EUPRERA has awarded authors for their excellent research in strategic communication at the annual congress in London, on October 13. The congress is known as the major gathering of scholars and professionals interested in advancing the profession of public relations and corporate communications on the continent, hosted this year by University of the Arts London.

Academic awards for research on Internet memes, crisis responses, mediation of creativity, strategic recruitment communication
Press release (pdf)

EUPRERA Best Paper Awards were given to the authors of three papers with the highest rankings in a two-stage, blind peer-review process performed by a scientific committee of renowned international scholars, headed by Stefania Romenti from IULM University in Milan, Italy. The three winning papers are:

“Interactive creative criticism: Effects of Internet memes on stakeholder-company identification”, by Jens Seiffert-Brockmann and Trevor Diehl (University of Vienna, Austria). This paper tests the effects of memes critical to Samsung on stakeholder-identification in the wake of the Galaxy Note 7 battery explosion debacle. Memes are a prevalent form of interaction and creativity online, mostly due to the dominance of social media and popular websites like reddit, Imgur, and Instagram. Internet memes have become a new mode of popular public discourse in digital culture.
“The Influence of Social Media Comments on the Public’s Perspection of Crisis Responses”, by Michael Etter (City Univ. London, UK), Matthes Fleck and Roy Müller (Lucerne School of Business, Switzerland). This study contributes to the understanding of how user comments might compromise or benefit crisis response strategies, and hence, if and how organizations might adjust their crisis communication in Facebook as one “sub-arena”.
“Effects of Knowledge Transfer on the Mediation of Creativity. An Austrian Empirical Study comparing Three Types of Education”, by Astrid Spatzier and Jessica Breu (University of Salzburg, Austria). The research sheds light on the influences of knowledge transfer on the mediation of creativity through a quantitative study. Moreover, the paper highlights types of mediated knowledge that foster creativity.

Moreover, Emerald Group Publishing, publisher of Journal of Communication Management, presented the yearly Emerald Professional Impact Award for the best research-based paper that is not only academically sound, but which makes an important and useful contribution to the practice of communication management. The paper addresses issues of current concern to managers and also successfully discusses the research’s implications to managers and for practice. The winning paper, awarded by Jesper Falkheimer, editor in chief of the journal, is:

“’Recruitainment’ and Social Media 3.0: Towards a New Paradigm of Strategic Recruitment Communication”, by Helle Kryger Aggerholm and Sophie Esmann Andersen (Aarhus University, Denmark). This paper shows how social media 3.0 can be strategically utilised in recruitment communication by merging the employer brand into relevant networks and communities outside traditional employment contexts.

Special recognition to the best reviewer

EUPRERA Best Reviewer Award recognizes the work done by the reviewer because it is an essential contribution to the quality and the success of the annual congress. The scientific committee identified as this year’s winner:
Chiara Valentini from Aarhus University, Denmark, who has contributed to careful, thorough and useful reviews.

Press release (pdf)