Lucinda Austin co-authors article in Public Relations Journal

The School of Communications assistant professor examined ethical crisis communication and stakeholder engagement through the lens of media professionals.

Assistant Professor Lucinda Austin in the School of Communications co-authored an article, “Approaching Ethical Crisis Communication with Accuracy and Sensitivity: Exploring Common Ground and Gaps between Journalism and Public Relations,” in the Public Relations Journal.

The Public Relations Society of America publishes the quarterly publication, which is a peer-reviewed, open-access research journal focusing on the fields of public relations and communications. The journal’s most-recent edition, Volume 9, No. 1, highlighted ethical stakeholder engagement.

Austin and her co-author, Yan Jin of the University of Georgia, conducted 40 in-depth interviews with media professionals, exploring how they approach ethical crisis communication and stakeholder engagement, as well as their views of organizational crisis communication.

In her editor’s column, Marcia W. DiStaso of Pennsylvania State University included a brief summary of Austin and Jin’s work and findings.

At the conclusion of their article, Austin and Jin acknowledged several School of Communications students who assisted their research by transcribing interviews. The students involved ­– all Communications Fellows – were Molly Boyce ’16, Marcela Hawkins ’17, Katie Klochany ’17 and Katie Pownall ’17.

​The research for the article was funded by the Arthur W. Page Center for Integrity in Public Communication at Pennsylvania State University.