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30 August 2024
#EUPRERApeople – Raluca Moise

Dr. Raluca Moise is Senior Lecturer in Communications at School of Communication & Creativity, City University of London. Her past research in public relations has focused on areas such as new technologies, reputation (individual, organizational; online and classic media); public opinion and public interest. Most recent research explores responsibility in PR and strategic communications: in its occupational field, with a focus on freelancers; in its communication practices, with an emphasis on equity, diversity and inclusivity; in the pedagogical field, with a look at the social value of PR degrees.

Raluca is a member of EUPRERA and an active network member in ‘Women in PR’ and ‘Education in PR’.

Prior to joining City, she worked as lecturer at University of the Arts of London and University of Bucharest, also having worked as a practitioner in public relations, advertising and digital publishing.

 

The specific focus of her research topics:
1) Public Relations: identifying and analysing non-professionalised modes of public relations in informal organisations (e.g. social movements, cultural communities, social groups etc.);
2) Professionalisation: focusing on freelancers and flexible working schemes;
3) Education: focusing on the relations between different fields of PR (e.g. public space, industry, research and academia);
4) Diversity and inclusion: highlighting mechanisms of Othering in PR campaigns;
5) Strategic communications: responsibility in PR (sustainability, equality, diversity and inclusion).

Recent meaningful publications

Anton, A. & Moise, R. (2021) The Citizen Diplomats and their Pathways to Diplomatic Power. In (eds) Pedro Sebastiao, S. & de Carvalho, S. Diplomacy, Organisations and Citizens: A European Communication Perspective, Springer, pp. 219-254. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-81877-7_13.

Anton, A. & Moise, R. (2021) Communication Freelancers, Facebook groups and COVID-19. A Qualitative Analysis Research Report. Styles of Communication. Vol. 13, Issue 1, pp. 76-82. https://doi.org/10.31178/SC.13.1.04.

Moise, R. (2021) The deliberative nature of London’s civic and democratic participation sector. The uses of lived experiences in the advocacy NGO’s rhetoric. Styles of Communication, Vol. 13, Issue 2. Available online at https://stylesofcomm.fjsc.ro/past-issues/vol-13-no-2.

Moise, R., & Anton, A. (2022). An Exploratory Study of Communication Freelancers and Online Communities. A Mixed Methods Approach. Romanian Journal Of Communication And Public Relations, 24(2), 23-44. doi:10.21018/rjcpr.2022.2.342.

Moise, R. (2022), Diaspora diplomacy and modes of engagement: the case of Romanian Diaspora in the UK, Journal of Communication Management, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/JCOM-09-2022-0108.

Chmiel, M., & Moise, R. (2024). Undergraduate public relations education in the United Kingdom: Quo Vadis? Public Relations Inquiry, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/2046147X241230055.

5 August 2024
#EUPRERApeople – Mats Heide

Mats Heide is a professor of strategic communication at Lund University, Sweden, and works in the Department of Strategic Communication. He earned his Ph.D. in Media and Communication Studies in 2002.

His overall research interests are primarily in strategic communication. Still, he has specialized in internal and organizational communication and studied aspects such as coworkership, leadership, change processes, crises, and strategic listening. Since 2014, he has been involved in research on communicative organizations. Together with colleagues at the department, he has studied what characterizes communicative organizations, communicative challenges, coworkership and leadership, the role of communication professionals, and the relationship between communicative organizations and trust. In January 2024, together with Charlotte Simonsson he initiated the three-year project Communicative Organizations 2.0, where they will study flexible working life and the relationship to communication, organization culture, leadership, and coworkership.

He is interested in the philosophy of science and use a social constructionist perspective in his research. This implies he understands communication as constitutive and performative of our social reality, which means that communication is a prerequisite for the existence of organizations and society.

Among his latest publications, the following books can be mentioned: Strategic Listening (Routledge 2024 with Svingstedt), Research Handbook on Strategic Communication (Elgar 2024 with Falkheimer), Strategic Communication: An Introduction (Routledge 2023 with Falkheimer), Strategic Internal Communication (Routledge 2019 with Dahlman). He has also written many book chapters and articles that are published in, e.g., Corporate Communications, Journal of Communication Management, Public Relations Review, and International Journal of Strategic Communication.

Regularly, he gives talks to and advise communication professionals and managers in organizations.

Researcher ID H-3540-2011
Scopus 24724226800

 

He has a broad interest in strategic communication but have mainly focused on internal communication in relation to organizational change, organizational crisis, coworkership, leadership, social media and ICT, value creation, engagement, and listening.

 

 

He’s the course director for two courses: Organizational Communication (master’s course, 7 credits) and Strategic Communication in Crisis and Change (bachelor’s course, 7 credits). He also supervises and examine master’s theses and give lectures in other courses, such as the introduction course in strategic communication.

Recent meaningful publications

Heide, M. & Svingstedt, A. (2024). Strategic listening. New York, NY. Routledge.

Falkheimer, J. & Heide, M. (2024) (Eds.). Research Handbook on Strategic Communication. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing.

Falkheimer, J. & Heide, M. (2023). Strategic communication: An introduction. New York, NY: Routledge.

Andersson, R., Heide, M. & Simonsson, C. (2023). Voicing the Organization on Social Media: Towards A Nuanced Understanding of Coworker Voice and Sources of Control. Journal of Communication Management.

Blasco, L., Falkheimer, J. & Heide, M. (2022). Crisis communication in service ecosystems: perspectives and future challenges. Journal of Service Management, 33(4–5), 601–613.

Falkheimer, J., Heide, M., Simonsson, C., & Andersson, R. (2022). Rally-around-the-organizational-flag? Internal communication in a professional organization during the Covid-19 pandemic crisis. Corporate Communications: An International Journal, 27(5), 23–38.

Heide, M. & Simonsson, C. (2021). What Was That All About? On Internal Communication and Communicative Coworkership during a Pandemic. Journal of Communication Management, 25(3):256–275.

Heide, M. & Simonsson, C. (2021). Developing a communicative logic— The key to communication professionalism. International Journal of Strategic Communication.

Dahlman, S. & Heide, M. (2020). Strategic Internal Communication: A Practitioner’s Guide to Implementing Cutting-Edge Methods for Improved Workplace Culture. London: Routledge.

Heide, M. & Simonsson, C. (2019). Internal crisis communication: On crisis awareness, leadership and internal communication. London: Routledge.

15 July 2024
#EUPRERApeople – Denisa Hejlova

Assoc. Prof. Denisa Hejlová is a prominent Czech scholar and communication consultant. She conducts research, teaches, and consults in the areas of strategic communication, public relations, public affairs, and political communication. From 2011 to 2023, she led the Department of Marketing Communication and PR at Charles University, which hosts one of the Czech Republic’s most sought-after programmes.

