Research From the Team
This page contains research on political public relations from our lab members.
Evaluating State-Led Social Mobilization in Public Health Crises: Agenda Dynamics in China’s COVID-19 Response
This study evaluates the effectiveness of the Chinese government’s state-led social mobilization during the early stage of the COVID-19 pandemic through the lens of agenda setting and agenda building. Using quantitative content analysis of a sample of online discussions on Weibo, this research explores how different social actor groups responded to and engaged with government-promoted agendas on COVID-19 control measures. The analysis reveals that, while commercial media and for-profit and non-profit organizations played minimal roles in promoting the government’s pandemic-control policy agendas, three other groups—health experts, public figures, and self-media—played significant roles in facilitating the government’s agenda-building influence and its mobilization efforts. These groups acted as bridging agents, connecting the government and government-controlled sources on one side and the general public on the other, who did not see eye to eye on their prioritized issues related to the response to the emerging pandemic. This research provides insights into the evolving nature of social mobilization in China’s digital age, illustrating how the government adapts historical mobilization tactics to contemporary decentralized online platforms and explores the interplay between authoritarian governance and internet-enabled public engagement.
A Plus for Peace: A Storytelling Approach to Reputational Security
This study uses narrative theory to explore discursive content strategy in Switzerland’s UN Security Council campaign, A Plus for Peace. I dissect Swiss government communications to ascertain what strategic narratives and logics of campaigning were employed as the campaign sought to secure votes in the General Assembly and repair domestic perceptions of Switzerland’s reputational security abroad. Results of a critical discourse analysis suggest the Swiss government focused A Plus for Peace on a synthesis of system and identity narratives, contextualizing Switzerland’s national identity and relative position in international affairs. This highlighted its history as a peace mediator, modern partnerships with non-state actors, and how its reputation for neutrality would build credibility for the Security Council and trust in the UN. Focusing on consistency, identity, and genuineness lent an authenticity to Switzerland’s storytelling, increasing the value its country reputation would bring to the Security Council. This also resolved a national political crisis by restoring domestic support for the country’s foreign policy. This case highlights the narrative structure of organizational storytelling embodying national identity and authenticity in a two-level, intermestic context of government public relations.
Analyzing media valence shifts: The association between a U.S. PR firm's engagement and Kenya's portrayal in U.S. media
Dane Kiambi, Spiro Kiousis, &
Phillip Arceneaux
Public Relations Review (2024)
This study examines the association between the engagement of a U.S.-based PR firm by the Kenyan government and subsequent shifts in the tone of news coverage in four major U.S. media outlets. Through quantitative content analysis, the study identifies discernible shifts toward more positive reporting about Kenya during the period of PR firm involvement. By carefully delineating the association between PR engagement and changes in media portrayal without asserting direct causality, this research underscores the significance of strategic PR activities in influencing media narratives. The findings illustrate the intricate dynamics between international public relations practices and media framing, contributing valuable insights into the potential impact of PR efforts on national image cultivation in a global context.
“Unwanted guests” or welcomed neighbors? Portrayals of Ukrainian refugees in Russian, Polish, and UK news coverage
The 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine forced more than eight million Ukrainians to seek refuge outside their home country. This study analyzed the press coverage of displaced Ukrainians during the first year of the war in three countries that resettled some of the largest numbers of Ukrainian refugees: Poland, Russia, and the UK. The researchers found important differences in how news organizations from the three countries portrayed Ukrainian refugees. Polish and UK coverage was mainly neutral and sympathetic toward Ukrainian refugees, while Russian coverage depended on where stories were set geographically.
Gender, Politics, and the Glass Ceiling: Comparative Analysis of Male and Female Politicians’ Agenda-Building Efforts in the US Primaries
Ekaterina Romanova, Sofiya Tarasevich,Long Xiao, Hadeel Alhaddadeh, & Spiro Kiousis
International Journal of Strategic Communication (2024)
This study focuses on investigating whether male and female politicians have an equal opportunity to influence the media agenda through their strategic communication efforts during the 2020 U.S. primary elections. Exploratory in nature, this study is grounded in agenda-building theory. This research employs mixed-method content analysis to compare the campaign press releases and subsequent news coverage of three male and three female candidates from the U.S. primaries. The findings revealed that, while both female and male politicians’ messages significantly correlated with the news agenda across three levels of agenda-building, there was no significant difference by gender. However, issues framed as “masculine” were more strongly linked with the media agenda compared to “feminine” issues. This study contributes to communication research by exploring the current state of gender stereotypes in political media coverage, offering insights into the persistence of a ‘glass ceiling’ in strategic news coverage. Additionally, it contributes to agenda-building research by incorporating gender and the context of primary elections in the U.S. which are underrepresented in the literature, into the complex relationship between political campaign messages and news agendas.
