learned from them – not only regarding the future of a digitalized society, but regarding the future of a digitalized PR as well.

We often start from currently pressing challenges to take decisions and actions that are relevant for the future. This is especially true in a digitalized VUCA world, i.e., an environment shaped by volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (Bennett and Lemoine, 2014). As a result, the present is reduced to the moment, and before we know it, the future is already here (Reckwitz, 2020). Acceleration becomes the driving force of decisions and actions, and we end up as victims to the latest fashions and trends. However, this is often at the expense of taking a critical step back and a sound reflection on new digital advancements and their social implications.

But how can a look into the past provide a solution to this? The history of digitalization can be particularly useful if we do not approach it from a purely technological or infrastructural perspective (digitization), but rather focus on the underlying social imaginaries associated with digital transformation (digitalization) (Balbi and Magaudda, 2018; Jasanoff and Kim, 2015). Looking more closely at these historical imaginaries, striking similarities to current expectations and challenges associated with digitalization become apparent. Visions of digitally enhanced agility, collaboration, dialogue, transhumanism or disruption are anything but new. They show long-lasting roots in the 20th century, yet experience a massive revival in the current digitalization debate.

A look into the past therefore allows conclusions to be drawn about recurrent expectations and challenges associated with digitalization. Even more, the historical rise, decline, and cyclical resurgence (Piazza and Abrahamson, 2020) of specific imaginaries also make us aware of the faddishness of the current digitalization debate as such. Accordingly, we suggest taking the time to reflect on more enduring social expectations and challenges underlying upcoming digital advancements and trends, rather than rushing to adopt them in PR – thus learning from the past about the future of digitalized PR.

We addressed similar issues in a conference paper (Kretschmer and Winkler, 2022), which was presented at the EUPRERA 2022 Congress in Vienna and which was awarded as one of the best papers. We took a narrative approach to make visible recurring imaginaries of digitalization in the academic debate of ten leading PR journals of the last decade. Our findings not only provide an integrative perspective on recurring prospects and risks of digitalization in an increasingly fragmented scholarly debate. They also provide the basis for PR – both as field of research and as practice – to shape these imaginaries more actively in the future.

References

Balbi, G. and Magaudda, P. (2018), A history of digital media: An intermedia and global perspective, Routledge, New York; London.

Bennett, N. and Lemoine, G.J. (2014), “What a difference a word makes: Understanding threats to performance in a VUCA world”, Business Horizons, Vol. 57, doi: 10.2139/ssrn.2406676.

Duhé, S. (2015), “An overview of new media research in public relations journals from 1981 to 2014”, Public Relations Review, Vol. 41 No. 2, pp. 153–169, doi: 10.1016/j.pubrev.2014.11.002.

Jasanoff, S. and Kim, S.-H. (Eds.). (2015), Dreamscapes of modernity: Sociotechnical imaginaries and the fabrication of power, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago; London.

Kretschmer, J. and Winkler, P. (2022, September 21-23), “Prospects and Risks of Digitalization in Public Relations Research: Mapping Recurrent Narratives of a Debate in Fragmentation (2010-2021)” (Paper presentation). Annual EUPRERA Congress, Vienna, Austria.

Piazza, A. and Abrahamson, E. (2020), “Fads and fashions in management practices: Taking stock and looking forward”, International Journal of Management Reviews, Vol. 22 No. 3, pp. 264–286, doi: 10.1111/ijmr.12225.

Plesner, U. and Husted, E. (2020), Digital organizing: Revisiting themes in organization studies, Red Globe Press, London.

Reckwitz, A. (2020), The society of singularities, Polity, Cambridge; Medford, MA.

