The public relations (PR) industry plays a vital role in shaping corporate reputation, public discourse, and social engagement. However, despite serving diverse audiences, the industry has long struggled with racial equity, representation, and inclusion. This study examines the current state of racial diversity within PR, assessing recent industry initiatives, and persisting challenges, and provides potential solutions to advance meaningful change. Using Critical Race Theory (CRT) as an analytical framework, this research explores structural barriers that impact career advancement for PR professionals of color and evaluates whether existing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts effectively challenge systemic inequities. Through a qualitative analysis of a focus group discussion with influential affinity group, senior-level PR practitioners, this study uncovers key themes, including the role of leadership in fostering DEI, client-driven diversity demands, and the necessity for accountability measures. Findings reveal that while DEI efforts have gained momentum, structural barriers remain pervasive, limiting true progress. This study offers strategic recommendations for PR firms, corporate communication teams, and industry organizations to enhance accountability, create sustainable DEI frameworks, and drive equitable representation across all levels of leadership.
This mixed-methods study analyzes how storytelling functions as a site of identity negotiation and resistance in American standup comedy. Quantitative content analysis of 14 Netflix specials (1,034 min) identified 83 discrete stories, revealing that comedians tell significantly more personal stories (n = 63) than stories about others (n = 20), chi(2) (1, N = 83) = 22.28, p < .001. Race significantly predicted story themes (Cram & eacute;r's V = 0.35, p = .015), with White comedians emphasizing politics (20.48%) and Black comedians addressing race (8.43%) and LGBTQ issues (12.05%). Gender showed no significant relationship with themes, while audience reception was overwhelmingly positive. The Foucauldian discourse analysis approach revealed three discursive functions of story-driven standup: racial knowledge reconfiguration, confessional resistance to gender norms, and audience subjectification as complicit witnesses. Findings demonstrate that storytelling transforms standup from entertainment into a discursive arena where marginalized identities challenge dominant narratives and audiences participate in meaning-making. The study advances intersectional humor scholarship by identifying how comedians' social positions shape narrative content while revealing storytelling's power to generate empathy and critique through personal stories.
Taboo social issues, such as female genital mutilation (FGM), continue to impact millions in Least Developed Countries (LDCs), yet social marketing campaigns often face cultural resistance. While culturally congruent appeals are theorized to drive behavior change, empirical evidence for their effectiveness remains mixed. This study addresses a critical gap by examining how the interplay between an individual's cultural orientation, the type of appeal, and the perceived taboo level of an issue shapes behavioral intention. A between-subjects experiment (N = 143) in Ethiopia, manipulating issue taboo (FGM vs. gender equality) and appeal type (implicit vs. explicit), revealed a critical finding: explicit appeals for the high-taboo issue (FGM) significantly reduced behavioral intention, particularly among individuals with a high-context cultural orientation, demonstrating a clear backlash effect. While implicit appeals served as a protective baseline, their primary value was in avoiding the negative outcomes of explicit messaging. The study concludes that for taboo issues in high-context cultures, the strategic imperative is less about maximizing persuasion through congruence and more about mitigating the severe cost of culturally incongruent communication. These findings offer crucial theoretical and practical guidance for designing culturally sensitive and backlash-minimizing social marketing campaigns.
This study examines students' perceptions of campus climate, belong-ing, and community during intensified DEI retrenchment in U.S. higher education. Survey data from 272 undergraduates in communication-related programs at two ACEJMC-accredited institutions, one public and one private, show how perceptions vary across racial, gender, sexual orientation, and political identities as well as by institutional context. Results indicate students generally report moderate to strong levels of belonging and community, particularly with respect to fac-ulty and peer relationships. However, these positive assessments coexist with recurring experiences of isolation and negative diversity-related interactions. BIPOC and LGBTQ+ students report higher levels of perceived isolation and more frequent insensitive interactions, even while indicating strong classroom comfort and fac-ulty support. Conservative students do not report lower overall belonging but report less perceived freedom to express their political views. Private institution students report higher overall belonging than those at the public institution. Overall, the findings document a paradox in which support and isolation coexist, highlighting differ-ences across identities. Results underscore the importance of attend-ing not only to visible forms of support, such as faculty approachability and classroom climate, but also to less visible experiences of isolation and constrained expression that may persist even when formal sup-ports are present.
