Who Is Caring for the Caregiver? The Role of Cybercoping for Dementia Caregivers

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between dementia caregivers’ communication behaviors (information seeking and forwarding) and their outcomes (coping outcomes: e.g., dealing better with negative feelings or improved medical outcomes). A survey data set of dementia patients’ caregivers substantiates the effects of communication behaviors about dementia illness on coping outcomes, as well as the mediating role of emotion-focused and problem-focused coping processes. Using structural equation modeling (SEM), this study found positive effects of communication behaviors on outcomes through coping processes. Further, the results indicate that communication behaviors in cyberspace are crucial for caregivers to cope with dementia, both affectively (improvement of caregivers’ emotional control) and physically (health improvement of patients). The implications for the improvement of public health through online health communication behaviors are discussed

Cross-national Ongoing Crisis Communication on Social Media: A Comparative Analysis of Twitter regarding Asiana Airlines Crash Crisis in South Korea and US

The purpose of this study is to help fill a gap in research that examines sustained cross-national crisis communication using social media. Using the 2013 Asiana Airlines crash crisis, a content analysis was conducted, analyzing the airlines’ 1,685 tweets and 1,386 public’s responses in terms of type of tweets, message strategies and publics’ emotions, communication tools (text, video, photo, hyperlinks, #hashtag, and conversation), and message tones. During the crisis, the organization used the same crisis response, a very passive response, as the US and Korean publics. As a result, the crisis response af ected different emotions of the publics based on culture; the US publics felt anger and presented a more negative tone than the Korea publics did. Further, the US and Korean Twitter were utilized differently over the duration of the crisis according to. Thus, the findings demonstrate the importance of sustained crisis communication before, during, and post-crisis and the inevitable effect of culture on crisis communication. This study therefore aims to offer theoretical and practical implications in social media crisis communication by providing researchers and crisis managers with a more comprehensive and realistic picture that considers the entire crisis cycle as well as cultural differences

All-American high school basketball star to attend University of Montana next fall

Voluntary citizen attention and actions are key to successful public-sector communication. We investigated the conditions which increase such attention and actions using the situational theory of problem solving (STOPS) and government-citizen relationships (GCRs). Using three national issues consisting of an environmental issue, a social issue, and a political issue from South Korea (N=275), this study examined three hypotheses regarding public engagement effect (the effect of GCRs on political conversations on national issues), government empowerment effect (the effects of GCRs and issue-specific trust toward government on constraint recognition), and public serenity effect (the effect of issue-specific trust on problem recognition and involvement recognition). We found significant public engagement and government empowerment effects and partially significant public serenity effect. The results of the public serenity investigation found that issue-specific trust toward government was significant with problem recognition but insignificant with involvement recognition. Consequently, the findings illustrate strategic values in government-citizen relationships on public engagement, empowerment, and serenity to enable participatory democracy

Communicating with Key Publics in Crisis Communication: The Synthetic Approach to the Public Segmentation in CAPS (Communicative Action in Problem Solving)

The purpose of this study is to identify and understand key publics and their communication behaviours in crisis communication, using the public segmentation framework which has been rarely used in crisis communication. In doing so, the study quantitatively tests a new theoretical framework of Communicative Action in Problem Solving, classifying eight types of aware and active publics. Through the new framework of public segmentation, the survey results from 1,113 participants substantiate eight types of active and aware publics, as well as their communicative characteristics in a crisis situation. The study finds that the aware and active publics are, as the key publics, more likely to have negative behavioural intentions toward an organization. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed

Exploring Effects of Message Framing on Supportive Behaviors Toward Environmental Corporate Social Responsibility

Purpose The purpose of this study was to shed light on how effective environmental corporate social responsibility (CSR) communication can be achieved through persuasive communication strategies using message framing. Design/methodology/approach This study conducted an online experimental study with a 2 (narrative: narrative or non-narrative) × 2 (framing: gain or loss) between-subjects design. Findings The findings showed that environmental CSR communication using narrative framing messages is most effective in creating strong CSR associations between a company and the environmental CSR domain and sharing the company\u27s CSR information on supportive communication and advocating for the environmental campaign. Originality/value This study highlights the importance of a company\u27s environmental CSR communication efforts using the right message format (narrative style) to increase its persuasive sequence from CSR evaluation to supportive behaviors, contributing to theoretical development in the research of environmental CSR communication. This study suggests that environmental CSR campaign managers should first formalize the company\u27s environmental responsiveness by clearly establishing policies and practicing CSR performance that could result in a strong CSR association before asking their target publics to engage in pro-environmental activities

