In 21st century, how to properly introduce new knowledge management system¡]KMS¡^is the key criteria for organizations to enhance their competitive edge. How a KMS can be introduced into organizations is because, fist of all, this issue be noticed by the strategic management level, and recognize its importance, and get it into the agenda. However, a corporation is itself a market full of idea and proposal inside. Managers try hard to promote their proposal to executives and CEO and its why there are always countless ideas around the CEO. Thus, it is urgent for us to research on how an issue be noticed by executives and enter into agenda to understand what variables really affect the agenda building process. In this area, the related researches are¡G¡]1¡^Agenda Building Theory and Issue Selling, which focuses on describing the main affecting dimension that are important, ¡]2¡^Issue Identification, which focuses on describing how issues be labeled with OPPORTUNITY or THREAT label, ¡]3¡^Champion Theory, which focuses on issue the role of the sponsors and their behaviors. Previous researches on new information technology introduction were focused on how to successfully introduce it and its efficacy evaluation. Topics on preceding phase, that is ¡©why an enterprise recognizes a new information technology¡ª, are quite rare. In validating our research model, our data supports that the importance and opportunity of issue salience, and the involvement as well as assertive attitude of champion have impacted on the agenda of organizations. The result will be useful to both the academic and business.

Lots of literature discusses IS/IT adoption or diffusion. However, few studies focus on the initiation stage of organizational innovation process. The entrance of organizational innovations issues into agenda represents legitimation and it influences further organizational action. Therefore, this study empirically testified the factors affecting organizational discussion frequency of knowledge management project issues, controlling for the size of knowledge management scope definition. The results showed that the characateristics of knowledge management project issues and the existence of sponsors had significant impact on the issue discussion frequency about knowledge management. However, the institutional pressures did not demonstrate significant impact on the issue discussion frequency or show great influence on the issue characteristics. Neither did the organizational strategy demonstrate its impact on knowledge management project issues. Theoretically, this study is built based on perspectives of agenda building and institutional perspective, and provides more complete model to explain the discussion of organizational innovation issues. For practical knowledge management proponents who attempt to initiate knowledge management in organizations, they need to understand how knowledge management issue is placed into agenda for organizational legitimating.

Information subsidies have been used for decades by organizations seeking media coverage. However, over the last decade, organizations are increasingly seeking to earn greater coverage by moving beyond traditional media and attempting to generate social media "buzz" about topics of significance. Agenda building theory has been used by a variety of scholars as a way to understand how sources influence, or build, the media's agenda. Since the media agenda influences the public agenda, influencing the media agenda is important for sources. Existing research and literature has successfully linked the use of information subsidies with agenda building. A separate body of research has established that there is a set of news values that make a story newsworthy. This study attempts to link these bodies of research on agenda building and news values by examining how the presence of news values in information subsidies affects subsequent media coverage. It also extends these concepts and theories beyond traditional media and into social media. Results indicate that agenda building theory also can apply to social media, but more research is needed to understand how organizations help build the agenda on traditional media. News values do affect coverage, but they affect social and traditional media differently. The specific values of conflict and magnitude correlate with greater traditional media coverage, while a higher number of news values overall in a release correlates with greater social media conversation. The presence of conflict also correlates with higher social media conversation. Implications for both public relations theory and practice are discussed. / Master of Arts

Like other communities across the country, Blacksburg, Virginia, has struggled with land-use policy, planning, and growth issues. This struggle intensified when town residents discovered a Walmart store might be included in a new retail development project. Local interest groups quickly formed, establishing different perspectives concerning the issue, while a Blacksburg Town Council member introduced an ordinance that would give the town the power to halt plans for the store. This measure became the focal point of the conflict, and groups both supporting and opposing it worked aggressively to gain community support for their respective sides of the issue. Using Cobb and Elder's (1983) agenda-building framework, the goal of this thesis is to examine the ways various groups involved in a local land-use conflict defined, and sometimes redefined, their messages to town residents in an effort to expand the issue beyond the core members of the groups to gain more widespread support. The results of these efforts are also evaluated. A case study was conducted incorporating interviews with some of the key members of the interest groups involved in the conflict and discourse analysis to examine group messages generated during the controversy. This study found that the way an issue is defined could influence its progression and play an important role in its resolution. It also highlights definitive times during an issue's evolution that are critical to its progression. These findings demonstrate some of the benefits that can result from integrating effective issue management strategies into a communication program. / Master of Arts

