Call for Abstracts

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Deadline for Submission for Priority for Live Presentations 15 January, 2021

Because it was not realistic to plan & host a live conference in 2021 for the Crisis Communication Division, we are offering two different avenues for presentation of research in 2021  

  • Live Panel Sessions (two-hours each) on the first Friday of each month from 5 February – 2 July.
  • Live/pre-Recorded Presentations (up to 20 minutes each) posted on our website.

Theme for Crisis2021: Risk & Crisis Communication & the ‘New Normal’

As the world responds to 2020 and all of the new challenges it has posed, risk and crisis communication researchers, students, and practitioners have the opportunity to explore issues of work environments, politics, social justice, disasters, ‘ordinary’ crises, learning and teaching, well-being, social responsibility, and technology to name just a few areas connected to the tumultuous year we have all experienced. We are calling for abstracts that look forward from Covid-19 to the future across industries and even for reflective discussions about the role of risk and crisis communication.

You can submit an individual abstract or a panel proposal.

Panel Proposals   These will only be considered for the live sessions. For panel proposals: There should be either 3 or 4 speakers representing at least two different institutions. Preference will be given to multi-national panelsPanels should have a clear theme, brief (paragraph) justification for the theme, and list the speakers and brief summaries of their proposed presentations  Individual Abstracts Individual submissions will be considered for the live panels (if submitted before 15 January) unless otherwise noted in the submission, to include: Author(s) name(s), institutions, and email(s)Preference for live panel or pre-recordedDetailed abstract (no more than 700 words) for the presentation

We aim to accept as many abstracts as possible both for the live sessions and pre-recorded presentations. Don’t worry – the pre-recorded presentations CAN but don’t HAVE to include you on camera – they can simply be PowerPoint presentations with voice overs.

All Live Sessions are Free to Attend.

More details and submission available at: https://ecreacrisis.com/call-for-participation-crisis2021/

Crisis7 Postponed to 2023, Announcing crisis2021 Virtual event series

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Dear Colleagues:

In March of this year when Covid-19 emerged as a global pandemic few of us probably imagined that it would be as disruptive to all aspects of our lives as it has been. Yet, here we are at the end of 2020 and trying to make plans for 2021.

As we announced earlier this year, ECREA decided to move the ECC from 2020 to 2021 and everyone’s abstracts that were accepted for 2020 will still be accepted for 2021. Additionally, we have confirmed with ECREA that the ECC will go back to its regular schedule for 2022. We will simply have the ECC two years in a row – Covid permitting, of course.

As you all know Crisis7 was scheduled for early October, 2021 and was going to be hosted by the University of Gothenburg in Sweden. With the ECC rescheduled, it created a challenge for a successful Crisis7 because of a very busy Sept/Oct conference schedule. We all – the management team and our Gothenburg hosts – discussed the possibility of a late spring conference. Unfortunately, it does not seem possible to host a face-to-face conference by April/May of 2021. For this reason, we have decided there is not a viable way to hold Crisis7 as scheduled for 2021.

There is, however, good news to report. The University of Gothenburg have graciously agreed to remain our Crisis7 host – so none of us will miss out on visiting Sweden – it will just be two years later than we anticipated. So, we are pleased to announce that Crisis7 will take place at the University of Gothenburg in 2023!

Our next challenge was about how to support and maintain our risk and crisis communication community in 2021 – providing opportunities for us to all interact, share and discuss our research and practice, and ensure that our community is contributing to and leading the zeitgeist on crisis communication into the post-Covid era. We considered an intensive online conference structure – with a full complement of panels like NCA, ICA, the WCA, among other associations are doing. However, based on the feedback from people who have already attended these intensive conferences; the ‘zoom fatigue’ and lack of socializing makes them less desirable – and especially in a community like ours where the interactions between colleagues and social aspects are so formative.

Instead, we have decided to offer a combination of monthly live panel sessions as well as pre-recorded full presentations. All live sessions will be free to attend. We will follow this announcement up with our CFP in the Crisis2021 series in the next week or so, but want to preview what is coming from us….

