This study investigates the prevalence of public relations in Qatar's private sector and assesses the marketing manager's awareness of and attitude towards public relations.

The purpose of this study was to examine Royal Caribbean's crisis communications response following the return of their cruise ships to Labadee, Haiti, soon after the Januaty 12, 20 I 0 earthquake. A case study method was used to evaluate both sides of the situation and Royal Caribbean's crisis communications response is evaluated against a target standard of five benchmarks. The first benchmark requires recognizing that a crisis has occurred. The second benchmark involved having an immediate response, by getting the story out first, even if all the facts are not yet available. The third benchmark conveyed the importance of directly communicating with key stakeholders. The fourth benchmark, an all-time favorite, reiterates the importance of telling the truth, bad and good, and keeping it consistent. The fifth benchmark focuses on companies putting people first and conveying a genuine concern for those affected. This study begins with an introduction of concerned parties, locations and issues. The crisis situation presented is the 7.0 magnitude earthquake that occurred on January 12, 2010 in Haiti. It continues with a discussion of the communication crisis that resulted from Royal Caribbean's decision to continue cruise trips to its port of Labadee on Haiti, following the disastrous earthquake's widespread devastation. Praise and criticism for Royal Caribbean was equally considered, as was the cruise line's crisis management, specifically its series of crisis communications and their short and long-term implications. In conclusion, analysis suggested that Royal Caribbean underutilized crisis communication techniques. It is essential that a company have a swift response and communicate to the public what is being done to make sure that a crisis is handled effectively.

This study was an investigation of the effect of political advertising on readers’ perceived bias and credibility of an online news article based on participants’ political leanings. Media priming and the hostile media effect were the theoretical underpinnings. Participants were asked to read an unbiased news article placed alongside 3 advertisements. Participants were put into 1 of 3 conditions — right-leaning advertisements, left-leaning advertisements, or neutral advertisements. They then answered questions about the perceived bias and credibility of the article and their own political affiliation. The researchers hypothesized that left-leaning individuals would perceive the article with right-leaning advertisements as biased and less credible and the opposite would be true of right-leaning individuals. Results were not consistent with hypotheses but trended in the expected directions.

Digital video recorders have given a growing number of viewers the ability to skip television commercials. In an effort to combat ad-skipping, television providers and advertisers are looking at ways to embed advertising into the video content; one way this can be accomplished is with graphic overlays known as snipes. Little is known about how content providers use snipes and what research they have conducted. This study is qualitative and uses long telephone interviews with 8 respondents from various cable television network and broadcast affiliate stations; examining the characteristics of innovation, as found in Rogers's (1995) diffussion of innovation theory. One discovery is that some cable networks are taking measures to ensure that snipes do not appear during emotional moments in the narrative. The study is the first piece of academic research dedicated to understanding how snipes are used and stands as a foundation for future research on the subject.

NASCAR has become one of America's fastest growing spectator sports, and corporate sponsors have played an important part in this upsurge in popularity. Race teams, drivers, and sanctioning bodies use the income that sponsors provide to operate at NASCAR events. This study provides an analysis of how corporate sponsorships have changed the way that NASCAR is presented in print journalism. Using Burke's method of indexing, NASCAR-related titles in the New York Times and the Johnson City Press from 1950 to present day are analyzed. The analysis reveals not only a steady increase in the number of NASCAR-related titles, but 4 indices of meaning that are most often used (Specific Races/Locations, NASCAR, Specific Names, and Sponsors) and that organizations should consider before they plan to promote their products using NASCAR.

This thesis is a replication of a study conducted at Oklahoma State University in 1986. This study measures the percentage of Brigham Young University press releases published in Utah newspapers during a four month period in 1989. The results of the two studies are analyzed and compared.Additionally, personal interviews were conducted with thirty Utah newspaper editors to help determine any additional factors that may affect publishing decisions among Utah's newspaper editors.

In March 2020, Tom Hanks announced he had contracted COVID-19 while shooting the Elvis Presley Biopic in Australia. On Instagram, he encouraged fans to take the disease seriously and be aware of how severe of a disease it was. Character brands and nostalgia have been found to foster trust in products and encourage relationships with those brands. Using the lens of nostalgia and uses and gratification to examine Tom Hanks as a character brand, the researcher analyzed five blockbuster films with Tom Hanks as the lead character. The study used narrative thematic analysis to observe Hanks and the depictions of character identity, trauma, mortality, affectional emotion, memory, and catharsis in these films. The goal was to better understand how nostalgia might contribute to brand trust between the audience and the celebrity.

With the increase of social media usage and its relevance for the millennial generation, social media influencers rise as credible sources who influence their followers purchase behaviors. Micro-influencers have up to 400,00 followers and fashion brands are constantly collaborating with them to generate brand awareness. The purpose of this study is to analyze how micro-influencers impact engagement levels on fashion retail brands’ accounts on Instagram and what common visual patterns the posts with higher levels of engagement present. A sample of 817 posts from three different brands were analyzed to provide insight in what kind of posts generates higher engagement levels: motivational posts, product posts, model/catalog, micro-influencer, influencer, or none of the above. A content analysis was conducted and after all the posts were coded, the top 100 with the highest engagement levels were submitted to a frame analysis so common patterns and themes could be recognized among the top engagement posts.

This study examines how museums build relationships with audiences to gain financial contributions and volunteer support. Financial support to museums has been dwindling in recent years and new revenue streams are needed for low-resource museums to survive. A content analysis of 485 Facebook posts of four small and large sized museums along with a survey of 131 respondents were conducted within the theoretical lens of organization-public relations. Results from study one indicate that larger museums fared better than smaller museums in terms of transparency, authenticity and positivity measures whereas on measures of credibility both the large and the smaller museums fared equally. While results from study two indicate millennials are not sufficiently engaging with museums.

This thesis is meant to be a learning tool to help small businesses use free social media accounts as business marketing tools. The manual is broken down into chapters highlighting the importance of “Knowing your Audience,” “Branding,” “Constructing a Post,” “Using Visual Rhetoric,” and “Expanding your Audience.”. This thesis is inspired by scholars of English, internet linguistics, journalism, gender theory, professional writing, and rhetoric. It is also inspired by a survey of 18 small businesses in the Lafayette, Louisiana area. The survey helped to focus my research on the social media issues of small businesses in the southern region of the U.S. Little academic attention is given to the continued statistical analysis of language in social media from a critical compositional standpoint. I have written this thesis to inspire continued research in the area of internet linguistics and to help small businesses maximize profits by improving their social media impact.