Reconsidering Public Relations’ Infatuation with Dialogue: Why Engagement and Reconciliation Can Be More Ethical Than Symmetry and Reciprocity

Advocates of dialogic communication have promoted two-way symmetrical communication as the most effective and ethical model for public relations. This article uses John Durham Peters’s critique of dialogic communication to reconsider this infatuation with dialogue. In this article, we argue that dialogue’s potential for selectivity and tyranny poses moral problems for public relations. Dialogue’s emphasis on reciprocal communication also saddles public relations with ethically questionable quid pro quo relationships. We contend that dissemination can be more just than dialogue because it demands more integrity of the source and recognizes the freedom and individuality of the source. The type of communication, such as dialogue or dissemination, is less important than the mutual discovery of truth. Reconciliation, a new model of public relations, is proposed as an alternative to pure dialogue. Reconciliation recognizes and values individuality and differences, and integrity is no longer sacrificed at the altar of agreement

Life is Like a Box of...Projects

I recently found myself watching Forrest Gump on a rainy Saturday afternoon. I have seen this movie probably 10 times and I always struggle with Forrest’s famous quote “Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.” I always tell Forrest to just look at the paper insert in the box that identifies what is contained in each chocolate…but he never listens. The chocolate maker had already recognized this potential risk in making assorted chocolates and put a plan in place to mitigate that risk. This is the value of project management—and we all use some version of project management in our everyday live

The Emotional Roller Coaster of Getting Stuff Done

Getting things done is both daunting and empowering…and sometimes overwhelming. It’s likely rare that you have too little to do. Every day you look at that pile of work on your desk or the 500 emails that you need to respond to and you wonder how you’ll get through it. When you look at the totality of the things you need to accomplish it can sometimes feel like the weight of the world is on your shoulders. But it doesn’t have to be that way

The Secret to Successful Projects (Hint: It’s the People)

A project team collaborating There are literally thousands upon thousands of books, articles, blogs, seminars, and airplane banner ads that can teach you how to manage and complete a project. Many of them are excellent and are recommended reading for anyone wanting to become a project manager, to improve as a project manager, or for anyone who just wants to get stuff done. (The airplane banner is not one of these recommendations, but kudos to that person for thinking outside the box.

Applying Project Management Strategies in a Large Curriculum Conversion Project in Higher Education

Higher education is undergoing great changes that require universities to adapt quickly, and making these changes can be difficult. One discipline that can aid in executing change is project management, which has developed a set of clear processes and strategies for completing initiatives quickly and effectively. Several authors have identified project management competencies as key in the practice of instructional design. However, in our experience it can be difficult to operationalize project management, particularly in instructional design projects that are large in scope and require a quick turnaround. In this case study, we describe our response to an immediate need to convert 53 courses from a 15-week to a 12-week format. We share the project management processes, strategies, and technologies we used to plan, organize, and lead this large course conversion project. We share our experiences working with organizational culture, collaborating with busy faculty, and hiring part-time designers and content experts. Finally, we share our own best practices for managing and leading large, multi-course instructional design projects.https://fuse.franklin.edu/ss2018/1014/thumbnail.jp

Onset of North Atlantic Deep Water production coincident with inception of the Cenozoic global cooling trend : comment

Hohbein et al. (2012) propose an early Mid-Eocene onset of North Atlantic Deep Water (NADW) production by interpreting a mounded deposit at the south-west end of the Faroe-Shetland Basin (FSB) as a contourite drift, which they term the ‘Judd Falls Drift (JFD)’. We argue that this deposit is not a contourite drift; we also question how their model of early NADW production fits with current understanding of the development of the Faroe-Shetland Basin and the wider Arctic–NE Atlantic region, neither of which was convincingly discussed by these authors

PUBLIC RELATIONS PARADOX ON DISPLAY: A COMPARATIVE CASE STUDY ANALYSIS OF THE AUTONOMY-DEPENDENCY PARADOX AT A UNIVERSITY ART MUSEUM

This study explores the paradox of autonomy and dependence that is inherent in organization-public relationships. Using a comparative case study methodology the Brigham Young University Museum of Art’s handling of exhibitions that included nude artworks in 1997 and 2004 as examples. The value of this study is that it illustrates how paradoxical tensions can influence the decision-making process in organizations, as well as the ways in which organizations can manage their own behavior and communication in spite of natural tendencies to manage and control stakeholders and publics