At some point in its history every organization will face a crisis situation. How an organization responds to a crisis incident decides its survival. As Internet technology flourishes, public relations practitioners are provided with additional tools to manage crisis situations. This study investigates the role that emerging social media components play in the field of crisis management. It presents a best practice approach to using new technology in times of emergency. A qualitative study of Louisiana public relations practitioners analyzes how and why social media is being integrated into crisis communication plans. Social media components are used to quickly communicate succinct messages and promote two-way symmetrical communication in times of crisis. Social medias role in the theories of issues management and image restoration is explored and incorporated. This study contributes to the literature on crisis communication and social media in regards to the field of public relations. Its findings can be useful to public relations theorists and practitioners in preparing for, handling, and recovering from a crisis. A best practice approach to using social media in a crisis, as concluded from the results, is presented at the end of the study.

Music plays an important role in the lives of individuals and often reflects important societal values. Music can also serve as an important reflection of the publics current opinion at a given point in time. Patriotism is a feeling of love for ones homeland and has often been the subject matter of music lyrics throughout history. In particular, country music has been perceived as being an especially patriotic genre of music. This thesis utilized quantitative and qualitative content analyses as the methods to examine the patriotic content of country music lyrics over the past decade. The sample was adapted from Billboards year-end Hot Country Songs chart. Nearly 40% of the sample conveyed patriotic themes. The majority of these songs expressed blind patriotism, or unquestioning support of America. The songs that exuded patriotism were categorized into one of four themes: songs about terrorist attacks, wartime and the armed forces; songs about the American dream; songs about current events in America; and songs celebrating American life. Additionally, the songs about terrorism, wartime, and the armed forces experienced a shift in tone throughout the decade. The beginning of the time period contained songs that were overtly pro-America and pro-war, the middle of the decade included songs that were much softer and focused on the soldiers lives rather than the actual war, and lastly, the end of the decade contained songs that told stories of wartime casualties that many families were experiencing first handedly. This study illustrates that country musics narrative and story-like lyrics have captured the patriotic feelings experienced by many people throughout the past decade. These songs collectively provided a snapshot of the opinions and values of society throughout the past decade.

The United States maintains a worldwide network of military bases and spends more on military expenses than the rest of the world combined. This project seeks to analyze how the U.S. mainstream media cover and discuss the American Empire both broadly and specifically. I conducted a quantitative content analysis and a qualitative textual analysis of the Media coverage of the 2009 U.S. Colombian military base agreement, which was protested by Latin American leaders. I analyzed the coverage in the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN.com, and The Miami Herald regarding the US militarys use of bases in Colombia in 2009. I used the alternative news sources Democracy Now! and Venezuela Analysis to compare to the mainstream outlets coverage and search for alternative arguments and omitted information. The White House frame emerged as the dominant frame due to its repetition across multiple sources from the U.S. and Colombian governments, as well as the U.S. media. With the near absolute exclusion of opposing domestic voices from the United States and Colombia, the base opposition frame was seriously disadvantaged. The coverage focused extensively on Hugo Chavez as the primary objector to the base agreement and the framing of the coverage largely undermined his arguments. Critical and dissident voices and perspectives did not appear in the U.S. mainstream media coverage sampled here. The story told by the U.S. media reflected the explanations for the base agreement through the lens of policy makers. This project demonstrated that while traditionally analyzing the content that appears in the U.S. media proved useful, the greater discoveries came from the less researched area of information omitted from the coverage.

This study examined the news coverage of the 2010 health care reform in a comparative context of mainstream and ethnic online newspapers. Since health care reform had consequences among all ethnic groups in the U.S., the news coverage of this policy issue warranted an analysis in a diverse media context. The importance of this study lies in the fact that diverse news media provide a wide range of perspectives to the public and policymakers for a better understanding of an issue at stake. In past studies, mainstream media coverage was criticized for emphasizing political conflict and gains and losses over actual policy problems and ignoring minorities interests. Consequentially, ethnic media appeared as alternative media by promoting missing voices of ethnic minorities in mainstream media content. In this context, using the theories of agenda-setting and framing this study explored how differently mainstream and ethnic newspapers advanced agendas and framed the debate around health care reform. This study used content analysis method to examine news stories and editorials on health care reform published from December 2009 March 2010 in two mainstream online newspapers, and four ethnic online newspapers representing two largest ethnic minorities in the U.S., African Americans and Latino Americans. After analyzing the trends in the use of attribute agendas and frames of the reform coverage, this research came up with four observations. One, mainstream newspaper coverage of the reform debate maintained its pattern of prioritizing political conflict, maneuvering, and consequences over policy-related details and ethnic group-specific information. Two, ethnic newspaper coverage, mainly of Latino newspapers, emphasized the reform details and outcomes. Third, two African-American newspapers could not cover the reform issue like Latino newspapers because of their heavy reliance on mainstream wire service stories. As a result, black newspaper coverage, unlike Latino newspaper stories and editorials, did not adequately include ethnic-group perspectives of health care reform. Four, this study identified that not all mainstream news outlets covered health care reform in the same way. Policy implications received prominent coverage in wire service stories of the reform, whereas political debate was the main focus of mainstream newspaper stories.

