STEM-to-public science communication is recognized as an important skill, but a pedagogical framework for teaching these skills is lacking. Collaborating with safety and science communication experts, an intervention was developed in a health and safety course for chemical engineering students. Students attended three science communication…

What to say to the public about asteroid hazards and how to say it to them? In this article, we relate how our small professional research institution (Klet Observatory, Czech Republic), devoted specifically to Near-Earth Objects (NEOs), together with the educational branch (Ceske Budejovice Observatory and Planetarium, Czech Republic), has…

Historically, institutions of higher education (IHE) have been cautious and slow in making changes. Yet in today's fast-paced and dynamic world of content availability and information flow generated by 24-hour news cycles and the ubiquity of social media present a challenging reality for colleges and universities in their public relations and…

Research on blogs' role in public relations about animal agriculture production is limited at best. This case study set out to describe the characteristics of selected bloggers' writing about protein-related topics and issues, with a special focus on how the protein industry was represented, what themes were most common, and what the tonal…

Course: This assignment is a unit activity designed for use in a skills-focused undergraduate public relations, organizational communication, or crisis communication course. Objective: The goal of this activity is to increase students' understanding and ability to apply message design concepts in an unfamiliar context. Students will work…

Today's academic staff and students are faced with increasing challenges including respective delivery and development of essential subject-specific content, research and diverse transferable skills for future employment. To meet these needs, we piloted an academic and Media Relations delivery partnership focussing on developing science…

The objective of this study is to develop and evaluate a multicultural competency training model for digital publicists. It is research and development which the researchers have divided the research process into 3 steps. Step 1: Developing a multicultural competency training model for digital publicists. Step 2: Evaluating the suitability of the…

Both sexual harassment and managerial crisis communication are important topics in undergraduate, graduate, and executive programs. This article describes a group role-play exercise that engages students in the process of responding to a public claim of workplace sexual harassment and requires small groups to share their reactions within a press…

This study employed data mining and quantitative methods to collect and analyze the available histories of primary Twitter accounts of institutions of higher education in the U.S. (n = 2411). The study comprises a sample of 5.7 million tweets, representing 62% of all tweets created by these accounts and the entire population of U.S. colleges and…

Purpose: Previous studies have documented that exposure to stereotypical information about certain social groups leads to unfavorable perceptions and feelings toward that group. Integrating insights from the mental illness stigma and the social identity perspective literatures, the purpose of this paper is to explore the effects of eating disorder…

Communicating about climate change is challenging not only because of the multidisciplinary and complex nature of the issue itself and multiple policy options related to mitigation and adaptation, but also because of the plenitude of potential communication methods coupled with limited resources for communication. This article explores climate…

This article examines two large-scale public communication campaigns to explore the appropriateness and effectiveness of using one-way communication in contentious environmental issues. The findings show while one-way communication can be successfully employed in contentious issues, it is not appropriate for all contexts and may contribute to…

The tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School, Newtown, CT (USA) has brought the conversation about how to reduce violence, make schools safer, improve school climate, and increase access to mental health services to the forefront of the national conversation. Advocating for comprehensive initiatives to address school safety, school climate, and…

If more conservation-minded citizens were aware of certain environmental threats and how to resolve them, these issues could be resolved more effectively. Scientific conferences focusing on conservation bring together countless experts on environmental problems and solutions, but are not an effective means of reaching the interested public on a…

The institutional web site is ubiquitous and has emerged as nearly universal in its utilization as a recruiting and informational tool for the twenty-first century community college. Community colleges have embraced utilization of the Internet through the establishment of institutional web sites containing volumes of information, forms, and links.…