Corporate communicators and public relations (PR) practitioners strongly believe that social media have changed the way communication is practiced in cultural organizations. Previous research found cultural organizations remain trialing with social media, narrowing their uses for promotional and informational purposes. This study aims to add Kuwait to de-Westernize the literature in PR and communication management. Using Instagram and the Kuwaiti National Council for Culture, Arts, and Literature (NCCAL), this mixed method study aims to understand how this cultural institution utilizes this social media platform, how it visually frames its communication, and whether its utilization of Instagram reflects a strategic approach in communication management. The findings show that most posts are about past events that provide media coverage in the form of photographs, followed by posts about future activities in the form of graphic images and with the aim of information dissemination. The findings also show that the NCCAL mainly employed the cultural authority frame, the promotion frame, and the human-interest frame. Further statistical analyses showed significant relationships where the cultural authority frame was statistically salient with posts of past events in photographic form and the promotion frame was statistically salient with posts of upcoming events in graphic design form. The findings suggest a relatively non-strategic approach of the NCCAL’s management of Instagram, requiring an organizational need for the NCCAL to diversify its communication strategies, hence, frames and content. The findings also provide theoretical and practical implications for PR practitioners in relations to social media management in cultural organizations.

This paper aims to uncover internal organizational details of corporate social responsibility (CSR) management in Kuwaiti banking and telecommunications companies. Through in-depth interviews with 12 public relations (PR) practitioners and corporate communicators, the paper addresses the following questions in the context of Kuwait: what is the role of PR in the management of CSR? Is CSR a tool for reputation management or a genuine belief in these companies regarding their responsibility toward society, or both? Is CSR in Kuwait managed strategically? The findings reveal that PR departments are solely responsible for the management of CSR and are involved in it from ideation to implementation rather than only for communication. CSR is facilitated through PR's powers in research and communication, yet it lacks evaluation. The PR departments in these organizations are committed to the ethical aspects of CSR rather than its reputational intentions. According to these respondents, enhancing reputation is indispensable for implementing CSR and such a benefit is an added value. However, even though respondents provided a few indications of the strategic implementation of CSR, a comprehensive understanding of what "strategic management" entails remains lacking as it is occasionally implemented on an ad hoc basis. This study reinforces the accumulating body of empirical support for PR's role in CSR and the reputational benefits of CSR. It extends the current body of knowledge beyond western contexts to include Kuwait as an Arab and Middle Eastern country. The findings provide theoretical and practical implications for PR practitioners in relations to PR, CSR, and reputation.

Purpose - With infographics emerging as key communication tools on social media platforms, this study explores the visual literacy of governments in creating effective infographics, especially during crises. Using the Kuwaiti government during the COVID-19 pandemic as a case study, the investigation evaluates the government's visual competency and strategy in its infographics on X. Design/methodology/approach - For competence, AI-based techniques were employed to analyze the proportion of text region size to total infographic size, word count per infographic and the most prominent colors used. Regarding strategy, the study utilized the crisis and emergency risk communication (CERC) model as a framework to examine how the Kuwaiti government integrated crisis communication response strategies into infographics. Findings - When communicating complex messages, the government resorted to text-heavy infographics instead of creative visualizations, casting doubt on its visual competence. The inconsistent use of colors further undermined a recognizable visual identity. Regarding strategy, infographics on crisis updates were most frequent, supporting CERC's emphasis on reducing uncertainty. Yet, prioritizing bolstering strategies above empathy and action steps goes against the advice of existing literature. Originality/value - While crisis communication research is widely based on textual analysis, this study extends the literature by examining visuals, specifically infographics. Additionally, focusing on Arabic infographics from Kuwait, the study expands the crisis communication literature, which has mainly concentrated on Western countries and the English language. Given the lack of consensus on the best methods to measure visual literacy, this study's AI approaches contribute to the literature.

In an effort to de-Westernise crisis communication literature, this study explores the Kuwaiti government's COVID-19 discourse over Twitter by using criteria from Crisis and Emergency Risk Communication model (CERC) and Situational Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT). The Kuwaiti government mostly used instructing strategies, complying with crisis communication principles. However, contrary to recommendations from literature, reputation strategies were prioritised over adjusting strategies, confirming the influence of politics during crises. The results also revealed that the public interacted with instructing and adjusting strategies more than reputation strategies demonstrating the public's need for information rather than reputation. Regarding Twitter use, the results indicated that the government lacked the necessary skills to communicate proficiently over the platform. The implications of the findings are discussed in relation to theory development in crisis communication and governmental use of social media.

Objective: Using institutional theory as the theoretical framework, this study aims to provide new knowledge about the social roles of Kuwaiti companies in terms of social responsibility concepts and themes that are reflected in their reports. Methods: The study relied on quantitative data collected from 490 annual and corporate social responsibility reports of leading Kuwaiti companies from 2010 to 2019. This study analyzed how these companies communicate their social roles in terms of concepts and themes that are prevalent in the literature and their statistical association with each other, type of industry, and the 10-year timeframe. Results: The study provided empirical insights demonstrating that corporate social responsibility (CSR) as a concept is dominant and institutionalized in the social responsibility discourse of Kuwaiti companies, while corporate sustainability and corporate community involvement compete to be part of that discourse and are in the process of being institutionalized. An analysis of the salience of the social themes in the reports showed that issues related to the environment and community are increasing at an exponential rate. The findings showed that the banking and telecommunications industries represent the leading sectors of the social responsibility scene in Kuwait, and that industry type is not relevant to CSR efforts. The implications of these findings are discussed in relation to institutional theory, public relations, and strategic communication.