The study sought to explore the applicability of national stereotypes for implicit stereotype by measuring reaction times (RTs). Also, the study intended to suggest a more effective national image management in overseas practices by demonstrating the effect of counter-stereotype strategy on country-of-origin (COO) effect. A focus of the study was on China and Chinese people for national stereotypes and Chinese corporations and products made in China for the COO effect, considering unfavorable national images of China in news media and negative impressions on products made in China. The study compared national stereotypes of China and Chinese people and COO effect of Chinese corporations and products made in China with national stereotypes of Japan and Japanese people and Germany and German people and the COO effects of Japanese corporation and product made in Japan and German corporation and product made in Germany. Also, the study examined the comparison between U.S. and South Korean college students. The study employed two research methods, an experimental and online survey design. The results showed the potential that national stereotypes can be implicit by demonstrating a significant difference in subjects RTs. The difference in RTs between consistent and inconsistent attributes with countries existing national stereotypes can be inferred about the possibility that national stereotype can be implicit. The U.S. and South Korean participants reported more favorable perceptions of Japan and Japanese people than China and Chinese people and Germany and German people. The South Korean participants overall national stereotypes of the three countries were less favorable than the U.S. participants. For the COO effect, the U.S. and South Korean participants also more favorably evaluated the Japanese corporation and its product than the two others, Chinese and German corporations and their products. Also, concerning the effect of counter-stereotype cues, the Chinese corporation with counter-stereotypical cues in the news story was more favorably evaluated than that of the other Chinese corporation without the cues. The study indicated the potential of applying national stereotypes for implicit stereotypes and utilizing counter-stereotype strategy in reducing unfavorable country images and suggested practical implications for overseas practitioners based on the findings.

ABSTRACT This study investigated factors that influence the strategic decision-making process, specifically, strategy formation and selection during a crisis. It accomplished this by integrating theoretical concepts from both strategic management and crisis communication literature. Key organizational, environmental, and management factors--comprehensiveness, formalization, uncertainty, politicization, external corporate environment, crisis responsibility, impact of the crisis, stakeholder interests, and top management characteristics --were tested for their role in the strategy formation and selection process using regression analysis. This study used both quantitative and qualitative research methods. The quantitative aspect of the research involved conducting online surveys of senior management within the chemical industry and the qualitative phase of the project involved conducting in-depth interview with top management within chemical organization. The findings of this study indicate that decision-making during a crisis follows a logical incrementalism path and not a linear sequential path as implicit in the crisis communication literature. Decision-making during a crisis is influenced by a host of factors, most significantly by uncertainty, politicization, formalization and standardization, financial reporting, stakeholder interests, external corporate environment, and impact of the crisis. Even though some ready-made solutions might be available, decision-makers have to consider the organizational context as much as the content of the strategy to manage the crisis. Development and refinement of the alternatives have to be done to reach the most satisfactory solution to the problem. This dissertation develops a model of strategy formation and selection in chemical organizations. In addition, this dissertation recommends a set of best practices that communication managers within a chemical organization will be able to adopt to better prepare for crisis. Other implications and future areas for research are suggested.