  • We are asking colleagues to submit abstracts.
  • We will have a submission deadline, but that is to ensure we can schedule the live panel sessions; however, abstracts for pre-recorded presentations will be accepted on a rolling basis until July 2021.
  • Live panels will be the first Friday of each month beginning in February and running through July. They will be scheduled for two-hours.
  • While free, you will have to register for the live sessions.
  • The panels and panel themes will be published ahead of time.
  • Pre-recorded presentations will be featured on our website – www.ecreacrisis.com
  • We will also be hosting graduate student workshops as well and publishing a separate call for those. The time(s)/date(s) of those will be coordinated later and based on submissions. Those will also be free to attend. 
  • Our live sessions will also be posted online afterwards for those who were not able to attend live.

We will be announcing our first panel scheduled for 5 February, 2021 but it will be on COVID-19: Learning and Consequences for International Crisis Communication Research, so hold the date!

We know this isn’t how we had all probably planned to get together in 2021, but we hope that this offers meaningful opportunities to engage with old and new colleagues and promote the work that we are all doing!

Best regards,

Audra, Silvia, Florian, and Janina

Whistleblowing: an international perspective

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An open event promoted by Università IULM, the Geert Hofstede Consortium and Transparency International Italy on November 19th, 2020.

Università IULM’s International Affairs office, the Centre for Employee Relations and Communication (CERC) at Università IULM, the Geert Hofstede Consortium, and Transparency International Italy present the online open event “Whistleblowing: an international perspective”. The online event will take place on November 19th, 15.00-16.30 CET via Microsoft Teams, and will be targeted at both bachelor and master degree students and at professionals.

Corporate wrongdoing is a major issue today in all kind of organizations and whistleblowing arrangements can be an effective strategy to prevent it when they are adopted with the aim of favouring employee voice, including dissent.

The Centre for Employee Relations and Communication (CERC) at Università IULM has conducted some studies that indicate that Italian companies are still little aware of the importance of formal systems to boost employee voice and in particular of whistleblowing systems, adopted in most cases with a mere focus on law compliance.

To overcome this gap of awareness, Università IULM, the Geert Hofstede Consortium and Transparency International Italy are promoting a series of public lessons and events to sustain a public debate around these topics and thus a cultural development in this field in Italy.

The online public event “Whistleblowing: an international perspective” will host a debate with the contributions of:

  • Audra Diers-Lawson, Senior Lecturer at the School of Public Relations and Journalism at Leeds Beckett University, who recently contributed to the book “Whistleblowing, Communication and Consequences. Lessons from The Norwegian National Lottery” edited by Peer Jacob Svenkerud, Jan-Oddvar Sørnes and Larry Browning
  • Giorgio Fraschini, expert of whistleblowing at Transparency International Italy
  • Alessandra Mazzei, Associate Professor of Corporate Communication at Università IULM and Director at CERC
  • Silvia Ravazzani, Associate Professor of Corporate Communication at Università IULM

The event will be held in English and is part of the Corporate Communication course held by Professor Silvia Ravazzani at the Bachelor’s Degree in Corporate Communication and Public Relations and of the Brand and Corporate Communication course held by Professor Alessandra Mazzei at the Master’s Degree in Marketing, Consumption and Communication at Università IULM.

All students are invited.

People interested to attend the online open event can fill the form at the following link to register. Following the registration, they will receive the link to connect to the online event via Microsoft Teams.

New dates for the 8th ECREA conference: 6-9 September 2021

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Formal Announcement

Dear ECC 2020 conference applicants, dear ECREA members,

We would like to inform you that in consultation with the Local Organising Committee, the ECREA Executive Board has approved new dates for the 8th European Communication Conference: 6-9 September 2021.

The conference was scheduled for 2-5 October 2020 but we had to make the uneasy decision to postpone. The different timelines and strategies of gradual withdrawal of pandemic prevention measures adopted by individual European countries have made it impossible to organise the event according to our standards of academic quality and hospitality.

