Changing conversation and dialogue through LeadSA: an example of public relations activism in South Africa

Abstract:The words of Lund and Nabavi “we learn more about something if we talk about it” (2008, p. 27) highlight the importance of conversation and dialogue in bringing about change – be it in an organization or in society. In South Africa, given the country’s history, dialogue across ethnic, social and political divides does not come naturally. The need for changed and new conversations exists in South Africa. Despite celebrating 20 years of democracy South Africans still face many economic, social and moral challenges. These challenges manifest themselves through protest actions against the slow pace of improvement in the townships, frustration with lack of personal progress among young South Africans, a lack of tolerance and understanding of the “others” (Seekings, 2007). Unfortunately change takes time and concerted effort (Eyre & Littleton, 2013), trust must be built and is earned through participation in open dialogue and mutual negotiation (Bardhan, 2011, p. 97). Public relations activism as a manifestation of the postmodernist worldview and PR activists as change agents are at the heart of this exploratory study of the role of public relations in the South African society. The research aim of this article is to investigate the principles and methods used by Primedia Broadcasting South Africa’s LeadSA initiative to start and facilitate social dialogue and to contribute to social change. Data was collected by means of interviews with key decision-makers at LeadSA. In addition, a variety of documents, such as electronic newsletters, internal documents and research reports, were analysed. A case study approach was used to contextualise the theory and illustrate the principles and practices implemented by LeadSA

Cultural intermediaries and the circuit of culture : the digital ambassadors project in Johannesburg, South Africa

Abstract: The question raised by Cheney and Christensen (2001) as to “what a non-Western, nonmanagerial and non-rationalist form of public relations will look like” (p.182), together with the call made by Gregory (2014) for public relations practitioners (PRPs) to be active social change agents, motivated this paper. The aim of this research is to follow a culture-centred approach and apply the circuit of culture (Curtin & Gaither, 2005) to investigate the meanings that young people (aged 18 to 34), as cultural intermediaries, ascribe to their participation in a digital empowerment project implemented by the City of Johannesburg, South Africa. This research forms part of a larger, ongoing multi-disciplinary research project..

An exploratory study on the potential of social enterprise to act as the institutional glue of network governance

This study combines two topics of contemporary salience for public administration: social enterprise and governance networks. While operating at different levels, both are institutions which attempt to draw together the three pillars of state, market, and civil society. Nevertheless, the respective literatures focus on particular aspects of the three pillars. We connect the two concepts and suggest that some social enterprises can act as the institutional glue of networks due to their ability to benefit organizations in each of the three sectors. This requires social enterprises to have the managerial capacity to diffuse social know-how, and is facilitated by the trust of other organizations and a supportive policy framework. The links are explicated at the conceptual level before providing evidence from South Korea and the UK. Finally, research propositions are offered, which suggest new avenues for future research

Measurement of the azimuthal anisotropy of Y(1S) and Y(2S) mesons in PbPb collisions at √S^{S}NN = 5.02 TeV

The second-order Fourier coefficients (υ$_{2}$) characterizing the azimuthal distributions of Υ(1S) and Υ(2S) mesons produced in PbPb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}$ = 5.02 TeV are studied. The Υmesons are reconstructed in their dimuon decay channel, as measured by the CMS detector. The collected data set corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 1.7 nb$^{-1}$. The scalar product method is used to extract the υ$_{2}$ coefficients of the azimuthal distributions. Results are reported for the rapidity range |y| < 2.4, in the transverse momentum interval 0 < p$_{T}$ < 50 GeV/c, and in three centrality ranges of 10–30%, 30–50% and 50–90%. In contrast to the J/ψ mesons, the measured υ$_{2}$ values for the Υ mesons are found to be consistent with zero

Measurement of prompt D0^{0} and D‾\overline{D}0^{0} meson azimuthal anisotropy and search for strong electric fields in PbPb collisions at root SNN\sqrt{S_{NN}} = 5.02 TeV