This study aimed to examine the applicability of the Excellence principles in Kuwait, generating insights into factors that affect the practice of strategic public relations management across corporate, governmental and nonprofit organizations. The findings, based on 21 semi-structured in-depth interviews with Kuwaiti public relations practitioners, revealed that the public relations profession demonstrates low levels of adherence to the generic principles of excellence. Public relations practitioners are less involved in strategic management and less empowered in the dominant coalition. Practitioners have provided various barriers including higher management?s lack of understanding of public relations, and lack of qualified practitioners, which have created disparities in understanding symmetrical communication. The sector of the organizations and the employment system in the country have also contributed to the situation.

Public relations (PR) practitioners strongly believe that social media are changing the way PR is practiced. While it is premature to confirm the change, previous research has found that PR practitioners remain trialing with social media for purposes related to organizational communication. By conducting in-depth interviews with 19 practitioners from corporate, governmental and non-profit organizations in Kuwait, this qualitative study aims to understand how Kuwaiti organizations use social media to achieve PR objectives, the advantages and barriers PR practitioners face when using them as well as the extent whether or not social media have changed PR. Kuwaiti organizations were found to use Twitter and Instagram the most for promotion and information dissemination, but the use is generally occasional and reactive. Extending the organizations' reach and popularity of social media among Kuwaitis were the main advantages for using this type of media, while lack of social media strategy, lack of technical skills, and confusion of the two-way communication approach were the main barriers. A new finding can be added to the literature where insufficient educational background was found to contribute to the practitioners' reluctance to adopt and adapt to using social media. As to any causing change to PR, the respondents believe that social media have broadened the field and have made organizations look less official and more mainstream in the popular culture. The implications of the findings suggest the need for a strategic approach in terms of purpose, roles, responsibilities, policies and guidelines toward the management of social media between higher management and PR practitioners. Improvements to PR curriculum and practicum are also needed to integrate communication technologies into PR practice.

This research analyzes news stories of the American New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Russian Izvestiya and Argumenty i Fakty toward the Russian punk group Pussy Riot. The study used qualitative framing analysis to (1) extract the frames and framing devices employed by the newspapers in their coverage of the Russian group, and (2) to identify if the coverage aligned with the official positions of the corresponding governments. The time frame was when Pussy Riot performed inside a Moscow cathedral in February 2012 until a week after the court's decision to jail three members in August of the same year. The findings show the American newspapers aligned with the official stand of the US government toward Pussy Riot. Each American newspaper employed two frames with their framing devices emphasizing solidarity with the group and opposition toward the Russian handling of the case. Each Russian newspaper also employed two frames but they did not align with the official stand of their corresponding government. The frames and their devices emphasized on the argument whether the church performance was an act of hooliganism or of free expression. Heavy celebrity endorsements supporting Pussy Riot were included in the American news stories while the Russian stories were more focused on the latest developments of events.

Conglomerates have been increasing in size to also include different media industries. Public relations has not been immune from conglomerate mergers. However, the inter-related economic and structural dimensions of public relations within a conglomerate are often undermined in the relevant literature. The existing literature shows lack of studies on these dimensions. This research investigates the degree of conglomeration among the top American PR agencies and the characteristics of these conglomerated agencies. Using industrial organization theory as the theoretical framework, the findings revealed that 24% of the leading public relations agencies in the United States are part of conglomerates. These agencies tend to be located in large metropolitan areas, have a relatively small number of employees and have considerable net fees. The study also found strong and positive statistical correlations between conglomerated PR agencies when compared to un-conglomerated in variables such as agency's location, primary service and net fees. (C) 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The goal of this study is to determine the possible factors leading to increased anti-Muslim sentiment or Islamophobia in a comparative examination of public opinion in the United States and Europe. Secondary analyses of data from the 2008 Pew Global Attitude Project and the 2010 Pew News Interest Index, allow us to assess the role of religious practice, news interest and political affiliation in the attitudes toward Muslim minorities in several countries. Predictors of anti-Muslim attitudes include being politically more conservative and being older in all countries, and paying close attention to news coverage of the Park51 Islamic Community Center in the United States (which was proposed to be built near Ground Zero in New York). In France, but not in the other countries of the study, the importance of the respondents' religion was positively related to anti-Muslim attitudes.

The talks about the horizontality of Internet activism and the advent of social media applications have drawn great attention recently where leadership, organization and coordination are no longer tasks of a movement's leadership, but also the general participants. This content analysis research attempts to show how the Egyptian 6th of April Youth Movement framed its own activism and what this multiplicity of actors-based framing meant to social movement discourse. The significance of this study lies in its potential to contribute to the understanding of diverse frames by leaders and participants, with the latter rapidly emerging as new agents of social movements. The findings show that the leadership and participants used similar cause, motivational and consequence frames (the three social movement framing tasks), but the leadership used these frames more frequently than the participants and had a larger influence than the participants in the overall framing of the 6th of April Youth Movement.

"A Review of “Tactical Media (Electronic Mediations)”." The Information Society, 27(2), pp. 139–140

/ Through the technique of meta-analysis, this study investigates the scholarly articles appearing in peer-reviewed online and offline journals that address the topic of communication and development from 1998 to 2007 to determine publication trends in the field. The research was prompted by the sense that development was moving off the research agenda of most communication scholars. This seemed surprising in the era of globalization and it was decided to examine the literature for evidence. The study finds that published studies have moved away from mass communication and toward ICTs’ role in development, that they infrequently address development in the context of globalization and often continue to embrace a modernization paradigm despite its many criticisms. In addition, International Communication Gazette was found to be the only mainstream communication journal to include a significant number of articles on development communication.