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26 March 2020
COM-COVID research project: UK | Italy | Spain
A group of EUPRERA institutional members have launched a new research project about COVID 19 communication

Research teams from the Group of Advanced Studies on Communication from University Rey Juan Carlos, the Business School from Leeds-Beckett University and the Center for Strategic Communication at Università IULM are working on the COM-COVID research project. The mission of this study is to monitor the communication management of the COVID 19 crisis during the confinement time of the emergency in Italy, Spain and the UK. A survey has been launched to monitor channels of information, sources, levels of trust and information comprehension by the general public in these three countries.

In the global media systems, with multiplicity of channels and transmitters, overload of information and proliferation of fake news, an agile and efficient management of communication is indispensable to gain the cooperation of citizens to manage the crisis.  Nevertheless, the existence of singular audiences that have informative relations only to certain groups and are informed only through the so-called eco cameras are increasing. Groups are able to transfer inaccurate or untrue information to other audiences, jeopardizing the development of coordinated actions.

Researching the current COVID19 crisis can contribute to understand how information about the emergency is flowing through diverse social groups and help to improve communication for future crisis.

The objective of the survey is exclusively scientific and information will be treated with complete confidentiality and anonymity. You are invited to disseminate the survey through your contacts based in the UK, Italy or Spain:

United Kindom   |   Italy   |   Spain

If you would like to know more, or just for more information you can contact:

25 March 2020
ProCom International Communication, PR and Media Ethics Conference in Helsinki

From Finland and ProCom – The Finnish Association of Communication Professionals

There has been growing discussion on organizational PR & communication ethics in recent years. At the same time the debate on media independence and fake news has increased. We believe that these issues must be addressed, and that you share our commitment to promoting freedom of speech, freedom of press and communication and media ethics.

To initiate an international network on the ethics of communication and media ProCom is organizing an

International Communication, PR and Media Ethics Conference
in Helsinki on September 3-4, 2020.

Current and critical issues in communication and media ethics, freedom of speech and media landscape changes are addressed at the conference.

Keynote speakers of the conference are Pulitzer Prize winner and former editor-in-chief of The Guardian, Alan Rusbridger, Executive Director for UK Government Communications, Alex Aiken, author Sofi Oksanen and founder of the constructive journalism movement, Ulrik Haagerup. Several other renowned and award-winning journalists, researchers, practitioners and ethics experts will also be giving speeches. Speakers include professor Guenter Bentele, Anne Gregory, as well as EUPRERA members. President of the Republic of Finland, Sauli Niinistö, is the patron of the conference.

Additional information:

#HelsinkiEthics2020 #ProCom
#freedomofspeech #PRethics #democracy
#ethics #mediaethics #communicationethics

 

ProCom – the Finnish Association of Communications Professionals (founded in 1947) – is an organisation for corporate communication and public relations practitioners in Finland. ProCom fosters the professional development of its nearly 3000 members and promotes the value communication provides to society. Members range from industry thought leaders working in strategic leadership positions of major corporations to entry-level practitioners and entrepreneurs.

20 March 2020
EUPRERA Journal Survey – take part by April 30

Dear Colleagues,

We are happy to invite you to take part in an online survey. The survey aims to investigate the experiences and perceptions of journal publication amongst public relations and communications academics in Europe, across different career stages.

It is anticipated that the research will be published in a journal or report and may be presented at conferences. We will also look to develop a list of recommended journals in PR and communications.

We expect the survey will take about 15 minutes to complete. The survey will run from March 16 to April 3 extended to April 30, 2020. You can access the survey here:

EUPRERA Journal Survey

The survey responses are strictly confidential. We will not share or publish any information that could lead to the identification of individuals. You are also able to withdraw at any time, up to the point of data analysis, without explanation.

If you are able, we would be grateful if you can share the link to this survey with your academic colleagues and research students in public relations and communication.

The research is being carried out by Leeds Beckett University as part of the EUPRERA Journal List project. If you have any queries or want more information, please contact:

Many thanks

EUPRERA Board of Directors

16 March 2020
Call for Papers for Communication journal “YouTube: entre formation, information et désinformation” (FR)

Communication is a journal promoting media studies within the scope of an integrated analysis of production, representation and appropriation. The following Call for Papers is for contributions in French only, to be submitted by June 8, 2020.

