Communication Commons^™

Pisa In Brief : Highlights From The Full Australian Report : Pisa 2012 : How Australia Measures Up, Sue Thomson, Lisa De Bortoli, Sarah Buckley

OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA Australia)

PISA is a survey that measures the knowledge and skills of 15-year-olds, who are near the end of compulsory schooling in most participating education systems. PISA in Brief summarises the results from the PISA 2012 assessment of students’ mathematical, scientific and reading literacy skills. It tells us about how students performed in the assessment and describes some wider findings about what lies behind their results.

Editorial Advisory Board 2013, Issue 1

Journal of Professional Communication

Membership of the Editorial Advisory Board for volume 3, issue 1, 2013 of the Journal of Professional Communication.

Being Social, Going Global, Ali Symons

Journal of Professional Communication

This critical review compares two books that predict the future of global connectivity: The New Digital Age: Reshaping the Future of People, Nations, and Businesses (Knopf, 2013, 336 pages) and Rewire: Digital Cosmopolitans in the Age of Connection (W.W. Norton, 2013, 312 pages). The reviewer contrasts the pragmatic approach of The New Digital Age, which describes the current reality of political connection, and the more idealistic Rewire, which calls individuals to embrace global connectivity for the sake of innovation. The reviewer determines that both perspectives offer an essential reminder to communications professionals: unprecedented opportunities and challenges will arise as ...

From Voter To Micro-Target: The Ever-Evolving Science Of Campaigning In U.S Elections, Kelly Rowe

Journal of Professional Communication

This book review of The Victory Lab: The Secret Science of Winning Campaigns by Sasha Issenberg describes how this book captures the new trend of merging traditional “gut instinct” politics and scientific research through data. The main strength of the book is the collection of interviews with sources who have been successful at using data in political campaigns. This strength is also the main criticism of this book – its reliance on face-to-face in-depth interview as the main methodology, which may subject the author to spin. The reviewer recommends The Victory Lab primarily to practitioners, but indicates that it should be ...

Slow Down And Smell The Data, Andrew Laing

Journal of Professional Communication

This review of Nate Silver’s The Signal and the Noise discusses how Silver’s celebrity statistician status has been achieved and is well-earned. He touches on how the book reinforces, in an understandable fashion, that a conceptual understanding of Big Data is a crucial element of successful professional communication practice. This positive review identifies the strengths of Silver’s book – namely its solid organization and its use of real-world examples. The Signal and the Noise is recommended for professional communicators who want to gain an understanding of data and the many uncertainties inherent to its analysis.

©Journal of Professional ...

How To Get “Real Italian Pizza”, Tala Chebib

Journal of Professional Communication

The following critical book review discusses the insights by Jeff Jarvis in What Would Google Do and Chris Anderson in The Long Tail. Each author provides stimulating discourse on the revolution of the internet and its benefits to the success of business practices today. Jarvis highlights the ingenious tactics practiced by Google and the necessity of implanting them into other industries and fields. Anderson introduces a framework that changes the way businesses choose to market their products and services. Although not recently published, these two bestsellers are classics in their field and present a case to be considered. They are ...

What Factors Are Important In Formulating A Community Hospital’S Reputation?, Anne Marie Males

Journal of Professional Communication

There is a growing body of literature on the importance of corporate reputation and reputation management, but scant research that looks at reputation in the context of a community hospital. Most hospital administrators agree that reputation is important and suggest that it has an impact on operations, but the nature of hospital reputation and how it is formed is not well understood. This study explores hospital reputation through a comprehensive literature review, in-depth interviews with six Ontario hospital CEOs, two patient/community member focus groups and an on-line survey with patients and community members. The results of this study strongly ...

Managing Strategically: Canadian Federal Government Communication Branches Evaluated Against Five Of The Generic Principles Of Public Relations, Fraser Likely

Journal of Professional Communication

The Government of Canada employs over 4000 public relations/communication specialists at the federal, national political level. These practitioners are public servants, employed by a government department or agency, with the vast majority working in a designated unit called a communication branch. Since 2000, in order to compare management practices between and among these discrete communication branches, four comprehensive government-wide benchmarking studies were conducted. From a review of three of these studies’ findings, this paper examines the practice of strategic management by Government of Canada communication branches and their heads, in particular the concept of managing strategically. Five of the ...

Proof Positive: Thought Leadership In Canadian Professional Service Firms, Wendy Mclean-Cobban

Journal of Professional Communication

This study examines the current practices, including the importance and effectiveness of thought leadership activities and reputation management, at Canadian professional service firms, as well as what role communications and marketing practitioners play or should play in developing, distributing and evaluating these initiatives. Using survey research and in-depth interviews of communications and marketing practitioners, and senior management at professional service firms, this study looks at how Canadian firms are measuring both their thought leadership activities and overall reputations. One of the study’s major findings is that professional services firms consistently measure their thought leadership activities in a tactical rather ...

A Thematic Review And Synthesis Of Best Practices In Environment Journalism, Emily Bourassa, Elyse Amend, David Secko

Journal of Professional Communication

The environment beat is a relatively new journalistic field, having emerged in the 1960s, when growing awareness of social and environmental issues spurred the start of the environment movement. Today, journalists covering the environment find challenges in adapting traditional reporting methods to the beat, while dealing with space and deadline pressures as well as other demands. This mismatch of methods has led to numerous critiques of environment journalism but less robust discussion of best practices. To address this gap, we undertook an in-depth review and synthesis of 58 pieces of literature on journalism practices in environment reporting, which resulted in ...

