Public support is crucial for the success of policy interventions that aim to change behaviour. While communicating evidence of policy effectiveness can increase support, it remains unclear which type of evidence is most effective. Statistical evidence is often seen as objective and persuasive, yet personal anecdotes can strongly influence beliefs. We examined how statistical and anecdotal evidence affect policy perceptions. In three online experiments with representative UK samples (N = 908), we showed participants different types of evidence (statistical, anecdotal, or both) that argued for or against six policies, such as meat taxes (climate change), banning e-cigarettes (public health), and 20 mph speed limits (community safety). We measured policy support and perceived effectiveness before and after exposure and explored participants’ reasoning through open-text responses. Results showed that positive statistical and anecdotal evidence did not significantly increase perceived policy effectiveness or support, even when combined. However, negative anecdotes significantly reduced both, though this effect was sometimes mitigated when paired with statistical evidence. Qualitative results found that participants have broader concerns beyond policy effectiveness, such as fairness. Our findings suggest that communicating evidence on policy effectiveness alone may not increase support, as it does not address broader public concerns.

Funding relationships in nonprofit management are increasingly defined by a philosophy of rational management, characterized by measurement of outputs and benchmarking, which represents an audit culture system (Burnley, Matthews, & McKenzie, 2005). There is concern that these approaches are constantly undermining the mission of community service nonprofit organizations (Darcy, 2002). In this research, we analyzed the management of funding relationships by examining dynamics within a nonprofit funding relationship in New Zealand. Through focus groups we explored the relationship between 17 representatives from nonprofit organizations and four Board members of a funding Trust. The management of this funding relationship was characterized by an appreciation of the diverse nature of nonprofit organizations, a balance between trust and control, and communication. We suggest that elements of these dynamics could be incorporated into nonprofit funding relationships in order to challenge an over-reliance on audit culture systems, and to re-establish relationships characterized by interaction between nonprofit organizations and their funders. Finally, we call for future research in this area.

This review surveys the state of research on nonprofit communication and collects and summarizes the resulting advice for nonprofit communication practice. The citations of research papers since 2000 were collected from standard bibliographic databases and selected bibliographies. The resulting collection of papers was summarized and synthesized into relevant themes and organized into five broad categories: (1) strategic planning, (2) management, (3) development, (4) outreach, and (5) accountability. From these broad themes, comparisons and contrasts arise between the research and current practice of nonprofit communications.

Are televised election debates (TEDs) a blessing for democracy, educating citizens and informing them of their electoral options? Or should they be viewed as a curse, presenting superficial, manipulating rhetoric in one-way communication? In this article, I evaluate TEDs from a deliberative point of view, focusing on the potential positive and negative outcomes of framing by politicians, as well as on the pros and cons of displaying emotions in debates. I argue that the use of these two rhetorical devices in TEDs is potentially helpful in inspiring deliberation, perspective-taking and subsequent reflection in both politicians and voters. This leads me to conclude that televised election debates should be critically approached as communicative venues with potential deliberative qualities.

Human services nonprofits increasingly provide a social safety net through interorganizational collaboration, and the effectiveness of these partnerships has important implications for the quality and sufficiency of those services. The purpose of this study is to investigate whether partner selection is related to partnership effectiveness and, if so, how. More specifically, the study examines the impact of partner selection on partnership effectiveness and the mediating roles of trust and communication in that relationship. Based on surveys on 201 voluntary human services nonprofit partnerships, trust, and communicative effectiveness are related to satisfaction with partnership outcomes. Trust and communicative effectiveness fully mediated the effects of prior experience and reputation on partnership effectiveness and communication. Interestingly and contrary to some findings from previous research, resource complementarity, homophily, and social networks across organizations’ members, as partner selection factors, were not found to be related to partnership effectiveness. We derived implications for partnership effectiveness research from the results.

Volunteer travel opportunities are more plentiful than ever and are now offered worldwide, with conservation projects being an increasingly popular choice. Some of the emerging questions in this field are concerned with the effective communication of these opportunities to young people. One theory that could guide the creation of these persuasive campaigns for conservation volunteering is regulatory focus theory. By adopting this theory, we reveal yet another possibility for understanding motivations of conservation volunteers. Results of the experiment suggest promotion messages are better received (more persuasive) because they induce expectations in line with general view of conservation volunteering as a hedonic experience. Moreover, this study is the first one of its kind to show this important effect of environmental attitudes on individuals’ responses to promotional messages about conservation volunteering travel.