She previously held the roles of vice-dean for PR and PR manager at the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Dr. Hejlova was a Fulbright Visiting Scholar at Columbia University in 2014 and studied intercultural communication at Tokyo University of Foreign Studies from 2005 to 2006. She is the author of comprehensive books on public relations and strategic communication tailored for the Czech audience, published in 2015 and 2024 respectively. A regular contributor to academic journals, she has also been a guest lecturer at several universities in Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, and Japan.

In 2020, she launched the first Czech MA programme in Strategic Communication at Charles University. As of 2023, Dr. Hejlova is the director of the Research Centre for Strategic Communication at the Faculty of Social Sciences within Charles University.

ResearcherID: P-4955-2017

 

 

Recent meaningful publications

Hejlová, D. (2021). Tobacco industry lobbying. In P . Harris, A. Bitonti, C. S. Fleisher, & A. S. Binderkrantz (Eds.), The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Interest Groups, Lobbying and Public Affairs (pp. 1358-1361). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-13895-0_231-1

Hejlová, D., & Klimeš, D. (2017). Propaganda in 1980s Czechoslovakia: Life in a ritualised lie. In I. Somerville, O. Hargie, M. Taylor, & M. Toledano (Eds.), International Public Relations: Perspectives from Deeply Divided Societies (1st ed., pp. 173-197). London: Routledge. ISBN 978-1-138-86013-1. (Main author, 60%)

Hejlová, D. (2015). Public relations (1st ed.). Praha: Grada Publishing. ISBN 978-80-247-5022-4.

Hejlová, D., & Klimeš, D. (2019). Propaganda stories in Czechoslovakia in the late 1980s: Believe it or not?. Public Relations Review, 45(2), 217-226.

Kulhánek, A., Hejlová, D., Slíž, M., & Baptistová, A. (2021). Analysis of tobacco industry marketing and media communication in response to the menthol cigarette ban in the Czech Republic in 2020. Adiktologie Journal, 2021/12, 75-83.

Hejlová, D., Schneiderová, S., Klabíková Rábová, T., & Kulhánek, A. (2021). „Užívání necigaret není bez rizika“ aneb Diskurz o zahřívaných tabákových produktech v médiích. Naše řeč, 104(3), 169-185.

Hejlová, D., Schneiderová, S., Klabíková Rábová, T., & Kulhánek, A. (2019). Analysis of presumed IQOS influencer marketing on Instagram in the Czech Republic in 2018-19. Addictology, 7, 7-15.

24 March 2023
#EUPRERApeople – Interview with Helene Boulanger
Welcome back to

Interview with Helene Boulanger
President of the Université of Lorraine (France)

Helene Boulanger was recently elected President of the Université of Lorraine (France). She holds a Ph.D. in Communication Sciences and began her journey with Euprera almost 30 years ago. She has been part of the MARPE team for 10 years. Together with other members from Euprera (Anne-Marie Cotton, Anca Anton, Susana de Carvalho Spinola, Sonia Pedro Sebastiao, Pepe Martinez), she has helped to implement European projects on public relations, lobbying and, more recently, public diplomacy.

You have very recently (January 2023) published an article focusing on public diplomacy analysed through a very specific angle: social media, in particular Twitter. Would you like to share some of the key findings of this research?

This article is one of the results of our MARPE Diplo project, endorsed by Euprera. MARPE Diplo brought together 5 different universities (Artevelde University of Applied Sciences, Université de Lorraine, Universidade de Lisboa-ISCSP, University of Bucharest-FJSC and Universidad Cardenal Herrera CEU), 5 professional communication and PR associations (ARRP, APCE, C² Square, CIPR and Corporate Excellence), 3 knowledge organisations (Euprera, NYU-USA, Protagoras) and independent researchers. Together we developed a body of knowledge on public, organisational and civil society diplomacy (If you want to learn more about these concepts, read our glossary). Our main findings are available on our website: http://marpenetwork.eu/marpe-diplo/.
With Anne-Marie Cotton and Susana de Carvalho Spinola, I’ve had previously worked on the strategy of the European External Action Service (EEAS), a relatively new European diplomatic service established in 2010. In our previous analyses, we noted a dominance of security and foreign policy messages emanating from the EEAS, demonstrating the European Union’s (EU) bargaining power. It was clear that the EU had discovered the benefits of public diplomacy, but was practicing more traditional diplomacy on public diplomacy-specific platforms (e.g. Twitter). Asking whether or not the EEAS is entering the second phase of its life cycle (launched in 2010, its introduction phase was under Katherine Ashton, 2009–2014, followed by Federica Mogherini, 2014–2019, and Josep Borrell, 2019–2024), Anne-Marie Cotton and I conducted a dedicated content analysis on 765 tweets.
We demonstrate in the article that, over the years, the overall discourse of the EEAS has become much more public diplomacy oriented. Comparing results from earlier periods with the current analysis showed a decrease in the dominant position of security and foreign policy messages emanating from the EEAS, moving from hard to soft power in support to the EU foreign policy. That’s one of the benefits of working on the same research object over the years: you can uncover deep strategic orientations that are otherwise almost invisible.

Cotton, A.-M. and Boulanger, H. (2023), “Analysing public diplomacy on Twitter with the MARPE Diplo methodological framework: the case of the European external action service”, Journal of Communication Management, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print.  https://doi.org/10.1108/JCOM-04-2022-0036

You also participated into a study to endorse the convergence of communication and diplomacy, through the creation of a master diploma programme on Public and Organisational Diplomacy framed by communication sciences. How do you propose that these two fields of study are integrated? And why, in your opinion, is communication still so underrated into programmes for diplomats-to-be?

