Robert L Heath
Biographic Data
| ID | 119880 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Robert L Heath |
| GIVEN NAMES | Robert L |
| FAMILY NAME | Heath |
| SIGNATURE | HEATH R L |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Houston |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-0331-0755 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 20 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 27 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 18 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 2 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1976 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2019 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Negotiating Faces in Coping with Workplace Bullying
Workplace bullying is often a traumatic communication experience. Using face-negotiation theory, this study compared strategic coping behaviors of employees from individualistic and collectivistic cultures. Findings from surveys of U.S. Americans and Singaporeans (N = 648) revealed that face concerns predict use of coping strategies modestly. In both cultures, self-face positively relates to neglect and acquiescence, and other-face negatively ass…
Black Voter Dilution, American Exceptionalism, and Racial Gerrymandering
Racial gerrymandering in the U.S. state of South Carolina offers a case study to take a unique look at political control, power management, and government communication from the critical perspective of hidden reward structures. These reward structures result from strategic messaging by which an elite’s perspectives deliver to them power by marginalizing others and their perspectives. More specifically, we interrogate one dominant narrative advanc…
Where Grass Has No Roots
As researchers pursue connections between strategic communication and management, they need to critique practices to develop norms that increase strategic communication’s long-term contribution to society. Norms of strategic communication are shaped by socially constructed standards of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and guide how strategic communication fosters organization-public relationships (OPR). Such norms are particularly important …
Social Media and Public Relations
Social media is having a profound, but not yet fully understood impact on public relations. In the 24/7 world of perpetually connected publics, will public relations function as a dark art that spins (or tweets) self-interested variations of the truth for credulous audiences? Or does the full glare of the internet and the increasing expectations of powerful publics motivate it to more honestly engage to serve the public interest? The purpose of t…
Handbook of Risk and Crisis Communication
Nature, Crisis, Risk, Science, and Society
In his keynote address, Robert Cox raised key questions, many of which force us to consider the larger question of the role of academics in society. The authors respond by suggesting that environmental communication, like other communication studies, is inherently normative and that environmental communication scholarship is closely aligned to risk as a centerpiece to crisis analysis. The authors discuss the productive connections among science, …
Narratives of the Sars Epidemic and Ethical Implications for Public Health Crises
The SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) epidemic provides a good case for study of crisis communication and the narratives used to respond to the epidemic. Interspecies transmission of a virus led to crisis in many public health networks, countries, and organizations. During this epidemic, competing narratives emerged, and were at odds with one another resulting in confusion, misinformation, and contagion of an often fatal disease. The narra…
Issues management, systems, and rhetoric
Many corporations use legal rather than ethical standards for decision making in issues management. The Enron collapse provides a case example of why legal standards should never be used as a substitute for ethical principles. As we illustrate in this discussion of Enron, seeking loopholes in the law can lead to ethical violations that are ultimately more severe than legal infractions. We use systems theory and rhetorical rationales to discuss th…
Responding to Crisis
The public relations philosophy of John W. Hill
This paper contends that John W. Hill, founding partner of Hill and Knowlton, based his philosophy of public relations on four signal elements of issues management: strategic business planning sensitive to the threats and opportunities of public policy; high standards of corporate responsibility; issues monitoring; and issues communication. His philosophy, now nearly one‐half century old, was enlightened in that it fares well against the standard…
Issues management
Handbook of Public Relations
Corporate Environmental Risk Communication
Industries that manufacture and discharge toxic and hazardous materials into the environment, especially chemical companies, are increasingly seeing it in their interest to improve communication with community members. Framed by what has been termed a risk democracy perspective, this chapter examines risk communication cases and practices of the Texas coast chemical industry. These cases demonstrate the value of communication outreach efforts tha…
Kenneth Burke's break with formalism
By the summer of 1922, Kenneth Burke adopted several philosophical assumptions which entailed a rejection of formalism and coincided with his move towards dramatism. This trend, which eventually placed the study of language at the center of understanding human relations, is revealed in an exchange of letters with Waldo Frank
An exchange on corporate advertising
Robert L. Heath, Richard Alan Nelson, Robert G. Meadow; An exchange on corporate advertising, Journal of Communication, Volume 33, Issue 4, 1 December 1983
Risk as a Dimension of Social Movement Vulnerability
This paper draws together a variety of perspectives relevant to social movement communication. The central concept in the analysis is vulnerability. This paper proposes theoretical-critical conclusions designed to explain how willingness to risk in seeking rewards and avoiding loss becomes important for understanding vulnerability of competing interest groups. Risk is a motive central to rhetorical strategies applied by agitators and in counterpe…
Kenneth Burke on form
