Tag: Poster 112

Discovering the Importance of Public Relations in the Hospitality Industry

Presenter(s): Esther Wooding − Public Relations, French

Faculty Mentor(s): Donnalyn Pompper

Poster 112

Research Area: Public Relations In The Hospitality Industry

The purpose of my research was to investigate how public relations is practiced within the hospitality industry. A study was created to discover how PR skills were being applied within the field, to discover any problems the industry faces, and to connect with professionals and gauge their experiences in their career. The study comprised of three interviews
with professionals, along with secondary research about the history, issues, ethics, and valued skills of public relations in hospitality. Throughout my research, I discovered that one of the main aspects of public relations in the hospitality industry is the role of social media and influencers. With increasing competition, I found that it is important to target a wide demographic and maintain a thorough and constant assessment of the public’s preferences. After interviewing practitioners in the field, one of the hardest tasks of public relations in hospitality is remaining current and staying ahead of your competitors. My findings indicated that public relations is an extremely important facet of hospitality. Garnering what the public is seeking, shaping your brand to this standard, and explicitly indicating this to that same public is critical for the success of a hotel. These are all jobs of a public relations practitioner. Constantly dealing with people and providing them a service they will enjoy takes a lot of prerequisite research, crisis management, image shaping, and networking. Ultimately, this research demonstrated the importance of public relations in hospitality and the skills necessary for entering and remaining successful in this field.

Fact Checking a President: Analyzing News Reporting on Trump’s Tweets About Climate Change

Presenter(s): Morgan Krakow

Faculty Mentor(s): Nicole Dahmen

Poster 112

Session: Social Sciences & Humanities

When President Trump makes statements about global climate change that lack context or scientific facts, journalists must decide how to refute and better contextualize such claims. Often, Twitter is the medium where President Trump makes these statements, placing journalists in a precarious moment — reporting on such informal presidential communication while accurately portraying issues of climate change. This research investigates how reporters grappled with responsibly covering the nexus of two emergent and critical issues: a president who touted often inaccurate information on Twitter, and the consequences of a rapidly changing climate. Using a textual analysis, stories from 3 large American newspapers that quoted at least one climate change related tweet by the president since his initial candidacy were categorized by tweet. The articles were then coded based on how the tweets were used as a journalistic tool. The coding revealed that there are many reporting styles to deal with the President’s tweets about climate change. The results demonstrated that the way the tweets were used depended primarily on the context, newspaper section and timing of the story that was published. Sometimes, the tweets provided context in a longform piece about President Trump’s overall views on the climate. Other times, the tweets were quoted as breaking news without any sort of in-article fact checking. Further, some reports used the inaccurate information as the focus of the story itself. Overall, the research showed that there is no standard manner of reporting on President Trump’s tweets about climate change.