18 research outputs found
Introducing Communicating Causes: Strategic Public Relations for the Non-Profit Sector
No full textThis introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book provides support to future communicators in non-profits. Growth in the sector fosters worthwhile career opportunities that can encompass advocacy, fundraising and service communication roles. Communication specialisations range from digital to policy development. Public Relations and communications are strategic when they support the delivery of non-profit organizations (NPOs') missions and goals; be they related to advocacy, income generation and/or service delivery. The need to make public relations more accountable and the communications non-profits more accountable and transparent has been called for. The book identifies how technology, within a corporate digital strategy, can be used to make NPOs more accountable. It highlights the importance of trustees vetting such partnerships. The book examines risk of corporates undermining Non-Governmental Organizations legitimacy when non-profits campaign about social or environmental issues that present uncomfortable truths for big business
NGO communications in a one-party state: The context and characteristics of non-profit advocacy communications in China
No full textIn this chapter, the authors trace the development of non-profit organizations in China. They then identify the context to, and characteristics of communications in the NGO sector focusing on advocacy INGOs and national NGOs. The importance of using a variety of tactics to influence change, from an in-depth case report to digital communications, is illustrated through the case study about Greenpeace’s Hungry Coal campaign. Some challenges of INGO communications are further explored in an interview with an anonymous campaigner
Strategic illustrations of non-profit success? An exploration into the evolution, purposes and ethics of case studies
No full textCase studies, are the ‘golden ingredient of every charity story’ observes non-profit media specialist, Gideon Burrows (2013). Case studies are used to exemplify third sector work, issues and causes. They have been used for centuries as part of non-profit communication strategies to secure social change and to attract support for causes. Their use is still widespread in the non-profit sector across shared, owned, paid for, and earned media. The authors of this chapter explore how fit for purpose they are in the 21st Century in relation to some ethical issues
It's good to talk in the digital age
No full textOur millennial students may, at times, feel apprehensive about talking face-to-face or on the phone. Whilst the development digital skills is crucial in our connected age, let’s not forget about the importance of verbal communications
An exploration of PR Week UK’s framing of specialist PR identities (1985-2010)
No full textA trend of increased specialisation in public relations has been widely asserted but little substantiated. Specifically, there is no longitudinal study of the development of specialist coverage in the principal trade journal of the industry, PR Week. Neither has there been an exploration of the perspectives of PR Week UK’s senior managers on specialist-practitioner identities. This article seeks to fill these gaps. This examination of specialist coverage in PR Week 1985-2010 finds a punctuated process of constructing specialist practitioner identities within an institutional subsystem. We examine over 220 editions of PR Week, in the UK, over a 26-year period. We calculate that there was indeed a statistically significant trend of published regular specialist pages. We analysed editorial announcements about regular specialist pages and interviewed three former senior managers from PR Week. We considered page titles as both content and discourse. We also adapted Bucher et al.’s (2016) framing strategies. We revised one of Bucher et al.’s strategies, re-terming the ‘self-casting’ strategy as a media casting strategy in the context of a trade publication’s framing of a profession’s boundaries. Building on the scholarship of Edwards and Pieczka (2013), we suggest that the trade media play an institutional role in boundary setting. This role was not previously acknowledged by Abbott (1988) and Waisbord (2019). We newly find that when PR Week introduced specialist pages, the publication’s executive, actively sought to bring sector-specialist practitioners with waning identification with the profession, back into the PR fold. Like a sheepdog, PR Week played a proactive institutional role in the professional reframing of public relations around specialisms. Yet the boundaries that PR Week defended were fuzzy given that over 95% of the regular specialist pages titles did not include the name ‘PR’. We also argue, that in establishing the specialist pages PR Week executives not only championed PR’s legitimacy, but also sought to protect the magazine’s market and to enhance the title’s journalistic brand
The Importance and Art of Articulating Thanks: Lessons From Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs)
No full textThanking helps organisations to build relationships. In particular, charities need to thank as they build up coalitions of interest around issues, and because in many cases they raise income. So what can be learned from some professional thankers, and scholars, in the NGO sector
Transparency as ideal and practice: Labour market policy and audit culture in the Swedish public employment service
No full textNew Public Management (NPM) ideas and practices have significantly reshaped labour market policy. This article takes a closer look at some of the implications of NPM practices and “audit culture” at local Public Employment Service (PES) author- ities in Sweden. Based on interviews with staff at a rehabilitation unit in PES, the article analyses processes of evaluating work capacity and disability for margin- ally employable people, as part of the Employability Rehabilitation Programme. By studying the classification procedures, the article aims to show how administra- tive categories work as “technologies of government” that make transparent and “legible” desirable traits in the individual. Such classificatory schemes, we argue, are integral parts of the operational procedures of NPM. Moreover, the analysis shows that the categories through which the individual moves are plastic and pli- able in relation to political predicates and labour market fluctuations. In this pro- cess, employability and disability become floating categorie