Crises have been a part of all societies over the course of time. Leaders of small, primitive societies may have dealt with these crises by directly communicating with their citizens or by taking other hands-on approaches to crisis management and recovery. However, in large post-modern technological societies, leaders must find more efficient ways to handle and recover from crises. This qualitative study examines three crises that occurred at three Historically Black Colleges or Universities (HBCUs) in the last six years. Crisis communication planning and practices are explored with a special focus on elements of the discourse of renewal theory each institution implemented. The majority of existing research and literature in the field of crisis communication focuses on crisis management in corporate or governmental environments. This study, through each case presented, provides valuable insight into crisis communication in the educational sector. Additionally, the unique character and challenges of Historically Black Colleges and Universities are presented to add to the body of knowledge about these institutions. The ultimate purpose of this study is to develop a best practices model for continued renewal for each institution featured in this case. Generalized best practices are also provided for all HBCUs, students, scholars, and journalists to use in implementing and studying future post-crisis renewal efforts.

Indexing theory predicts that, in certain issue areas, media coverage will index levels of elite debate. Elite controversy, the theory predicts, will embolden the press to include a broader variety of sources and coverage should reflect a more open public debate. This has important implications for public opinion. Proponents of the theory expect that it will operate in a variety of issue areas of news coverage, but support for the theory exists largely in the realm of foreign affairs coverage. This study examines television coverage of the 2009 economic stimulus package to evaluate levels of indexing for a domestic, macroeconomic issue. Results show support for indexing theory. Administration sources dominated in the news, but in circumstances of elite debate among government officials, coverage of this economic issue appeared to include a meaningful proportion of non-governmental voices. Examination of the kinds of non-governmental sources journalists used to construct this debate, however, suggests that these results probably overestimate amount of new information about the issue that was made available to the public through television news coverage.

Despite the popular use of smartphones and mobile applications (apps) and their potential impacts in the near future, only scant academic attention has been paid to mobile apps, especially in respect to the gratifications sought from accessing digital information via apps. This exploratory study investigated the relationship between young adults and their use of mobile apps in accessing digital information, particularly in comparison to the current go-to digital information access device, Internet browsers. In addition, this study examined how levels of perceived privacy concern influence digital information use and how the use of digital information access modalities and the level of privacy concern interact in seeking digital information. To examine these relationships, this study conducted an online survey with 201 young adults, and the data were analyzed using a two-way mixed repeated analysis of variance (ANOVA). The independent variables in this analysis were digital access modality (Internet browsers and mobile apps) and perceived personal privacy (high and low). The dependent variable in this study was digital information use, measured in five frequent purposes of accessing digital information: information, communication, convenience, entertainment, and commercial/purchase. This study found significant main effects of digital access modality in using digital information. The results indicate that young adults are likely to use Internet browsers more than mobile apps for gratifying their purposes, except for a convenience purpose for which mobile apps were more likely used. However, the degree of perceived personal privacy was not found to be directly associated with the use of online information. Similarly, the interaction between digital information access modality and perceived privacy toward online information use was not significant across five purposes. In summary, the use of mobile apps was surprisingly large, and the gap between the two digital accessing modalities was not remotely distant. Based on this finding, it can be projected that mobile apps will become a primary device for young adults to access digital information in the near future. Regarding perceived privacy, before concluding the given results, more research should follow to gain a better understanding of the role of perceived privacy in digital information use.

More than any election before, the 2008 Presidential race revealed a persistent discussion of race cards and gender cards. In spite of the reported consensus that these alleged cards were everywhere, we know relatively little about those situations where the card label was applied, and even less about how this label influenced voters. In fact, among key electoral sources political elites who use identity as a campaign tool, the journalists who cover and narrate elections, and researchers who make sense of elections-based behavior there is no consensus regarding what a card is, how or when they are played, or who does the playing. This project seeks to begin to fill the gap in our knowledge of cards in campaigns by asking how were race and gender cards reported in news coverage of the 2008 presidential election, and how does labeling an appeal a card matter? Using content analysis and a two-part experiment, this study succeeds in drawing a much clearer picture of how card coverage, as an essential tool of narrating an election where women and racial minorities are present, affects American politics. While much of the research on cards defines their application and effects in terms of public policy issues, an examination of card coverage during the 2008 election reveals that much of the alleged cards were character-based. Moreover, the card label was not just used to categorize an appeal; cards were also invoked to maintain the identity narrative, even when identity was not a campaign issue. Using some of the most commonly reported cards from the 2008 race, the progressive experiments here revealed that, while the card label itself has little effect on how voters evaluate candidates, the addition of contextual information for those with higher levels of racism and sexism predicted increased support for white and male candidates, respectively. In short, these results show that how cards are covered defies our existing understanding of what a race card or a gender card is; moreover, in card coverage, the card label itself matters less than traditional cues like candidate sex and race in informing evaluations.