Through the principles of the dramatistic nature of language, Kenneth Burke creates a unifying rationale of form. As such, form is the discursive progression of an idea to the satisfaction of audience expectations; these expectations are the product of rules of language use and of the conventional wisdom of society
Terminal and Instrumental? An Inquiry into Rokeach's Value Survey
Because Rokeach's theory of values and his Value Survey are so influential on other researchers, critical analysis of the instrument and its basic assumptions are warranted. Two studies were conducted to determine whether empirical rationale exists for the division of value systems into two categories, terminal and instrumental. Drawn from analysis by Rokeach and from two studies, evidence suggests that the two categories lack construct validity.…
A time for silence
Each act of participation in the discussion of social issues has rhetorical potential. Consequently, representatives of oppressed minority groups must decide whether and how to participate in such discussion without inadvertantly supporting their oppressors. Silence is sometimes preferable to participation—when it avoids confirming the efforts of those who seek social control. Such was the circumstance in 1895: a time for silence
Variability in value system priorities as decision‐making adaptation to situational differences
This study provides a rationale and empirical support for a theory of values as constructs in flexible systems which change in structure through sensitivity to situational differences. Accordingly, as individuals encounter different situations, they create value systems which are flexibly adapted to the particular situation. This decision‐making view of values emphasizes their dynamic contribution to the total individual effort to define and eval…
Issues management
Where Grass Has No Roots
As researchers pursue connections between strategic communication and management, they need to critique practices to develop norms that increase strategic communication’s long-term contribution to society. Norms of strategic communication are shaped by socially constructed standards of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and guide how strategic communication fosters organization-public relationships (OPR). Such norms are particularly important …
Kenneth Burke on form
Through the principles of the dramatistic nature of language, Kenneth Burke creates a unifying rationale of form. As such, form is the discursive progression of an idea to the satisfaction of audience expectations; these expectations are the product of rules of language use and of the conventional wisdom of society
Issues management, systems, and rhetoric
Many corporations use legal rather than ethical standards for decision making in issues management. The Enron collapse provides a case example of why legal standards should never be used as a substitute for ethical principles. As we illustrate in this discussion of Enron, seeking loopholes in the law can lead to ethical violations that are ultimately more severe than legal infractions. We use systems theory and rhetorical rationales to discuss th…
Narratives of the Sars Epidemic and Ethical Implications for Public Health Crises
The SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) epidemic provides a good case for study of crisis communication and the narratives used to respond to the epidemic. Interspecies transmission of a virus led to crisis in many public health networks, countries, and organizations. During this epidemic, competing narratives emerged, and were at odds with one another resulting in confusion, misinformation, and contagion of an often fatal disease. The narra…
The public relations philosophy of John W. Hill
This paper contends that John W. Hill, founding partner of Hill and Knowlton, based his philosophy of public relations on four signal elements of issues management: strategic business planning sensitive to the threats and opportunities of public policy; high standards of corporate responsibility; issues monitoring; and issues communication. His philosophy, now nearly one‐half century old, was enlightened in that it fares well against the standard…
Kenneth Burke's break with formalism
By the summer of 1922, Kenneth Burke adopted several philosophical assumptions which entailed a rejection of formalism and coincided with his move towards dramatism. This trend, which eventually placed the study of language at the center of understanding human relations, is revealed in an exchange of letters with Waldo Frank
A time for silence
Each act of participation in the discussion of social issues has rhetorical potential. Consequently, representatives of oppressed minority groups must decide whether and how to participate in such discussion without inadvertantly supporting their oppressors. Silence is sometimes preferable to participation—when it avoids confirming the efforts of those who seek social control. Such was the circumstance in 1895: a time for silence
Variability in value system priorities as decision‐making adaptation to situational differences
This study provides a rationale and empirical support for a theory of values as constructs in flexible systems which change in structure through sensitivity to situational differences. Accordingly, as individuals encounter different situations, they create value systems which are flexibly adapted to the particular situation. This decision‐making view of values emphasizes their dynamic contribution to the total individual effort to define and eval…
Terminal and Instrumental? An Inquiry into Rokeach's Value Survey
Because Rokeach's theory of values and his Value Survey are so influential on other researchers, critical analysis of the instrument and its basic assumptions are warranted. Two studies were conducted to determine whether empirical rationale exists for the division of value systems into two categories, terminal and instrumental. Drawn from analysis by Rokeach and from two studies, evidence suggests that the two categories lack construct validity.…
A time for silence
Each act of participation in the discussion of social issues has rhetorical potential. Consequently, representatives of oppressed minority groups must decide whether and how to participate in such discussion without inadvertantly supporting their oppressors. Silence is sometimes preferable to participation—when it avoids confirming the efforts of those who seek social control. Such was the circumstance in 1895: a time for silence
