Form Following Function: Message Design for Managing Corporate Reputations

Smudde, Peter M.; Courtright, Jeffrey L.

doi:10.1002/9781118335529.ch33

Cited by 4 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 36 publications

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“…Last are laggards, the remaining 16%. Some literature identifies a final category, skeptics, that adopt an innovation only at the very end of the diffusion process because few alternatives remain (Smudde & Courtright, 2015). The distribution of adoption of an innovation over time is consistent with seeing diffusion of innovation as a process.…”

Section: Diffusion Of Innovationsmentioning

confidence: 82%

“…Rogers (2003) defined innovation as "an idea, practice, or project that is perceived as new by an individual or other unit of adoption" (p. 12). The term innovation often carries connotations of newness, uniqueness, value, benefits, and change (Smudde & Courtright, 2015). An innovation's likelihood to be adopted is determined by five core characteristics of innovations: relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, trialability, and observability (Rogers, 2003).…”

Section: Diffusion Of Innovationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As more individuals in a system adopt, the observability and compatibility of the innovation increases, as do positive interpersonal messages about the value added by the innovation. Within social systems individuals seek to influence others to adopt similar behaviors and worldviews as themselves (Smudde & Courtright, 2015). Early adopters can serve as opinion leaders driving adoption through trial and error, and subsequent communication about an innovation (Valente & Davis, 1999).…”

Section: Diffusion Of Innovationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Diffusion of Innovations and Public Communication Campaigns: An Examination of The 4R Nutrient Stewardship Program

Seeger¹,

Wilson²

2019

Journal of Applied Communications

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This project is an examination of how strategies for innovation in fertilizer application are communicated to agricultural communities. Specifically, this project examines the 4R Nutrient Stewardship Program-a public communication campaign seeking to encourage the use of specific strategies, tools, and best practices in fertilizer application. The campaign is advanced by the Fertilizer Institute, an industry trade association, and targets local agricultural communities within the United States. To understand how this campaign functions to encourage adoption of innovative fertilizer application behaviors, this project draws on the principles of diffusion of innovations theory as well as established concepts within public relations, including issues management.

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Section: Diffusion Of Innovationsmentioning

confidence: 82%

Section: Diffusion Of Innovationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Diffusion Of Innovationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Diffusion of Innovations and Public Communication Campaigns: An Examination of The 4R Nutrient Stewardship Program

Seeger¹,

Wilson²

2019

Journal of Applied Communications

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“…elements is important to understanding the design of a campaign. Smudde and Courtright (2015) noted "medium and message work together in rhetorical ways that organizations use to inspire cooperation with their stakeholders while also inviting them to celebrate their common ground"…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This creates a very clear problem-solution structure for the campaign's larger persuasive efforts. The problemsolution pattern has been described as a classic approach to the design of persuasive messages that can both incite engagement and allay fears (Smudde & Courtright, 2015).…”

Section: The 4r Nutrient Stewardship Programmentioning

confidence: 99%

Diffusion Of Innovations And Public Communication Campaigns: An Examination Of The 4r Nutrient Stewardship Program

Seeger¹

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Water is necessary for life, and fertilizer runoff from agricultural sites can result in the contamination of water systems. This contamination can be a significant health risk for any population depending on those systems. To protect the public, it is necessary to limit fertilizer runoff. This may be achieved in part by persuading farmers to adopt innovative fertilizer management practices. This project examines the 4R Nutrient Stewardship Program, a public communication campaign seeking to encourage changes in fertilizer application behaviors with the goal of reducing runoff. The campaign was created and is operated by the Fertilizer Institute, a multistate trade association, in cooperation with the International Plant Nutrient Institute. This campaign is operated primarily to prevent the introduction of new policies regulating fertilizer use. Because this campaign constitutes an industry response to potential adverse policy creation, it is appropriate to regard the 4R Nutrient Stewardship Program as a strategic issues management campaign. The focus of this investigation is the 4R Nutrient Stewardship Program's effort to persuade Ohio farmers living and working within the area of the Maumee River Watershed to adopt new practices. The Maumee River Watershed is a critical water system in Ohio that drains 5,024 square miles and flows through all or part of 18 Ohio counties (Ohio Environmental Protection Agency, 2018a). The 4R Nutrient Stewardship Program is approached as an issues management campaign targeted to farmers, fertilizer retailers, policymakers, and policy advocates. This examination is informed by diffusion of innovations theory (DOI), a framework describing the process whereby a community adopts a new innovation (Rogers, 2003). When a public communication campaign seeks to encourage behavioral change, the principles of DOI can directly inform campaign design and analysis. By illustrating the process of diffusion, DOI can answer questions about how strategic messaging decisions influence behavioral change across targeted populations. In some cases, the diffusion of an innovation may serve as strategy for managing issues faced by an organization or an industry. The goal of this project is to demonstrate the utility of DOI in case studies of public communication campaigns seeking to encourage behavioral change within target audiences. Doing so will broaden the utility of this theory in a way that will inform both campaign scholarship and design. Findings from this research will be useful in design for future campaigns seeking to change fertilizer application behaviors to protect water systems. To demonstrate the utility of DOI in these contexts, survey data collected from farmers within the Maumee River Watershed in Ohio are used to examine the 4R Nutrient Stewardship Program campaign. The survey data were collected by The Ohio State University's College of Agriculture, Food and Environmental Sciences and is used here with permission. The data are analyzed to determine rates of understanding about 4R inn...

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Key messages and message integrity as concepts and metrics in communication evaluation

Carroll

Huang-Horowitz

McKeever

et al. 2014

Journal of Communication Management

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Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to introduce the concepts of key messages and key message integrity, and examines their viability for communication management scholars and practitioners in evaluating media relations activities. Key message integrity addresses not only what messages transfer, but also how well. Design/methodology/approach – The authors analyzed 18 nonprofit organizations’ key messages and the messages’ integrity levels using content analysis on one month of their news coverage. In-depth interviews with eight of their media relations practitioners helped validate the concepts and the results. Findings – The authors found five unique categories and functions of key messages: information concerned with dissemination, raison d’être concerned with purpose, categories concerned with positioning, resource management concerned with accounting for resources, and social relevance concerned with legitimacy. Findings also revealed varying levels of transmission and message integrity across the categories. Interviews revealed insights into challenges for communicating organizational key messages to the news media. Originality/value – This study lays the foundation for additional research on key messages and key message integrity as useful metrics for communication management scholars and practitioners.

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Form Following Function: Message Design for Managing Corporate Reputations

Cited by 4 publications

References 36 publications

Diffusion of Innovations and Public Communication Campaigns: An Examination of The 4R Nutrient Stewardship Program

Diffusion of Innovations and Public Communication Campaigns: An Examination of The 4R Nutrient Stewardship Program

Diffusion Of Innovations And Public Communication Campaigns: An Examination Of The 4r Nutrient Stewardship Program

Key messages and message integrity as concepts and metrics in communication evaluation

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