What an adventure! The journey began for me in 2010 when the Dean of my Faculty, Marcel-Paul Cavalier, asked me to replace him as the University’s representative on the MARPE team. At that time, there were 3 different language lines of our Master of Art in European Public Relations. One of them was a French-speaking partnership between France and Romania.
In 2011-2014, the MARPE team organised 3 intensive programmes (IPs) with the help of Erasmus funding: “Public Relations: Government relations and Lobbying in a European perspective”. The 3 Erasmus IPs aimed to show that Public Relations is an exciting and growing field throughout Europe, but also that it is critical for future PR practitioners to develop the knowledge and skills enabling them to work in a fast-changing international environment. In the light of recent European and global social and political developments, the MARPE team aims to explore and contribute to the advancement of new areas of study connected to PR and communication, such as lobbying, public and organisational diplomacy. As it is critical that future PR practitioners develop the needed professional agility, MARPE is committed to the concepts of ”applied learning” and ”progressive problem solving”.
Therefore, it made perfect sense for us to explore the concept of “public diplomacy” and how it has been appropriated (consciously or not) by all kind of companies (organisational diplomacy) or citizen movements (civil society diplomacy). We were granted an Erasmus Strategic Partnership from 2018 to 2021.
The link between PR and diplomacy has been more specifically analysed by Susana de Carvalho Spinola. After a complete state of art on the subject, she introduced us to the work of Jackie L’Etang and it was something of a revelation: “(…) public relations should properly be considered in tandem with international relations, not simply because it performs a (publicity) function in the process of diplomacy and international relations, but because it is linked to fundamental positions about the way individuals organize themselves into collectivities (whether publics or nations), form identities and relate to other collectivities. Assumptions about what is considered appropriate in organizational and international intercourse and about the rights of organizations and nations to define and fulfil their destinies are as important as the communicative acts that are undertaken in the name of those represented.” (L’Etang,1996, p.34).
This way of thinking about the public relations function -as a social agent that propagates meanings, significance and rituals through narratives and thus assumes itself as co-creator of realities- constitutes the basis of the Strategic Public Relations Model (Carvalho Spínola, 2017). This perspective is based on the study of the organisation’s identity, publics, and fundamental values that guide its actions. Also, this perspective on public relations does not necessarily have to be limited to their performance in a business or organisational scope, but can be extended to society, which ties perfectly with Jacqui L’Etang’s view on the way in which individuals organise themselves in collectivities, form identities, and relate to other collectivities (L’Etang, 1996, p. 34). In the context of transnational organisations, we also identified the need for competencies in the scope of international and diplomatic relations for communication professionals. This reality underlines the importance of awareness and acquisition of skills that combine knowledge of international relations, but also of international communication.
There is still a long way to go before diplomats will be dully trained in communication, not only as a technique, but on a strategic level. However, I think that the gradual opening up of diplomatic recruitment (as it is the case in France) will help to change this mindset more quickly.

Check out our proposal for a new master curriculum: http://marpenetwork.eu/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/MARPE-Master-Curriculum_2021_final_online.pdf
L’Etang, J. (1996). Public Relations as Diplomacy. In J. L’Etang, & M.Pieczka, Critical Perspectives in Public Relations (pp. 14-34). London: Thomson Business Press.

You’ve been appointed President of the University of Lorraine. Do you think that being an expert in Strategic Communication will be a plus in this particular role? How?

There is a French idiom saying: “Les cordonniers sont toujours les plus mal chaussés”. I think the English counterpart says: “The shoemaker’s son always goes barefoot. It’s so much easier to analyse what other people are doing and make them recommendations, providing good advice, rather than do it for yourself.
But still, I think my area of expertise helps me in different ways. I’m trained to analyse situations and issues from a systemic and global perspective. I’m used to connecting large numbers of stakeholders and dealing with the tension between a long-term vision and our collective short-term reality.
Another skill that comes in handy: being used to not controlling the basic force that moves your organisation forward. In a way, that’s the essence of leadership: not commanding, but inspiring, so that together we achieve more or less what you’ve planned. And typically, this is an essential skill in strategic communication.

Stay tuned
In the coming weeks we’ll issue new chapters of #EUPRERApeople! Be sure to receive them in your mailbox:

24 February 2023
#EUPRERApeople – Interview with Laura Asunta
Welcome back to

Interview with Laura Asunta
Pedagogical director, University of Jyväskylä, Finland

 

Laura Asunta is Pedagogical Director at Jyväskylä University School of Business and Economics. She has worked as university teacher of corporate communication at the University of Jyväskylä since 2013. Laura Asunta received her PhD 2016. In her doctoral dissertation she scrutinized communication managers’ perceptions on professionalism. Her recent research interests focus on diversity and social inclusion, workplace communication, agency and communicative constitution of organizations.

One of your research areas since the very beginning is Professionalism in strategic communication management. You have identified five different approaches to the PR professional: Bridge builder, Advocate of the organisation, Advocate of the mission, Strategic facilitator, and Neutral facilitator. Considering the latest trends in the profession, which of these approaches is becoming more and more fundamental for the future of the profession?

One of the findings of my doctoral dissertation was, indeed, that the interviewed communication managers seemed to have different perceptions regarding what is communication and what they are trying to achieve. Facilitators focused merely on providing functioning infrastructure and tactics for delivering messages. Advocates clearly aimed at influencing. Bridge builders used communication for building trust and mutual understanding. There is time and place for all of these approaches but in the current times of economic pressures, increasingly polarizing world and ambiguous information environment we need especially bridge builders who are able to interpret different points of views, search for common ground, and construct resilience.

Speaking about ethics, can you give us your considerations regarding the evolution of the profession?

Undeniably communication management, or public relations if we dare to call it that, has struggled with its identity crisis that roots from its historical connection with propaganda and lack of recognition as strategic management function. By now it should be clear that communication management has evolved far from those days and leans, like any respectful profession, on theoretical body of knowledge, specialized set of expert skills, and commitment to ethical codes. Perhaps these days as we are surrounded by mis- and disinformation, we can even say that ethics is what defines us. Out of curiosity I asked artificial intelligence what the key competences of communication management expert are. It provided a nice list of key competences. What was lacking from that list was ethics. Ability to make ethical judgement calls and apply scientific knowledge to communication practices within ethical guidelines are the very core of this profession, and they are crucial to the future development of the field.

As a teacher, one of your goal, besides providing tools and concepts to understand the complex field of corporate communication, is supporting the professional growth of the students. From this perspective, you have just been appointed new pedagogical director of Jyväskylä University School of Business and Economics. What are the actions needed now for the newest generation of students (and future communicators)?

The newest generation of students is the pandemic generation who have started their studies in very exceptional circumstances. This brings the educators at least two major challenges. Firstly, there is a growing pressure to offer flexible study paths and hybrid teaching methods, and genuinely interactive in-class teaching. This takes some time and effort as teaching is for many of us only part of our tasks. Secondly, and even more importantly, we are facing students who may have had tough times during pandemic and they may need some extra guidance and counselling to get back on track and find again confidence in the future. The future communicators have lived through times of crisis but we have to make sure they survived that ordeal. Surely, we as educators are not therapists but it is important not to depreciate students’ experiences.

From a bit different perspective, I think it is important to recognize again the value of the science-based university education. We are educating future experts whose key competence is scientific thinking and research skills. Perhaps rooting from the criticism that university studies lack connection with “real world” and graduates lack work-life skills, recent years trend has been competency-based curriculum-planning. Yet, universities are above all science communities and we should find new pedagogic ways to evoke students’ desire to question beliefs, recognize and understand different knowledge perceptions, analyze and synthesize information, and construct new knowledge. That is what will equip them for expert work and make them great communication managers.