Bridging Classroom And Boardroom: An Interview With Professor Robert Kozinets, Jessica Langer

Journal of Professional Communication

In this wide-ranging interview with Robert Kozinets, chair of the Department of Marketing at the Schulich School of Business at York University, Jessica Langer examines the role that academics can or do play in affecting the way that marketing is practiced in the business world. The interview discusses the concept of thought leadership among corporate leaders and academics, as well as an emerging dialogue between the two. Kozinets and Langer have a thoughtful discussion of the difference between what marketing is and what marketing does. The interview ends with a discussion of whether academia has to change in order to ...

Is The Communication Revolution Good For Democracy?, Daniel Tisch

Journal of Professional Communication

This commentary examines the effects of social media on democracy, focusing on the democratization of information, the “three powers of the dark side” and the question of whether PR professionals can be agents of ethical influence. The three powers of the dark side flow from the: potential use of digital communication to subvert democracy; citizen’s continuous partial attention driven by the ‘second-screen’ phenomenon; and decline of trust in journalism that can deprive citizens of credible information curation. The commentary concludes with the affirmation that the communication revolution can be good for democracy – but only if professional communicators are ready ...

Educating Communication Professionals: The Case For Ethics In The Curriculum, Patricia Parsons

Journal of Professional Communication

This commentary examines the value of teaching ethics as a part of public relations and communications management education. It centers on the premise that teaching ethics to public relations students cannot provide any degree of assurance to future employers, or society, that these individuals will actually behave in an ethical manner. The question of whether it is ethical to teach ethics to students in the professions is raised – the author muses as to whether public relations faculties would have a different view of what they teach to their students, how they teach it and who teaches it if they were ...

The Learning Community Experience: Cultivating A Residual Worldview, Christina L. Mcdowell Marinchak, David Deiuliis

Learning Communities Research and Practice

In this essay, we conceptualize first-year learning communities as worldviews that, during the first year and residually in subsequent years, allow students to recognize and engage difference and acknowledge and articulate their biases. Students who take part in a learning community have an opportunity to develop the biases and presuppositions of the community, as well as a position that is present throughout life. Using the first-year learning communities at Duquesne University as an example, we contend that inclusion in a learning community upholds a given worldview – as narrative, philosophical or theological system, or shaper of individuals. This, in turn, fosters ...

Colors And Mapping: The Right To Receive Information, Kathryn Stephanie Skupien

Graduate School Theses and Dissertations

Color is used in everything we see and do and it often can be used for effect and representation, particularly on maps and transportation signage. This study explores the issues that the color blind population exhibits when viewing these maps and signs. Seeing that 8%#37; of the male population is afflicted with some form of color blindness, it is pertinent that research reflect these issues and take into consideration the Right to Receive Information for this population. A qualitative method using Photovoice and interviews was used to determine whether this population considers itself having a disability and what solutions ...

A Study On The Depiction Of Drug Usage, Alcohol Consumption And Cigarette Smoking In Movies And Its Perceived Effect On A Young Audience. A Comparative Study Of American And Indian Cinema And Their Respective Audiences., Zain Farook Merchant

Graduate School Theses and Dissertations

This study analyzes the depiction of drug usage, cigarette smoking and alcohol consumption in

movies in terms of character stereotyping and typecasting. Because movies are focused on making money they are being used as marketing tools by alcohol and cigarette conglomerates (Grube, 2004). The study also explores youth perception of such content and tries to determine the behavioral implications or influence of such content on young children. The goal of this research is to analyze the social cognitive influence of movies on the youth and the effects of censorship in movies today. The research compares this effect in the two ...

Cause-Related Controversy: An Analysis Of Corporate Sponsor Response To The Susan G. Komen/Planned Parenthood Crisis, Christina Maria Cameron

Graduate School Theses and Dissertations

ABSTRACT

This qualitative study advances crisis communication and relationship management application and theory by examining the crisis response strategies used by corporations during a time of crisis involving a nonprofit partner. A qualitative content analysis was performed on the Facebook pages of 57 companies that were corporate partners of Susan G. Komen in early 2012. Nineteen companies responded using their Facebook accounts during two crisis periods studied. The researcher argues that consideration must be given to additional contingent factors beyond those proposed by situational crisis communication theory. Contingent variables related to the corporations' relationship with the charity, including level of ...

The Prospector, November 26, 2013, Utep Student Publications

The Prospector

Headline: We Made It: With Debt, But We Made It...

A Convergence-Building Model Of Superfund Site Communication: Building On Lessons From The Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant, Anna G. Hoover, Lindell Ormsbee

Anna G. Hoover

Best practices approaches have guided governmental risk communication efforts at Superfund and other chronic risk sites for more than two decades, playing an important role in the ways in which those most affected by contamination make sense of risk. Such approaches can affect the information environment in two separate but related ways: 1) directly, through the explicit sharing of information, and 2) indirectly, through ongoing stakeholder interpretations of the processes by which that information is shared. To date, the indirect, process-related effects have not been addressed in assessments of communicative efficacy at Superfund sites. Thus, it increasingly is necessary to ...

Alumnotes, Fall 2013, Cedarville University

Alumnotes

No abstract provided.