Planning of the postponed event will protect all the work already done in the creation of the conference’s scientific programme. The review process has been concluded and the acceptance of papers and panels remains in place for the postponed conference. Over the next months, the organization department will contact all authors to confirm the approved status of previous submissions. The conference calendar will be revised and new important dates will be announced in the conference website.

We are working to prepare a safe and rewarding conference for all participants. Conferences should be exceptional moments for greater integration into our rich and diverse field for scholars of all ages, groups and research interests.

We are looking forward to seeing you in Braga from the 6 to 9 September 2021.

Ilija Tomanic Trivundza, ECREA President

Helena Sousa, General Coordinator of Local Organising Committee

CFP: Communication Research on and from Europe

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Call for papers 

Mediterranean Journal of Communication 

V12N1 

(January 2021)

Deadline: September 1, 2020 

Submission: http://goo.gl/99Xtg1 

Special Issue: Communication Research on and from Europe coordinated by Dr. Miguel Vicente-Mariño (University of Valladolid, Spain) and Dr. Ilija Tomanič Trivundža (University of Ljubljana, Slovenia) will be published in January 2021 (V12N1). Deadline for submissions: September 1, 2020.  Ver detalles en español.

Communication Research on and from Europe

Europe is one of the two key cultural actors and geopolitical areas to understand the historical evolution and current status of scientific knowledge in the Social Sciences. Communication Research is a scientific field and/or discipline experiencing an undeniable expansion since the 1990s, grounding part of its growth on works arising from the Old Continent, where big changes –ranging from the collapse of the geopolitical East-West division to the long-standing institutional efforts to build up a strong European Union- stand behind the rapid growth and consolidation of a European community of Communication Research scholars.

The constitution of the European Communication Research and Education Association (ECREA), as a merging initiative between the European Consortium of Communication Research (ECCR) and the European Communication Association (ECA) in 2005 appears as an enriching initiative opening a forum for discussion and mutual recognition between and within a growing community of researchers facing similar challenges, topics of study, theoretical anchorages and methodological resources.

This special issue of Revista Mediterránea de Communication/Mediterranean Journal of Communication aims to reflect on the origins, the processes and the outcomes of Communication Research on and from Europe. Therefore, Europe is considered here both as topic of study (Communication Research on Europe) and as a territory generating scientific evidence (Communication Research from Europe). Departing from a comparative perspective, these contents aspire to turn into a useful discussion platform about how European researchers have developed Communication Research during the last century, identifying the main findings achieved and posing open questions towards a near future.

Research projects and scientific networks proving to be able to transcend borders and dealing with the challenges of identifying common or divergent patterns across Europe are also invited to present here their main arrival points, as this special issue expects to elaborate and deepen in the roots and horizons of Media Studies and Communication Research in Europe.

 An initial list of topics, open to any other suggestion coming from the readership, could be as follows:

– History of European Communication Research;

– European Media Audiences;

– Media industries in Europe;

– Journalism Studies on Europe;

– Comparative Media Studies at a European scale;

– European Social Movements and Activism;

– European Public Opinion and the emergence of a common continental public sphere;

– Academic Labour Conditions in European institutions devoted to Communication Research;

– The role played by ECREA, and other scientific associations with a European scope, in shaping a research community at the continental level;

– The role played by the European Communication Conference (ECC) as a meeting point for European Communication researchers;

– The role played by European and national institutions active in the field of Social Sciences.

Consequently, all ECREA sections, working groups and networks are especially addressed by this call, as the experience accumulated during the last fifteen years is a valuable resource to elaborate on the role played by Communication Research and Education in shaping up a common and updated notion of Europe. But this call is not limited to these actors, but open to any research project including the European territory and culture as a priority.

This special issue will be co-edited Miguel Vicente-Mariño, University of Valladolid and Ilija Tomanič Trivundža, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. Anyone willing to receive additional information about this call or to address any question about potential participation, can directly contact the invited editors at miguel.vicente@uva.es.