Stay tuned
In the coming weeks we’ll issue new chapters of #EUPRERApeople! Be sure to receive them in your mailbox:

13 January 2023
#EUPRERApeople – Interview with Dan Laufer
Welcome back to

Interview with Dan Laufer
Associate Professor of Marketing
Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand

 

 

Daniel Laufer, PhD MBA is an Associate Professor of Marketing, and a former Head of School (2014-2017) at Victoria University of Wellington, one of the leading universities in New Zealand.
Dan’s area of expertise is Crisis Communication, and his articles have appeared in leading academic and managerial journals in the fields of marketing and public relations. Dan currently serves as an Associate Editor for the European Journal of Marketing, and he recently completed a 3-year term as an Associate Editor for Business Horizons, a leading managerial journal. He also serves on the editorial board of Public Relations Review.

One of your primary fields of research focuses on crisis communication, and specifically how business leaders need to be prepared to communicate clearly and effectively in a world impacted by crises. What are the main insights that you can share from your research?

I’ve been conducting research in the area of crisis communication for over 20 years since I completed my PhD at the University of Texas at Austin in 2002, and it’s been a great experience working on projects that have important implications for companies. At the beginning of my career, I focused on how and why consumer segments differ in their assessment of blame for product harm crises.

For example, in a study published in 2004 we found that women are more likely to assess blame to a company as observers to a product harm crisis than men. The reason for the difference was increased levels of perceived vulnerability to harm when compared with men. This finding was consistent with the defensive attribution hypothesis from psychology which established a connection between the perceived severity and personal vulnerability of observers to a crisis and attributions of blame. As the perceived severity and personal vulnerability of an ambiguous crisis increases, there is a psychological need to assess blame to resolve the uncertainty. During an ambiguous product harm crisis this need to assess blame translates into more blame to the company, since observers to a crisis view themselves as more similar to the victims (other consumers). In terms of managerial implications, this suggests that women may be more likely to blame a company for an ambiguous product harm crisis than men.

In addition to differences between men and women, we also examined differences between older and younger consumers as observers to a product harm crisis. In our study published in 2012, we found that older consumers felt less vulnerable to harm than younger consumers during a product harm crisis. As a result, older consumers were less likely to blame the company for the product harm crisis, and more likely to purchase the product in the future.

We believe the results of our study are related to age-related differences in primary vs. secondary control processes. Due to the aging process, older consumers have less control over their physical environment as a result of cognitive and physical decline which is related to primary control. As a result of the increased vulnerability, older consumers are more likely to be adversely impacted by events in their external environment such as product harm crises. However, as a result of the aging process older consumers also change how they perceive their external environment in order to reduce distress resulting from their diminished levels of primary control. Changes in their perceptions of the external environment relates to secondary control, and enables older consumers to show greater satisfaction with their current life situation.

Our findings relating to how older consumers view product harm crises is related to secondary control, which causes them to view the situation as less threatening when compared with younger consumers. The findings of our study suggest that companies should work harder to make older consumers aware of risks created by product harm crises.

After publishing a number of articles relating to how consumers arrive at blame attributions, I shifted my focus to product recall communication which was an under-researched topic in Crisis Communication. Product recall communication also has important managerial implications since a major challenge companies face during a product recall is convincing consumers to comply with a product recall request. We felt regulatory focus theory from the field of psychology could help improve the effectiveness of product recall communications, and in a study conducted in South Korea in 2010, we found that adapting the message to the regulatory focus orientation of consumers (prevention vs. promotion orientation) increased compliance with a product recall request.

A good example of differences between a prevention vs. promotion message involves a product recall of automobiles as a result of problems with the engine. A prevention-oriented message would highlight preventing damage to the engine, and a promotion-oriented message would highlight extending the lifespan of the engine. Based on regulatory focus theory creating a fit between the regulatory orientation of the consumer and the message, increases compliance with a product recall request, which is what we found in our study. It is worth noting that researchers have found that consumer segments can differ in their regulatory focus orientation. For example, in individualistic societies researchers have found that people have a more promotion-orientation, whereas in collectivistic societies researchers have found that people have a more prevention-orientation.

A recurring theme that has characterized my research during my career is the importance of understanding your audience which goes beyond stakeholder type. In my case, I have focused on the consumer as the stakeholder of interest during a product harm crisis. However, there are many types of consumers (older vs. younger, men vs. women, prevention vs. promotion oriented), and they can differ in how they perceive crises and corporate communications. In order to develop effective crisis communications, it is important for companies to understand these differences. Theories from psychology (for example, regulatory focus theory and the defensive attribution hypothesis) can help us understand the differences, and develop more effective crisis communications that address stakeholders’ concerns during a crisis.

In your articles, you often state that the cultural environment is an important factor to consider in crisis management. With many companies facing challenges operating globally, do you have any suggestions for effective communications during a global crisis?

Multinationals face a challenging situation when crises occur overseas. How should they respond in different countries? Stakeholders have different expectations because of cultural differences, and a uniform response could be harmful to a company already suffering because of the crisis. My recent research has focused on when to use the CEO as a spokesperson during an overseas product harm crisis. We identified three factors to consider when deciding whether to use the CEO as a spokesperson: the characteristics of the CEO, the characteristics of the crisis, and the characteristics of consumers in the overseas market.

For example, in an empirical study we conducted in China and South Korea in 2018 we focused on a value orientation, Power Distance Orientation, which we believed could impact the effectiveness of a CEO spokesperson during an overseas product harm crisis. We found that consumers that rank high on Power Distance Orientation were more positively impacted by communications from a foreign CEO compared with a regular spokesperson during an overseas product harm crisis. This translated into higher levels of brand trust and future purchase intentions of the company’s product. Our research suggests that sending a foreign CEO as a spokesperson to a country that ranks high on Power Distance such as China could help a company during a product harm crisis. On the other hand, it would not be as beneficial to send a foreign CEO as a spokesperson to a country that ranks low on Power Distance such as New Zealand. In a country that ranks low on Power Distance, the status of the messenger is not as important when compared with a country that ranks high on Power Distance. In those cases a regular spokesperson would be as effective as a CEO based on our research.

A considerable amount of research in the area of crisis communication has focused on the effectiveness of different types of messages during a crisis, however I believe more research should examine the effectiveness of different types of spokespersons on stakeholders. In a global context we found that the effectiveness of different types of spokespersons is impacted by the Power Distance Orientation of consumers. However, future research should examine other cultural factors as well.

 

What are, in your opinion, the most valuable skills for PR professionals that would like to become crisis communication experts?

The ability to effectively communicate with different stakeholders before, during, and after a crisis is essential in order to be a successful crisis communication expert. Based on my research this involves gaining an understanding of the unique characteristics of the various stakeholders which can differ. Only after the PR professional understands the values and concerns of the stakeholder, a message can be developed which is tailored to the unique characteristics of the stakeholder. For example, in my research relating to product recall communication and regulatory focus theory we found that it is important to understand whether consumers are prevention or promotion oriented. Based on their regulatory focus orientation, a product recall message is developed which fits this orientation (prevention or promotion focused). The result of creating this regulatory fit based on the orientation of the consumer is increased compliance with a product recall request, an important objective of a company during a product recall.

