Marlene Neill, Ph.D.

Our smartphones, social media accounts, televisions and radios are clogged with information about COVID-19. Some is good information. Much is bad. So which voices do we listen to during this uncertain time of pandemic? Baylor University’s Marlene Neill, Ph.D., APR, associate professor of journalism, public relations and new media, is an expert on public relations ethics and management, and integrated communications. In this brief Q&A, she shares some tips to discover which voices to trust and follow during a crisis. Q: In this time of confusion and mixed messages, what are some steps people should take to find credible and consistent content and updates regarding Coronavirus? A: I used to work in city government and worked very closely with public health district officials. I prefer to seek out information from official government agency sources such as the CDC, public health district officials, physicians and epidemiologists. A good example is the CDC's coronavirus site. Local newspapers also have set up informational pages regarding local closures and cancellations. I personally am very skeptical of information I see on social media claiming to be from someone who experienced the coronavirus in another country or others whose credentials are unknown.  Q: What are some characteristics of trustworthy messages? A: I trust information from credible sources in the medical community and public health. The information should be consistent with that reported by these official government sources. If you are unsure, double check online rumor websites such as snopes.com or consult official government websites. We need to start with doctors, epidemiologists and public health officials. This is their area of expertise and they want people to be properly informed to protect themselves and our communities.  ABOUT BAYLOR UNIVERSITY Baylor University is a private Christian University and a nationally ranked research institution. The University provides a vibrant campus community for more than 17,000 students by blending interdisciplinary research with an international reputation for educational excellence and a faculty commitment to teaching and scholarship. Chartered in 1845 by the Republic of Texas through the efforts of Baptist pioneers, Baylor is the oldest continually operating University in Texas. Located in Waco, Baylor welcomes students from all 50 states and more than 90 countries to study a broad range of degrees among its 12 nationally recognized academic divisions.

Marlene Neill, Ph.D., assistant professor of journalism, public relations and new media in Baylor University’s College of Arts & Sciences, has been designated as a research fellow at the Arthur W. Page Center for Integrity in Public Communication, a research center at the Penn State University College of Communications. The Page Center has asked Neill to focus on developing a response to a new report from the Commission on Public Relations Education that recommends public relations education programs offer a stand-alone ethics course, as well as integrate ethics throughout curriculum. The study found that public relations professionals ranked ethics third behind writing and communication as a necessary competency to work in public relations. In addition, public relations professionals in the study indicated that new professionals are not meeting their expectations in this area. “This is a great project because it combines my interests, the first being ethics, which is an area that I enjoy studying, and the second is a focus on public relations education,” Neill said. “I will be teaching the media ethics class in the spring for the first time, and one of the things I like about doing these studies is that it helps me gather insights from industry and then bring those insights back to the classroom.” Since receiving her invitation in June, Neill has begun preparations for research this fall with different groups across the nation, including the Public Relations Society of America. She will use the Delphi research method, where she will gather feedback from a variety of experts including seniorand middle-management executives as well as young professionals, and will then follow up with in-depth interviews, which last anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour. In addition, she will be serving on a subcommittee of the Commission on Public Relations Education, which is charged with making recommendations for public relations ethics curriculum. “On a typical study, I’ll spend about nine months going through the process of collecting the data, analyzing it, writing the papers, presenting to conferences and submitting to journals,” Neill said. “The second year will be spent preparing reports and writing recommendations based on those findings. While it sounds like a long time, when you think about it from that perspective, there’s a lot involved in doing an in-depth study like this.” In-depth interviews work well for this type of study, Neill said, because they provide specific examples of dilemmas and how people choose to handle them. “With qualitative research, you really get an understanding of the decision-making that people go through when faced with an issue and the step-by-step process they take to reach those decisions,” Neill said. “You get that inside scoop into the motivations and reasons for their actions.” Neill had previously received four grants from the Page Center, which resulted in a book, “Public Relations Ethics: Senior PR Pros Tell Us How to Speak Up and Keep Your Job,” published in 2018, as well as four journal articles, four academic conference papers and two top paper awards. In one of her most recent studies, Neill found that millennials often do not expect to face ethical dilemmas and do not feel prepared to address them. “There is a need to improve and enhance our ethics training at our colleges and universities, and by tapping in to what is actually happening in the industry, it makes it more relevant and helps better prepare students for some of the issues they will be facing today,” Neill said. As part of her subcommittee, Neill will gather sample syllabi and other teaching resources from universities across the nation and then share them with different public relations educators to help them prepare to cover ethics in ethics courses, as well as other public relations courses.