Journalists and communication managers are becoming more professional and to reach out to its stakeholders in society today, organizations must work strategically with communication, to enter the news. Many make use of press releases to provide journalists with information, hoping to influence what is published on the news. With a background in the medial change that occurs is the purpose of this study to elucidate and problematize which role press releases has for newsrooms and for organizations today and in the future. A qualitative interview study has been used, and communication managers from three organizations and journalists from three newsrooms has been interviewed. The study has been combined with a quantitative pilot study of selected press releases and articles from the selected organizations. The interviews has been transcribed and analyzed to identify and question their thoughts about press releases as a part of the daily work for communication managers and journalists. The interviews were analyzed from selected theories and previous research work on press releases as a tool to set the media agenda. Three consistently concepts in the study is Goffmans (1974) theory of framing, Gandys (1982) theory of information subsidies and Zoch and Molledas (2009) theory of agenda building, and their model of how organizations build good media relations. It was seen in the pilot study, that a lot of the content is based on press releases, which indicates that the editors make it appear that they are the initiator of the news. Journalists claims that press releases are not the most influential source of information but significant for their work, especially as it fills a function for web editors. Personal relationships with the journalists and a dedicated work on the social media network is valued higher than press releases, which is seen as an obsolete tool. The communication managers argued otherwise, saying that press releases have a central role in their strategic work with the media, claiming that they are an important source of information. The study indicates therefore that the communication managers, in relation to journalists’ reasoning, have too much confidence to the tool. However, it is difficult to determine whether press releases as a strategic communication tools will be eliminated. But the results of the study to judge, it is still important for both journalists and communicators, although not as strongly as before.

This dissertation explores intersections of public relations and social media in the context of professional sports organizations. Specifically, this dissertation examines sports public relations practitioners’ perceptions of public relations, social media, the relationship between the two, and their organizational roles relative to both practice areas. This study explores the degree to which these practitioners have integrated social media into the organizational functions of public relations. With this, the purpose of this dissertation is to examine how social media have affected the practice of excellence in public relations within professional sports organizations in the U.S.