Governments use public relations to promote their interests in international venues like the United Nations. To understand how governments market their value in environments of elite competition, I compare Canadian, Irish, and Norwegian narratives while campaigning for seats on the Security Council. Results of a strategic narrative analysis suggest Ireland told the strongest stories, creating an authenticity as the ‘nation of storytellers’ that maximized its valuation. Norway failed to substantively articulate the motivation behind its foreign policy, likely impacting brand loyalty among stakeholders. Canada had the weakest storytelling, with self-referential narratives lacking a sense of care that discredited, and at times even contradicted, the mutuality of it serving on the council. I posit these varying storytelling approaches contribute to understanding the campaigns’ disparate ROIs. Contextualizing strategic narratives as value propositions expands the interdisciplinarity of government public relations scholarship at the nexus of international relations, public diplomacy, and nation branding. I conclude by operationalizing system, identity, and issue narratives to highlight how practitioners can maximize organizational value through wholistic storytelling.
Brand activism has become a powerful way to communicate a brand’s values and attract consumers who expect stances on divisive issues, but it can also lead to backlash. Thus, in the current study, we examine the #GoWokeGoBroke movement, an online-based media campaign that is gaining traction, to serve as a starting point for brands and advertisers to decide whether to engage in or avoid brand activism. Our findings, based on moral foundations theory, suggest that each moral foundation is associated with various metrics of online engagement, but not others. Brand activism choices that trigger responses that reference unfairness or undue authority are linked to higher retweet rates and a wider spread, which suggests that evoking those foundations may be particularly dangerous. This study offers implications for understanding the #GoWokeGoBroke movement, as well as for the study of the moral foundations of online movements for brands. The results can help brands mitigate pushback against activism choices as well as consider strategies for using moral foundations to join online brand activism conversations.
How Candidates Influence Each Other in Electoral Politics: Intercandidate Agenda-Building in Florida’s 2018 Midterm Election
Phillip Arceneaux, Osama Albishri, & Spiro Kiousis
Journal of Political Marketing (2024)
This study investigates how the electoral campaigns in Florida’s 2018 gubernatorial and Senate races used information subsidies to influence each other’s integrated marketing communications. Informed by agenda-building theory, the study probes which campaign and which party had the strongest transfer of issue and stakeholder salience (first-level) and sentiment (second-level) in campaign communications across the two races. Data include issue statements, press releases, tweets, and email blasts. Results of a lexicon-based automated content analysis show evidence for both unidirectional and bi-directional agenda-building influence of stakeholder salience. Further, data suggest the gubernatorial campaigns (DeSantis and Gillum) engaged in subtly more positive, self-promotion-based marketing than their counterparts in the Senate race (Scott and Nelson). Findings contribute theoretical and practical applications to political communication in election campaigning.
Dynamics of Campaign, Press, and Public Discourse in Electoral Politics
Phillip Arceneaux, Osama Albishri, Joshua Anderson, & Spiro Kiousis
Journalism Studies (2023)
Utilizing agenda-building theory, we explore how campaigns and parties influenced press and public agendas during Florida’s 2018 midterm election. We investigate if the Gubernatorial and Senate campaigns transferred issue salience and affective attributes to press coverage and online public discourse. Results of a mixed-method computer-assisted content analysis suggest weak transfer of issue salience and affective attributes by the campaigns and parties to the press and public agendas. The DeSantis campaign and Republican Party were the most successful at influencing press coverage and public discourse. First-level agenda-setting was observed by press coverage on the Gillum campaign and Democratic Party's agendas. The symmetry between these findings and election results offers correlational support for the limited effects of first- and second-level agenda-building and -setting in state elections.
Morality on the ballot: strategic issue salience and affective moral intuitions in the 2020 US presidential election
Brittany Shaughnessy, Osama Albishri, Phillip Arceneaux, Nader Dagher, & Spiro Kiousis
Journal of Communication Management (2023)
Purpose
While morality is ever-present in elections, scholars have yet to merge political public relations and Moral Foundations Theory. It is crucial to assess the complex morality present not only in social deduction, but also in political strategic communication. The current work aims to analyze the issue agendas and their relationships in the 2020 presidential campaign and assesses their moral strategy.
