Public Relations Theories (pdf)

Running head: PUBLIC RELATIONS THEORIES: JOURNAL REVIEW
PUBLIC RELATIONS THEORIES: JOURNAL REVIEW
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2PUBLIC RELATIONS THEORIES: JOURNAL REVIEW
1.
Topic: Crisis communication online: How medium, crisis type and emotions affected public
reactions in the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster
Utz, S., Schultz, F., & Glocka, S. (2013). Crisis communication online: How medium,
crisis type and emotions affected public reactions in the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear
disaster. Public Relations Review, 39(1), 40-46.
Introduction
According to the authors, social media has become an essential part in the day- to-
day lives of people. It is due to this reason that business organizations have embraced the use
of social media not only for marketing and public relations activities, but also for the purpose
of crisis communication.
Social media is advantageous in being condensing time and space, addressing a large
number of people in a short time in the event of an organizational crisis. In this article, the
research is conducted to analyze the relevance of social mediated crisis communication
model (SCCM) and other communication theories to depict that the medium, which is used to
communicate has an impact on crisis communication. The nuclear disaster, which is taking
place in the Fukushima District, is used as a scenario to understand the impact of usage of
social media in crisis communication.
On March 11, 2011, the east coast of Japan was hit with an earthquake, killing
hundreds of people and causing damage to the Fukushima Daiichi power plants resulting in a
nuclear meltdown. The maintenance of the nuclear power plants was done by Tokyo Electric
Power Company (or TEPCO) and used as a target company for the research. This research is
conducted via an experimental approach. The research is conducted for three main purposes-
to understand the effect of medium (Schultz et al., 2011). It was done to analyze the effects of

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usage of social media network Facebook in crisis communication and to conduct an analysis
on whether the usage of social media has any influence on secondary communication and if
rage is driven by the effects of crisis. The research results revealed that most of the
participants blamed circumstances as a cause for the accident and a lesser percentage blamed
the company for the crisis. Secondly, it was observed that Facebook and Twitter users had
more positive response towards the crisis than newspaper readers, proving that the effect of
medium is strong during a crisis. It is also observed that online newspapers are considered a
more credible source, proving the effect of credibility of a medium on secondary
communication.
Lastly, the indirect effects of anger are observed on the effects of crisis. The strength
of the article can be said to be its consideration of two crisis forms on its research. The
research conducted ignores other aspects of crisis communication and the evaluation was
conducted on the basis of one message and can be stated to be one of the limitations. Another
one of the limitations is the absence of the effect of medium on crisis communication during
a different form of crisis, like political crisis instead of corporate crisis. The article states the
importance of addressing emotions during a crisis communication by the Public Relations
department and the importance of communicating through all media channels during a crisis.
Conclusion
The media theory can be used in this case where media played a role in responding to
the crisis. Specifically, social media played a better part in influencing the people rather than
the traditional print media. It can be evaluated that the media holds a stronger power during
crisis rather than in normal situation.

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2.
Topic: The Rise of Twitter in the Political Campaign: Searching for Intermedia Agenda-
Setting Effects in the Presidential Primary
Conway, B. A., Kenski, K., & Wang, D. (2015). The rise of Twitter in the political
campaign: Searching for intermedia agenda-setting effects in the presidential
primary. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 20(4), 363-380.
Introduction
In this article, the research is conducted to understand the relevance of agenda setting
theory in the usage of social media and newspapers for political campaigns or political
communication. The authors state that the influence of social media and the extent to which
media content is predicted by political parties and campaigns may have reversed the power of
gatekeepers in media.
The research is conducted to examine the role of twitter posts in predicting the agenda
of traditional forms of media or if the case is in reverse, and to examine how the affiliation of
twitter feeds will have an impact on the rate of success in media agenda setting when it
comes to respective Republican or Democratic issues. The study reveals that politicians may
use twitter or other forms of social media for the communication of an agenda to the public
and has a direct impact on the media agenda. The posts from politicians, political parties on
twitter, influenced newspapers regarding most of the issues. However, it has also been
observed that traditional media still maintains its agenda setting power. It is used by
politicians for maintaining legitimacy regarding addressing controversial issues.
The main drawback of this research is that, the effects of agenda setting via the usage
of twitter by politicians, political parties cannot be generalized, and they may differ. The