The strong Coulomb field created in ultrarelativistic heavy ion collisions is expected to produce a rapiditydependent difference (Av2) in the second Fourier coefficient of the azimuthal distribution (elliptic flow, v2) between D0 (uc) and D0 (uc) mesons. Motivated by the search for evidence of this field, the CMS detector at the LHC is used to perform the first measurement of Av2. The rapidity-averaged value is found to be (Av2) = 0.001 ? 0.001 (stat)? 0.003 (syst) in PbPb collisions at ?sNN = 5.02 TeV. In addition, the influence of the collision geometry is explored by measuring the D0 and D0mesons v2 and triangular flow coefficient (v3) as functions of rapidity, transverse momentum (pT), and event centrality (a measure of the overlap of the two Pb nuclei). A clear centrality dependence of prompt D0 meson v2 values is observed, while the v3 is largely independent of centrality. These trends are consistent with expectations of flow driven by the initial-state geometry. ? 2021 The Author. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY licens

Performance of reconstruction and identification of τ leptons decaying to hadrons and vτ in pp collisions at √s=13 TeV

The algorithm developed by the CMS Collaboration to reconstruct and identify τ leptons produced in proton-proton collisions at √s=7 and 8 TeV, via their decays to hadrons and a neutrino, has been significantly improved. The changes include a revised reconstruction of π⁰ candidates, and improvements in multivariate discriminants to separate τ leptons from jets and electrons. The algorithm is extended to reconstruct τ leptons in highly Lorentz-boosted pair production, and in the high-level trigger. The performance of the algorithm is studied using proton-proton collisions recorded during 2016 at √s=13 TeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 35.9 fb¯¹. The performance is evaluated in terms of the efficiency for a genuine τ lepton to pass the identification criteria and of the probabilities for jets, electrons, and muons to be misidentified as τ leptons. The results are found to be very close to those expected from Monte Carlo simulation

Measurement of the Y(1S) pair production cross section and search for resonances decaying to Y(1S)μ⁺μ⁻ in proton-proton collisions at √s = 13 TeV

The fiducial cross section for Y(1S)pair production in proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 13TeVin the region where both Y(1S)mesons have an absolute rapidity below 2.0 is measured to be 79 ± 11 (stat) ±6 (syst) ±3 (B)pbassuming the mesons are produced unpolarized. The last uncertainty corresponds to the uncertainty in the Y(1S)meson dimuon branching fraction. The measurement is performed in the final state with four muons using proton-proton collision data collected in 2016 by the CMS experiment at the LHC, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 35.9fb$^{-1}$. This process serves as a standard model reference in a search for narrow resonances decaying to Y(1S)μ$^{+}$μ$^{-}$ in the same final state. Such a resonance could indicate the existence of a tetraquark that is a bound state of two bquarks and two b̅ antiquarks. The tetraquark search is performed for masses in the vicinity of four times the bottom quark mass, between 17.5 and 19.5GeV, while a generic search for other resonances is performed for masses between 16.5 and 27GeV. No significant excess of events compatible with a narrow resonance is observed in the data. Limits on the production cross section times branching fraction to four muons via an intermediate Y(1S)resonance are set as a function of the resonance mass

Pileup mitigation at CMS in 13 TeV data

With increasing instantaneous luminosity at the LHC come additional reconstruction challenges. At high luminosity, many collisions occur simultaneously within one proton-proton bunch crossing. The isolation of an interesting collision from the additional "pileup" collisions is needed for effective physics performance. In the CMS Collaboration, several techniques capable of mitigating the impact of these pileup collisions have been developed. Such methods include charged-hadron subtraction, pileup jet identification, isospin-based neutral particle "δβ" correction, and, most recently, pileup per particle identification. This paper surveys the performance of these techniques for jet and missing transverse momentum reconstruction, as well as muon isolation. The analysis makes use of data corresponding to 35.9 fb$^{-1}$ collected with the CMS experiment in 2016 at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV. The performance of each algorithm is discussed for up to 70 simultaneous collisions per bunch crossing. Significant improvements are found in the identification of pileup jets, the jet energy, mass, and angular resolution, missing transverse momentum resolution, and muon isolation when using pileup per particle identification