A crisis communication expert should be able to identify these important characteristics, and tailor the message to fit the stakeholder’s preferences. This will increase the effectiveness of an organization’s communications during a crisis.

Stay tuned
In the coming weeks we’ll issue new chapters of #EUPRERApeople! Be sure to receive them in your mailbox:

16 December 2022
#EUPRERApeople – Interview with Gisela Gonçalves
Welcome back to

Interview with Gisela Gonçalves
Professor and Director of the Master Program of Strategic Communication
at University of Beira Interior, Portugal

 One of your recent publication is “The Guiding Principles of the profession. A comparative study of Ethical Codes promoted by PR associations”. First of all, can you explain the role of PR association in the promotion of ethical codes for PR professionals? 

Since Lucien Matrat’s Code of ethics, adopted by IPRA in 1965, PR ethics have been widely
discussed within professional associations, at national and international levels. Ethics codes
reflect the normative development of a profession and may be understood as the result of an
ongoing negotiation between the profession and the society in which professional operates. In
the fight for class interests, professional associations might contribute to the defense of good
professional practices, as well as to the monitoring of these practices.

Codes of ethics promoted by professional associations can play rhetorical, aspirational and
educational roles. Codes can be perceived as rhetorical devices insofar as they are documents
which seek not only to define the activity and its guiding values, but also, and above all, to
legitimize the profession in society. Ethical codes also have a clearly aspirational and
educational role as the set of values is, in essence, presented to the professional as an ideal
worth striving for. They provide an ideal standard of behavior, reflecting the ethical issues
common to the profession, and can be guides in the process of decision-making and action.

Some people argue that professional codes of ethics have only a cosmetic purpose as
professional associations usually don’t promote mechanisms to enforce Codes and to punish
infringers. I beg to differ. Professional associations may have a pivotal importance promoting
ethical PR praxis. In addition to proposing, discussing, and updating ethical codes, professional
association can support events, as conferences or workshops, to collectively discuss professional
values and ethical challenges faced by practitioners in their everyday practice. Most of the
discussions around ethics embody what Parsons (2004) refers to as the five pillars that carry the
weight of ethical decision-making in Public Relations: truthfulness (tell the truth); non-
maleficence (do no harm); beneficence (do good); confidentiality (respect privacy); justice (be
fair and socially responsible). See the ICCO (https://iccopr.com/ethics/) or the Global Alliance
“Ethics month” project (https://www.globalalliancepr.org/global-alliance-ethics-month). These
are both goods examples of the role that professional bodies can play in creating a forum to
discussing PR ethics, in a very participative and inclusive way.

During your study you have surely come across different ethical guiding principles, according to the different approaches to the profession. Nevertheless, are there any principles of the profession that can be called “universal” nowadays?? 

That is precisely one the questions that guided our research, but before trying to answer let me
explain that “The guiding principles of the profession: a comparative study” is a project
developed jointly with two Spanish colleagues Susana Miquel Segarra (University of Jaume I)
and Isabel Ruiz-Mora (University of Malaga). It will be published soon in the new EUPRERA
book, at Emerald.

The quest for universal values is not new neither consensual in the public relations field. Some
authors stress the significance of universal values across countries to enhancing PR
professionalism as others opt for a more relativistic viewpoint, by arguing that PR practice is
influenced by the local context, the cultural, economic, political system and the country’s own
history. In our study we tried to avoid the tension between the local and global approach to
ethics by grounding the analysis in Schwartz’s theory of basic human values. Following this
influential social psychologist, we consider values as basic and fundamental beliefs that guide
or motivate actions. They provide the general guidelines for conduct, that can be universal
across all cultures, but also can vary individually.

Bearing that in mind, a qualitative and quantitative content analysis was carried out on the codes
of ethics of six national associations (Argentina, Brazil, Portugal, Spain, United Kingdom and
the United States) and of the Global Code of Ethics, proposed by Global Alliance for PR – a
confederation of the world’s largest public relations and communication management
associations. Findings showed that the values contained in PR codes of ethics are based on a
system of 32 human values and that only three values were identified in all the codes: integrity,
truthfulness and the respect for the common good. Motivational values relating to universalism
(e.g. diversity, social responsibility, sustainability), benevolence (e.g., loyalty, honesty, fairness)
conformity (e.g. confidentiality, accuracy, transparency) are also covered in varying degrees in
all the texts. We also found out that: 1) the Global Alliance code is the only text that deals with
all the values of all the motivations described by Schwartz; and 2) that Latin countries include
more principles of universal universalism, as for ex., diversity, social responsibility, and
sustainability.

In the future we need to enlarge the sample of codes/countires analyzed, but for it can be
stressed that integrity, truthfulness and the respect for the common good are three universal
guiding principles in the PR profession.

You newest Handbook of Nonprofit Communication will be published in autumn. Even though nonprofit communication has its rules, are there any useful suggestion for PR professional operating in other sectors?

I am very happy to confirm that The Routledge Handbook of Nonprofit Communication, co-
edited with my colleague Evandro Oliveira has already been released. This Handbook brings
together multidisciplinary and internationally diverse contributors to provide an overview of
theory, research, and practice in the nonprofit and nongovernmental organization
communication field. Composed of 34 chapters, it is a volume that provides a thorough account
of the challenges that converge in nonprofit research in a changing and complex environment.
On November 9 th we had the online launch of the book, with the presence of prof Thomas Tufte
and several authors that contributed to the handbook (the webinar is available here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPA7y6h4yXU).

Nonprofit communication entails considerable complexity in terms of goals, audiences and
resources when compared to the business sector. First, nonprofit organizations (NPOs) operate
on a multilayered level, considering a diverse group of stakeholders, including donors,
volunteers, minority groups, regulatory bodies, or other NPOs. Second, at the operational level,
the lack of human and material resources can have consequences on the daily life of these
organizations. But it is at the social level that NPO’s legitimacy is strongly dependent on their
communicative efforts to maintain high ethical standards as “servants of society”. Therefore,
communication goals related to transparency or credibility values, for instance, can be
considered problematic if we look to NPOs needs of balancing audiences’ skepticism and
building trust.

In fact, building and maintaining trust requires openness and transparency in all interactions
with publics and in any sector, not only in the nonprofit. We live in a post-pandemic world and
in a media context that is seriously undermined by phenomena such as fake news, social bots,
and disinformation. The lack of trust in business, public institutions, organizations in civil
society and even in public relations practitioners themselves can only be counteracted with
communicative practices driven by values as honesty, fairness, integrity, and the public interest.
Also necessary is a PR praxis that respects and includes the voices of all kinds of publics,
promoting dialogue and public participation in organization’s’ objectives and mission. There is
no magic recipe for successful PR, in any sector, but the momentum to put emphasis in
communication ethics is here and now.