Extant scholarship in Communication Studies that write against the grain of civility primarily approach the subject from a rhetorical perspective. This essay joins the conversation on civility from a critical intercultural communication perspective to make a theoretical argument for a situated theory of speaking from the margins, one that is informed by an Eastern martial arts philosophy that is best captured and popularized by the Chinese term wuxia ((sic)(sic)). To do so, I employ the method of close reading to analyze Michelle Yeoh's 2023 Golden Globes award reception speech. In the process, I demonstrate how the Chinese knight-errant (xia (sic)) sensibility with regards to reciprocation/requital/reprisal (bao (sic)) and appropriate martial response (wu (sic)) provides a cultural framework for minoritized communities to navigate communication situations that "demand anger" beyond the performance of sly civility as a form of resistance.
This study explores the intersections between HIV representations, attitudes, responsibility attribution, and ingroup/outgroup membership, as well as their relationship with participants' sociodemographic characteristics. A gender-balanced sample of 240 undergraduate students of Primary Education in Greece read vignettes depicting HIV through heterosexual contact, involving either a native or foreign individual of either gender. Participants completed questionnaires assessing their HIV representations, attitudes toward the scenario-dependent character, and sociodemographic details. Through factor analysis, four key factors emerged: the contagionist approach, the associative sexual stigma approach, the moralistic-isolationist approach, and the transmissible approach. Sociodemographic variables such as gender, age, and religiosity significantly influenced these representations. Males viewed HIV as more contagious than females, while older participants showed less belief in HIV transmission through stigmatized groups. Religious participants tended to view HIV as a severe condition and associated it with punishment, while non-religious participants exhibited greater acceptance of people living with HIV (PLHIV). Gendered differences were also observed regarding risk perception and attitudes toward PLHIV, with male participants indicating greater personal vulnerability and more stigmatizing attitudes than females. These findings offer valuable insights into how HIV representations and attitudes can be shaped by both individual beliefs and broader cultural influences.
The social practice of photojournalism has been historically dominated by a Western male perspective, producing norms and standards of representation. An important dimension of this perspective is the esthetics, a primary resource for meaning-making that has been previously described as highly conventional and standardized. This study specifically focuses on the aesthetic dimensions of the Western male gaze and provides empirical evidence that stylistic diversity arises from increased racial and gender diversity in photojournalistic practice. Using a quantitative content analysis (N = 4390) of news images produced by 1128 photographers working for 51 news outlets and published by The New York Times, this study found that women of all racial and ethnic backgrounds, as well as men of color, utilize a wider range of pictorial styles than white men. This study details how semiotic innovation-the evolution of pictorial conventions, aesthetic treatment, and broader photographic approach-creates distinct accounts of the social world, affecting the symbolic relationship between represented persons and viewers, the making of place, and broader knowledge production through news images.
Globally, new nonprofit organizations are registered almost every day, and passionate individuals establish them and are committed to providing critical services that support developing countries' national development agendas (Essien, 2025). This study explored how intercultural communication challenges and gender equality shortcomings affect the success of women's empowerment efforts within nonprofit organizations in South Africa. The study employed ethnographic observations and semi-structured interviews with 53 participants drawn from various nonprofit organizations working across sectors such as education, health, skill acquisition, and women's empowerment. The data were thematically analyzed to uncover recurring barriers and strategic responses. Findings revealed that while nonprofit organizations face communication-related challenges, they are also actively employing culturally sensitive strategies, trust-building practices, and technology to overcome these issues. These findings align with the existing literature and extend knowledge by emphasizing the importance of gender-aware, culturally competent communication for achieving inclusive empowerment outcomes. The implications suggest a need for targeted training, policy reform, and participatory research to enhance nonprofit organizations' communication strategies and effectiveness.
