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This study uses a real national crisis, South Korea's 2014Sewolferry disaster, to examine how publics exposed to partisan media perceive the attribution of crisis responsibility and government trust differently. The study also investigates the mediating role of the attribution of crisis responsibility on the relationship between partisan media and government trust. The results demonstrate that citizens' partisan selective exposure influence their polarized perceptions of crisis responsibility and their trust in government. The attribution of crisis responsibility partially mediated the effects of partisan media on government trust. This study suggests the importance for government public relations to understand partisan media users so that public relations managers can engage and communicate effectively with all citizens during a national crisis.

The purpose of this study was to propose an integrative model of activism that explains why and how individuals in the networked society are engaged in contentious issues. Incorporating the situational theory of problem solving (STOPS), hostile media perception, affective injustice, and social media efficacy, this study examined how the integrative model of activism predicts social media activism and offline activism on three issues of gun ownership, immigration, and police use of power. The integrative model of activism provides a valuable standpoint to understand activist publics and serves as a springboard for further scholarly discussion on activism and conflict resolution.

The purpose of this study is to identify and understand key publics and their communication behaviours in crisis communication, using the public segmentation framework which has been rarely used in crisis communication. In doing so, the study quantitatively tests a new theoretical framework of Communicative Action in Problem Solving, classifying eight types of aware and active publics. Through the new framework of public segmentation, the survey results from 1,113 participants substantiate eight types of active and aware publics, as well as their communicative characteristics in a crisis situation. The study finds that the aware and active publics are, as the key publics, more likely to have negative behavioural intentions toward an organization. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Voluntary citizen attention and actions are key to successful public-sector communication. We investigated the conditions which increase such attention and actions using the situational theory of problem solving (STOPS) and government-citizen relationships (GCRs). Using three national issues consisting of an environmental issue, a social issue, and a political issue from South Korea (N=275), this study examined three hypotheses regarding public engagement effect (the effect of GCRs on political conversations on national issues), government empowerment effect (the effects of GCRs and issue-specific trust toward government on constraint recognition), and public serenity effect (the effect of issue-specific trust on problem recognition and involvement recognition). We found significant public engagement and government empowerment effects and partially significant public serenity effect. The results of the public serenity investigation found that issue-specific trust toward government was significant with problem recognition but insignificant with involvement recognition. Consequently, the findings illustrate strategic values in government-citizen relationships on public engagement, empowerment, and serenity to enable participatory democracy.

Food-related issues have recently become one of the most salient and controversial issues and have received increasing media and scholarly attention. This study examines the distinct effects of trust and distrust on the public's information behaviors, specifically in the context of two food-related issues including GM food and food additives. This study employs a cross-sectional survey with 1,089 Chinese citizens. This study demonstrates that trust and motivation positively predicted information transmission behaviors (i.e., information sharing and forwarding) and information acquisition behaviors (i.e., information attending and seeking). Distrust, on the other hand, predicted only information transmission behaviors. Motivation's effects on information acquisition behaviors were moderated by trust. This study contributes to the field of health information by expanding STOPS' applicability to food-related risk contexts, conducting research with culturally distinct populations different from those featured in prior research, and distinguishing the roles of trust and distrust in influencing information behaviors.

As misinformation is common in the digital media environment, it has become more important to understand risk communication in the context of communicative behaviors of publics that affect public opinion and policymaking. Focusing on food safety issues such as genetically modified food and food additives in China, this study aims to understand the communicative action of publics and the role of organizational trust in the conspiratorial thinking of publics and their perceptions of food safety issues. Using a national sample of 1,089 citizens living in China, this study examines situational theory of problem solving (STOPS) to understand when and how publics become active in communicative actions to take, select, and transmit information regarding food safety issues. In addition, this study tests the role of organizational trust in the food industry between conspiratorial thinking of publics and their situational perceptions, which are antecedent variables to increase communicative action of publics in problem solving. The results demonstrate that STOPS can be applied to the food safety issue to predict communicative actions of publics, and organizational trust plays a vital role in reducing individuals' concerns about the food safety issue.

AbstractThis study applies Tam and Kim's 2019 taxonomy to alumni data for the Global Korea Scholarship in order to segment key foreign publics and understand their communication behaviors toward South Korea in the context of public diplomacy. In this study, key foreign publics refer to groups of foreign publics who are positioned to impact the public diplomacy goals of a nation. They have a direct behavioral relationship with a foreign host country and maintain communication and relationships with those in their home country. The findings of this study provide empirical results that identify four types of foreign publics, showing that the new segmentation taxonomy of foreign publics by Tam and Kim is applicable in public diplomacy. The results also indicate that each public type acts differently in terms of positive megaphoning, negative megaphoning, and likelihood of recommending of South Korea, further supporting the typology's behavioral descriptions.Related Articles in this Special IssueAyhan, Kadir Jun, and Nancy Snow. 2021. "Introduction to the Special Issue—Global Korea Scholarship: Empirical Evaluation of a non‐Western Scholarship Program from a Public Diplomacy Perspective." Politics & Policy 49(6): 1282–1291. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12440.Hong, Moon Suk, Minjeong Jeon, and Kadir Jun Ayhan. 2021. "International Scholarship for Social Change? Re‐contextualizing Global Korea Scholarship Alumni's Perceptions of Justice and Diversity in South Korea." Politics & Policy 49(6): 1359–1390. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12435.Tam, Lisa, and Kadir Jun Ayhan. 2021. "Evaluations of People, Affection, and Recommendation for a Host Country: A Study of Global Korea Scholarship (GKS) Recipients." Politics & Policy 49(6): 1292–1307. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12438.