Stay tuned
In the coming weeks we’ll issue new chapters of #EUPRERApeople! Be sure to receive them in your mailbox:

18 November 2022
#EUPRERApeople – Interview with Sine Nørholm Just
Welcome back to

Interview with Sine Nørholm Just,
Professor of Strategic Communication at
Roskilde University, Denmark

Sine Nørholm Just is a professor of strategic communication at Roskilde University, Denmark. She is the principal investigator of Algorithms, Data & Democracy, a 10-year, interdisciplinary, research and outreach project.

“I was trained in rhetoric at the University of Copenhagen, then spent 15 years or so at Copenhagen Business School and have been working at Roskilde University since 2017. I still identify very much with the rhetorical tradition and am always seeking to understand persuasive processes and situations. Not that I agree with Lloyd Bitzer’s definition of the rhetorical situation, but it is really helpful to ask about the persuasive constitution of events and processes: what is the ‘imperfection marked by urgency’ that calls for action and what are the constraints that shape persuasive attempts? Today, technological transformations are both an important issue of concern that we urgently need to debate publicly, and they are central constraints for any persuasive process, no matter the topic”.

Prof. Just, you are one of the main investigators for the collaborative research project “Algorithms, Data & Democracy”. Can you explain the interconnection between these factors and how your project has been studying them?

Algorithms and data are inextricably linked in so far as algorithms are sequences of steps for solving a problem, which is the standard definition in computer science. Algorithms work by running input data through this sequence thereby providing output data. As such, algorithms are integral to the process that some scholars define as ‘the datafication of society’. And algorithms are trained on data, a process that is, today, becoming increasingly autonomous, as algorithms learn to find patterns in the training data and can apply these patterns when they operate on data ‘in the wild’ – as process that is often characterized as ‘artificial intelligence’ (AI).  

All of this has two main democratic implications. First, algorithms and data are redefining how regulators and other collective decision-makers go about their work. Take, for instance, the case of predictive policing in which algorithms suggest where crime is more likely to occur. Or the case of algorithmic diagnoses in which medical professionals are figuring out how to collaborate with ‘Dr. AI’. As more and more such specific examples crop up, we might see them as signs of an emergent ‘algocracy’ – a society ruled by algorithms, which evokes utopian as well as dystopian imaginaries. Second, if we want to debate these developments – or any other issues for that matter – our processes of meaning formation are fundamentally shaped by algorithms and data. How would you learn about ‘algocracy’, for instance? You’d most likely google it. How would you organize a seminar or public debate on the topic? Various social media and other digital technologies would most certainly be involved. Algorithms, Data & Democracy (the ADD-project) seeks to understand all of these developments, focusing on their sociotechnical interrelations – on the ways in which technological and societal developments are co-produced.

One explicit objective of your project is to show how data and algorithms can be used to enlighten and engage citizens and to strengthen democracy. Are there any interesting findings that you would like to share with EUPRERA members?

The ADD-project aims to strengthen digital democracy, asking how the algorithmic organisation of data might engage, enlighten, and empower individual citizens and democratic institutions. Before we get this far, however, it is important to understand current developments, particularly in terms of the issues of public concern that I sketched out above. In this respect, the project focuses on controversial algorithms and algorithmic controversies (debates about algorithms and data that are inherently shaped by algorithms and data). Here, we begin from Krantzberg’s famous first law, which states that technologies in themselves are neither good or bad, nor are they ever neutral. Currently, technologies are often put to societal uses that are less than optimal, but the premise of the ADD-project is that the solution is not to do away with technologies. Rather, we should find better ways of using them.

The project is a 10-year endeavour, and we are only a year and a half in. Hence, it is still very early days, but one promising case is that of doctors finding ways of collaborating with AI technologies around diagnoses of, for instance, breast cancer. Here, we see the careful organisation of processes that protect participants’ data and preserve the agency of human professionals while leading to more accurate decisions being made faster. In the further work with this case, which I undertake with my colleagues at Roskilde University, we hope to be able to develop a model for such algorithmically enhanced decision-making that can be applied beyond the context of health.

Concerning the algorithmic organisation of public debate, an area that might be especially relevant to Euprera members, I’m not so hopeful, unfortunately. When looking at current developments, there aren’t many examples from which we might extrapolate to suggest how algorithmic public debate might strengthen democracy. Sure, movements like #MeToo and Black Lives Matter show that algorithmic affordances of public debate can be put to good use, but the very same conditions of possibility also produce misogynist and racist backlash. The overall tendency, here, is the polarization of public debate, which, when coupled with the increasing personalization of content, produces what I term ‘the closing of the rhetorical mind’. We become used to being fed messages and products that are tailored to our preferences and needs and unaccustomed to engaging productively with opinions that are different from our own. Thus, we increasingly resist overt persuasion whilst being persuaded covertly all the time. I do not (yet) have any specific suggestions as to what we might do to revert this tendency, but I think it is imperative that we do – and invite all Euprera members to participate in this endeavour.

People tend to think that algorithms are neutral and objective. Nevertheless, as they are created and used by human beings, the need for transparency and ethical guidelines is growing. How seriously are communication professionals taking this development towards datafication? How important is the ethical factor in the mounting debate around this issue in the profession?

Before trying to answer this question, let me point to the work of my close colleague Ib T. Gulbrandsen and his collaborators who are working on a project called Strategizing Communication and Artificial Intelligence (SCAI). Their research addresses the question of the role of communications professionals more directly than we do in the ADD-project. My own answer, therefore, will be a bit broader and, as mentioned, begins form the assumption that algorithms are never neutral. Hence, a first task for communications professionals could be to help dispel that belief. Second, we – as practitioners and researchers – might take on an active role in developing more ethical human-technology interactions. Such development, I suggest, can begin with a set of quite simple questions: What is the problem that this algorithm solves? Why does this problem need to be solved?How does the algorithm solve it? What data is involved in creating the solution? What are the benefits of the solution? And does it have any drawbacks? If we recenter the debate around the ethical use of algorithms and data for communicative purposes, we might begin to push current developments in better and more responsible directions.

 

Stay tuned
In the coming weeks we’ll issue new chapters of #EUPRERApeople! Be sure to receive them in your mailbox:

21 October 2022
#EUPRERApeople – Interview with Antje Eichler
Welcome back to

Interview with Antje Eichler,
Doctoral candidate at
Katholische Universität Eichstätt-Ingolstadt, Germany

Prof. Eichler, you are part of an interesting research study titled “Lobbying for science and higher education”.  Can you explain how it was born and which are its main findings? 