Corrosive acid attacks remain a persistent form of interpersonal violence in Indonesia and continue to feature in national news coverage through 2024-2025. Although existing scholarship has addressed legal disparities, survivor trauma, and gendered power relations, less attention has been paid to how news reporting itself shapes public meaning-making and potentially reinforces symbolic scripts of violence. Drawing on media contagion theory, this study examines how Indonesian online news frames acid attacks and how such representations may unintentionally amplify imitation risk. Using qualitative content analysis, the study analyses 36 news articles published between 2017 and 2025 from widely accessed national outlets. Three patterns emerge. First, reporting repeatedly foregrounds emotionally salient motives jealousy, humiliation, and revenge rendering violence culturally intelligible as an interpersonal response. Second, offenders and victims are positioned through moral and symbolic framing, often emphasizing legible grievance alongside spectacularised injury. Third, coverage aligns with contagion pathways through procedural visibility, intertextual linking to high-profile cases, and vivid visualization, while prevention and deterrence receive limited attention. The findings underscore the ethical importance of reporting practices that foreground accountability and harm reduction and that disrupt retributive scripts rather than consolidating them.
This qualitative study examines how silence and family communication taboos shape academic identity among low-income scholarship students in Indonesia. Grounded in interpretive family communication scholarship and critical perspectives on power, the study conceptualizes silence not as an absence of communication but as a morally regulated practice embedded in classed life conditions. In-depth interviews with 31 first-generation scholarship students identify four interconnected processes: silence learned and normalized as a family norm; selective disclosure enacted to protect parents' emotional stability; fragmentation of academic identity resulting from limited narrative space at home; and student agency cultivated through peers, faculty relationships, and reflective practices. The findings demonstrate that silence functions as a moral economy of endurance and sacrifice, structuring what students perceive as permissible to voice or withhold within relationships. Although students construct meanings beyond family boundaries, this agency entails emotional strain and distance from familial recognition, challenging disclosure-centered assumptions while illuminating how class, morality, and power shape academic lives.
Amid deepening China-Africa cooperation, social media discussions of Africans in Guangzhou have generated extensive textual data reflecting public opinion. Although these discourses reveal collective sentiment, they also expose persistent communication challenges, highlighting the need for constructive dialogue and the reduction of cross-cultural barriers. Drawing on field theory and big data-assisted online content analysis, this study examines 62,877 valid data posts from Sina Weibo, WeChat, and Zhihu (2009-2024) to investigate Chinese social media users' discursive marginalization of Africans in Guangzhou. Findings indicate that the topic is framed within a multithematic, negatively skewed discourse that fosters a negative emotional community. Within this space, patriotism intertwines with racism, and cultural conflict converges with identity negotiation, generating complex transmission dynamics. Communication challenges-namely, obstructed information flow, generalization of noise flow, and turbulence of influence flow-intensify the uncertainty and complexity of public discourse on China-Africa relations. These challenges arise from the consolidation of negative habitus and the structural asymmetry of field power. Issue-specific habitus does not emerge spontaneously but arises from the asymmetrical coupling of multiple capitals in the field. Unlike classical field theory, which emphasizes habitus as stable dispositional tendencies formed through long-term individual socialization, social media fields generate short-term, affect-driven, and collective issue-specific habitus.