CFP: Theory Advancing Practice: The Contingency Theory in the Strategic Management of Crises, Conflicts and Complex Public Relations Issues

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Deadline: November 30, 2020

Special issue editors:

Augustine Pang, PhD
Singapore Management University

Yan Jin, PhD
University of Georgia

Crises and conflicts have become more complex, impacting nations, organizations and individuals in unprecedented ways. Look no farther than how organizations (operationalized as governments, corporate, NGOs, NPOs) respond – or forced to respond, as an organization, an industry, or an multi-agency issue response entity, when confronted with threats to business, public health and safety, and national/international security. Organizational responses, at each level, must be equally dynamic, cognizant of the dynamics of internal structures and external vulnerabilities, that could affect their position, approach and management of communication outcomes that reflect organizational purpose and values as manifested in the process of making strategic decisions on short-term and long-term responses.

Over the past three decades, the Contingency Theory of Strategic Conflict Management (the Contingency Theory hereafter) has emerged as an empirically tested perspective in how public relations, crises, and conflicts can be managed. It defines public relations as strategic management of competition and conflict in the best interests of one’s organization, and when possible, also in the best interests of key publics (Wilcox, Cameron, & Reber, 2015). This has been applied to how nations, organizations and publics manage and negotiate conflicts. Coombs (2010) has described the Contingency Theory as a “grand theory of public relations”. A “grand theory” is one which “seeks to explain how public relations as a whole operates”. Grand theories seek to explain an entire discipline and “can be adapted to specific areas of the discipline” (Coombs, 2010, p. 41). Today, it is one of the most applied theories applied in crisis communication research (An & Cheng, 2010).

The premise of the theory is this: If two-way communication is not always possible, organizational response to a public relations issue or problem must be examined more dynamically. The Contingency Theory argues this to be examined via stance movements, which has, at one end of the continuum, advocacy, and at the other end, accommodation. The theory offers a matrix of 87 factors, arranged thematically, that the organization could draw on to determine their stance. Between advocacy, which means arguing for one’s own case, and accommodation, which means making trade-offs with a public, is a wide range of operational stances that influenced strategic communication strategies.

The Contingency Theory began essentially as a public relations theory in the 1990s, but has since been adapted and applied to crisis situations. Frandsen and Johansen (2017) argued that “it was not until the mid-2000s that Cameron’s contingency theory of accommodation became a genuine theory of crisis communication. It was in particular Augustine Pang and Yan Jin who contributed to this development” (p. 116). Heath and Coombs (2006) argued that theories are developed from best practices. Liu and Viens (2020) reflected the arguments among scholars for research to advance practice. Pang, Jin and Cameron (2010) argued that the Contingency Theory was developed to reflect the reality of practice. “Even as the insights of the theory are now used to inform practice, the theory actually operates in a continual cycle of how practice informs theory and how theory transforms practice. As the field evolves, so does the theory” (p. 28).

This special issue examines how the Contingency Theory has transformed and informed public relations and strategic communication practice. We invite submissions, be it conceptual or empirical, of all methodological approaches, to topics (interdiscplinary perspectives are especially encouraged), but are not limited to,

  • Further elaboration, expansion, and explication of the Contingency Theory and trajectory of future research
  • How the theory has informed and/or transformed practice
  • Application of theory to crises, conflicts, public relations issues, or public diplomacy
  • Linkages and interaction of the contingency factors in resolving conflicts, managing crises, or dealing with complex public relations issues
  • Identifying new contingency factors
  • Innovative approach of evaluating the relative importance among existing contingency factors in influencing public relations decision making
  • Measurement advancement in refining the operationalization of stance and stance movements
  • The application and advancement of the Contingency Theory in the social media landscape
  • Crisis/conflict leadership and strategic communication decision making in complex situations
  • Understanding the role of publics in the contingency framework: The role of cognitive appraisal, emotions, and coping
  • Ethical factors or considerations associated with strategic communication with key publics with conflicting values and/or different expectations from the organization

Submission

All manuscript submissions should be no more than 25 pages or 6,000 words (excluding references and tables, figures or appendices), double-spacing, 1-inch margin, 12-point font, Times New Roman.. Please follow the most recent APA style guideline for in-text citations and references. All submissions will be double-blind reviewed, following the guideline of Public Relations Review.