With their research, universities and science organizations provide an important basis for political
decisions. This was impressively demonstrated not least by the Covid19 pandemic. Despite this
importance, the relationship between science and politics has been insufficiently researched. In a
workshop at the annual conference of the German University Communication Association
(Bundesverband Hochschulkommunikation) a few years ago, those responsible for communication at
colleges and universities for the first time exchanged views on how their institutions communicate
with politics. The workshop made clear: Some universities are surprisingly active, from parliamentary
breakfasts to bus trips for MPs to the campus. Others reported that they were already happy when the
mayor showed up to welcome the freshmen. A very heterogeneous picture – like university
communication as a whole. And the reason for me to empirically investigate the activities in this area.
That is, to develop a theoretical concept for science lobbying and to conduct a comprehensive
stocktaking. Building on a qualitative preliminary study in 2017 and 2018 with 17 semi-standardized
guideline interviews, I developed a standardized online questionnaire that a total of 120
communication officers from universities, research organizations and alliances completed in 2019 and
2020.

The findings paint a multi-layered and heterogeneous picture of science lobbying. Nevertheless, three
key findings can be highlighted: Firstly, there is a lack of awareness of the importance of science
lobbying, especially at universities. Secondly, the institutions lack a lobbying strategy. And thirdly:
The science alliances – whose primary task is to represent political interests – only speak with a weak
voice.

The reasons for the lack of strategic communication between science and politics are manifold.
Nevertheless, three essential factors can be identified: First, despite its importance, lobbying is poorly
researched. Theoretical definitions are imprecise and empirical studies are lacking, also a reason why
lobbying has a bad public image. In parts of society and especially in science, lobbying is therefore
considered a dirty business that is better left out of. This results, secondly, in a frightening ignorance
on the part of politicians. Large sections of politics simply do not have universities and science on
their radar. They have all kinds of people from business on their doorstep, but not from science. The
president of the University of Braunschweig just reported this in the same way from a meeting with
members of the Bundestag: “They told us: we don’t know what the universities are doing”; The main
reason for this – and here we come to the third factor for the lack of strategic orientation – is to be
found inside the institutions: There is a lack of clear responsibilities concerning communication,
especially at the universities – the research organizations are better positioned here – and university
communication still does not have the status it should have. There are personal speakers of the
president who do not communicate with the university communication department. University
communication is not involved in communication with politics, just as it is often not involved in the
strategic development of the university.

Are there any suggestions for people that are communicating in (and for) universities and research institution to make their communication more strategic and effective towards political institutions? 

The recommendations result from the last-mentioned reason for the lack of strategic communication:
The people that are communicating in (and for) universities and research institutions need to be much
more connected to the head of the organization and involved in the overall planning. This is the crucial
basis for successful communication and lobbying. Only in this way can those responsible for
communication develop a lobbying concept together with the relevant stakeholder within the
organization. Such a concept should – like any PR concept – follow a communicative cycle: from
analytical order to strategic planning to operational implementation, which then contains concrete
measures that finally also must be evaluated to be able to adapt and optimize the lobbying concept.

Often, the analytical and planning steps are skipped. Instead, one gets straight down to individual
measures, according to the motto: Why don’t you invite all the city councillors to the inauguration of
our new laboratory? Or: Our federal state will soon be presenting itself at a trade fair in Berlin. Let our
president and vice-presidents go there. Such measures are not well thought out and not coordinated
internally and therefore usually come to nothing.

A few universities are now actually implementing this requirement: Last year, the first university in
Germany anchored communication directly in the presidency, virtually at the same level as the vice-
presidents for research and teaching. The woman who took over this job at the University of Freiburg
at the beginning of last year is the same one who initiated the workshop on the conference where my
research idea came from. And the colleague who supported her in it became Chief Communication
Officer at the Technical University of Darmstadt shortly afterwards. Almost simultaneously, the
Technical University of Dresden followed, and this year the Technical University of Munich, the
University of Cologne and the Technical University of Braunschweig. Anchoring communication at
the level of a vice president in the presidency is not mandatory for all universities and research
institutions. But the signal is clear: strategic communication belongs into the executive board.

About The project highlights the role of “science alliances”: what are they and how are they strategical for lobby actions for universities?

One of the central tasks of associations and their primary reason for foundation is the political
representation of their members’ interests. In science, there are numerous associations between
universities and between research organizations. In Germany, they range from the local and regional
level through the federal states to nationally active associations. In addition, there are countless
cooperations at the European level. So far, there is no uniform overview of the associations. In my
study, I try to collect everything that exists. In Germany, the so-called “Landesrektorenkonferenzen”
(literally translated: federal conferences of the universities presidents) are particularly relevant since
education and science are the responsibility of the federal states. Their role is even anchored in the
state higher education laws. They are supposed to coordinate activities of the universities in a federal
state and articulate common concerns to politicians.

In practice, these associations fulfil their tasks in different ways. Some have their own office, a
website and release statements on science policy. Most, however, are not really active. Instead, they
are in fact state rectors conferences in the truest sense of the word. To put it slightly exaggeratedly,
this is how it works: The rectors – mostly older men – of the universities of a federal state meet twice
a year and brag about how great their own university is and how great they would be if the state
politicians would make more money available. Finally, they decide to ask together for more money,
but in the end, everyone runs to the minister on his own.

More and more universities feel that they are not properly represented by these associations and start
their own initiatives. In recent years, new networks have emerged, such as the so-called TU9, German
U15, HAWtech or, most recently in 2020, the German University Alliance 11+. However, all these
alliances are more or less paper tigers that sometimes send out a press release or invite to an event.
They are not well known, neither in the media, nor in politics, nor even in their own community.

It would make perfect sense to bundle the concerns of the universities, to put weight on the scales and
to carry out joint actions. Just like industry associations such as the energy or the automobile sector do
– and are successful at it. The associations of universities and science do really have something to
offer politicians: millions of students, tens of thousands of jobs and, above all, their scientific expertise.

Especially at the European level, associations of universities and research organizations can play an important role. It would be very interesting to investigate this field together with researchers from other European countries and to derive recommendations for science and politics. For this, I would be happy to use the EUPRERA network.

The idea of my research project “Lobbying for Science and Higher Education” originates in my own
work experience at the communication department of a university. Initially, my study, therefore, aimed
at enlarging practical knowledge on how to lobby for universities and research institutions. When I
started my research, however, I quickly realized that there is not only a lack of empirical studies and
application-oriented research, but what is more, lobbying is not sufficiently framed theoretically. One
reason may be that communications science does not pay enough attention to lobbying compared to
the significant role lobbying plays for society. Whether the German Communications Science
Association, DGPuK, nor the European one, ECREA, has a separate section for lobbying. So, I was
very pleased when I came across EUPRERA, because here You find a “Public Affairs and Lobbying”
network.

