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This exploratory study examines how a community experiencing food insecurity while navigating multiple crises can be a model to inform resources, processes, and systems supporting communities facing similar circumstances. Data for this study were collected from residents of a community in Oconee County, a rural county in the northwest corner of South Carolina experiencing pervasive food insecurity. The community was severely impacted by the onset of COVID-19 and further devastated by a tornado in mid-April. The area of the county that sustained the greatest damage from the tornado was the Utica Mill Hill community, home to the county’s most vulnerable population. This cascading series of events constituted a crisis-within-a-crisis for the community. In this study, we sought to learn more about community members’ experiences and the effects of the crises on com­munity members’ access to food. We conducted in-depth interviews with 14 residents living in the Utica Mill Hill community. The results provided insight into community members’ experiences of the crises and the nature of community-level response and recovery efforts. We learned about participants’ experiences with food insecurity, new food policy developments, and gained unexpected insight into community members’ experiences with mental health challenges related to the crises.

Individuals in emergencies form spontaneous, emergent groups to respond and recover. With the rise of social media use in crises, academics and professionals must be aware of how groups digitally coordinate emergent response efforts. This paper examines digital emergence through the case of SnowedOut Atlanta, a Facebook group formed during the 2014 ice storms in Atlanta. The posts and actions of the group members are in line with those of traditional emergent groups. For example, group members shared informational, material, and emotional support. The findings also provide implications for practitioners and insight into the communication of such groups. In particular, emergency managers have an opportunity to seek out and partner with these types of groups in future similar events.

Most public relations research advocates for stronger organization-public relationships and the implementation of dialogic theory to advance the practice and elevate the status of the public relations practitioner. However, this study reveals that internal relationship dynamics can prevent corporate public relations practitioners from carrying out this function of the public relations role. Twelve weeks of observation and eleven interviews were conducted at a Fortune 1,000 technology company to gain insights on how corporate PR practitioners build relationships with external publics, to gauge practitioners' orientation to dialogue, and to identify challenges to external relationship building. Results show that internal relationship management is a prerequisite to corporate public relations practitioners' success in developing mutually beneficial relationships with key publics. These findings have implications for both the theory and practice of public relations especially when considering the discussion of the technician versus strategic manager role of public relations and the advancement of the field to a professional status.

Organizations are important sources of communication during natural-hazard crises. How members of an organization perceive these communications (e.g., creating confusion, causing disorder, providing clarity, and restoring order) influences response and recovery from such a crisis. Using Chaos Theory as a guiding framework, the authors developed a new instrument measuring the perceived effects of an organization’s communication on crisis-organizing processes. Three distinct studies were conducted to assess the reliability and validity of this new instrument: the “Perceived Effects of Communication on the Crisis-organizing Process (PEC-COP)” scale. This one-factor scale can be used by both scholars and practitioners to assess the effects of an organization’s communication on how people organize (i.e., react and respond) during a crisis. By gaining greater insight into how an organization’s communication is perceived, the organization can better prepare to communicate in ways that promote efficient and effective crisis-organizing processes throughout a natural-hazard crisis. Effective communication can create order out of chaos.

The purpose of this study was to compare student growth in public speaking and hybrid introductory communication skills courses on four outcomes: public speaking anxiety, selfperceived communication competence, intercultural effectiveness, and connected classroom climate. This study also sought to find out whether there were differences in the achievement of outcomes and growth in each outcome by sex and ethnicity. Data from 908 participants utilized a within-subjects and between-subjects repeat measures design. Results showed that public speaking and hybrid communication courses reduced public speaking anxiety and increased selfperceived communication competence and connected classroom climate a similar amount, but did not significantly increase intercultural effectiveness for students overall. Small effects were found for sex on all outcomes and for ethnicity on two outcomes.

and Yemen from entering the United States for 90 days. It also attempted to halt all refugees from entering the US for 120 days and indefinitely bar entry for Syrian refugees. This controversial order resulted in confusion and ambiguity for many, as law enforcement personnel responded by preventing individuals at airports from entering the country, even if they already had been approved for entry and had the correct documentation (Lussenhop, 2017). Eventually the confusion and frustration were alleviated and people who had been detained were allowed entry into the U.S., but it sparked a larger national conversation. The focus and intent of the EO was consistent with campaign promises President Trump made during the presidential campaign. Despite a stated purpose of the EO to promote greater security for the nation, it incited anger among a large number of U.S. allies and a wide array of organizations, including academic institutions, airlines, and tech companies (Wall, 2017). The EO was criticized as being discriminatory, and many parts of it were deemed unconstitutional by a federal court. Within 24 hours of the EO being signed, it was blocked by a judge in New York and by another in Massachusetts (Almasy & Simon, 2017). By mid-February the EO had been struck down by a federal court (Devlin & Kendall, 2017). The administration's appeal to have the stay on the EO was also denied by the Ninth Circuit Federal court of appeals (Devlin & Kendall, 2017). A second version of the EO was FROM SILENCE TO CONDEMNATION 2 signed by the president on March 6, and was immediately blocked once again by multiple federal judges (Almasy & Simon, 2017). On June 26, following a lengthy appeal process, the Supreme Court decided to allow some parts of the second EO to go into effect by the end of June (McGraw, Kelsey, & Keneally, 2017). One of the contexts most directly affected by the EO was higher education. International students and faculty make up a large percentage of campus communities. According to the Institute of International Education's Open Doors project (2016), in the 2015-2016 academic year over a million international students studied at U.S. institutions. The EO had the potential to limit the ability of international students and faculty to cross freely in and out of the U.S. and also hamper the capacity of U.S. based academics to build programs and relationships across borders. Just over 17,000 students were from the nations included in the EO (Open Doors, 2016). While this is a relatively small percentage of the total international student population in the U.S., the EO created anxiety for many international students and faculty. Colleges and universities have a responsibility to communicate with their stakeholders about this type of event. They must listen to the concerns of their stakeholders, and respond by providing resources for those affected. That said, academic

It has been well established that during and after crisis or emergency events, groups of citizens come together to help one another, solve problems, and manage recovery or cleanup. These groups are called emergent citizen groups. They form organically and often disband when the emergency is managed. This study proposes that similar types of groups now form in digital spaces during and after crises. The authors studied conversation on Twitter that used the hashtag “#PrayforUSC” after the murder-suicide that took place at the University of South Carolina in 2015. Initial results indicate that hashtags can function as focal points or catalysts for digital emergent citizen groups. More research should be done to determine whether and how these groups form, function, and disperse.