Timeline

  • Deadline for full paper submission to the Public Relations Review submission portal: November 30, 2020
  • Notification of review results, including invitations for revision and resubmission (R&R): February 28, 2021
  • Deadline for R&R submission: April 1, 2021
  • Publication: Scheduled for third or fourth quarter of 2021

For questions about this special issue, please email one or both of the guest editors:

Augustine Pang augustine@smu.edu.sg

Yan Jin yanjin@uga.edu

National Approaches to Systemic Risk: Germany and Japan under the COVID-19 Crisis

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The Tokyo-based German Institute for Japanese Studies has announced an event that may be interesting for crisis researchers interested in the current pandemic and/or cross-cultural research. The speakers are Ortwin Renn and Norio Okada, both highly renowned specialists in risk & crisis management in the respective countries. The event will be streamed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdGa3jF7et0

Further details: https://www.dijtokyo.org/event/national-approaches-to-systemic-riskgermany-and-japan-under-the-covid-19-crisis/

Media reporting of the COVID-19 pandemic

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Journalists covering the coronavirus pandemic face the classic dilemma of crisis reporting: contributing to mitigation while maintaining their watchdog function.

How do media outlets cover the current pandemic? What are the normative requirements journalists should consider? And how serious is the “infodemic” threat posed by mis- and disinfo on the coronavirus? These are just some of the questions that are being raised in the context of crisis communication surrounding the current pandemic. This short article (German) published in the European Journalism Observatory contributes some observations and thoughts on the matter and discusses the normative concept of a “mitigation watchdog” in the light of the current crisis reporting. A more detailed version of the article in German language is available here.

Call for Papers: Special Issue on COVID-19

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Examining risk communication, crisis management, as well as the implications of the decisions made, and actions taken to combat a global pandemic.

Guest Editor – Professor Yan Jin

Georgia Athletic Association Professor in Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication; Professor, Department of Advertising and Public Relations; Associate Director, Center for Health & Risk Communication, University of Georgia, United States.

Objectives and Scope of the Special Issue:

On January 30, 2020 the World Health Organization declared the outbreak of the COVID-19 (coronavirus) a “public health emergency of international concern). Coronaviruses are a large family of viruses that include MERS and SARS and it is believed it was initially spread from animals to humans with the epicentre in Wuhan, China. It has subsequently spread throughout Asia, Australasia, Europe, North America, South America, the Middle East, and several countries in Africa. In response to the pandemic, public health officials and governments worldwide have taken steps to mitigate the spread of infection with seemingly extreme recommendations, requirements, and restrictions. Organizations have also taken steps to respond by developing guidance for international travel for employees, recommendations for working at home, and cancelling major events. Finally, people have also reacted as sales of hygiene products have skyrocketed creating shortages in products like masks, hand sanitizer, and even toilet paper.

Broadly, our aim in this issue is to use crisis and risk communication knowledge, experience, and research to shed light on a crisis that has received significant heat in the last few months. As such there are broad three objectives in this issue:

  1. Deconstruct the COVID-19 crisis in a meaningful way to better understand lessons for future pandemic crisis planning, and actions.
  2. Analyze the existing and emergent risks associated with COVID-19, organizational or institutional reactions to it, and public self-protection actions taken (or not).
  3. Evaluate the (de)escalating factors affecting the pandemic and its outcome(s) in order to build strategic recommendations for future pandemics and public health crises.
  4. Advance crisis and risk communication theory via conceptual and methodological innovation that provides evidence-based insights for COVID-19 and future public health crisis prevention, preparedness, response, and recovery.

