Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This paper examines how the issue of gay marriage has played out in Columbus, Ohio. The authors survey clergy within the city, asking about the organizations that have been active in mobilizing religious interests.

Publication Type: Proceeding
Abstract: Typical investigations of interest groups examine registered organizations are located at the state or federal levels, despite the fact that significant numbers of groups attempt to affect lower levels of government, such as school boards and city halls, and/or do not register with a government to lobby. That is, there are many small interest groups that meet face to face, have rotating leadership positions, have memberships that overlap with others in the community, and have a definable relationships to the community. Therefore, groups with such attributes require some rethinking of established interest group theories.

Through hyper-network sampling methods, we surveyed two populations: 1) clergy in Columbus, Ohio on the heels of the passage of a ban on same-sex benefits (Issue 1) in November, 2004; and 2) a national snowball sample of contacts identified by United Methodist clergy in representative zipcodes in 2005. These clergy served as organizational informants about local ministerial organizations (MOs) to which they belonged. The survey instrument included significant batteries on the extent to which MOs engaged in political action, their internal dynamics, and the orientation of the MO to the community. Therefore, we are in a position to test and revise interest group theories along the lines of the challenges presented above.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Scholars and journalists have been recently intrigued by evidence that religious beliefs and values are important influences on public attitudes toward American foreign policy. Whether in bombastic assertions such Kevin Phillip’s best-selling jeremiad, American Theocracy (2006) or in the more scholarly tones of Walter Mead’s, Power, Terror, Peace, and War (2004) religious factors have come into the analysis of contemporary American foreign policy.
Although the extent of religious influence on many foreign policy questions has been hotly contested (though little-researched), there is one policy area in which it is largely assumed: American policy toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. American Jews, of course, and Christian “evangelicals” are usually said to provide solid political support for Israel. There are some good survey data that support this contention, along with a few academic studies. What has not become clear, however, is the underlying theological basis for that support. In large part this gap is due to the paucity or non-existence of theological questions on major national surveys on foreign policy attitudes.
In this paper, I will explore just such issues, using a national survey of clergy from fifteen Christian denominations. As religious professionals, active citizens and sometime-leaders in religious interest groups concerned with foreign policy, clergy should exhibit in clear form the influence of theology, ideology and personal factors on Middle East policy attitudes. After a detailed examination of clergy, the paper will explore whether the same patterns appear among “laity,” using the 2004 University of Akron/Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life Survey.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Clergy certifications come in 3 general forms. No certs. as in the U.S., limited certs as in England, and complete certs as in Malaysia. The statutes defining these certs can provide for curbs on extremism, but risk oppressing religious freedom.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This paper extends current rhetorical approaches to analyzing crisis communication. By adapting Linell’s (1998) focus on the balance between initiatives and responses to crisis communication, this study extends traditional understandings of the offensive and defensive orientation to crisis communication. What emerges is a hybrid typology of crisis communication orientations, including offensive-initiatives (i.e., being the first to levy an attack), offensive-responses (i.e., responding to another’s discourse with an attack), defensive-initiatives (i.e., using a preemptive defense), and defensive-responses (i.e., responding defensively to an attack).

When applied to the clergy sex abuse crisis, this typology reveals ways in which each organization either offsets or compounds any weakness in its rhetorical position. The focus on how multiple stakeholder organizations treat the potential for interactivity is relevant to any organization interested in adapting its crisis management to the responses of key stakeholders. It could also be extended to indicate reasons organizational crises become intractable or evolve in particular ways. As public relations researchers broaden their focus beyond managerial strategies to larger situational variables to explore co-creational theories of PR, such approaches are essential.