28 August 2023
Coworker communication – a valuable glue that constructs organizations

by Vibeke Thøis Madsen, PhD, MA
Senior Associate Professor in Strategic Communication
DMJX Danmarks Medie- og Journalisthøjskole

Employees are increasingly visible as communicators. They represent, promote and defend their organization on external social media, they scout for information and build relationships externally and internally, they come up with ideas, share knowledge and make sense of organizational cues (Madsen and Verhoeven, 2018; Verhoeven and Madsen, 2022). In this respect, Madsen and Verhoeven have found that they fulfill at least eight communication roles in organizational contexts.

This focus on employees as communicators has been emphasized in public relations for more than a decade. Heide and Simonsson (2011) turned the spotlight on coworkers and their importance as active communicators in relation to their manager, colleagues and employer especially in post bureaucratic organization, and how their communication from a CCO perspective (Ashcraft, Kuhn, & Cooren, 2009; Putnam & Nicotera, 2009) construct the organization. Their argument was that this realization changed the role of communication professionals in organizational contexts turning the focus from producing to facilitating communication.

At the same time, Frandsen and Johansen (2011) emphasized that employees were different from other organizational stakeholders both in everyday life and in crisis situations. They are far from a homogenous group, but they share some common elements that distinguishes them from other stakeholders in terms of their relationship with their employer, their stakes, the identity and the degree of identification with the organization and their role as both receivers and senders of internal (crisis) communication. Again, they draw the attention to employees as active communicators.

Employees have always represented their organizations but with social media their communication has become more visible. Organizations are aware of their importance as communicators, and employees increasingly perceive communication on social media as part of their work roles (Andersson, 2019; Pekkala and van Zoonen, 2023). At the same time employees are also visible as communicators on interne social media where they share knowledge, solve problems and discuss organizational paradoxes (Madsen, 2020; 2022).

This tangible web of communication on internal and external social media helps us understand how communication constructs organizations (CCO) or as Francois Cooren (2004) phrase it the constant shift and interaction between text and conversation. In his terminology texts are the accepted consensus or understandings in an organization, while conversation is the discussion of these texts which might develop into new texts about what the organization is. You can argue that when employees start to communicate on internal and external social media, they increasingly become the authors of the organization. They create or construct the organization as they speak. They might repeat the current perception of the organization (the text), but they are just as likely to alter and change the understanding a bit when they talk about the organization in their own words. In other words, rather than to speak with one voice, organizations increasingly speak with a plurality of voices. 

All of this leads me to argue that coworker communication is a valuable glue that constructs organizations, and that we need a better understanding of communicative coworkership, recently defined as “an abstraction of the various communication roles performed by a coworker in interactions with managers, colleagues, and external stakeholders and that has important implications for organizing, and in extension for the performance of the organization as a whole” (Andersson, 2022, p. 463). 

At the same time, we also need to be cautious that this knowledge is not just used to harvest the benefits of coworker communication for organizational and commercial purposes, and that communication professionals constantly evaluate the ethical aspects of using employees as communicators. What is part of the job contract and what is not? And it is not better that the employees enter into different communication roles voluntary and because that they wish to rather that to be forced?

References

Andersson, R. (2019). Employee communication responsibility: its antecedents and implications for strategic communication management. International Journal of Strategic Communication, 13(1), 60-75.

Andersson, R. (2022). Communicative coworkership. In (Eds.) Falkheimer, J. & Heide, M. Research Handbook on Strategic Communication. Edward Elgar Publishing, 460-474.

Ashcraft, K. L., Kuhn, T. R., & Cooren, F. (2009). Constitutional amendments: “Materializing” organizational communication. Academy of Management annals, 3(1), 1-64.

Cooren, F. (2004). Textual agency: How texts do things in organizational settings. Organization, 11(3), 373-393.

Frandsen, F., & Johansen, W. (2011). The study of internal crisis communication: towards an integrative framework. Corporate Communications: An International Journal, 16(4), 347-361.

Heide, M., & Simonsson, C. (2011). Putting coworkers in the limelight: New challenges for communication professionals. International journal of strategic communication, 5(4), 201-220.