Examples of topics suitable to this issue could include:

  • Critical examinations of government policy, decision-making, & the communication of those decisions
  • Evaluations of reactions to the pandemic in/across different sectors (e.g., public sector, private sector, NGOs, etc.)
  • Cross-cultural explorations reactions and factors driving reactions to the pandemic
  • Risk analyses of the short, medium, and long-term implications of the pandemic
  • Specific analyses of messages to manage risk perception
  • Online and offline conversations about the disease, risk perception, and risk management
  • Outcome risk assessment (e.g., what could happen as a result of the crisis)
  • Information & communication expectations and challenges (e.g., misinformation and disinformation) during the pandemic
  • Socially responsible behavior and ethical considerations in the wake of a global pandemic

This is not an exhaustive list, but successful papers will meaningfully build their rationale around at least one of the three objectives identified in this call. All methodologies, ontological perspectives, and theoretical approaches are acceptable.

Submissions

Submissions to this special issue should follow the process outlined on: https://stars.library.ucf.edu/cgi/submit.cgi?context=jicrcr and authors can find more information about the journal’s guidance for authors at: https://stars.library.ucf.edu/jicrcr/styleguide.html.

Submission deadline: December 4, 2020

About the Journal

The Journal of International Crisis and Risk Communication Research (JICRCR) is the first scholarly journal dedicated to human and mediated communication issues associated with crises, risks, and emergencies around the world. JICRCR publishes original theoretical and scientific articles and brief reports that stimulate debate and contribute to the knowledge of crisis and risk communication. JICRCR intends to be the premier outlet for authors to submit crisis and risk communication research. The Journal is supported by an international editorial board comprised of top risk and crisis communication scholars. The journal publishes articles in a print version and open access online, which means that all content is freely available without charge to the user or institution. Users are allowed to read, download, print, or link to the full texts of the articles, without asking prior permission from JICRCR. For more information about the journal visit: https://stars.library.ucf.edu/jicrcr/about.html

Developing a global virtual risk & crisis community

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A collaborative, open resource for risk & crisis communication

We cannot solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when creating them.

— Albert Einsten.

We are certainly living through an interesting and very challenging moment in history. Risk and crisis communication scholars and practitioners have an opportunity to share the best practices, latest research, best approaches to mitigating risk, as well as our work and engagement.

The plans for this site as well as the risk and crisis community have been in process for months, yet as they have come together now, we also have an opportunity to critically reflect on ongoing health crises, the COVID-19 pandemic, recent (and future) economic crises, and all of the factors that connect to what serves mutual interests in our communities, institutions, and businesses.

As the current chair for ECREA’s Crisis Communication division, my invitation for the community is to share our work, our experiences, our thoughts, and research. If you would like to be a contributor, contact me directly at audra.lawson@leedsbeckett.ac.uk.

Contributor Guidelines

For anyone interested in contributing, here are the guidelines for posts:

  1. Text-based posts need to be 400-1500 words (maximum)
  2. MP4-based posts (e.g., recorded interviews, podcasts, mini-lectures, etc.) of 2 1/2-5 minutes are acceptable but the MP4’s will need to be uploaded separately (contact me for the upload details) with a 100-200 word ‘abstract’
  3. We invite posts on calls for participation (papers, conferences, etc.), information about upcoming events relevant to the community, recent publications (promote your latest work), risk and crisis in the news, and teaching and training related to risk and crisis communication
  4. All posts need to have a featured image and we encourage visualisation of material where possible. However, all visuals must be copyright free OR owned by the person posting them.
  5. Before their first post, contributors are expected to create a brief profile and are encouraged to upload a photo, put in their own social media, and email contact information.
  6. Aside from the MP4’s that will be uploaded separately, contributors are responsible for laying out their own posts. Technical help using WordPress is generally not available from the management team, but there is a lot of WordPress documentation for help.

Posts will be moderated by a member of the division’s management team before being scheduled for posting. However, our objective is to encourage open participation; therefore, this is not a ‘peer-review’ process; rather, ensuring the content is accessible and appropriate to the group’s mission.