Communications professors, alumna publish chapters in public relations ethics book

Professor Barbara Miller Gaither and Associate Professor Vanessa Bravo, both of the School of Communications, published chapters in the book “Cases in Public Relations: Translating ethics into action,” which hit shelves on Nov. 30. The text was released by Oxford University Press.

Edited by Brigitta Brunner of Auburn University and Corey Hickerson of James Madison University, the book offers a collection of about 40 cases where corporations, nonprofit organizations, governments and individuals have faced ethical dilemmas. Each chapter contains summaries of lessons learned and a list of discussion questions to use in the classroom.

The cases, selected for publication after peer-review, focus on areas such as crisis management, corporate social responsibility, social media and technology, consumer relations, community relations, sports communications, health, and trends in ethical challenges, among others.

Gaither’s chapter, titled “A Tale of Two Case Studies: Comparing Coca-Cola’s Divergent Corporate Social Responsibility Initiatives and the Resulting Ethical Implication,” was coauthored by former Elon faculty member Lucinda Austin, now an assistant professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and MaryClaire Schulz ’17. This is not the first time this trio has collaborated on research.

Bravo’s chapter is a coauthored study titled “Chiquita Brands, its Illegal Payments to Paramilitary Groups in Colombia, and the Transnational Public Relations Crisis that Followed.”

Bravo collaborated with Juan-Carlos Molleda, dean of the School of Journalism and Communication at the University of Oregon, Andrés Felipe Giraldo-Dávila of the Universidad de Medellín, Colombia, and Luis Horacio Botero-Montoya of the Instituto Tecnológico Metropolitano, Colombia.