Appel à articles, Revue Communication
YouTube: entre formation, information et désinformation
Numéro thématique coordonné par Philippe VIALLON (Université de Strasbourg), Elizabeth GARDÈRE (Université de Bordeaux), Cécile DOLBEAU-BANDIN (Université de Caen-Normandie).

Parmi les médias sociaux, YouTube occupe une place prédominante dans l’espace public comme dans la sphère privée numériques (Lange, 2007). Trois raisons peuvent expliquer cette importance. Tout d’abord, la force de l’image a souvent été décriée dans l’histoire, depuis Platon jusqu’à Debray (1994), pourtant elle séduit les individus par sa force de re-présentation (Bougnoux, 1994), par sa capacité à raconter des histoires, par son lien supposé ou réel avec la réalité (Denouël et Granjon, 2010). Le deuxième motif réside dans la démocratisation de la production et de la diffusion de l’image, qu’elle soit fixe ou animée. L’histoire (Didi-Huberman, 1990) relate une utilisation rare et réservée aux élites des différentes formes d’image. Désormais, la très grande majorité du public dispose de logiciels permettant de produire des images et films de qualité, avec le soutien de didacticiels de formation en ligne et de les diffuser à un public mondial. La troisième raison vient de la position de leader incontesté de YouTube au sein des plateformes de vidéos, grâce entre autres à son propriétaire Google, qui, avec son moteur de recherche, ramène régulièrement les internautes vers la plateforme via des recueils de données qui profilent l’internaute.

Si cela peut enfermer dans le « système Google » (Viallon et Trestini, 2019), les chiffres donnés sur le site de YouTube attestent qu’en 2019, 500 heures de vidéo ont été déposées chaque minute sur le site. Ce sont donc plus de 262 millions d’heures de vidéo qui alimentent la plateforme en 2019. Il ne faut pas oublier la production des années précédentes où les chiffres étaient déjà très élevés et la tendance ne semble pas vouloir s’inverser, voire tend à s’accentuer (BDM, 2019).

L’intérêt d’étudier YouTube est que l’émission d’informations outrepasse tous les groupes sociaux : de la multinationale qui véhicule son image de marque et son placement de produits, voire pour faire sa promotion commerciale, en passant par le YouTubeur (terme générique) ou aussi vidéaste qui grâce à la plateforme, acquière une notoriété relative, certaine, mais éphémère permettant de propager des fake news ou infox pour déstabiliser le camp adverse ou d’agir sur l’opinion publique.

Un tel outil au service des médias ne peut que produire des usages qui nécessitent des recherches, des études quantitatives et qualitatives, analyse de discours. On voit l’intérêt de lier les deux concepts d’information et de communication d’un point de vue épistémologique. La question de recherche de ce numéro sera articulée autour de cette masse d’informations polymorphes apportée par YouTube.

  • Ce surplus d’informations ne tue-t-il pas l’information ?
  • Si la liberté d’expression peut bénéficier du média, les risques de désinformation ne sont-ils pas plus forts ?
  • Si l’image animée est agréable et facile pour tous, est-elle le bon outil pour développer la démocratie et lutter contre les nombreuses formes de discriminations ?

La formation et l’accès à l’information sont autant de fossés à combler pour réduire les écarts. Par ailleurs, ce numéro se veut interdisciplinaire, car seule une approche systémique peut rendre compte de la complexité, au sens où l’entend Morin (Atias et Le Moigne, 1984) et des enjeux : la technique, l’économie, le droit, le politique, le social, le pédagogique (Karsanti 2019) et le médiatique sont complètement interdépendants.

Ce numéro s’articule autour de trois approches.

  • Analyse de la plateforme : son histoire, sa technique, son économie, sa gestion pratique, ses acteurs, les aspects juridiques qu’elle soulève, sa place dans l’environnement Google, son articulation avec l’ensemble des médias sociaux, les questions qu’elle pose au système éducatif, sa psychologie (Covington, Adams, Sargin, 2016), son bilan CO2.
  • Études des différents utilisateurs et la relation entre médiation et usages (Jeanneret, 2009). D’une part, ce sont les émetteurs dont la variété va d’individus isolés qui ont une pratique de loisir à des structures professionnelles aux moyens conséquents et des enjeux forts (Bento da Silva, 2019) ; d’autre part, les usagers sont tout aussi différents et ont des pratiques qui ont été encore peu étudiées. Les deux approches sont réunies dans une perspective de culture participative (Burgess et Green, 2013), qui associe création et répétition (les mêmes) (Shifman, 2012).
  • Étude de cas, notamment à l’international : ils apporteront des éclairages sur le rôle de la plateforme quant aux élections, l’enseignement (éducation aux médias et au numérique), au traitement des sujets d’actualité : environnement, inclusion, violences, genre.
Go to
Call for Papers
Journal website

 

13 March 2020
ProPR conference postponed to September

PRO PR, the leading public relations conference in south eastern Europe, has been postponed to 9-12 September, always at Terme Olimia Podčetrtek in Slovenia.  The event has again been endorsed by IPRA.

