Transparency for Sponsored Content: Analysing Codes of Ethics in Public Relations,Marketing, Advertising and Journalism

As sponsored content is gaining ground globally, the boundaries between strategic communication, advertising and journalism are blurring. As sponsored content becomes more common, it raises novel ethical concerns that no industry alone can answer, such as How much disclosure is needed for transparency? Self-regulation via codes of ethics has been suggested as a remedy to meet the rising transparency expectations, and this article analysed 40 codes of ethics in the fields of communication, advertising, and journalism (United States and Finland) related to sponsored content. The results indicate that there remains excessive variation within the codes of ethics of how transparency of sponsored content is addressed. According to our analysis, most of the codes deal with transparency and the separation between commercial and editorial content only vaguely, and only eight of the total 40 guidelines take sponsored content into account. Therefore, we believe that the strategic benefit of sponsored content is threatened as long as no joint codes of ethics exist for sponsored content. To the degree that sponsored content is practiced across professions, we call for a joint code of ethics for sponsored content transparency, as the current codes of ethics fail to answer this emerging need.     

Country Image Repair Strategies During an Asymmetrical Conflict: An Analysis of the Gaza Conflict in 2014

In recent decades, more and more countries have become involved in violent conflicts with non-state actors (NSAs), such as Al-Qaeda and ISIS. One of the main reasons why democratic states find it difficult to achieve victory in such asymmetrical conflicts is the tendency of NSAs to work within civilian populations; when democratic states try to fight the NSAs, they lose in the media battle, which tends to focus on civilian casualties. Photos of dead civilians and destruction lead to increasing criticism of the democratic state. As can be expected, state representatives try to restore their state’s media image. The article integrates theories and models from crisis communication and image repair to suggest a new model that examines media strategies used by state representatives during asymmetrical conflicts. The case study is based mainly on qualitative content analysis backed up by quantitative analysis of interviews given by Israeli representatives to the non-Israeli English media during the Gaza conflict in the summer of 2014. According to the model, a state’s representatives can use three kinds of strategies to repair their country image: source, message, and audience. The model can be used to analyze the image repair efforts of democratic countries during asymmetrical conflicts.     

世界邮政战略的发展与分析——从“北京邮政战略”到“布加勒斯特世界邮政战略”

文章简要介绍了UPU战略的含义；对1999年北京邮联大会后的世界邮政新环境的发展和变化进行了综合分析；结合北京邮政战略的目标内容到布加勒斯特世界邮政战略目标内容的发展变化，对世界邮政战略的发展变化进行了阐述，并预测了未来世界邮政的发展趋势。     

提升代理营业机构检查有效性策略探析

代理营业机构是邮储银行的重要组成部分,点多面广、基础薄弱是其显著特点。基于风控提质增效需要,对标农信社等同业情况,分析了代理营业机构现场检查的现状和主要问题,提出了提高代理营业机构现场检查质效的思路和策略。     

Paid,Earned, Shared and Owned Media From the Perspective of Advertising and Public Relations Agencies: Comparing China and the United States

Despite the existence of the “great firewall,” advertising and public relations practitioners in China, much like in the United States, are embracing and enacting social media and digital strategies on behalf of their clients. In this study, we conducted 42 in-depth interviews with advertising and public relations practitioners in the United States and mainland China to explore how emerging media and integrated marketing communication (IMC) are impacting advertising and public relations agencies in the two countries. This cross-cultural comparison revealed several critical insights, which were examined through the lenses of IMC and dimensions of culture. We found that emerging media lead to converging trends in various aspects of agency performance. The blurring of paid, earned, shared, and owned media (PESO) was evidentially observed in how executives of both countries defined and used media. Chinese agencies were media agnostic, concerned more with effectiveness of media practices. The U.S. agencies embraced collaboration and information technology better compared to their Chinese peers. This research contributes to the body of knowledge in strategic communication via providing empirical evidence of how Chinese and U.S. agencies coordinate IMC and perceive PESO media relative and in response to emerging media practices.     

Status of Image Management Research in Public Relations: A Cross-Discipline Content Analysis of Studies Published Between 1991 and 2011

This study reviews the status of image management research published in public relations-specific journals, as well as broader management, business, strategic communication, and communication journals, to extrapolate important trends for future research and practice. A content analysis of relevant research (n = 261) was conducted based on several criteria (area focus, application group, country of study, methodology, application of theory or conceptual framework, type of focus on image, communication type and medium). Findings suggest two considerations for the strategic communication of organizational image: 1) image as outcome, and 2) image as social influence in online communication.     

An Integrated Approach to Public Diplomacy and Public Relations: A Five-Year Analysis of the Information Subsidies of the United States,China, and Singapore

This study contributes to the growing research on government-issued information subsidies in mediated public diplomacy in a new media environment. It examines the online information subsidies issued by the foreign ministries of three countries—the United States, China, and Singapore—to address a gap in the literature that has given scant attention to how governments use news releases through online newsrooms for public diplomacy. The study is significant for its conceptual explication of public relations and public diplomacy through an integrative strategic communication framework grounded in relationship building as an end goal of public diplomacy. A Leximancer textual analysis of 13,714 public diplomacy texts published through the three countries’ online press rooms over 5 years (2008–2012) found limited congruence in themes and concepts between and among the three countries, even on the issue of human rights, a major diplomatic point of contention. The weak congruence suggests a modelling of public diplomacy on one-way communication, and reveals a fundamental obstacle to grounding engagement, dialogue and collaboration strategically in a context of co-existence, understanding, mutual interdependence and relationship building. Through a three-country analysis, this study conceptually extends the view of public diplomacy beyond the dyadic construction of public diplomacy that dominates the existing literature.