Women in public relations are more likely than men to seek allies and form coalitions before they give ethics counsel to senior leaders, while men are more likely to rely on presenting research, according to a Baylor University study. The study also showed that while senior public relations executives in the study overall tend to use “rational approaches,” such as research, case studies and appeals about what is right and lawful, success depends on building relationships with colleagues in other departments so that they have backup when ethical issues arise. “A PR person can be the conscience, but are they listened to? Are they respected? Are they at the table?” one woman said. “You can be doing everything right, but if nobody is listening to you, it really doesn’t matter a whole lot. Except that you can sleep at night.” The study — “The Use of Influence Tactics by Senior Public Relations Executives to Provide Ethics Counsel” — is published in the Journal of Media Ethics. The article highlights the need for younger PR practitioners to seek out senior PR executives as mentors before and during confrontation of ethics issues, said lead author Marlene Neill, Ph.D., assistant professor of journalism, public relations and new media in Baylor’s College of Arts & Sciences and author of the book “Public Relations Ethics: PR Pros Tell Us How to Speak Up and Keep Your Job.” “What inspired us to conduct this research were findings from a study I conducted in 2016 with Millennials working in public relations,” Neill said. “Survey results indicated that Millennials did not feel prepared to provide ethics counsel, were unlikely to speak up and did not even expect to face ethical dilemmas. We decided to conduct this study to instruct them how to do this effectively based on the experiences of senior executives working in our industry.” Researchers conducted through in-depth interviews with an elite selection of 55 public relations executives, many of them with Fortune 500 companies. They included members of the *Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) College of Fellows and The Arthur W. Page Society, with the combined sample averaging 33 years in PR. They represented 19 states and industries including government, healthcare, telecommunications, financial services and energy. Interviewees discussed ways to exert influence, ethics training and whether they are of value as an ethics counselor. “Some see it as being of little use; some recommend the PR practitioner take a modest role in encouraging consideration of ethics among multiple leaders,” Neill said. But others felt strongly that they should be an “organizational conscience” when they think company actions might pose an ethical dilemma with troubling consequences. One reason to do so is that without “boat-rocking” with straightforward tactics   an organization, some may turn outside the company by whistleblowing or leaking information to stakeholders, media or government officials. “Our study found that building relationships was critical for practitioners to ensure that other executives would listen to and respect their counsel,” Neill said. “That doesn’t mean they always won the debate, but relationship building has to do with building respect and trust.” While the interviewees’ most common approach to influencing was rational, followed by coalition-building, “some said they relied on persistence and assertiveness if they felt an issue was so objectionable they could not stay silent,” Neill said. “A few people turn to ingratiation, such as flattery.” When it comes to differences in how genders approach the role of ethics counselor, one reason women may recruit allies is that they tend to be outnumbered by men in the boardroom, Neill said. One woman said that “Going in force can help your case. But sometimes it can backfire . . . you know, if somebody wants to kill the messenger. But if several people come to you with the same messaging, I think you take notice.” Another woman said that she was “reprimanded for being so forthright. So, I didn’t do it that way anymore.” Some women were wary of using emotional appeals. Because of stereotypes about women being emotional in the workplace, “I probably erred in the other direction,” one woman said. Men, meanwhile, were more likely to prefer informational sources of power such as research and case studies, Neill said. But both genders said they ask questions, discuss, listen, share alternatives or solutions and recommend. A few men and women used more confrontational descriptions, such as saying, “We absolutely put our foot down” and “Tell them it’s wrong.” But in the case of women, “some of these more confrontational accounts were used in connection with allies or coalitions,” Neill said. In a few cases, men and women gave examples of resigning accounts or refusing to accept new clients if they decided the client’s business was not worth the ethical cost. Many interviewees said they had received ethics training through PRSA. A few said they had received training through their employer, college courses, personal study and mentors. A few pointed to their religious upbringing. Some of the more common ethics issues centered around communication, such as open disclosure of information, inaccurate information or sending fake letters to an editor. But others were business challenges, such as abusive behavior toward subordinates, misuse of public funds, smear campaigns and conflicts of interest. Neill said that because the study was limited to 55 individuals, a larger study and surveys of senior PR executives in other nations would be valuable. She and a colleague next plan to study to women’s leadership experiences. *PRSA College of Fellows is an exclusive group of approximately 350 senior professionals, each with a minimum of 20 years of experience in PR, Accreditation in Public Relations and recognition for distinguished careers. The Arthur W. Page Society is open by invitation to chief communications officers of Fortune 500 corporations and leading nonprofit organizations, chief executive officers of PR agencies and senior professors from business and communications schools. The study was funded by The Arthur W. Page Center for Integrity in Public Communication and supported by the PRSA Board of Ethics and Professional Standards and PRSA College of Fellows. Co-author is Amy Barnes, associate professor in the School of Mass Communications at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and co-author of “Public Relations Ethics: PR Pros Tell Us How to Speak Up and Keep Your Job.” ABOUT BAYLOR UNIVERSITY Baylor University is a private Christian University and a nationally ranked research institution. The University provides a vibrant campus community for more than 17,000 students by blending interdisciplinary research with an international reputation for educational excellence and a faculty commitment to teaching and scholarship. Chartered in 1845 by the Republic of Texas through the efforts of Baptist pioneers, Baylor is the oldest continually operating University in Texas. Located in Waco, Baylor welcomes students from all 50 states and more than 80 countries to study a broad range of degrees among its 12 nationally recognized academic divisions. ABOUT BAYLOR COLLEGE OF ARTS & SCIENCES The College of Arts & Sciences is Baylor University’s oldest and largest academic division, with 25 academic departments and seven academic centers and institutes. The more than 5,000 courses taught in the College span topics from art and theatre to religion, philosophy, sociology and the natural sciences. Faculty conduct research around the world, and research on the undergraduate and graduate level is prevalent throughout all disciplines.