The conference includes 22 presentations and four workshops spread over three conference days. The motto of the conference is: Rejuvenate public relations, rejuvenate yourself.

For suggestions on how to rejuvenate and tickets, please visit

ProPR website
11 March 2020
Call for 2 Doctoral Research Fellows in Media Studies in Oslo

Two Doctoral Research Fellowships (SKO 1017) in Media Studies are available at the Department of Media and Communication, University of Oslo from August 2020. Application deadline: April 1, 2020.

Both PhD-positions will be integrated in the Department’s ongoing research activities. As a PhD candidate, you will be part of a research community where several researchers work within the same field and/or topic. Your application should include a project description, and it is desirable that your PhD project relate to at least one (or several) of these current research projects, research initiatives and activities at the Department:

For details on the position, the requirements and how to apply:

Full announcement
9 March 2020
Call for Papers for Facta Universitatis: #METOO Movement

Call for Papers for a special number of the journal Facta Universitatis
#METOO MOVEMENT: PAST, PRESENT AND WHAT NEXT?
Guest editor: Dr Martina Topić, Leeds Beckett University
Deadline for paper submissions: September 1

Following 6th International Conference on Women’s Studies (Leeds, January 2020), a special issue is being prepared. EUPRERA members and colleagues are invited to submit papers for the call.

#metoo movement has gained prominence in 2017 with Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse case, which triggered many celebrities to accept the hashtag and tweet about their experiences of sexual harassment. Ultimately, this spread to the general public and many women started to openly tweet and talk about harassment and abuse they endured during their lifetimes. The movement soon achieved international recognition and became a truly global movement of women talking about harassment and fighting the prejudice from the post-feminist argument of all battles being won.

However, the term was originally created by a Black woman Tarana Burke in 2006 who started to tweet using ‘me too’ words to warn about harassment and abuse. Thus, #metoo hashtag movement has both raised an important issue and created awareness of harassment women face in their everyday life whilst, at the same time, creating a bitter feeling because it feels as if the movement has been hijacked from Black women whose equality plight is intersectional and fundamentally tied to their race and not just gender.

While the importance of movement and its positive impact is unquestionable, the question is how do we continue from now on and how do we make sure that all voices get heard? How do we teach about #metoo movement? However, these questions are relevant to the West. In other parts of the world, #metoo had a different context and was experienced differently, which again raises an issue, what next?

Therefore, this special issue tackles some of the problems outlined above. The proposed structure of the special issue is divided into two sections:

  1. section on problematising #metoo movement
  2. teaching about #metoo movement

An introductory article will outline a timeline of the movement, its impact and some issues and debates that arose, and then discuss these against articles in the special issue.

The research papers (max. 40.000 characters with spaces)
should be submitted in English by September 1, 2020.
For more details and instructions for authors please go to the
full Call for Papers
8 March 2020
Women in Public Relations: Should Organisations Review How They Treat Women?

This blog post has been written by Dr Martina Topić and is based on EUPRERA project report on Women in Public Relations (EUPRERA report Vol. 1, No. 1) co-authored by Martina Topić, Maria João Cunha, Amelia Reigstad, Alenka Jelen-Sanchez, Audra Diers Lawson, Mirela Polić, Ángeles Moreno, Belen Zurbano Berenguer, Beatrice Damian-Gaillard, Paloma Sanz, Cristina Fuentes Lara, Nataša Cesarec Salopek, Eugenie Saitta, Carla Cruz, Nataša Simeunović Bajić, Hanne Vandenberghe, Leli Bibilashvili and Natia Kaladze.

Key Findings
  • women in public relations continually report inequality, stereotypes and bias withing public relations organisations
  • women feel confined to technician positions and unjustly deprived of opportunities and recognition
  • women feel they have no power in public relations organisations
Implications for Public Relations

In four decades of research, women continually reported inequality and an unsatisfactory position within public relations organisations, based on bias and stereotypes. Public Relations organisations should review equality policies in organisations and consider to what extent are promotions grounded in old stereotypes about women not being fit for the job to increase staff satisfaction and workforce morale and contribute towards equality of men and women.