Risk as a Dimension of Social Movement Vulnerability
This paper draws together a variety of perspectives relevant to social movement communication. The central concept in the analysis is vulnerability. This paper proposes theoretical-critical conclusions designed to explain how willingness to risk in seeking rewards and avoiding loss becomes important for understanding vulnerability of competing interest groups. Risk is a motive central to rhetorical strategies applied by agitators and in counterpe…
Kenneth Burke on form
Through the principles of the dramatistic nature of language, Kenneth Burke creates a unifying rationale of form. As such, form is the discursive progression of an idea to the satisfaction of audience expectations; these expectations are the product of rules of language use and of the conventional wisdom of society
An exchange on corporate advertising
Robert L. Heath, Richard Alan Nelson, Robert G. Meadow; An exchange on corporate advertising, Journal of Communication, Volume 33, Issue 4, 1 December 1983
Kenneth Burke's break with formalism
By the summer of 1922, Kenneth Burke adopted several philosophical assumptions which entailed a rejection of formalism and coincided with his move towards dramatism. This trend, which eventually placed the study of language at the center of understanding human relations, is revealed in an exchange of letters with Waldo Frank
Corporate Environmental Risk Communication
Industries that manufacture and discharge toxic and hazardous materials into the environment, especially chemical companies, are increasingly seeing it in their interest to improve communication with community members. Framed by what has been termed a risk democracy perspective, this chapter examines risk communication cases and practices of the Texas coast chemical industry. These cases demonstrate the value of communication outreach efforts tha…
Handbook of Public Relations
The public relations philosophy of John W. Hill
This paper contends that John W. Hill, founding partner of Hill and Knowlton, based his philosophy of public relations on four signal elements of issues management: strategic business planning sensitive to the threats and opportunities of public policy; high standards of corporate responsibility; issues monitoring; and issues communication. His philosophy, now nearly one‐half century old, was enlightened in that it fares well against the standard…
Issues management
Responding to Crisis
Issues management, systems, and rhetoric
Many corporations use legal rather than ethical standards for decision making in issues management. The Enron collapse provides a case example of why legal standards should never be used as a substitute for ethical principles. As we illustrate in this discussion of Enron, seeking loopholes in the law can lead to ethical violations that are ultimately more severe than legal infractions. We use systems theory and rhetorical rationales to discuss th…
Nature, Crisis, Risk, Science, and Society
In his keynote address, Robert Cox raised key questions, many of which force us to consider the larger question of the role of academics in society. The authors respond by suggesting that environmental communication, like other communication studies, is inherently normative and that environmental communication scholarship is closely aligned to risk as a centerpiece to crisis analysis. The authors discuss the productive connections among science, …
Narratives of the Sars Epidemic and Ethical Implications for Public Health Crises
The SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) epidemic provides a good case for study of crisis communication and the narratives used to respond to the epidemic. Interspecies transmission of a virus led to crisis in many public health networks, countries, and organizations. During this epidemic, competing narratives emerged, and were at odds with one another resulting in confusion, misinformation, and contagion of an often fatal disease. The narra…
Handbook of Risk and Crisis Communication
Social Media and Public Relations
Social media is having a profound, but not yet fully understood impact on public relations. In the 24/7 world of perpetually connected publics, will public relations function as a dark art that spins (or tweets) self-interested variations of the truth for credulous audiences? Or does the full glare of the internet and the increasing expectations of powerful publics motivate it to more honestly engage to serve the public interest? The purpose of t…
Black Voter Dilution, American Exceptionalism, and Racial Gerrymandering
Racial gerrymandering in the U.S. state of South Carolina offers a case study to take a unique look at political control, power management, and government communication from the critical perspective of hidden reward structures. These reward structures result from strategic messaging by which an elite’s perspectives deliver to them power by marginalizing others and their perspectives. More specifically, we interrogate one dominant narrative advanc…
Where Grass Has No Roots
As researchers pursue connections between strategic communication and management, they need to critique practices to develop norms that increase strategic communication’s long-term contribution to society. Norms of strategic communication are shaped by socially constructed standards of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and guide how strategic communication fosters organization-public relationships (OPR). Such norms are particularly important …
Negotiating Faces in Coping with Workplace Bullying
Workplace bullying is often a traumatic communication experience. Using face-negotiation theory, this study compared strategic coping behaviors of employees from individualistic and collectivistic cultures. Findings from surveys of U.S. Americans and Singaporeans (N = 648) revealed that face concerns predict use of coping strategies modestly. In both cultures, self-face positively relates to neglect and acquiescence, and other-face negatively ass…
Sociology (15 works) · Political science (12 works) · Computer Science (8 works) · Law (8 works) · Psychology (8 works) · Public Relations and Crisis Communication (7 works) · Rhetoric and Communication Studies (7 works) · Law (6 works) · Public relations (5 works) · Epistemology (4 works)