Design/methodology/approach
This study used a computer-assisted content analysis (N = 7,888) with each moral intuition coded from the Moral Foundations Dictionary. Datapoints included campaign tweets, Facebook posts, debate performances, remarks, news releases and nomination acceptance speeches. Coverage included articles from including The New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, CNN and Fox News to assess both liberal and conservative media.
Findings
Candidates' issue and moral agendas were correlated with each other and with the media's agenda. Comparatively, the Biden campaign has stronger correlations when it came to connecting with issues, stakeholders and moral intuitions in the media agenda than the Trump campaign. For issues, the Biden campaign prioritized COVID-19 and the economy, while the Trump campaign prioritized the economy and crime. The candidates also had similar moral strategies.
Practical implications
This study suggests effectively leveraging organizational communications in democracies can support the transfer of object salience, moral attributes and networks to media coverage, public discourse and opponent messaging. It can also help achieve organizational goals by managing public image, reputation and expectations.
Originality/value
This work expands the literature by taking a pluralist moral psychology approach in assessing the salience and correlation of five moral intuitions: harm/care, fairness/reciprocity, ingroup/loyalty, authority/respect and purity/sanctity. This study serves as a springboard for examining morality's impact on political public relations.
Popes as Public Diplomats: A Longitudinal Analysis of the Vatican’s Foreign Engagement and Storytelling
Phillip Arceneaux
International Journal of Communication (2023)
This study explores the duality of Vatican public relations by contextualizing the papacy as a hybrid political and religious office. It analyzes papal speeches since the Vatican II Council to understand the engagement practices and strategic narratives employed during trips abroad. Descriptive statistics of 1,307 speeches spanning 114 countries were analyzed, while textual analysis was conducted on 120 systematically sampled speeches. Overall, papal rhetoric has changed minimally since 1964, highlighting key Catholic social teaching through narrative continuity. This helps to establish the Vatican’s moral legitimacy and build stronger, long-term relationships between publics and Catholicism, as an object of devotion. While its content strategy has changed marginally, the papacy’s travel and audience selection tactics have evolved to be more focused on everyday publics and interfaith relationship-building. This personifies the pope as the Vatican’s primary public diplomat in the modern era and expands scholarship on storytelling at the intersection of public relations and religion.
Organization-Government Relationships in Sub-Saharan Africa: The Emerging Public Affairs Industry in Kenya
Dane Kiambi, Phillip Arceneaux, & Guy Golan
Journal of Communication Management (2023)
Purpose
This paper offers grounded insights on organization–government relationships, or the practice of public affairs, in Kenya.
Design/methodology/approach
In-depth interviews were conducted with senior Kenyan practitioners. Interviewees represent national corporations, multinational corporations with offices in Kenya, consulting agencies, parastatal intergovernmental organizations, national government and county governments.
Findings
Results suggest Kenyan public affairs is centered on relationship management, research and intelligence gathering, risk management and strategic communication. Second, while lobbying is a tactic, it is not synonymous with the broader scope of public affairs strategy. Third, the absence of educational training, a professional body to oversee the profession and the perception of public affairs as “bribery” are threats to the profession's growth.
Research limitations/implications
Findings should not be interpreted to represent “Africa's public affairs industry,” rather a snapshot of the profession contextualized in Kenya.
Practical implications
Kenya needs a professional body to manage the public affairs profession at a national level. It also needs an established curriculum in its higher education environment. Lastly, as one of the fastest growing markets in the world, understanding the public policy environment will benefit multinational organizations looking to expand and operate in Kenya.
Originality/value
This study contributes diverse and inclusive insights on the practice of public affairs in a leading economic and political actor in sub-Saharan Africa. It also expands organization–public relationship theory to articulate engagement with governmental stakeholders.
Election Mudslinging, from the Bayou to the Swamp:
Assessing Agenda-Building in the 2019 Louisiana Gubernatorial Runoff Election
Phillip Arceneaux, Osama Albishri, Ekaterina Romanova, Hadeel Alhaddadeh, Brianne Hendricks, & Spiro Kiousis
Public Relations Journal (2022)
With John Bel Edwards as the only Democratic governor in the Deep South, President
Trump supported Republican Eddie Rispone in Louisiana’s 2019 gubernatorial election. This study uses a computational content analysis to understand the roles Edwards, Rispone, and Trump played in influencing press and public agendas during the runoff election, and how the association between Rispone and Trump affected the Rispone campaign’s agenda-building effectiveness. Collected data totaled 11,000 items. Results suggest support for both campaigns at the first (salience) and third (network) agenda-building levels, while Rispone showed partial support at the second (tone) level. Further, Rispone messages stressing President Trump were less effective at the first and second agenda-building levels than were messages that did not
mention the president. Findings offer theoretical contributions via association agenda-building and agenda-sharing, as well as and practical applications for public relations practitioners.