Megaphoning Effects of Skepticism, Cynicism, and Situational Motivation on an Environmental CSR Activity

The purpose of this study was to examine how individuals’ skepticism and cynicism about an environmental corporate social responsibility (CSR) activity influence their positive and negative communication behaviors toward a corporation (megaphoning effects). The findings demonstrated the important mediating role of situational motivation in problem solving on a given environmental issue between skepticism/cynicism and megaphoning effects. Using a nationwide survey of 504 participants living in the United States, this study found that skepticism and cynicism increased the negative megaphoning effect and decreased positive megaphoning behaviors. Furthermore, skepticism/cynicism and megaphoning behaviors were partially mediated by situational motivation in problem solving. In particular, skeptics who were motivated to solve an environmental issue were less likely to take and forward negative information about a corporation in an environmental CSR activity. This study provides new theoretical and practical insights into CSR strategies that address skepticism and cynicism in publics and their resulting communicative behaviors

A model of crisis and issues management excellence (CIMEx): Conceptualizing and testing the RAPIDS principles

James E. Grunig (2001) proposed four conceptual principles that guide public relations professionals in managing issues and crises. Different from existing popular theories and models in crisis communication which focus on organizations’ crisis responses to restore organizational reputation (i.e., the symbolic-interpretive paradigm of public relations), the four principles (i.e., relationship, accountability, disclosure, symmetry) that he proposed to focus on the participation of public relations professionals in facilitating communication between and managing the behaviors of both the organizations and affected publics in a crisis or an issue (i.e., the behavioral-strategic paradigm). However, the four principles are yet tested. This study conceptualized a model of crisis and issues management excellence (CIMEx) and proposed two additional principles to create the RAPIDS (relationship, accountability, promptness, inclusivity, disclosure, and symmetry) assessment tool. The scale was empirically tested with a total of 436 survey responses collected from U.S. participants on Amazon M-Turk. Reliability tests and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) reflected the reliability and construct validity of the scale. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed

Values of Government Public Relations for a Rocky Road to Participatory Democracy: Testing Public Engagement, Empowerment, and Serenity Hypotheses in Public Sector Communication

Voluntary citizen attention and actions are key to successful public-sector communication. We investigated the conditions which increase such attention and actions using the situational theory of problem solving (STOPS) and government-citizen relationships (GCRs). Using three national issues consisting of an environmental issue, a social issue, and a political issue from South Korea (N=275), this study examined three hypotheses regarding public engagement effect (the effect of GCRs on political conversations on national issues), government empowerment effect (the effects of GCRs and issue-specific trust toward government on constraint recognition), and public serenity effect (the effect of issue-specific trust on problem recognition and involvement recognition). We found significant public engagement and government empowerment effects and partially significant public serenity effect. The results of the public serenity investigation found that issue-specific trust toward government was significant with problem recognition but insignificant with involvement recognition. Consequently, the findings illustrate strategic values in government-citizen relationships on public engagement, empowerment, and serenity to enable participatory democracy.<br /

Effects of organizational conflict history and employees’ situational perceptions of COVID-19 on negative megaphoning and turnover intention

Purpose: This study explores the interaction effects of organizational conflict history and employees' situational perceptions of COVID-19 on negative megaphoning and turnover intention.Design/methodology/approach: Survey data (N = 476) were collected from US citizens, who self-identified as full-time employees, through Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) in August 2020.Findings: Organizational conflict history (i.e. highly conflict-prone vs less conflict-prone workplaces) interacts with employees' situational perceptions of COVID-19 (i.e. inactive vs active publics) in affecting employees' negative megaphoning and turnover intention toward their organizations. Employees who are active publics on COVID-19 in highly conflict-prone workplaces reported the highest negative megaphoning and turnover intention. On the contrary, employees who are inactive publics on COVID-19 in less conflict-prone workplaces reported the lowest negative megaphoning and turnover intention.Practical implications: COVID-19 is an uncontrollable, exogenous crisis for organizations. While it is expected that employees in highly conflict-prone workplaces would report higher negative megaphoning and turnover intention, this study found that employees' situational perceptions of COVID-19 would further exacerbate the effects. This finding reflects the importance of managing organizational conflicts continuously and preemptively while also segmenting and cultivating relationships with employees based on their situational perceptions of issues and crises.Originality/value: This study identified the significance of the interaction of cross-situational factors (e.g. employees' recollection of organizational conflict history) and situational factors (e.g. employees' situational perceptions of issues) in affecting employees' negative behavioral intentions in crisis situations, even if the crises are exogenous and uncontrollable