Summary

The research presented here was conducted on the academic literature published between 1982 and 2019. Academic studies analysed have been written based on interviews and focus groups with PR practitioners, thus providing an overview of the situation for women in the PR industry in the analysed period. These studies show the true situation in the field of public relations, better than any PR conference or associations’ meeting could provide because interviewed women express their view anonymously and thus without fear of repercussions.

An analysis of research conducted on women in four decades of research shows that the discrimination of women has reached a full circle and that women’s issues in the public relations industry are marked by bias against women and unfavourable position in organisations. The issues change over the time, and thus while women experienced bias in the 1980s of not being ambitious enough and thus prone to leave work to move away with their husbands, in the period between 2010 and 2019 a new bias emerged, this time claiming women have lower organisational skills and communication skills not always fit for the role.

For example, a thematic analysis of research has shown that women, during the 1980s, reported work discrimination (consisting of the glass ceiling, pay gap, being only offered technician positions and having PR degrees but still suffering from inequality against men with degrees mostly in journalism) and bias against women (consisting of covert discriminations of promotions where new positions were being invented for men, chauvinism, stereotypes against women being more inclined to look after families and move when their husband moves for work and the rise of women in the industry was seen as feminization with fears being raised of PR as a profession being under-valued). In the 1990s, however, new issues emerged and scholars started to report the issues of power, work experiences and work satisfaction and again glass ceiling and the pay gap. This period also brought criticism of liberal feminism as unhelpful for women and their plight for equality due to its failure to address issues below the surface, e.g. not just that the pay gap exists but why it exists. In the next period, 2000-2009, reports were made about professionalism (with particular reference on women still being confined to technician positions and lacking power in organisations) whilst the last period (2010-2019) was marked with a turn towards the beginning of the debate, and scholars reported concerns of women practitioners about work discrimination (consisting of issues such as women being confined to technician positions, pay gap and glass ceiling, but also lack of diversity and masculinities in work culture, which historically benefits men rather than women) and bias against women (consisting of issues such as stereotypes about women lacking organisational and teamwork skills, stereotypes about women’s communication skills and women lacking power in the organisations).

The project now continues with interviews with women practitioners in Europe.
First reports are due in summer 2020.
Citation

Topić, M.; Cunha, M.J. Reigstad, A.; Jelen-Sanchez, A.; Diers Lawson, A.; Polić, M.; Moreno, A.; Zurbano Berenguer, B.; Damian-Gaillard, B.; Sanz, P.; Fuentes Lara, C.; Cesarec Salopek, N.; Saitta, E.; Cruz, C.; Simeunović Bajić, N.; Vandenberghe, H.; Bibilashvili, L.; Kaladze, N. (2019). Women in Public Relations – A Literature review (1982-2019). EUPRERA Report Vol 1., No. 1. Leeds/Brussels: Creative Media and Communications Research Ltd. & EUPRERA. ISSN 2633-2353

Bio

Martina Topić is a senior lecturer in Public Relations at Leeds Beckett University, UK. She is a former journalist and entrepreneur and her research interests include journalism practise and women’s studies (with a particular interest in the position of women in journalism, public relations, marketing and advertising).

@martina_topic

6 March 2020
IPRA Golden World Award: entries are now possible

IPRA, the International Public Relations Association, announces that the Golden World Awards for Excellence in PR (GWA) 2020 is now open.

Enter online at the IPRA website at www.ipra.org where you will find a description of the rules, an entry kit, the 37 categories, and a set of Frequently Asked Questions.

2020 deadlines:

  • March 23: discount for early entries
  • May 11: final application deadline

The annual IPRA Golden World Awards initiative, established in 1990, recognizes excellence in public relations practice worldwide in a variety of categories. Recipients of the award take particular pride in the recognition granted to their entry as meeting international standards of excellence in public relations. An overall IPRA Grand Prix for Excellence is presented each year to the entry judged as representing the highest standard that year, as well as a special Global Contribution Award for PR with an objective of meeting one of the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals.

More info
2 March 2020
IPR Top 14 Public Relations Insights of 2019

Each year, the Institute for PR compiles the best research of the year that public relations professionals should know. Because of the number of excellent research studies published in 2019, IPR decided to add a few more studies relevant to the profession.

More info and booklet here

From the Institute for PR, we’re also happy to share recent studies on:

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