Social enterprises pursue a dual mission: on the one hand, they strive for social purpose, while on the other, they try to achieve economic stability despite scarce resources. To achieve the dual mission, social enterprises avail themselves of both for-profit and non-profit institutional logics. Due to this combination of multiple institutional logics, such enterprises can be classified as hybrid organizations. This study focuses on these organizations and investigates tensions between social enterprises and various stakeholder groups caused by the use of commercial logics within the social sector. In particular, we examine the perception of commercial versus social welfare logics by various stakeholder groups, and investigate the effects on organizational communication. Our study is centered on social franchise enterprises. We use an exploratory qualitative research approach based on semi-structured interviews with 21 social franchisors and social franchisees of seven social franchise enterprises. Our main results suggest that the use of commercial logics in the social sector tends to decrease the legitimacy of social franchise enterprises in the eyes of internal stakeholders, the general public, and various (but not all) external stakeholder groups. Many stakeholders of social franchise enterprises show a strong aversion to commercial logics, and particularly to commercial terminology. Overall, we conclude that social franchise enterprises very consciously apply commercial and social welfare logics and use alternative terminology where necessary to retain legitimacy and prevent tensions.

Research on populist attitudes has bloomed in recent years, especially among political science and communication scholars. While this trend is undoubtedly positive to unravel what the causes and consequences of individuals’ populism are, rapid accumulation of knowledge is also challenging, as numerous articles are published simultaneously using diverse theoretical, methodological, and data strategies. This systematic literature review considers all articles stored in the Web of Science and published in English that refer to populist attitudes, without time restrictions (N = 138). After a detailed reading of all articles, we focus on the most relevant findings considering populist attitudes both as dependent and independent variables. Main areas of consensus, disagreements, and guidelines for future research are considered.

The gender gap pervades many core aspects of political science. This article reports that females continue to be under-represented as authors and reviewers in European Union Politics and that these differences have only diminished slightly since the second half of the 2000s. We also report that females use more cautious and modest language in their correspondence with the editorial office, but do not find evidence that this under-studied aspect of the gender gap affects the outcome of the reviewing process. The authors discuss some measures European Union Politics and other journals might take to address the imbalance.

This qualitative study sheds light onto the working structures, make-up, and strengths and weaknesses of civil society organizations working with Syrian refugees in Turkey. The research includes 22 interviews with a variety of national and international civil society organizations (CSOs) and aims to reveal strategies they employ to communicate with and advocate on behalf of refugees. The strategies utilized by international and domestic organizations are compared and their relationships elaborated within the specific sociocultural and political context of Turkey. Results reveal that Syrian refugee advocacy in Turkey can be defined as a balancing act, where civil society organizations need to establish and nurture positive government relations, while engaging closely with their beneficiary communities and each other due to their mutually dependent funding and implementation arrangements, as well as work closely with the media to ensure effective advocacy.

Civil society organizations (CSOs) have important roles to play in building trust in post-conflict societies. This research examined how 25 CSO peacebuilders use communication to build trust in Northern Ireland. Our findings suggest that peacebuilders work across different levels of society as trust intermediaries. Communication is central to CSO peacebuilders’ practice in engendering trust and in demonstrating their trustworthiness as individuals, inter-group facilitators and organizational representatives. Synthesized from our data, a communication toolkit from ‘low level’ communication intervention to ‘high level’ persuasion explains the strategies that CSO peacebuilders employ to mitigate distrust and nurture trust as they work towards peace in Northern Ireland. We propose this toolkit might be malleable to trust building in other conflict-affected contexts.

The constructionist approach argues that communication is central to language learning, language use, and language change. We argue that the approach provides a useful perspective on how autistic children learn language, as it anticipates variable outcomes and suggests testable predictions. First, a reduced ability and interest in tracking the attention and intentions of others should negatively impact early language development, and a wealth of evidence indicates that it does. Second, and less discussed until recently, a hyperfocus on specifics at the expense of generalizations, common among people on the spectrum, should also negatively impact language development, and recent evidence suggests this is also the case. Pace Kissine's 2021 target article, it is unsurprising that children can learn some second language from watching videos, and it is unclear how an appeal to ‘innate’ language-specific knowledge could explain the range of outcomes of individuals on the autism spectrum.