The objective of the study was aimed to examine the effectiveness of artificial intelligence (AI)-based smart text (ST) tools integrated with Swales' Move Structures in enhancing the professionalism and structural quality of inter-staff email communication among medical doctors in a private Malaysian hospital, where precise and formal written communication is essential for operational efficiency, interprofessional collaboration, and patient care outcomes. A qualitative method was employed, in which ten authentic email samples were analyzed before and after an AI-based intervention. Specifically, Swales' Move Structure comprising greeting, purpose, method, and closing was applied to evaluate rhetorical organization, while ChatGPT-5 was utilized to identify structural gaps, analyze rhetorical patterns, and provide targeted feedback to improve clarity, coherence, and linguistic precision in prototype drafts. The findings subsequently revealed that post-intervention emails demonstrated marked improvements in consistency, completeness, and professional tone. In particular, structural elements that were frequently absent in the pre-intervention samples, such as formal greetings, clearly articulated purposes, and actionable closings, were consistently present following AI-supported revision, thereby reducing ambiguity and communicative effectiveness. Taken together, these results carry important implications for Malaysia's multilingual and multicultural healthcare environment, where miscommunication may exacerbate disparities and hinder collaboration. Accordingly, the study suggests that AI-assisted writing templates grounded in structured rhetorical frameworks offer a practical and scalable strategy for professional correspondence, promoting inclusivity, and improving healthcare services, although further research is warranted to determine the generalizability of this approach across diverse clinical and institutional contexts.
First-time voters play a crucial role in Indonesia's 2024 Election, particularly within pesantren (Islamic boarding schools), which serve as influential environments in shaping youth perspectives. This study examines how santri (students in Islamic boarding schools) construct political meaning, interpret democracy, and make voting decisions within a religious educational context. Using a qualitative approach, the study involved 15 participants from three pesantren in East Java. Data were collected through in-depth interviews and analyzed thematically to identify patterns in how santri understand political life. The findings reveal that santri understand politics not as a contest for power, but as a moral responsibility and form of social worship, while democracy is interpreted through the Islamic principle of musyawarah (deliberation). The pesantren environment shapes political understanding through everyday moral and communicative practices rather than explicit political instruction, while social media serves as a key source of political information that is filtered through religious values, producing a reflective and ethically grounded mode of engagement. These findings demonstrate how pesantren function as communicative spaces of political socialization, where religious values, institutional interactions, and mediated information intersect to shape critical, ethical, and socially responsible first-time voters.
This study examines the role of social capital in self-rated health (SRH) and racial/ethnic differences in this relationship. It explores how relational and cognitive social capital impacts SRH among Asian, Black/African American, Hispanic, and non-Hispanic White participants, comparing differences across these groups. Using data from the Health Information National Trends Survey (HINTS), the study analyzed relational social capital variables (trust, patient-provider communication, online health communities, social connectedness, sense of belonging) and cognitive social capital variables (fatalistic health beliefs) to understand their influence on SRH. Findings reveal that relational and cognitive social capital significantly impact SRH, with variations across racial/ethnic groups. Trust, patient-provider communication, and social connectedness were key relational factors, while fatalistic health beliefs emerged as a critical cognitive factor. Results highlight the need for culturally tailored interventions to address disparities in SRH. Strategies include fostering trust in health information sources, improving patient-provider communication, and enhancing community connectedness. Social capital plays a significant role in SRH, with differing impacts across racial/ethnic groups. Future research should explore these dynamics further to inform tailored interventions and reduce health disparities.
Forces of modernization and globalization threaten the survival and continuity of intangible cultural heritage (ICH). Among studies on ICH digitalization, the voices of inheritors, particularly the elderly facing the challenges of aging and death, have not been fully heard in shaping digital media uses for ICH safeguarding. Situating technology domestication within ICH, this qualitative study reveals a nuanced understanding of how Chinese senior Dixi inheritors integrate social media into their daily ICH practices, particularly as a form of culture-making in multifaceted ICH safeguarding. Findings indicate that the digital platform, WeChat, affords a digital community alive with cultural identifiers of Anshun Dixi and Tunpu culture through a multidimensional domesticating process. In ICH safeguarding, this online space is open to changes, (re)shaped within how local communities create their shared cultural heritage, identities and a sense of belonging. Built upon the cultural-communal domestication enabled by WeChat, we argue that cultural domestication is a significant constituent of ICH safeguarding, enlightening a more adaptive approach to the digitalization of ICH.