Many decisions concerning universities and research institutions are made at the European level. For
this reason, it is important for them to lobby there. However, detailed studies on this are lacking. The
EUPRERA network offers a good opportunity for further joint research and for developing training
programmes. In Germany, public affairs and lobbying are not yet an independent part of the
curriculum in communications studies. It would be beneficial for research and practice to strengthen
the existing know-how and activities within EUPRERA in this sense. So, let us continue networking
and exchanging ideas to give public affairs and lobbying the status in our field that they have in
society.

Stay tuned
In the coming weeks we’ll issue new chapters of #EUPRERApeople! Be sure to receive them in your mailbox:

4 October 2022
#EUPRERApeople – Interview with Nilüfer Turksöy
Welcome back to

Interview with Nilüfer Turksöy ,
Associate Professor at Department of
Public Relations and Advertising
Eastern Mediterranean University, Cyprus

One of your most recent publications is called “The Future of Public Relations, Advertising and Journalism: How Artificial Intelligence May Transform the Communication Profession and Why Society Should Care?”. Can you summarize its main findings? How is AI going to integrate into the daily tasks of PR professionals?

In recent years, we have seen that evolving technology became one of the most prominent drivers of flexibility, change, innovation, and creativity. For public relations professionals, three key themes capture an important element of how Artificial Intelligence applications may transform the PR profession.Firstly, public relations professionals would benefit from AI-enabled systems for tasks that help them predict media trends and monitor social media. Artificial Intelligence has a self-learning capability and offers a tool that could respond autonomously to posts, queries, tweets, and other messages texted on social media.With the help of AI-powered machines, PR practitioners could receive instant alerts about an online crisis, negative word of mouth, and inaccurate or fake stories. Given negative messages spread enormously in the digital environment, these AI tools would allow public relations practitioners to respond quickly and effectively with relevant messages.Secondly, Artificial Intelligence would increasingly assist public relations practitioners, especially on some tedious, repetitive, mundane, and administration-based tasks that have less value. For example, practitioners would use Artificial Intelligence tools to schedule meetings, scan massive amounts of data, create media lists, develop coverage reports, set due dates, structure meeting notes, organize and update media lists, convert audio into text, or simply assist with repetitive day-to-day tasks.

In this way, more of the day could be spent on added-value activities or simply on doing the more strategic elements of the job like advising clients, relationship building, generating ideas, and creative writing that would touch people on an emotional level and get the media’s attention to tell that story for the targeted public.Finally, applying AI in the public relations industry would mean faster and optimized results. AI would allow PR professionals to process statistics and any kind of data much faster and would help them to make creative decisions based on data, facts, and trends, rather than relying on gut feelings. For instance, data-driven public relations campaigns could make use of AI to create new experiences that may increase brand affinity. Using these tools would mean faster, optimized results that will in turn allow PR practitioners to meet their goals faster than ever.

You are saying that it appears that the future of the communication profession would be a blend of both Artificial Intelligence technologies and human insight. In your opinion, how must PR professionals prepare for this giant leap in the profession? Which are the personal skills to be developed now?

Public relations professionals are becoming aware that Artificial Intelligence would bring a competitive advantage and would allow companies to produce services better and cheaper. To be able to offer informed, useful, and practical advice to customers, public relations practitioners must develop an adequate understanding of Artificial Intelligence. Firstly, they must familiarise themselves and learn to read statistical information. Then they should learn how to interpret the statistics to create good relations with customers and good PR campaigns. Knowing how to read statistics is one thing, but how to apply what you have read to create successful PR campaigns is another. Secondly, PR professionals need to know how to use AI tools that help them tap into their target audience’s hearts and minds. To be able to use these tools efficiently, PR professionals must take literacy classes in using AI-enabled software. For instance, Brandwatch and Talkwalker are instrumental in gathering and analysing big data. Real-time big data will offer PR practitioners the information they need to provide the current content that consumers want to see. And finally, having good research skills is extremely helpful in this industry. We already use AI-powered tools like Google Analytics and Cision to make our work more efficient and effective. Staying up to date with the latest developments is instrumental to remaining one step ahead.

It appears that the communication profession would be a blend of both AI technologies and human insight. This means that, on the one hand, AI tools would help PR professionals to assist in improving content marketing efforts, audience personalization, and in calculating audience response. On the other hand, the public relations profession requires social relations, political contacts, and feelings. Activities such as providing expert advice, generating reports and presentations, event planning, project management, and creative work are essential to public relations, and they require judgement, human intuition, reasoning, emotional intelligence, and empathy. These types of crucial skills are still hard to automate with currently available Artificial Intelligence technologies.

About society as a whole, what will be the main consequences of communication more and more supported by AI?

We hear a lot about big data, data capitalism, surveillance capitalism, and control society. Our online interactions and communications are constantly being monitored and collected by mega-corporations. For instance, only by observing our social media consumption, technology giants may distort the political opinions we form. AI-powered tools may analyse consumers’ data via large-scale deep learning algorithms and may use this data unethically by converting it into companies’ profit. In 2018, the Cambridge Analytica data scandal, where millions of Facebook accounts were used for political purposes, show us how news may affect the market’s complex structure. Without asking for users’ permission, AI tools could monitor our online browsing activities and could gather unlimited information about our purchasing behaviour; they could manipulate users’ views of the world; they could impact our ethics, our politics, and voting behaviour. This means that those who use algorithmic machine tools may play not only with our purchasing decisions, but also with our enjoyments, desires, and fantasies.

At no time in history, have markets become so concentrated in the hands of a few digital companies. Today, Google together with Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, and Facebook are the top five biggest corporations that use advanced AI technologies in the world.  They rely on their economic muscles and powerful position in society. They have a common growing effect on people’s daily life; they also have a growing political influence. This raises ethical concerns about how communication professionals working for big companies shape the world via AI-powered systems, and for which purposes they use AI. Take Instagram as an example; it uses AI to show us the content it thinks we want to see the most. The AI looks at what kind of posts we have commented on or liked and who we follow and what we liked. It then uses this data to find the content that we are most likely to enjoy, keeping us in the app longer. Our mindset when it comes to social media is quite weak. If AI is programmed to maximize advertising clicks, then it can create all sorts of crises.  We, as PR practitioners, need to lead not follow AI.

AI technologies are programmed to make intelligent machines capable of solving problems better than people could. They are smart and they are getting dangerous, as they could outsmart humanity. This means that AI would be the future for all humankind. AI could mimic human intelligence and make use of big data shared by humans online. Even the late Stephen Hawking’s concern is alarming. Hawking highlighted: “Whereas the short-term impact of AI depends on who controls it, the long-term impact depends on whether it can be controlled at all”.

Suggested article by Nilüfer Türksoy

Türksoy, N. (2022). “The future of public relations, advertising and journalism: How artificial intelligence may transform the communication profession and why society should care?”. Turkish Review of Communication Studies, 40: 394-410.

Stay tuned
In the coming weeks we’ll issue new chapters of #EUPRERApeople! Be sure to receive them in your mailbox:

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