Two Tales of One Crash: Intergovernmental Media Relations and Agenda Building During the Smolensk Airplane Crash
Barbara Myslik, Liudmila Khalitova, Tianduo Zhang, Sofiya Tarasevich, Spiro Kiousis, Tiffany Mohr, Ji Young Kim, Agnieszka Turska-Kawa, Craig Carroll, Guy Golan
International Communication Gazette (2022)
This study aims to advance the theoretical and practical knowledge of political public relations, and influence that political profile of the media can have on the agenda-building process. The influences of agenda indexing are also discussed with regard to different media profiles. A quantitative content analysis was conducted to examine the influence of Polish and Russian government messages from presidents and prime ministers regarding the Smolensk plane crash on media coverage in both counties. Newspapers were categorized by political profile representing pro-government, mainstream, or opposition profile. Nearly all of the hypotheses were fully supported for the first, second, and third level of agenda building. Results of this study demonstrate that political public relations’ success and agenda indexing can be affected by a medium’s political profile, particularly in the case of opposition media. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed along with areas of future research.
Political Public Relations within Foreign Affairs: Ireland’s Public Diplomacy Campaign for a Security Council Seat
Phillip Arceneaux
Public Relations Inquiry (2022)
This study investigates the storytelling discourse in Ireland’s public diplomacy campaign to win a seat on the UN Security Council. It dissects public relations materials to ascertain what system, identity, and issue narratives constructed the narrative component of Ireland’s UNSC campaign. Results of a strategic narrative analysis suggest Ireland built the campaign around themes of Empathy, Partnership, and Independence. System narratives featured Ireland as a revisionist actor seeking to rebalance the UN toward more equal and participatory representation. Identity narratives emphasized Ireland as a small island-state whose past of economic hardship and struggle for independence drives its desire to help those in need globally. Issues narratives highlighted Ireland’s commitment to global peacekeeping, fighting climate change, and promoting humanitarian aid through gender equality, food security, and refugee assistance. Findings elucidate the strategic storytelling role of public relations and public diplomacy communications within foreign affairs.
Ethnic Nationalism and Agenda Setting in Europe: Linking Agenda Setting, Agenda Building, and Agenda Indexing
Sofiya Tarasevich, Liudmila Khalitova, Phillip Arceneaux, Barbara Myslik, & Spiro Kiousis
Agenda Setting Journal (2019)
This study explores relationships between agenda building, agenda indexing (reflected through share of voice as the key variable), and agenda-setting effects, measured through the combination of public opinion survey data and quantitative content analysis. It conceptually distinguishes between the three metrics often used interchangeably in the professional discourse by advertising and media practitioners – share of voice, share of influence, and share of conversation – and explores how they could be applied in political communication research to become useful tools for agenda-setting researchers. The results of the study indicate that an increased level of nationalism serves as a significant predictor for EU policy support through the pathway of decreased pro-EU sentiment, which, on the agenda level, is reflective of pro-nationals being less supportive of the EU policies and the idea of European integration.
He Who Pays the Piper, Calls the Tune? Examining Russia’s and Poland’s Public Diplomacy Efforts to Shape the International Coverage of the Smolensk Crash
Liudmila Khalitova, Barbara Myslik, Agnieszka Turska-Kawa, Sofiya Tarasevich, & Spiro Kiousis
Public Relations Review (2020)
The study explores Polish and Russian governments’ communication efforts to shape international news coverage of the 2010 airplane crash near Smolensk, Russia, which killed the Polish President Lech Kaczynski and most of his Cabinet. More specifically, the study attempts to assess the role of government communication in shaping the international agenda regarding the crash vis-à-vis the role of Polish and Russian media outlets which also served as information sources for international media. In addition, it examines politico-cultural proximity and economic relatedness as the factors influencing the outcomes of mediated public diplomacy efforts. The findings suggest that, in addition to the governments’ public relations messages, Polish and Russian news outlets played a significant role as their countries’ advocates in determining the international media agenda. Moreover, we found that it was economic relatedness rather than the similarity of culture or political systems that contributed to the success of governments in shaping the international agenda about the crash. Theoretical and practical implications for public relations and public diplomacy are discussed.
President Trump vs. CEOs: A Comparison of Presidential and Corporate Agenda Building
Xiaomeng Lan, Sofiya Tarasevich, Pamala Proverbs, Barbara Myslik, & Spiro Kiousis
Journal of Public Relations Research (2020)