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Cette thèse par articles évalue la linéarité des dynamiques de construction de l’ordre du jour en période électorale. Elle mobilise à cet effet le concept de tempête médiatique, définie en tant que hausse subite et explosive de la couverture médiatique consacrée à un item spécifique (enjeu ou événement), qui en vient à constituer une part substantielle de l’ordre du jour pendant un laps de temps significatif. Plusieurs analyses récentes suggèrent que ces tempêtes médiatiques changent les patrons d’attention des médias ainsi que des acteurs politiques. D’autres estiment qu’elles modifieraient les rapports de force usuels qui circonscrivent les relations d’influence entre les discours politiques et médiatiques. À partir d’une étude de cas de la campagne électorale canadienne de 2015, cette thèse examine l’impact des tempêtes médiatiques sur les trois maillons de la chaine de communication électorale : les médias, les acteurs politiques et les citoyens. Le premier article vise à décrire les effets des tempêtes médiatiques sur l’environnement communicationnel. Il détecte trois périodes de tempête médiatique, qui couvrent plus de la moitié de la campagne électorale. Il démontre comment ces dernières se caractérisent par une plus faible diversité du nombre quotidien d’enjeux inclus à l’ordre du jour médiatique, ainsi que par une concentration élevée de l’attention médiatique sur les items qui sont liés à la tempête. Enfin, il suggère que les partis politiques sont plus susceptibles de mentionner ces mêmes items pendant les périodes de tempête médiatique. Le deuxième article vérifie l’impact des tempêtes médiatiques sur l’efficacité des efforts déployés par les partis politiques pour influencer l’ordre du jour médiatique. Il s’intéresse à la manière dont l’attention accordée par les partis politiques à certains enjeux affecte leur présence médiatique du lendemain. L’étude identifie une baisse significative de l’efficacité de ce transfert de saillance durant les périodes de tempête; les partis politiques ont plus de difficulté à générer de la couverture médiatique à propos d’enjeux qui ne sont pas liés aux tempêtes. Elle démontre aussi que même lorsque les partis accordent de l’attention aux enjeux liés à la tempête, le succès de leur démarche n’est pas garanti. Cela suggère que l’efficacité des efforts déployés par les partis pour influencer l’ordre du jour médiatique ne serait pas linéaire. Le dernier article analyse l’impact d’une des tempêtes médiatiques identifiées dans les articles précédents sur les attitudes politiques des citoyens. Il démontre que l’émergence de la tempête médiatique de la « crise des réfugiés » a entrainé une évolution des attitudes citoyennes à propos des principaux cadres mobilisés pour définir la situation. L’identité partisane constitue un médiateur de cette relation. Il expose aussi comment ces attitudes politiques sont devenues, après le début de la tempête, des déterminants significatifs du choix de vote des électeurs. La thèse contribue à la compréhension des tempêtes médiatiques — qui n’avaient jamais été examinées dans un contexte électoral — ainsi que des dynamiques de construction de l’ordre du jour. Plus généralement, elle propose une perspective novatrice à propos de l’aphorisme bien connu voulant que la meilleure campagne soit celle qui reste « on message ». / The purpose of this doctoral dissertation is to assess the linearity of electoral agenda-building dynamics. To that end, the concept of media storm is used. A media storm can be defined as an explosive increase in news coverage of a specific item (event or issue), which garners a substantial share of the total news agenda during a certain time. Recent analyses on the subject suggest that media storms cause changes in the attention patterns of political actors and the media and that they may disrupt the usual power dynamics delineating the reciprocal influence between their respective agendas. Empirically examining agenda-building dynamics during the 2015 Canadian federal election, this study examines the impact of media storms on the three types of actors at the core of any political communication process: the media, the political actors, and citizens. First, the effects of media storms on election coverage by the media are evaluated. Three media storms were detected during the 2015 Canadian election, and they extended for more than half of the 79-day length of the campaign. One finding is that storm periods decrease the average number of issues present in daily media coverage of the campaign, as the media focus their attention on items related to the storm. Another finding is that parties are more likely to interact with a storm issue during its respective storm period. Second, the idea that media storms negatively affect political actors’ electoral agenda-building efficiency is tested. Specifically, how storm periods impact the ways in which parties’ attention to given issues promotes their next-day importance in the media’s agenda is examined. Results suggest a significant drop in this salience transfer mechanism during storm periods, when political actors are less successful in their efforts to promote issues unrelated to the storm. They also indicate that parties’ attention to storm-related issues is not guaranteed to raise their profile in the next day’s media agenda, even during storm periods. These findings suggest that agenda-building dynamics are not linear; some contexts are more amenable to successful influence by parties than are others. Third, how media storms, through agenda-setting and a priming mechanism, affect citizens’ political attitudes and vote choice is investigated. Using the case of the “refugee crisis,” how the storm’s emergence brought changes in opinions about items related to the prominent frames invoked in the competition for the definition of the issue is detailed. Partisan identity is shown to have a significant mediating role in this influence process. Compelling empirical evidence is also offered about the ways in which the storm gradually increased the impacts of those attitudes on vote choice during the 2015 Canadian election campaign. The dissertation offers an exciting contribution to the literature on media storms – which had never been examined in an electoral context – and on agenda-building dynamics. More generally, it provides novel, and potentially far-reaching, insight on the well-known aphorism that the best election campaign always stays “on message.”

This research study analyzed the sources of nutrition blog information as measured by frequency and type of sources used by nutrition bloggers. Since the use of online resources for finding health information has become more prevalent, it is important to further research the topic for the purpose of better understanding how our nutrition agenda is set by nutrition bloggers. Focusing on 20 nutrition blogs, the study content analyzed 3,156 blog posts during a one-year period from September 1, 2011 to August 31, 2012, yielding 5,263 sources. Additionally, in-depth interviews were conducted with the writers of all 20 blogs in July 2012. The findings showed that (1) nutrition bloggers are sourcing half of the time, (2) nutrition bloggers are citing a variety of sources that include both credible and less credible sources, (3) nutrition bloggers are finding and choosing sources in various ways that include both credible and less credible methods, and (4) there is no difference in the sources selected by men and women bloggers. Overall, this study shows the need to create best practices for blog sourcing that serve as guidelines for both bloggers and readers, with emphasis on guidelines for source frequency and credibility of sources.