Ithaca College

CMD professor Cory L. Young and IMC professor Arhlene A. Flowers, in coordination with graduate student Nate Ren, publish in PRism, a scholarly journal on public relations. The article, “Technology and crisis communication: Emerging themes from a pilot study of U.S. public relations practitioners,” focuses on the use of technology by individuals in crisis situations. Due to faster information flow between individuals today, the public relations field is experiencing an impact on the preparation process. Now, these organizations need to learn how to adapt these new technologies and utilize them when disaster strikes.

The authors conducted a pilot study in which an online survey was disseminated to U.S. public relations practitioners in-house and at external agencies. The 175 respondents were mostly based in New York City, the largest U.S. media market, but represented a wide variety of industries. Questions were designed to elicit responses about the relationships between technology and crisis communication.

PRism is a free-access, online, peer-refereed public relations and communication research journal. It was established in 2002 to meet the need for readily available, quality controlled public relations and communication research materials online, and published its first issue in 2003. The article can be accessed at http://www.prismjournal.org/fileadmin/8_1/Young_Flowers_Ren.pdf