Madsen, V. T. (2020). Communicative Leadership on Internal Social Media: A Way to Employee Engagement?. In Joy (Vol. 5, pp. 93-114). Emerald Publishing Limited.

Madsen, V.T. (2022). Internal social media: a promise of participatory communication and organizational transparency. In (Eds.) Falkheimer, J. & Heide, M. Research Handbook on Strategic Communication. Edward Elgar Publishing, 431-444

Madsen, V. T., & Verhoeven, J. W. (2019). The big idea of employees as strategic communicators in public relation. In Big ideas in public relations research and practice (pp. 143-162). Emerald Publishing Limited.

Pekkala, K., & van Zoonen, W. (2023). Work‐related social media use and the shaping of communicative role perceptions. European Management Review.

Putnam, L. L., & Nicotera, A. M. (Eds.). (2009). Building theories of organization: The constitutive role of communication. Routledge.

Verhoeven, J. W. M., & Madsen, V. T. (2022). Active employee communication roles in organizations: A framework for understanding and discussing communication role expectations. International Journal of Strategic Communication, 16(1), 91-110.

 

Photo credit: Christian Falck Wolff

2 August 2023
PR History network meets in September

For those that may not be aware the International History of Public Relations Conference (IHPRC) has a sibling! That would be the European Public Relations History Network (EPRHN), which is one of the longest running network groups of EUPRERA.

We intend to reinstate this network starting by hosting a meeting during the EUPRERA Prague Congress, taking place from September 20 to 23, 2023. If you haven’t done already and wish to be involved or kept posted about the EPRHN feel free to get in touch contacting Anastasios Theofilou, University of Bournemouth, UK (atheofilou@bournemouth.ac.uk). Hope to see you there or to get in touch online.

International History of Public Relations Conference (IHPRC)
… where the journey of discovery begins

To know who you are you need to know your own history. One can not have a future without acknowledging the learnings of the past. The IHPRC offers a unique space for PR history afficionados to meet and exchange ideas. The friendly and constructive environment of the conference allows participants to develop their work, network and flourish as researchers. The Conference is a combination of a café scientifique and a microbrewery of scientific publications.

Since 2010, amongst monographs, edited books and Prof. Dr .Watson’s series on National Perspectives on the Development of Public Relations, a selection of papers presented at the IHPRC have been published in special sections or special issues of:

  • Journal of Communication Management, Vol 15, No. 3, 2011.
  • Public Relations Review Vol 38, No. 3, 2012.
  • Public Relations Review Vol 39, No. 2, June 2013.
  • Public Relations Review Vol 40, No. 4, November 2014.
  • Journal of Public Relations Research, Vol 27, No. 3, 2015.
  • Journal of Public Relations Research, Vol 29, No. 1, 2017
  • Public Relations Review, Vol 45, No. 2, 2019
  • Corporate Communication: International Journal, Vol 25, No 4, 2020
So what is new?

Our latest special issue, edited by Dr Theofilou, Prof. Dr Watson, Dr Le Roux and Dr Veneti, is hosted by the Corporate Communication: International Journal and will be published in 2023.

The IHPRC will be running as from 2024 on a biennial basis (ie once every two years) so don’t miss out. The next IHPRC will be hosted by Bournemouth University in end June/early July 2024 so watch this space!

10 July 2023
BledCom 2023: Sustainability

by Prof. Dr. Dejan Verčič,
Professor of Public Relations at the University of Ljubljana

BledCom is a feel good conference, where public relations scholars and practitioners meet, mingle and discuss. It has a spirit of the original Old Greek meaning of the word ”symposium”; where else can academic conference participants enjoy food and drink at a Michelin star restaurant? This is the secret of BledCom’s own sustainability: the 2023 BledCom was the 30th in a row since 1994.

The 30th International Public Relations Research Sypomsium – BledCom was held on 30 June and 1 July 2023 in Rikli Balance Hotel, Lake Bled, Slovenia. It atracted 135 participants from 26 countries from five continents. Its theme was Public Relations and Sustainability. Ideas were presented in two plenary and 16 paper sessions.

Sustainability is the ability of a system (an individual, a group, an organization, society, the planet) to maintain continuity over time. According to the Brundtland Commission (the World Commission on Environment and Development, United Nations), sustainability means ”meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs.”

On one hand, it appears as though sustainability has become the holy grail of the continuity of capitalism: ”We focus on sustainability not because we’re environmentalists, but because we are capitalists,” wrote Larry Fink, Chairman and Chief Executive Office of BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, in the 2022 annual letter to CEOs. On the other hand, as a normative concept, sustainability calls for a creative destruction of the current organization of production to alleviate global poverty.

The above paradox between two extreme approaches to sustainability has provided a framework for debates on what is the role and contribution of public relations in making the world more sustainable. The main purpose of public relations is the synchronization of organizations with their environments – cultural, natural, social, political and technological, and it is therefore directly involved in enabling their perseverance.

BledCom is an annual gathering of scholars and practitioners in public relations and related disciplines to discuss contemporary communication and management problems. Organized annually since 1994, it is the oldest conference in our field that is not affiliated with a professional or academic association. The 31st International Public Relations Research Symposium (BledCom 2024) will be held on 5-6 July 2024, in Rikli Balance Hotel, Lake Bled, Slovenia. The theme will be Public Relations and Human Weell-being. For more information and the Call for Papers visit www.bledcom.com.

28 June 2023
New partnership with Communication & Organisation journal
EUPRERA open-access contributions in English

Communication & Organisation is the only French-language academic journal entirely devoted to organisational communication and public relations.

On the occasion of its 30th anniversary, Communication & Organisation launches a new partnership with EUPRERA.

Twice a year, the journal offers its state of the art in communication research section to EUPRERA members, free of charge and in English.

The aim of this collaboration is to be an eye-opener, bridging the language gap between the French researchers’ community and the EUPRERA epistemic community, presenting each other’s research, triggering project opportunities and suggesting reading references.

The director of publication is Professor Valérie Carayol, past president of EUPRERA, the managing editor is dr. Aurélie Laborde and the head of section is dr. Anne-Marie Cotton, past president of EUPRERA. 

First article

Networks as an approach to research and professional development.
Interview with Anca Anton, Anne-Marie Cotton in: Communication & Organisation 2022/2 (n° 62).

Coming soon

The BledCom international symposium: what contribution to the construction of the European public relations field?, Anne-Marie Cotton in: Communication & Organisation 2023/1 (n° 63).

Open access

All issues of Communication & Organisation from 1992 till 2019 are in open access on https://journals-openedition.org/communicationorganisation/

31 May 2023
What Communication Professionals Do – Project Update

Since 2022, EUPRERA supports the international research project on “What Communication Professionals Do”. The project started in 2018 at the University of applied sciences Leiden and the University of applied sciences Groningen. It is now managed by the Foundation for communication research in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

This research is a multi-year project, running in partnership with 11 Universities and 3 trade organizations in 9 Countries and in 9 languages on 3 continents. And counting. Close to 3.000 communication professionals have filled in this survey globally, contributing to a (open) database that allows for a unique comparison and analysis on what communication professionals do – at least in participating countries.

A presentation on this was given during the EUPRERA-congress in Vienna last September, presenting an article that is now published on SSRN:
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4439663
A fresh update will be presented on June 9 at the EACD-summit in Brussels. Coming September 2023 in Prague, dr Piet Hein Coebergh and Martien Schriemer Msc, who both run the research, will participate in the EUPRERA congress to meet fellow researchers and partners and build on this collaboration.

Want to know more? Check out the EUPRERA webpage on the project:
https://euprera.org/what-we-do/projects/what-communication-professionals-do/

Get in touch with the Foundation:
https://foundation-communicationresearch.org/contact/
Engage via Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/9127136/

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